Forgiven and Forgiving

Introduction

Weighs you down.

Forgiveness is to be grace-induced

· God calls us to do the impossible. He calls us to forgive those who have done unmentionable harm to us. Sometimes our anger is understandable.

o Marriage counseling with young couple. She was angry. I understood. “Flush it down the toilet.”

· This command is connected to the prayer before because this kind of forgiveness is only possible through God’s grace acting within us.

God has a greater plan for us.

· Forgiveness is only possible when we recognize that there is a greater plan for us. When we fail to forgive we have become more consumed with man’s acts against than God’s plans for us.

God has a greater plan beyond us.

when we recognize that there is a greater plan for us. When we fail to forgive we have become more consumed with man’s acts against than God’s plans for us.

· Forgiveness is only possible when we recognize that there is a greater plan beyond us.

Forgiveness is to be unlimited

· What is the extent to which we are to offer forgiveness? Well, what is the extent to which God has forgiven you? How many times has God extended to you forgiveness.

Matthew 18:21–22 NASB95

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

·

· Some say “I forgive you. But I can’t forget.” I am glad that God doesn’t operate that way. That’s not forgiveness. That’s self-protection. That is trying to make yourself feel superior—I forgive you—while keeping something in reserve in case you need to defend yourself—but I won’t forget.

· Yet God equates His forgiveness with forgetting.

Forgiveness is to be unqualified

· What are the sins that we are to forgive?

· We try to justify our unwillingness to forgive based upon the other person’s particularly heinous sin. “Well you don’t know what they did to me. You don’t know how they harmed me.”

· There is only one sin that the Lord will not forgive us for: blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Luke 23:34

Luke 23:34 NASB95

But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves.

· But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves.[1] []

Three reasons why we should forgive.

· Not forgiving others demonstrates a lack of thankfulness that God has forgiven us.

· Not forgiving others harms ourselves more than those against whom we are angry. It has been often said “Holding resentment in order to hurt the other person is like drinking poison and hoping that *they* die.” [attributed to many people].

· Not forgiving others harms our relationship with the Lord. [parable of unforgiving servant].

o Illustration:

o Peter asks “How many should I forgive?”

o Jesus essentially says that our forgiveness should be unlimited.

o A king who wanted to collect what was owed to him from the slaves.

o One slave owed 10 thousand talents.

o Couldn’t pay, so the slave fell to the ground and said “Have patience with me and I will repay everything.”

o The king was compassionate and let him go.

o The same servant goes and demands for those others who owed him money to pay. When one of them could not pay, the servant had him thrown into prison.

o When the king heard that the very same servant whom he had forgiven was unwilling to extend the same forgiveness to others, the king was angry and said “You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have also had mercy on your fellow slave, in that same way that I had mercy on you?”

Conclusion and Invitation

Colossians 2:13–15 NLT

You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed* the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. [2]

a ;

b ;

[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), .

* 2:15 Or he stripped off.

[2] Tyndale House Publishers, Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2013), .