aTypical Week #4 - Forgiveness
Notes
Transcript
Sword Drill
Sword Drill
Leviticus 25:39
Leviticus 25:39
Previously on.... aTypical
Previously on.... aTypical
Over the past 3 weeks we have been talking about the concept of aTypical families, families that are different than what would be consider “Normal”. We descovered that many times our own familes, while “typical” to us might be “aTypical” to another and you know what that is ok, because we saw in the story of Adam and Eve that perfection is easily disrupted and being the status quo of what a family is can fall flat fast, but there is hope in that because God uses “aTypical” famlies!
Once we have this hope that God is going to use our family no matter how coo coo we can be we saw in the story of Abrahama and his newphew Lott that aTypical families pray for one another and then last week we were able to look into a conflict in the new testament between Peter and Paul and learn that as a family we sometimes will need to have difficult coversations.
…And for the conclusion...
…And for the conclusion...
The Binder
The Binder
Family is like meat balls! They are made up of all sorts of different ingrediants that have been mashed, mixed, squeezed, then they are formed into balls and then thrown into fire to be cooked. And here is what I know… if done wrong they will fall apart in the heat! Familes are like that, they are made up of all sorts of different personalities and desires, ideas and philosphies, and the are mashed, mixed, squeezed and then sometimes thrown in to diffuicult situations that raise the temperature.... and sometime in the heat they fall apart....
Do you know how to make a meat ball stay together while it is in the heat. Ya got to have a binder! I don’t mean a 3 ring binder, you need a cooking binder, usually with meat balls its egg and bread crumbs. When you have a binder in the mix, even in the heat things stay together....
In our Meat Ball Families… you got to have a binder also.... and while this is just some “Nate 316” stuff here I think the binder for families is forgiveness....
Think about it… true forgiveness is magical, forgiveness says that I am releasing you for any debt! I will no longer have resentment and hard feelings towards you, forgiveness restores relationships and binds them back together.
When we show forgieveness we are demonstrating the Gospel, the heart of the work Jesus did on the cross at calvary is mercy and grace, and the outflow of that is forgiveness, a forgieness from the sin debt that we owe, a restoration to a releationship that was broken in our transgressions, a full pardon from the punishment we deserve, and when we demonstrate forgiveness to those around us we are deomnstrating the same mercy and grace, we are truly living the life we were saved for.
Matthew 18:21-35
Matthew 18:21-35
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?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
18:21 - So at first it may seem like there is a limit on forgiveness and that maybe Peter was being a bit “stingy” with it by saying 7 times. But we need to know a little back ground, numeragilcly speaking the number 7 is a number of totality or completeness, Peter is asking here is this “Jesus, if my brother sins against me over and over am I supposed to fogive me completly every time? He was asking this because during this day it was customary for the Jewish rabbies to teach forgiveness being given 3 times… and Jesus had just taugh about forgiveness in Chapter 15 but never taught how many times we should forgive which to Peter had obviously been a missed point. So peter wanted to know Jesus how many times do I have to do this, 7 times.... Again by thinking of this idea of 7 being total and complete, jesus being the master of one ups said nope, Total and complete x 11 Peter! Jesus was saying this that forgiveness should be shown to infity and beyond, past the end of the ages, maybe even as far as the east is to the west!
The idea here is that Jesus was saying forgive continuously and with out limit.
Forgive Continuously and without Limit
But Jesus wasn’t done, he wanted Peter to fully understand, so by way of a parable Jesus painted a picture of what Biblical forgiveness looks like.
18:23-27
King
Servants
Servant
The king business this day was to settle accounts, which means he was looking for full payment debt that was owed to me, no partial payments, the time was up. It would seem that he sent out servants of sorts to bring in those that owed him money, one of which owed him ten thousand talents. Now I am not a greek scholar or expert on their language but from what I have been taught and what research I have done this was a lot of money. A talent is like 20 years wages, like you would have to work 20 years to make that kind of money. So after 20 years, you get one talent and you pay that debt now you only have 9,999 talents to go. To put this in perspective that is like 200,000 years of labor to pay off this debt.
We then see that this poor unfortunat soul of a servant can’t pay the debt! So the king made an order that the servant and his family be sold off as slaves as payment, so the servant humbled him self by dropping to his knees and begging for patience, even making a very impossible promise that he would pay the king everything. We see the king have mercy on the servant and forgave the man the debt.
The parable continues, and if you read on you will see that the pardoned servant didn’t practice Biblical Forgiveness that had been shown to him, and boy o boy the kings was none to happy and threw the man in Jail until payment could be made which was have already seen was an impossible debt. And then Jesus made the connection… if you are like this guy, God is going to do the same, throw you into jail until the payment is made.
The picture that Jesus painted was this Peter you have been forgiven a sin debt you can not pay, go and forgive others as I have forage you!
Jesus was talking to peter here but this is for us all… this is what we are called too… Out sin debt that keeps us from fellowship with God is beyond our payment 200,000 years is not enough to make the debt right, but the cross paid that debt for us, we recieved a pardon, we recieved the Binder that will hold us to our Father in heaven! Likewise we are to do the same.... I want to explore that a bit more while we still have time tonight.
Forgiveness from God
Forgiveness from God
Question: Do you ever fill like you are beyond forgiveness, that you have been so bad that God can not or will not forgive you?
There is no sin that God will not forgive
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
Question: Maybe you feel like God can forgive you but maybe not completely, maybe God is like us and yea we forgive but we forgive with stipulations, like I will forgive you as long as you do this… or I will forgive you but don’t ever come around here again…?
Forgiveness provided by our heavenly Father is complete
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
“I, I am he
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.
Question: Thinking about tonight and what we have talked about so far, what do we need to do to get this forgiveness?
Asking God to forgive us is required
If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
In doing this the promise is this, we recieve the Binder to him, you see when we approach him with a broken spirit, on our knees, fully understand the debt we owe him and the lack of ability to repay that debt...
God will supply complete restoration
We lost fellowship with him in the first sin of adam and even and we have continued since then to heap his wrath upon us by continueing to transgress who he is… but he too has provided a way, he has provided us the binder to pull us back to him and it is Jesus and the forgiveness we gain at the foot of the cross and in that we are not long in debt, we are in Christ…
that is what this 517 stands for it is from
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
We have been made new, created to be his own special creation and in that the old stubborn ways are gone, we are to act as his children… that means we forgive as our Father...
The take away today is this
Limitless forgiveness is not a option bound by our ideas or reasons, but a comand issued by the mercy and grace of the cross