Forgiveness
Notes
Transcript
Forgiveness; A likeness of God
Forgiveness; A likeness of God
21 Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? 22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
Now we should be thankful to peter for all his questions.
When we ask the right questions to the right person, we get the right answers.
Through Jeremiah the Lord said
13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
God blesses those who ask sincere questions of Him, because He blesses those who sincerely seek to know Him and His truth.
Peter knew human nature and he knew how many times people need forgiveness. We know how many times we need forgiveness.
How many times we need forgiveness daily, forgiveness from the Lord and from other people. It is critical that we understand that every sin is a sin against God and that we are in constant need of God’s forgiveness.He
12 Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.
This was Paul talking to the Corinthians, simply about offending their brothers by what they ate!! He simply adds “you sin against Christ” at the end of this clause to remind them that any iniquity against a brother or sister is a sin against the Lord.
Now Peter understood the human tendency to commit a sin, be forgiven, and then before long commit the same sin or some others equally as bad.
Now Jesus taught about discipline in the Church and this is not to take anything away from that. Rather this is a critical part of that process. I just want to point that off because forgiveness is not the same as forgetting and forgiveness is sometimes associated with forgetting in our world today. Forgetting things purposefully can be foolish.
We as believers are called to rebuke a sinning brother or sister for any sin.
We are also called to bring the offender before the church if that becomes necessary, because every sin not only is directly against God but is also either directly or indirectly against the church and every individual believer.
3 Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
He went on to say
4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.
Jesus is simply illustrating the extent of forgiveness here.
Also important to notice that the commands to rebuke and to forgive cover any sin a fellow believer may commit, not just those committed directly against us.
Did you get that??? We are to rebuke for ALL sin and grant forgiveness when repentance is made.
Now lets look back at our text.
21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
Me and I.... personalized
Throughout chapter 18 Jesus refers to believers as; little ones, children, sheep, and brothers.
Matthew, vols. 1-4 (The MacArthur New Testament Commentary) The Inquiry about Forgiveness
it is clear that Peter also was thinking about a believer, represented by himself, forgiving other believers.
So we can simplify Peter’s question here by asking, Does forgiveness have a limit? or How often must I forgive my brother?
Peter tried to demonstrate how generous he thought he was when he suggested a limit of 7 times.
7 times was more than double the Jewish tradition.
The rabbis had taken a repeated statement by God against neighboring enemies of Israel and turned it into a universal rule for limiting God’s forgiveness and by extension, also man’s.
These references are from Amos Chapter 1. You can go check those out if you like.
Now Peter probably thought Jesus was going to be impressed with this generous suggestion for he had doubled their narrow limit and added one.
It is the Glory of a man to forgive
11 Good sense makes one slow to anger,
and it is his glory to overlook an offense.
This Glory is his honor… Tip e ret in the hebrew. teepairet. The root word means a head wrap or a turban. So this would be the Glory, Honor, Beauty, Splendor of the head.
Never is a man more like God than when he forgives.
32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Paul is comparing our forgiveness with Christ forgiveness of us!
We have been forgiven so much!! We should be eager to forgive others! I'm going to stop short of saying we should look forward to our opportunities to offer forgiveness.
Think back to Joseph
19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. 21 So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
Am I in the place of God?? Am I to judge you?
He forgave them everything!! After all they had done. Thrown him down a well and sold him into slavery… told everyone he was dead.. How many of y’all have had wrongs done to you to that extreme??
What about David’s forgiveness of Saul?? Saul had went to every extreme to try and murder David. David could of easily killed Saul but he did not do it.
David had a heart of forgiveness
7 So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul. And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his way.
David exercised forgiveness over revenge…
If you want a further glimpse of David’s faithful forgiveness read 2 Samuel chapter 19 sometime. All of David’s friends said to slay the men!
A person who does not exercise forgiveness is someone who does not understand the forgiveness of God to him,
One commentator said, “We may as well learn to forgive because people are going to need it and so are you!”
In our temporal world it may be easier for us to think about how much children need forgiveness. We are children… think about it. We are weak, ignorant, selfish, and prone to disobey. We need forgiveness frequently.
6 For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough,
Paul is saying the punishment by the assembly was enough.. Time to forgive and that is precisely what he says in vs. 7
7 so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
So we are not to heap shame on to a person, we are to restore them and forgive them.
And in vs 8 of the same passage he says
8 So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.
So by forgiving our brothers and sisters we are reaffirming our love for them and for Christ, for they belong to Christ and are made in His Image
And in vs. 11 Paul goes on to explain to us the negative ramification of not forgiving.
11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
One of Satan's designs is to generate a bitter and unforgiving heart
22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Matthew, vols. 1-4 (The MacArthur New Testament Commentary) The Extent of Forgiveness
Peter was still thinking like the scribes and Pharisees and like fallen human nature is always inclined to think. He was thinking in the measurable and limited terms of law, not the immeasurable and unlimited terms of grace. Law keeps count; grace does not.
The Lord was not extending the limit of forgiveness to 490. I believe He simply took Peters number multiplied it by ten and then multiplied it by 7 again. This is meant to say that forgiveness is unlimited.
We are to forgive all offenses whether it is the hundredth offense or the thousandth because that is the way we are forgiven by God.
The Lord Jesus Himself gave us an illustration of this when He said
4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
The Lord was not setting a daily limit but rather the opposite.
A faithful Godly Christian will never allow his own forgiveness to be surpassed by a brother’s sin.
Did you get that??
We are to never allow our forgiveness to be surpassed by another’s sin.
20 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:
Thank God that grace abounds more!!
We struggle with this don’t we? Does the world we live in today not tell us constantly that we should not forgive… that we should pay back evil for evil…
Our flesh is always eager to fall into that sin if we are not on our guard against it
David said in Psalm 51
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
And what was God’s heart towards David??
FORGIVENESS!!!
He said Ps 51:4
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
Every sin we have ever commited and will ever commit will be a sin against God and we are left relying on His forgiveness!
If God forgives are we not to forgive?? Next time you are having a hard time forgiving someone I encourage you to think about this… Think am I greater than God that I can deny forgiveness when the Lord does not.
WHO ARE WE????
13 For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
We are called to mercy!! Without mercy we ourselves do not have mercy.
If we do not show mercy we will not receive any mercy
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
The extent of forgiveness is unlimited!!!
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
This is talking to Christians… This is directed to believers, Only believers can pray the Lord’s prayer.
Those not in fellowship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ cannot call on the name of the Father.
So now we are thinking wow… Forgiveness is very very important and it is.... So important that without granting forgiveness to our brothers and sisters we cannot worship the Lord
25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
We cannot fellowship with God if we are not willing to reconcile and forgive our brothers and sisters.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We are very much like God when we forgive.... we all want to be Godly right? Then let us forgive. When forgiveness is hard let us pray… Pray to the Lord for forgiveness and pray for the strength to forgive. It helps to think about all that we have been forgiven for!
We need to be anxious to offer forgiveness. Remember no one can sin against us near the amount we have sinned against God and NO sin we have sinned nor any amount of sins we have sinned against God has caused us to forfeit our eternal salvation… so NO sin against us by another brother should ever cause us to forfeit our love and forgiveness to them.
Maybe you are here today and you need forgiveness from the Lord… Maybe you have yet to experience the Lord’s forgiveness… Today is a great day to embrace it. Ask the Lord for His forgiveness, Thank Him for sending His son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, to bear our sins on the cross so that we may experience forgiveness. Maybe you’re here today and you are thinking about all the forgiveness you have recieved from the Lord and you’re reminded of forgiveness that you have not granted towards another… Pray on that. Take that opportunity to be Godly, give that forgiveness in love.
