Forgiving the Repentant Brother

Transcript

GRM 733
4/29/2001
Forgiving the Repentant Brother
Matthew 18:21-35
Gil Rugh

I want to continue what we have talked about on several Sunday evenings that relate to the importance of the believer in the plan of God. In Matthew chapter 18 in your bibles, a chapter that is often associated with the matter of what we call church discipline. But it is important that we see this matter of church discipline is dealt with in the context of dealing with the matter of the significance and importance of each and every child of God.

Jesus opened up this chapter by talking about the little one’s that believed in Him. Warning about the seriousness of stumbling blocks, then when you come to verse 12, He talked about the man who had a hundred sheep and one of them went astray. He doesn’t consider, well I have a hundred, if I lose one that’s not significant. Rather he does everything necessary to find that wandering sheep and restore it to its proper place in the flock. Concluded that portion of this chapter by saying in verse 14, “thus it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that any one of these little ones should perish.” Each and every one of God’s children is precious and important to Him. When we stop and think for a moment and the picture of course that is so. It doesn’t matter if you have one child in your family or you have a dozen, each and every one of them is precious to you, is loved by you. You don’t think, well one of my kids has gone astray, I don’t know where they are, guess they got lost at the mall. But that’s alright, we have four more. I mean, it’s just not the way we handle it. You think, no if you get home and find out one of your kids is missing as has happened at a church day some time when families have gotten home and found out one is missing and didn’t come with someone else. What do you do? Everything else gets put to rest. The other members of the family, you wait here or something like that, we have to go! The same picture as He drew here with the analogy of the shepherd and the sheep. It’s just a given and that’s the way it is with God’s family. We as His people now gathered into the church must understand God’s view on His children. He views them as precious. So, we have responsibility as servants of God in dealing with one another. That’s the context in which verses 15 to 20 were given. You note and “If your brother sins, go and reprove him in private”, and the steps that are to be followed. What are we doing? We’re talking about one of the ways you go about restoring a wandering sheep. One of those precious ones who belong to God, who have wandered from the proper path, who have wandered away from the fold and fellowship of God’s people – who have sinned. You just don’t say, well if they are going to sin then what can we do? We just let them go. No, we consider them of great importance because God says they are precious and important to Him as those He has redeemed. We went through the steps that we are to follow. We need to be very careful on this matter because we are talking about what is precious and important to God, and for me to decide I won’t do it. I’m not going to reprove him in private. I don’t think he’ll want me nabbing into his business. My prime concern first of all here, is to do what will be pleasing to God. To put this into perspective of how God says He sees it, and what needs to be done. We follow these steps that are given here.

Following one of the studies we did a few weeks ago some asked if I would follow up on Sunday night’s sermon on how we are to treat the repentant child of God, either following church discipline or after one has been confronted and repented. How are we to be demonstrating love toward him or her? They note, “it has been my observation that many believers continue to shun even for repentant sin, and isn’t this demonstrating a lack of forgiveness and love?” That’s really what Jesus deals with in the last part of the chapter. What is our responsibility and how are we to deal with those believers who have sinned, but have repented their sin? What is our response to be to them as God’s children?

Leave a marker in Matthew 18 and come over to II Corinthians, chapter 2. It is a matter we want to have a clear biblical understanding of and also be putting into practice in a biblical way what God says here. This is an important matter. How do I deal with this issue of forgiveness? Paul had to write to the Corinthians about it, regarding the man and all probability that was dealt with in the first letter. Paul had been personally affected by this sin, others had been and yet he says in verse 5 “but if any has caused”, II Corinthians chapter 2 verse 5, “if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in some degree – in order not to say too much”. In other words, there’s no point at this time going into all that, the ways that this pained me and caused me grief and sorrow. At this point we just consider that it didn’t cause me any sorrow, any pain. Sufficient for such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the majority. In I Corinthians chapter 5 the church was instructed to disassociate, dis-fellowship this believer into the ultimate step of discipline for the church where he is removed from the fellowship of believers was Paul’s instruction. That was the punishment. Now this man comes back and repents! Well, verse 7, “on the contrary you should rather forgive and comfort him lest somehow such a one be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.” So, we have a responsibility here to forgive and comfort this one. You know the danger is we think it is our responsibility to carry on the punishment. Our responsibility is to deal with it until the point of repentance. When there is repentance then we restore that one to fellowship, and we want to encourage and comfort him. Verse 8 “I urge you to reaffirm your love for him…to this end I wrote that I might put you to the test to see if you are obedient… But whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ.” Note this, “in order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.” That’s very important to keep in mind as we talk about this matter of forgiveness. We don’t want to give Satan an opportunity. We know how he works! God’s people can step up and do the right thing in dealing with a sinning Christian, but you know they open the door for Satan if they don’t continue to handle it properly. Oh yes, we are a church committed to be biblical. We follow what the bible says the church is to do regarding discipline. Then a person repents, desires forgiveness and we say, well it’s just not that easy. I mean you have to understand the seriousness of what you did. Wait a minute, what did God say? What was the instruction in Matthew regarding the sinning Christian? When they repent you do what? You drop the matter, you restore them. It’s done! They are welcomed back. Paul says here, you comfort them, you forgive them, you affirm your love for them. You know they don’t have to wear that infamous scarlet letter so to speak, permanently identified as a Christian who had sinned. We welcome them back, but you understand now, they are a second tier Christian. Now it might be they don’t step into certain positions immediately and so on. You understand forgiveness is there. It’s done, and if we don’t the door is open for Satan, so we want to be careful that we don’t go so far in being obedient to the Word but not continue in our faithfulness to the Word and anytime we stop being faithful to the Word we open the door for the devil to work. There’s nothing so unpleasant as when we become spiritually proud and arrogant when we are really being unbiblical. We think we’re standing for the truth and the Word of God says sin is a serious thing and sin is not something to be taken lightly. Just because a person comes back and says they are sorry doesn’t mean that it’s all over and there are consequences that can carry on. But I need to be careful that I am not deciding the consequences. My responsibility is forgive, comfort, assure them of my love and we go on.

We go on back to Matthew chapter 18 and Jesus is going to talk about this matter of forgiveness. I understand Greg talked about the matter of feelings this morning, and that will tie what we are going to talk about. On both sides. Let me say something about the person who has sinned. You have to be careful when you have repented and are restored that you are not walking around ultra-sensitive to how people are treating you. I think, oh they haven’t really forgiven me. I don’t think they are as friendly to me as they once were. I don’t think so and so is as warm to me and pretty soon my feelings begin to shape how I see. Now that person who has sinned and now been repentant has come back with the right attitude. But then the people who have been sinned against have to welcome the person back. Well, I don’t feel like forgiving them. That’s really not the issue. The issue is what God has told me to do. God by your grace I want to do this without reservation, and I need to grow in this. Lord I am struggling. I feel like I’ve been offended, and I just think it was so serious I’m still not comfortable. That’s the kind of thing that we’re going to deal with here. In verse 21 of Matthew 18, “Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Now again you see how we move from one section to another. We talked about the wandering sheep and the importance of restoring the wandering sheep and then Jesus gave specific steps to follow through if your brother sins here is how you restore him. But Peter has the question, how often – how many times do we go through this? It is one thing if they sin once, twice? Three times? You see the context, verse 15 was “if your brother sins”, now Peter wants to pick that up and says how many times do I have to forgive him? You know, Peter is learning. The rabbis taught that you should forgive three times but no more, because passages like Amos chapter 1, verse 3, verse 6, verse 9 “for three transgressions of Damascus and for four”, God speaks of the judgment. The rabbis over time developed the teaching we are only supposed to forgive three times and then there is no more forgiveness. Obviously not a biblical concept but Peter was being more than generous on that basis here. If we’re honest every one of us would think this is generous. If a person sins against you once and come and say, you know, I am sorry I was wrong, I sinned against you. But it only happened one time, even if it was rather serious sometimes, we reach down and find it in ourselves by God’s grace to forgive them. They do it a second time and it becomes a little more difficult. They do it a third time, a fourth time, a fifth time, a sixth time, pretty soon we’re getting to the point what? Enough is enough. If you think I’m going to keep forgiving you, you’ve got another thing coming. We read of Peter saying up to seven times and we think, well that was sort of silly to say that he’s setting himself up. But you stop and think about it, he’s really being extra gracious.

Jesus responds to him “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” There’s a major fallacy in your thinking. You shouldn’t even be keeping track. I mean we are not to be keeping a ledger of all the wrongs of other people. Even wrongs and sins that they have done to us. Peter let me tell you something, you forgive him seventy times seven. I say oh, four hundred and ninety. Alright, I’ll make sure. Ah-h here’s the page with Gil’s name at the top. Alright I’ve got to put four hundred ninety on this. Every time he sins against me and gets forgiven, I’ll…obviously that’s not the goal. The point is you don’t keep count. There is no limit to the forgiveness Peter. Seven times? No seventy times seven. You’re not keeping count. In other words, you are ready to forgive as often as is necessary. One time, a hundred times, it doesn’t matter. “For this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.” What He’s going to do now is illustrate this with a parable. Tell you why this is so because this is difficult. I don’t know how long you’ve been attending this church but it’s doubtful that one person has sinned against you four hundred and ninety times, even if you were keeping count. I don’t know, I know some people here who have sinned against me a lot. We’re talking about a lot of sin here, a lot of wrong. Let’s look at the way it’s to be evaluated. Here’s a king in this parable of the kingdom of heaven and this parable that relates to the kingdom that Jesus will establish on earth. It really is a parable about those who are going to be part of the kingdom that He is going to establish. Remember the disciples are still in the concept of the kingdom here and this truth would relate to anyone who becomes a believer ultimately. Back in chapter 16, verse 18, verse 19 He brought together the kingdom and the church. I’m not saying He blended the kingdom and the church, but in verse 18 He talked about “you are Peter and upon this rock I will build church and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Without going into the details of those passages right now, you know He talks about He’s going to build His church. The context of that is He gives the keys to the kingdom of heaven. The church is not the kingdom. But the church comprises one group of people who will be part of that kingdom in a special way as the bride of Christ, and we have a ministry in preparing people for that coming kingdom, even today. So back in chapter 18 “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.” Began to settle accounts and there comes a slave to him who owed him ten thousand talents. That’s a lot of money. In the margin of the particular bible, I’m using it says about ten million dollars in silver content but worth much more in buying power. We’re talking about a servant who has run up a tremendous debt. Now this man is a king. This could have been a slave who was responsible for collecting the taxes, for example in his empire. We say, how does a slave ever get that far in debt? We remember slaves would be given great responsibility in some circumstances, and this man could have been responsible for gathering the taxes and wealth and so on for the king and he’s been embezzling, using it improperly. He has acquired a tremendous debt, an overwhelming debt. Verse 25 “But since he did not have the means to repay his lord commanded him to be sold along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made.” What’s this slave going to do? He’s my slave. All I can do is try to get some value out of him, I’ll sell him and his family and whatever they have. Recoup some of my money. “The slave therefore falling down prostrated himself before him saying, have patience with me and I will repay you everything.” He cast himself on the mercy of the king. He said be merciful, I’ll repay you. Now just stop and think about it. He’s a slave. Everything he is, everything he has already belongs to his master. Everything he does and produces belongs to his master. Now just how is he going to make money and pay back the master? An impossibility can’t be done. The lord of that slave felt compassion. Now you realize there’s nothing this man could do. His situation is hopeless. Now remember it’s a situation of his own doing. You don’t want to deal with it just with guilt and responsibility. The king can say you brought it upon yourself. You did it to yourself. There’s no question about that. The point is “the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave the debt.” I’ll wipe it out. Let’s just wipe the slate clean. Well, that slave went out a forgiven man. “He found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; he seized him, began to choke him saying, pay back what you owe.” Now hundred denarii is a hundred days wages. There I was about what a working man would make in a day. You have a hundred; you would have a hundred days pay. Now that’s a fair amount of money. Three months pay. Now you stop and think about it. If somebody owes you three months, equivalent of three months pay that’s a fair amount of money in a personal debt. You just consider that amount by itself, you know somebody owes me five dollars and they don’t get around to paying me, that’s one thing. If they owe me the equivalent of three months’ salary, a little more, that’s a fair amount of money to owe. I mean I would appreciate it if you’d pay me soon or start paying on it. But it’s in comparison that this is nothing! That’s crucial. If you just consider the hundred denarii, a hundred working days, that’s a fair amount of money. But it’s nothing compared to what the other servant owed the king. “So, his fellow slave fell down and began to plead, entreat him saying, have patience with me and I’ll repay you. But he was unwilling however, went threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed.” I wrote what one person had figured out the difference in these two amounts and I’ll just summarize it for you since it’s done in English money. Sixpences and so on, but you’ll get the idea. He says a one hundred denarii debt could be carried in one pocket; a ten thousand talent debt would take an army of 8,600 men to carry it. Each would be carrying a bag weighing six hundred pounds and they would form a line five miles long. You get some kind of rate of comparison. I mean 8,600 carriers, men or donkeys carrying a bag weighing 600 pounds stretched out over five miles. That’s how much the one slave owed his master. The other owed the amount, in comparison, you could put in a pocket. But the man who had been forgiven this huge debt was unwilling to forgive this small debt that was owed him. This servant asked for mercy, and it wasn’t unusual for servants to be responsible to responsible to other servants, and so on, so that was a normal routine. Obviously, the slave that had the great debt was an influential slave and would have had many other slaves working for him in the carrying out of duties and so on. He asked for mercy just like the first slave had. The first slave had received mercy, the second now asked for mercy, the slave that had been forgiven is unwilling to give it.

Verse 31 “So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave even as I had to you?” You note the principle established here – those who have been forgiven much, are to forgive. That’s the point. I mean how can this be an issue? I forgave you an immeasurable debt. It’s to be expected that will so have affected you, you will be a forgiving person.

Look at Luke chapter seven. In the context of forgiveness and its relationship to love. Verse 36 Jesus is at the house of a Pharisee. They are reclining at the table. In verse 37 a woman, a sinner woman from the area came and brings this vial of expensive perfume and anoints the feet of Jesus, wipes it with her hair in verse 38. The Pharisee thinks how can this man let a sinful woman touch him? I mean, He can’t be truly a holy man or else He wouldn’t let himself be defiled with this sinful woman. Jesus answered, said to him “Simon I have something to say to you. He replied, say it teacher. A certain moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.” You see another comparison of a large debt and a small debt. “When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. Which of them will love him more? Simon said, “I suppose the one he forgave more.” He said, you judge very correctly.” He says did “you see this woman. I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, she has wet my feet with her tears…wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss; since the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, she anointed my feet with perfume. For this reason, I say to you, her sins which are many have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little. He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” In the context here this woman is aware of her overwhelming sinfulness, so it leads her to an action of great love for the one who could forgive her and would forgive her and does forgive her. Simon is a self-righteous Pharisee with little consciousness of his sin and his need. He does not express much love to the One who is the Savior. The connection of the awareness of sin and the greatness of forgiveness, the demonstration of love. Concepts related to the account Jesus is giving back in Matthew chapter 18.

Come back to Matthew 18. You see as you look at these kinds of accounts where we are is a person showing little love, a person showing little forgiveness and the ideas are closely related, is a person who has a very little understanding of their own sinfulness and need of forgiveness. Before we look at the conclusion of this parable just let me say that’s one of the great tragedies in the evangelical church today. As we have done away with any real emphasis on the concept of sin. We tend to be like that Pharisee, the one in the account who doesn’t appreciate the overwhelming hopelessness of their situation in sin, the greatness, the magnitude of God’s forgiveness and cleansing us. As a result, we become very small, pygmy people. The worst thing that could happen is we are offended. Tragic how many people get upset in the church because somebody offended them. Somebody did something that hurt them. I’m not minimizing, sometimes it was very hurtful and that justifies self-righteous arrogance of being unforgiving. Wrong actions. What did that say about our concept of our sin, God’s forgiveness, the demonstration of His love and His forgiveness. What the Lord does in this account in Matthew 18 verse 34. The lord, his lord, the king moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. Now note verse 35. Very, very challenging verse. “So shall my Heavenly Father also do to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.” That’s a great challenge in this conclusion. Peter started out “Lord, how often shall I forgive my brother?” Well Peter, there is no limit to that and let me give you an account that will fix this in your mind. Now let me tell you, severity of the punishment that forgiven slave who was unforgiving bears, let me tell you my Heavenly Father will do the same to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart. This is a challenging verse! But wherever we come down with it, we have to come to the conclusion the issue of forgiveness is of utmost seriousness. There are only two possibilities with verse 35. We’re dealing with a genuine believer who will come under the discipline of God or we’re dealing with an unbeliever who demonstrates that he never has belonged to the living God. The context would seem to indicate we are talking about a believer, would it not? I mean He has been talking about how we deal with a wandering sheep, we’re talking about what you do when a brother sins. In verses 15-20 Peter’s question was “How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?” The conclusion in verse 35 is “so shall my Heavenly Father also do to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from his heart.” We’re not talking about some superficial, we’ve got so much of this. People are ready to go around, oh I’m sorry, but it has not been in the heart and their attitude reveals a failure to genuinely forgive. It’s done.

So, two possibilities. Number one, I think the context would indicate we’re talking about believers here and how seriously God looks at us when we don’t forgive a fellow Christian. I mean stop and think about it. What are the worst things that someone might do to you? What if someone sins against you repeatedly, a hundred times? You say look there’s a limit to forgiveness. Oh, is there? You know what that reveals? That we haven’t understood the magnitude of our sin. We’re not going to take the time to go through all the verses tonight that we could, that you are well aware of. The bible deals with our sin and our hopelessness in sin, and the overwhelming guilt of our sin and God has wiped it clean. You understand when you look at my sin and the greatness of God’s forgiveness with my sin, if you for a sin against me a thousand times it’s nothing compared to the sin that I’ve been forgiven in Christ, by God, is it? I’ve come that I’m unwilling to forgive you. What am I doing? I am minimizing the seriousness of my sin against God. I am minimizing the greatness of His forgiveness, it’s really not that great. Don’t make so much of God’s forgiveness, after all, I’m not that big a sinner. You say, well that’s a terrible thing to say. But we put it into practice. You don’t know, do you know what they did to me? And I forgave them, and you know what? They did the same thing again, they repented, and I forgave them, again you know what? They did it again. You know I’ve just decided I couldn’t have anything to do with them anymore. I’ve just decided I couldn’t go to that church anymore where they went. I just decided…what? I just decided that God’s forgiveness of me wasn’t all that great. So, you see this becomes a matter that is very offensive to God. We’re dealing with an issue here that is of great significance. My unwillingness to forgive this person becomes now a major issue between me and the God who has forgiven me such a great debt. Now there is serious problems, this is a harsh way to describe, you know he “was given over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed.” Of course, any parable you have to be careful, that’s why I say you can look at this as a believer, unbeliever. I’ll say something about the unbeliever in a moment.

But look over in Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 4 “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. You have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,”, now note this, “and scourges every son whom He receives”, that’s serious! I mean scourging was a serious discipline, you could die from being scourged. There is serious discipline that goes in the life of God’s children. Sometimes I think of discipline and oh, it won’t be that bad. I Corinthians chapter 11, verses 27 and following indicate their God uses a variety of things, even physical death to discipline His children. The picture in the parable that Jesus has given is carried out in other places in dealing with God’s people. The verse I want to note here is the issue of forgiveness among us is of utmost importance. So, if you come and want to tell me, do you know what so and so did to me? The first thing I have to ask before you tell me anymore about this, has so and so repented? They sought forgiveness, oh yes, but…I want you to…no, I don’t need to know. I mean, have you gone and talked to them? Well not yet. Well, we’ll go back to verse 15 of chapter 18 of Matthew, right? Your brother sins, or sins against you, what do you do? You go and reprove him in private. You don’t stew over it, you don’t develop these hard feelings, resentment, bitterness, and it may be a multiplying of sins. But if there is a multiplying of repentance, we accept it. Then it’s done and you don’t keep a record. You don’t say, you know this is the twelfth time he did it, because somebody then ought to ask you, how do you know? I thought you forgave them all the other 11, so this is just like the first time, right? Our lives can be so simple. I don’t have to worry about it now, do I want to treat them nicely? Let’s see how many times they have sinned against me. Well, I don’t have to sit next to them on Sunday, I’ll smile when I walk through the foyer, but I’m not going to be their friend. Why? You’ve forgiven them more than God has forgiven you? He doesn’t consider you a friend, is that it? Of course, you are so holy and righteous you haven’t sins from the day you trusted Christ, as though well that was all in the past. Well, you just stop and think about it, how small we have become. The gospel that we preach looks so small and insignificant because we live just like the world. We respond to offenses and hurts in the same way the world does. We wonder why the world isn’t drawn to the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ as we live it out. It’s also possible in this, that the forgiveness evidences an unregenerate heart, and the person has gone through the motions, and has claimed the forgiveness that is there to all who believe, but their lack of forgiveness would indicate that they have never truly been born again because being unmerciful or unforgiving is a mark of an unbelieving person.

Look at Romans chapter 1 verse 31 describing some of the sins that are characteristic of those who do not know God. Verse 31, “they are without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving”, remember the connection between love and forgiveness in Luke 7? “Unmerciful”, would connect to the issue of forgiveness. “Those who practice such things are worthy of death.” I need to be careful; these are marks of an unbeliever. Look at James chapter 2 verse 13. “For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy, mercy triumphs over judgment.” So, you see if we have entered into the forgiveness of God, if I can put it that way, come to experience that forgiveness through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, there is an awareness of the greatness of God’s love and mercy to us that molds and shapes us in our dealings with others, so that His character becomes our character. You know there’s something about that group of people. They are so merciful and loving, and forgiving. Why? Because their God is a forgiving God. What Jesus says here would apply to a situation where you are dealing with an unbeliever because the unbeliever is revealing the condition of his heart as an unforgiving person. But I take it, it is also a reminder in the context He is talking about how we as believers relate to one another, of the seriousness of not being forgiven by another believer. Of not forgiving another believer.

Two passages. Colossians chapter 3 verse 12, “and so as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you,” and “put on love.” Characteristics blend together, but you note the standard, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you be a forgiving person. You’re manifesting His compassion, His humility, gentleness, patience, love, forgiveness. Back up to Ephesians just before Colossians. Ephesians chapter 4. In the context we have to break into the flow of things, but certain things are to have no part of the believers life, like lies and falsehood in verse 25. Verse 27 we don’t want to give the devil an opportunity. We are back to that again. Verse 29 “Let no unwholesome word is to proceed from our mouths”. Verse 30 “we are not to grieve the Holy Spirit.” Verse 31 “let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you.” You know isn’t it tragic, you see physical families that are divided. You read in the paper you know in a column, a Dear Abby or whatever, and somebody will write a letter and say you know I haven’t spoken to my brother or sister or my parents or my kids for 12 years, and they go on to give the reasons and you say, what a tragedy that families are divided that way. Well, what do we do? If you know you have two kids and they have a disagreement, what do you want them to do? You want them to work it out. That’s your brother, that’s your sister, they’re your parents, they’re your children. Forgive, put it behind you. Of course, we can see it in those kinds of settings. We know it’s the right thing to do and so it is in the family of God. You know the scripture, we’ve just touched on some of the passages, but God doesn’t repeat Himself because He didn’t know what else to say. He repeats Himself because it’s important that we grasp it. What He is saying here about forgiveness, I’m not saying is easy. It’s not natural humanly speaking. It is supernatural. It is to be the way we treat one another. By the grace of God, we are forgiven. We stop and think, you know there are people here in this congregation that have offended me. Fellow believers that have done things, sinned against me that have hurt me. Hurt my reputation, perhaps the impact on me will be lasting. You know I will never get the job I wanted, I’ll never recover from my loss of reputation in certain circles. They’ve repented, I forgive them. They ought to know you forgive them. I mean it’s not between us. So that’s where we go with Matthew 18. We start out what? The preciousness of the children of God to their Heavenly Father, each and every one. All our dealings with one another are in the context of we belong to God and God has done a marvelous gracious work in our lives and we are involved in one another’s lives in keeping one another on track and in fellowship. Part of that is when someone offends me, the part I can play is it’s forgiven. It’s not an issue for me that you’ve sinned against me, that’s to be my attitude. It’s forgiven! It’s done. We can go on and that’s what we want it to be if someone comes all to be…last step of church discipline is cut off from the fellowship of this body, they come back and repent, what is to be our attitude? Well, I don’t know whether they really meant it in their heart. Well, you know you don’t have to be their heart. You know what? You only have to deal with the heart you have and what did Jesus say? You forgive them from your heart. They said they repented; they were seeking forgiveness. I can’t look into their heart, but I know what God said I’m to do in my heart. Yeah, but you know they did this ten times before, what makes you think they are genuine this time? I don’t know. Remember God says “I, the Lord search the heart” in Jeremiah 17:10. So I can’t search your heart, I can only search my heart. All I can say this is the tenth time God’s told me my responsibility is for the tenth time to forgive you from my heart. Now if your heart’s still not right before the Lord, I trust it will be and maybe my forgiveness will help in that process. If it’s the 15th time all I know is what my heart is supposed to do. Forgive you. So, you know we simplify our lives because we go away thinking well, they said it but I don’t think they meant it. I get it and I know it’ll happen again. Now wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, have forgiven them from the heart? Well, conditionally – waiting to see if it happens again. What do you mean? I’m supposed to forgive unlimited amount of time so that’s a whole non-issue and it comes back to, Lord I have to be what you want me to be. Oh Lord, please spare me from Christians who sin against me 490 times. But sometimes you know what it is? The Lord’s given me an opportunity to grow. Well, I’m having a hard time with it. That person just makes it a habit and I…just hard, and the Lord’s telling me what? You need to grow Gil. You need to grow. No Lord, they need to change. Well, you can’t do that in them, but you can be what I’ve made you to be. That’s God’s grace. I trust it’ll characterize us in our relationships together. You have to forgive me. We’ll end on that note.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for your grace. Thank you for your forgiveness. Lord may that be upper most in each of our minds as your children. May we never forget that you have forgiven us a debt that was overwhelming. We were not good people, we were not righteous people, we were not deserving, we were guilty and unworthy and vile. Lives filled with sin, innumerable offenses against you, a holy God. And all is forgiven in Christ. Lord may that be foremost in minds every day, that we are in awe of the greatness of our forgiveness in Christ, so that it might be as nothing for us to forgive a fellow believer. That it is a joy and a privilege to be able to manifest something of the beauty of the forgiveness we have received in showing that same forgiveness to those who sin against us. And we thank you for your forgiveness in Christ name. Amen.