Lord Forgive Them, For They KNOW What They Do! (2)

What happens when we don’t forgive?

We talked last time about how Peter addressed Jesus with the question on forgiveness and Peter expressed 7 times, Jesus response was disturbing and challenging to the point that it would be impossible for any one to do that request of 77x7 a day! So what was Jesus really saying to Peter? I mean I’ve never had to forgive someone that many times a day? Have you?

Let’s look at that verse again.

Matthew 18:22 NLT

22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!

Jesus is saying in so many words You must practice to forgive unconditionally.

Jesus is teaching that forgiveness is qualitative, not quantitative. And that forgiveness takes the place of revenge.

Forgiveness is a matter of the heart, not of the mind.

Like Christ we must learn to look past the ones short comings and see that in doing so we free ourselves from the prison. We free ourselves from the box of un-forgiveness.

John 13:34–35 NLT

34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Jesus whole point is to lead those who are not followers to Him. You saw Ronnie’s testimony. What did he say? God gave him rest in Him. Good rest.

See when we don’t forgive we not only bind ourselves up but we also bring demands to our bodies that were never intended to have put on it.

Go to the box for the illustration of what’s happening on the inside of you when you don’t forgive.

10,000 Sermon Illustrations Leo Tolstoy’s Marriage

Leo Tolstoy thought he was getting his marriage off on the right foot when he asked his teenage fiance to read his diaries, which spelled out in lurid detail all of his sexual dalliances. He wanted to keep no secrets from Sonya, to begin marriage with a clean slate, forgiven. Instead, Tolstoy’s confession sowed the seeds for a marriage that would be held together by vines of hatred, not love. “When he kisses me I’m always thinking, ‘I’m not the first woman he has loved,’” wrote Sonya Tolstoy in her own diary. Some of his adolescent flings she could forgive, but not his affair with Axinya, a peasant woman who continued to work on the Tolstoy estate. “One of these days I shall kill myself with jealousy,” Sonya wrote after seeing the three-year-old son of the peasant woman, the spiting image of her husband. “If I could kill him [Tolstoy] and create a new person exactly the same as he is now, I would do so happily.” Another diary entry dates from January 14, 1909. “He relishes that peasant wench with her strong female body and her sunburnt legs, she allures him just as powerfully now as she did all those years ago…” Sonya wrote those words when Axinya was a shriveled crone of eighty. For half a century jealousy and unforgiveness had blinded her, in the process destroying all love for her husband.

Sonya Tolstoy had carried this in her heart for decades! So much so that she blinded herself to un-forgiveness! Think on that this lady was 80 years old and she could only see her in her youth still.

Which brings us to our next point :

Unforgiveness is evidence of an unbeliever.

Whoa! That’s harsh Pastor P! Is it? Listen to this verse.

1 John 4:20 NLT

20 If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?

But Pastor why should they get away with it! Who told you that they got away with it?

Romans 12:19 NLT

19 Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord.

No instead let’s look like Christ. Be the disciples He has called us to be.

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

C. S. Lewis

Now with that being said do we allow ourselves to be abused? absolutely not!

There is a story of the baptism of King Aengus who was baptized by St. Patrick. Sometime during the rite, St. Patrick leaned on his sharp-pointed staff and mistakenly stabbed the king’s foot. After the baptism was over, St. Patrick looked down at all the blood, realized what he had done, and begged the king’s forgiveness.

Why did you suffer this pain in silence, the Saint wanted to know.

The king replied, “I thought it was part of the ritual.”

No God has never called us to suffer, quite the contrary, He has already suffered for us. I want you to watch this video - play the video of “The Forgiven”

Come Back with Guest - Sister Linda Thornton.

1. We all know that hurt people hurt people, but how do we avoid becoming one who now wants to hurt.

2. I’m sure you deal a lot with individuals who who have been abused in all forms what do you say to them about forgiveness and moving on.

3. Why typically does hurting come from within the family or inner circle / community?

4. What’s the proper process for healing and forgiveness. The Bible talks about confronting them in love, but sometimes that’s not an option. Maybe they are no longer alive, won’t respond to you etc… what do we do!

5. Any last words of advice to all of us, hurting and doing the hurting.

Sister Thornton close out session with prayer.

Video Roll-in with Cia Richardson.

Closing Thoughts -

Forgiveness is not an easy process it is one that we have to everyday ask God to help us with. But as we do it daily we find ourselves feeding our spirit of forgiveness and not our spirit of anger which in the end will lead to so many other problems. Let us remember that Christ came to set us free and he who is in Christ is free indeed.

When we don’t forgive we forfeit our faith.

But when work on it everyday we will eventually get past the hurt and become whole in Christ Jesus.

I spoke with a friend who said it like this and this was a powerful statement to me.

It’s hard to let go of familiar pain, oddly enough there’s a sense of the known vs. unknown to it … like a drowning person, what we cling to in desperation and familiarity is often what’s pulling us under in the first place. Don’t let the devil have the victory when God has already given you the crown. Stand firm in your faith of forgiveness, know that God will stand in the gap for you and if you seek him daily on this pain He will address it for you and even remove it in due season. Will it happen right away no. But as you grow in Christ Jesus, you will find that Grace and Mercy he has shown you will begin to flow through you to those who hurt us.

Ephesians 2:4–5 NLT

4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

Amen!

Let’s Pray.

Offering and closing song.