The Power of Forgiveness

Speaker 1 0:30

We have been going through the book of Matthew and we've been doing a long , slow journey as we chop it up and we learn from the words of Jesus and what that looks like in our lives . We're actually wrapping up Matthew chapter 18 today . So if you're newer with us , you haven't missed anything , although you've missed 18 chapters . But there are like one offs . There's always something we can grab and we can learn from . You can go back and look at it if you want to , but you're right where you need to be today . So I'm gonna invite everyone to actually grab a Bible if you have one of those , or turn one on via your phone , because I'm gonna be referencing a lot in the scripture today . Not all of it's gonna be on the screen , but it will help you keep and keep back and relearning about it and looking at that stuff . We're gonna be in Matthew chapter 18 , wrapping it up , starting in verse 21 . So I'm gonna read this whole parable to you , first the story of what's going on , and then we'll jump into it . So it says then Peter came to Jesus . The then is therefore because there's a bunch of other stuff that happened in the beginning of chapter 18 , jesus is in a teaching moment . He came to Jesus and said how many times , lord , do I need to forgive my brother or sister who sins against me ? Like up to seven times . Jesus answered , I tell you , not seven times , but 77 times . Therefore , now he gives this brilliant parable . The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants . As he began the settlement , a man who owed him 10,000 talents . Now I'm gonna pause right there . What's a talent ? On the back of your Bible , or even the electronic one you have like measurements and what things are , it tells you what different words are . But in the Greek , a talent , what a talent was , is a talent was worth about 20 years of a day laborer's wages 20 years , one talent . Now it says this guy owed 10,000 , how much is that ? We're just gonna call it number a zillion dollars , okay . So let's reread that part . A man who owed a zillion dollars to him was brought to him . Since he was not able to pay , the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all they had be sold to repay the debt . Now , what does that look ? That was common practice then and unfortunately and if you've been to a third world country is still common practice today . What that means is everything that you have is sold , but then you're sold as well . This is slavery . This is how this works , and you continually have to repay this debt that you could never repay , and when you die , it just gets passed down the line . So that's what this looks like At this .

Speaker 1 3:07

Hearing this , the servant fell on his knees before him and said be patient with me . He begged I will repay back everything . And you're like it's a zillion dollars . The servant's master took pity on him and canceled the debt and let him go . But when the servant went out , he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins . And you're like well , how much is that worth ? A silver coin is what you've got for a day's worth of work . So basically , he owed him a hundred days of stuff like a couple of thousand dollars , way different than a zillion dollars . And he grabbed him and he began to choke him Pay back what you owe me , he demanded . His fellow servant fell on his knees and begged him . Notice , he uses the same exact language Be patient with me , I'll pay you back . But he refused and instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could repay the debt . And the other servants saw what had happened and they were outraged and they went and told their master everything that happened . And then the master called the servant in you , wicked servant . He said I canceled all the debt of yours because you begged me to . Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servants just as I had on you ? And in anger , his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured and tell he should pay back all he owed .

Speaker 1 4:38

Now take a deep breath , because we're gonna read verse 35 . This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you , unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart . That's what we do right there . We're like whoa . So it's crystal clear what we're talking about , isn't it ? It's forgiveness . Just speaking , I'll say from my own personal experiences .

Speaker 1 5:02

I've been in full-time pastoral ministry for 22 years and if I were to say that what is the most common conversation that I've had with people around here or other churches that I had worked at , it's this topic right here , about conflict , about unresolved conflict , about unresolved hurts and pain from people who have hurt us , and it's this lifelong struggle to forgive , and for Jesus , forgiveness was one of the key watchwords of his movement . Just think about the prayer that he taught the disciples and then teaches us to pray every single day in terms of and you can say it with me if you haven't said it today our Father in heaven , how would be your name ? May your kingdom come . May your will be done on here on earth , as it is , heaven . Give us this day our daily bread . Forgive us of our sins as we forgive who . Those does it say as we forgive people of their sins . Nope , we give the people who have sinned against us forgiveness . Lead us not into temptation , but deliver us from the evil ones . So apparently Jesus thought forgiveness was so vital to the movement of the kingdom that he was like here's what you do . Like he wanted to remind ourselves daily in prayer that forgiveness is at the heartbeat of what it means to actually follow Jesus and that somehow this correlates to God's forgiveness of me and is directly tied to my ability to forgive others as well . And there's this like organic connection between the two that you can see right here in this parable that apparently Jesus takes our unwillingness to forgive or our willingness the slide says our willingness or our unwillingness to forgive like really seriously . And I don't think this stands alone either If you think about where we've been in chapter 18 , we've been calling this kind of section in the gospel the road trip down to Passover .

Jesus' Teachings on Forgiveness and Humility

Speaker 1 7:15

Jesus is making his way there through these chapters . He's on this road trip and he's on his way down to Jerusalem and he's trying to tell his disciples that why he's going there isn't to kick out the Romans , it isn't to kill anybody , it's actually to be killed himself , to die on behalf of Israel , sins and the sins of the world . And his disciples don't get it . And so they have this like fundamental misunderstanding . They misunderstand what it actually means to follow Jesus . And so remember this whole chapter 18 began with we've been here for over a month . It begins with them like asking Jesus , so like how do you become the greatest in the kingdom ? Like who's the greatest ? And so he actually doesn't even answer the question . He just goes and grabs like a small child . He puts in the middle of them and the crowd is like watching , like what is this ? And what it is is this very powerful visual parable .

Speaker 1 8:07

And it begins teaching in chapter 18 with this visual parable and then he's ending this chapter with today , with this spoken parable . And so the spoken parable , and so the first visual one , is asking us like so are you ready to reckon with , are you ready to deal with ? What does it look like ? About demoting yourself , or about humility , or about being dependent on something and trusting in God ? And then Jesus warns us . After that , then he goes on this warning and says like , hey , you're called to become new , like these different kinds of humans , like being born again , like children , and what it means is that there's like this community where we're likely gonna hurt each other as we grow and we mature as followers of Jesus . And so then , remember , we had this whole teaching about warning us about , like , the character flaws that we had in us that actually hurt other people . And so he warns us about that . And then he gives us this really concrete tools of what we do when we actually do hurt each other in , about , like , conflict resolution and addressing each other when we hurt one another and when we are sinning and not following . That's what Jeff was exploring just the other week .

Speaker 1 9:20

And so all of that prompts this question where Peter comes up and he asks . He's like hey , jesus , can we just get really practical here . So what do you like actually ask me to do so ? Like how many times ? If another disciple of Jesus in the church community straight up wrongs me , how long do I actually have to put up with that ? And it's clear by saying seven times , he thinks he's being really generous here Because he's like , if they do that like how many times , do I really gotta do this ? Like seven times , anything's like man , I'd be a generous , because most people are like whoa , whoa , whoa , like maybe one or two , but three strikes are out . Like that's how we roll right . Why are you saying seven ? That's the point . Do you see here that Peter thinks he's actually gonna impress Jesus with a large number Like ? I've been listening , you're pretty upside down . So like seven times . And then he's thinking like please don't say seven because it's gotta be less than that . And so then Jesus answered him . He's like typical Jesus . He just flips everything out . He's like no , like 77 . He's like what does that ? Even why ? That wasn't what you were supposed to say . This is brilliant . Whatever Jesus is doing here , this is so clever . What he's doing here , I'm gonna do Bible geek out to you . Here's what he's doing . So the numbers seven and 77 appear close to each other only twice in the entire Bible in these stories . This is one of them . There's only one at a time in the entire Bible that Jesus is connecting to this story of seven and 77 .

Speaker 1 10:57

And it's found in the first book of the Bible called Genesis , in chapter four . And this is a story about these two brothers and this one brother is really jealous of his other brother , the jealous . His brother's name is Cain and he is really jealous of his brother Abel . And God actually addresses this with Cain . He's like Cain , your jealousy is out of control . You need to be careful with this . This , like this sin and anger that you have . It's growing towards anger , it's building up . This violence is growing into you . It's like an animal that's like crouching at the door and it's gonna devour you if you don't deal with it . And what happens is he doesn't deal with it and he gives into it and he murders his brother in a field and the story goes on from there . But then Cain was banished from the land and he goes on and then he builds a city that he names after his son , enoch , and the city , we're told , goes five generations in and like founder , like city , it becomes a place that you would never want to live . And Genesis four describes what life was like , what people in the city of Cain are like .

Speaker 1 12:04

And then it gives us this little vignette of a guy named Laimek , and Laimek is a poet and he sings one of the first poems of the Bible and it's a little poem about how macho he is . He talks about how he was this young man and he ran into another young man and he tried to like pick a fight with him and then he had talked about this poem and he just murdered him on the spot . And he sings about how proud he is of this . He says I didn't just give him seven times the vengeance on this young man , I'm the Laimek . I gave 77 times the vengeance and killed him right there .

Jesus' Teaching on Forgiveness and Limitlessness

Speaker 1 12:43

And that's the story Jesus alludes to when he begins to teach on forgiveness . So just stop and think about what he's doing right here . So whatever forgiveness is and we'll explore that whatever forgiveness is , it's doing something that's really counter to our nature , because our nature it's like wired into us , our nature is if somebody wrongs you , what do you do ? You get them back , and usually you get them back better . Like you can take it out of the top . That's what we do . And so Laimek becomes a Jewish tradition and in the Bible he becomes like the epitome of human nature . We're like you wrong me , I'm gonna wrong you back , but I'm gonna do it even more because you're lame and I hate you and I'm Laimek .

Speaker 1 13:30

And so Jesus alludes to this story and so Peter's asking like okay , jesus , like we're supposed to live , like children and we're becoming like new kinds of humans and this new kingdom ethic , and so we need to address the ways that we hurt each other and when we hurt each other and we deal with that in these really healthy ways that actually involves community . But like this is what we're all asking . But like what's the limit ? There's like a limit , like what's too far , like that's too much , like at what point do ? Like we just go back to the way things were . And Jesus says the kingdom of God is a completely different deal . It's a completely different deal . You already know what human nature does . It's the Laimek in the spiral of human history that spins out of that . You don't have to explain that to anybody . We live in that world . And so Jesus is saying that somehow forgiveness is the sign of this new and different kind of humanity and the followers , as followers , were to be like Laimek , but with a different practice , something that's not our nature . If Laimek is about unbridled revenge , jesus followers are to become unbridled with mercy and unbridled with this ability to forgive . It's very powerful what Jesus is doing right now , and so it raises this question .

Speaker 1 14:59

In this topic of conversation that I've had with so many people at Northgate here in my last 14 years here at Northgate , there is almost no topic that has come up more than as I'm just getting to know people and I hear their stories which is like how do I deal with people who hurt me and me trying to connect to you ? How do you deal with the people who hurt you ? Because what if you do what Jesus said ? Like what if you actually do it ? Which is like what if you go and you talk to the person who hurt you ? And what if they don't care ? Or what if you go to them and you talk to them and they do care and you're not quite sure and they say they're sorry , but you're not quite sure they're sorry enough , and so it just like eats away at you , or what do you do if someone has wronged you and you don't have a chance to talk to them about it because they've passed away or they've moved away or because time has literally just created such a gap and like it's just gonna be way too painful to actually bring this all up again ?

Speaker 1 16:00

So what do you do with someone who's actually apologized to you and you just can't get over it ? Anybody you with me , like , have you ever had personal conflict with anyone human ? So Jesus is addressing you , but there's an if I want you to hear this really quickly If you're a disciple , he's addressing you right now , if you are one of his followers and apparently Jesus wants his followers to live as a sign of the kingdom , as a sign of the new humility and of a different way of being human beings , which means being lamek , like in our ability to forgive and show mercy . And so here's what I'd like to do . I'd like to first of all take the panic out of the room , because some of you are like what does this even mean ? Like 77 times right , what does that even mean ?

Speaker 1 17:01

I wanna tell you that I have found personally , and in pastoral ministry as well , that Jesus' teaching on forgiveness are actually really easy to misunderstand , often misapplied and sometimes even abused in a way that hurt people more than they already are , and so I just wanna do two things Clarify what Jesus does not mean by forgiveness , so that we can become crystal clear on what Jesus does mean by this unlimited capacity to forgive that we're supposed to show as followers of Jesus . We hear this teaching about seven times , which really becomes unlimited forgiveness , and I think one of the most misunderstood teaching on forgiveness of Jesus' words here is I call it the doormat misunderstanding of Jesus' teaching on forgiveness , which is , if I forgive someone , jesus is basically asking me to just lay down and keep taking it and let someone walk all over me , take the wrong again , take the wrong again , just forgive and forget and then let him do it again and hope that one day he'll bring justice . And you don't need to know I'm telling you right now . You don't need to know a lick of Greek , you don't need to know any bit of ancient history , you just need to know how to read English , and then the next 10 minutes you're gonna see how absolutely wrong that is , because forgiveness does mean something , but it does not mean laying down and becoming someone else's doormat to stump all over you .

Forgiveness and Boundaries in Christian Community

Speaker 1 18:47

You remember what Jesus said to do in verse 15 , this is just the paragraph before . So , if you're looking at it , what did he say to do if , within the community of the disciples , another brother or sister is sinning ? And here we would talk about a case where it's sitting against you personally ? You remember what he said to do , verse 15? . So the first thing you do then is there's a question . You go talk to them . I'm going to help you out . Follow me here , because we're going to do this . So what I'm going to do right now we'll do this again . We're going to act like we're actually having a conversation , like I'm going to have 325 conversations at the same time , so you can interact with me a little bit here .

Speaker 1 19:25

So you go talk to them first . You don't have like a prayer meeting about them . You don't move into denial and just say like well , I'm supposed to forgive and just let everything you go , and then they can do anything . No , you go talk to them for love for them and love for the community . And if they don't listen to you and if they don't care and if they don't own what they do , then what do you do ? Yeah , then you go get somebody else and you bring somebody else with you , right ? And if you go do that , there's somebody else in the community who knows them and loves them and cares about it . You can go talk to that person . And then what do you do ? They still won't own up to what they've done . You go back with even more people and you bring like a broader church community , whatever the network is in relationships and support around those persons .

Speaker 1 20:12

So Jesus just told us that when we hurt each other which , yes , we hurt each other , and he knows we're going to hurt each other because we're messy but then somehow he says this is what you do . But then somehow , in this paragraph , this next paragraph , we look at it and we think , like forgive 77 times , like all the time . This is crazy . I guess I'm just supposed to take it and suffer in silence when we think , well , either Jesus is talking out both sides of his mouth or , like we're not good readers of English , like what do we do with this ? What we do with this , friends , is we need to learn how to actually put both of these teachings together , because they go together . A lot of times we've like disconnected them , but they're connected , and when you do , jesus's teachings on forgiveness don't become less intense . Hear that , and they actually become , though , more powerful and realistic and practical . So I have a list . I have found that working through this exercise is helpful . So what we're going to do is we're going to grab a cup of coffee right here together and we're going to act like we're sitting down in a coffee shop together and you're like who do I do ? And I'm going to go through my list with you , just like we're having this one-on-one conversation , except it's like 350 of those conversations happening at once . Okay , all right . So what do you like to start with ?

Speaker 1 21:30

Let's look in Matthew 18 and talk about what forgiveness is not . It's really important to clarify what it is not . So , for Jesus , whatever forgiveness means , can it mean that , when someone wrongs you , that you just simply ignore it and look over it ? Can Jesus actually mean that ? Well , if you look , apparently not , because the first thing that you're supposed to do when someone wrongs you in the church community is you go talk to them , right ? You go talk to them . How many of you have heard the phrase forgive and forget ? Good , okay , how many of you have heard this phrase .

Speaker 1 22:08

Love will simply overlook people . When they wrong you Like , love overlooks us . Well , let me help you clarify something . Love will cover someone's wrong against you when you go through the process of forgiveness . When love does not overlook , don't get that twisted . So , whatever Jesus means , it is exactly the opposite of ignoring and forgetting , and it is certainly not condoning when people think that forgiveness means I'm actually treating the what they did to me as if it's not that big of a deal and it doesn't matter , because no , it 100% matters . It's a huge deal . That's why you go talk to them out of love for them , because if they're treating you this way , the odds are higher that they're probably treating others the same way as well . So it actually helps me to get then another person involved .

Speaker 1 23:01

Jesus is like and he said this so that by the testimony of more than one witness . Why do you need that ? Because if I go there , maybe there's something that I miss or maybe I actually am coming to my own wrong conclusion about this . Like I need somebody else to point my misunderstanding of this to me , because my thinking is too clouded here , because I feel hurt or that have been sinned against , but there's someone else that can be a witness to be like hold on , let's get a different view and perspective . But whatever we're doing , we're not doing any of the first four things . We're not ignoring or forgetting , and we're not condoning and we're not excusing , and this is just a simple observation . It also does not mean tolerating or allowing wrongdoing or further abuse . I think that this is one of the most common misunderstandings of and abuses of , jesus is teaching right here . How many times am I supposed to forgive Seven ? No , no , no , no . I'm saying 77 times . Just take it Like . Just get hammered . Stop Read the paragraph before .

Speaker 1 24:13

If somebody has seriously wronged you remember we're having coffee right now You're okay . If somebody has seriously wronged you , what's the first thing you do ? Yeah , you're getting this . You go talk to them . What if they don't owe them to what they've done to you ? Don't think that it's wrong , think that you're stupid or you're being too sensitive and they don't apologize ? What do you do ? What if you do that ? They won't listen ? Yeah , yeah , yeah , this is great . You get someone else . You bring someone else Even .

Speaker 1 24:44

Just think about what Jesus is doing right here , what it means . This is so important . Please just hear this If you only hear like five minutes of this . Just hear this five minutes . Think about what he's doing here , especially if you're in an unsafe situation . Does Jesus envision that you are ever alone with that person again ? No , apparently , jesus thinks that within the community , creating safe boundaries of increasing distance between you and the offender is what we need to do for each other here in the community of disciples . Another 77 times doesn't mean putting yourself back in the arena again so that you'll get hurt all over again .

Speaker 1 25:27

I just want to be so crystal clear about this because in this room this room is a big room right now , it's statistically in this room right now , this large group of people tells us . There are people in a relationship , in a marriage , in a family , where they're being physically abused , they're being beaten , they're being verbally , emotionally abused , where they're being yelled at and shamed or even sexually abused . In this room right now , statistically . I want you to hear this crystal clear Jesus does call you to forgive the person who has wronged you . We'll talk about that in a minute , hang with me .

Speaker 1 26:11

But if you're in one of those scenarios , your first priority is not to forgive them , it is to get safe , it is to find someone else to get you in a situation where you can regain stability , where there is distance , where there's safety , so you can actually begin the hard work of forgiveness . That has to come if you're a follower of Jesus and somehow , somehow this message does not get communicated in church communities and then some just suffer in silence and become this doormat of like I'm just going to take it for Jesus , I'm just being faithful to Jesus . Jesus is not asking you to do that . He's asking you to forgive . He's not asking you to keep yourself in a dangerous or abusive situation . And so I just want to pause serious , because I know how important this is and it even has to do with people's safety . If you are in one of those situations of abuse that I named and you don't have anyone to talk to you because you don't have someone that's safe . We have a safe person in this church community , megan Friedman , our pastor of care , that you can get connected with . It will actually help you and help you find qualified people . That's her email address . You can reach out to her and she can help you even find qualified people that will help you . And this is serious . I just don't want to just go over it . It is serious and we need to firmly believe this . We need to take this seriously as a church community , because there are so many church communities that have gotten this wrong and people's lives are destroyed because they think they're being faithful to Jesus , but they're actually just being unwise . Back to the list Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation or restoration .

Speaker 1 28:03

It does mean . It doesn't mean that things just are going to go back to the way they were . If you go back to the prayer graph before Matthew 8 , verse 15 , if somebody wrongs you and they really hurt you and they meant to , what is it going to take , if you think about it , on their part , what are they going to have to do to become , to get to a place where you can truly reconcile ? What would that mean for them ? Well , if you think about it , we're sitting here and we're discussing it back and forth . What would that mean ? It means they actually have to recognize what they did , they have to be deeply sorry about it , they have to apologize , they have to find a way to see what they did was wrong and they have to then begin the work of building trust . This is an enormous amount of work . It's a lot of change and humility that's required by this person . So the question is what if they don't want to own it ? And what if they don't want to do the hard work ? Can I forgive them ? And the most common misunderstanding is that Jesus is asking us to forgive . Now , asking what he's asking to do is not just forgive , but also he's asking us to make reconciliation happen . And that's just not true , because here's the deal with reconciliation Can you control reconciliation ?

Speaker 1 29:26

Oh , I'd ask it if we were sitting in a coffee this way . Can you control whether or not someone apologizes to you ? No , you have no control over that . You can't make someone realize what they did was wrong . You can try all the verbal acts they're like well , no , it's like this . But don't you think you can try all those ways but for a deep humility and repentance and the process of reconciliation , for that to happen to another person ? You actually have no control over this , and there are actually times where reconciliation becomes impossible . It becomes impossible because the person may have passed away or the relationship is so dangerous or destructive that you actually can't be around him , and Jesus wouldn't want you to be around him , and so you can't talk to them anymore . So what do you do ?

Speaker 1 30:18

Forgiveness is different than reconciliation . Reconciliation is like this two-way street where you're both coming and meeting here together , where you both humble yourselves and discover , hey , I've kind of got some things that I messed up in this as well . I'm forgiving , I'm owning up to what I've done , and then we're going to spend the time to rebuild trust in this relationship , and so on . Forgiveness , though , apparently does not apparently take two , and this is significant , thank you . Look at the last line of Jesus' parable in chapter 18, . Look at verse 35 . Where does Jesus say forgiveness takes place ? Where is the root act of forgiveness ? Look at the last sentence . Where do you do forgiveness In your heart ? Can you control the thoughts and the emotions and the will of another human being ? No , and so forgiveness is different than reconciliation .

Speaker 1 31:18

There are moments where reconciliation might not be possible , but we are still called to forgive , and you are called to forgive regardless of how that person responds to you , which means that things may never be the same again . You might not ever be best friends again . This is where forgiveness actually incorporates a lot of grieving and mourning . It doesn't mean that you are going to be around each other and have any kind of healthy relationship , and returning back to the way things were before isn't possible . It's just different . Last of all , it doesn't necessarily mean that the offender escapes the consequences .

The Complexities of Forgiveness

Speaker 1 32:00

I think that whatever forgiveness means , it doesn't include going to them yourself and then going with another person and then going with even more people . And if they don't own up to it and they don't see what they've done to you , they don't see that this violates the teachings of Jesus . And then what does Jesus say ? Someone who says what happens if they won't do this ? What does Jesus say ? He says someone who says that they're a follower , but then all of this behavior and their choices and their hurting of people , and they don't care and they don't think that it's wrong . And what does Jesus say ? That you do ? What is the consequence that he gives ? Do you remember ? You can look . It says the consequences .

Speaker 1 32:40

You treat them like a pagan or a tax collector . Well , how did he treat them ? He moved towards them , he had celebrations of the kingdom with them . But what else did he do ? He called them and asked them to change and adopt this new ethic and follow him , to surrender their life over to him and follow him and you start to realize I actually should shift the conversation because I've been wronged by this person . But actually , like the most important conversation that somebody else should have because I cannot be around them , in the same room with them anymore Isn't the conversation about apologizing and understanding these things ? It's somebody's to have this , about them reckoning with their own sin and selfishness and whether or not they're actually a follower . So what's happened here is exposed , being like so you surrendered your life to Jesus to be a part of the kingdom ethic , but you didn't , because you're not doing these things . So then , apparently , you're not really a follower . So I need to treat you like a pagan or a tax collector and move towards you and love you and pray for someone and invite someone else to go talk to you , because that's a more important conversation . Now can I just pause for one second ?

Speaker 1 34:10

This is actually where we get ourselves in a lot of trouble . We like to break out our list of evaluations with other people and hold them accountable to things that they never signed up for . Like we're like well , you came to church one week . You better get your life together . I'm going to let you know everything . I see that's wrong with you , right ? Well , you're allowed to belong before you believe something .

Speaker 1 34:36

It figured this out . We go up to a lot of people and expect them to agree to and act as something they have never said they agreed to , and we hold people accountable to that . We hold a line to them , and that is not what we're supposed to do at all , and that's where we get ourselves in so much trouble . You're the one who gave your life to Jesus and said I am now part of the suffering servant club . This is what you've given to me . I'm receiving this , and now this is how I act , this is why I behave , this is how I change . We don't get to hold anyone else up to that standard unless they've signed up for it as well , and that's where we get in trouble .

Speaker 1 35:15

So apparently , in Jesus's mind , forgiveness doesn't mean that there is no consequences . It gets really tricky . And this is really tricky because maybe there's some moments where Jesus is calling you to actually release someone from the consequences of the behavior . But there might be situations when releasing someone from the consequences of their behavior is actually the most socially irresponsible thing you could do , because it involves situations of violence or abuse , and that's just plain irresponsible . So , whatever Jesus means , I think in for this case specifically , it requires this discernment to know what this means , because it always means some release of consequences , but what Like , to what degree ? And the odds are you are not going to be able to figure that out for yourself , which is why you need to have people that are gathered around you , which is why you need people to help work out this situation , for wisdom and discernment . So those are just some simple observations from Matthew 18 itself about what forgiveness is not , and I spent way more time on what forgiveness is not , because I think that's actually more helpful than what forgiveness is .

Speaker 1 36:26

So forgiveness does not mean those things . What does it mean ? So I just want to highlight , just as we're ending here , just a few things from this brilliant parable . Where does Jesus locate forgiveness , like the act of forgiveness ? Where do you do it ? At your heart , yeah , exactly . And of course , this is a metaphor , if you didn't realize this , because what does your heart do ? It beats and pumps blood , like that's all it does . It's its only job , right ?

Speaker 1 36:46

So in the Bible , it's this metaphor that's actually different from the West , in the way that we think of the heart . When we say heart , what kind of human activities do we think of that happen in your heart ? Like what do we do with our heart ? In America , we love and we have feelings , right , like I give you my heart . Like it's all this stuff , it's all the squishies , right ? The Bible if you look through the Bible , it's different . The Bible has no word for brain , by the way . So in the Bible what we do is we separate heart from brain . In the Bible it's collapsed , though it's actually a really fun study if you were to go through and circle heart everywhere in the Bible and look at , kind of what is the context and what it's talking to .

Speaker 1 37:29

We think feeling , and it's thinking like feeling wheel , logic , choice . This is the way the Bible uses heart as this metaphor . It's about the center of your emotion and your will all connected , which means Jesus , for Jesus . He's saying that forgiveness here it is is a choice . We actually get to make the choice in this place . It's a choice that you make and then you begin to feel as you make this choice and it's likely I'll tell you right now , not ever a choice or ever something that you will feel like you want to do . How many times have you felt like going to the gym ? Right , only a few times . I know how many times have you felt like running ? And no one should ever feel like running . No , yeah , right , but it's a choice . I'm going to go , I'm going to eat healthy , I'm going to go run . I'm going to do this , whether or not you feel that way . And so he's saying it's not likely ever something you're going to feel like you want to do , but it's something that he wants his followers to do . This choice , and the choice then becomes the feeling . And so what does that journey look like ?

Speaker 1 38:39

What do you have this parable about this guy who owns zillions of dollars and to the king and he can't pay it back . And this guy , then he's released of his entire debt , but then he goes and he finds someone else who owns him just a few thousand dollars , right , and what does he do ? This is the response of the guy who , like to the guy who was , like minuscule amounts of money , and Jesus is really careful to slowly paint this picture for this . What's the first thing this guy does after he's been released of all his debt ? He goes and finds someone who owes him like nothing . What does he do ? He finds him and he chokes him . Like it's like he chokes him . He said bring it back where you owe me , right ? And this guy then says exactly the same words that he had said to the king that he owed zillions of dollars to , but refuses then to let the guy go from this debt . Instead , he throws him into prison . Really , think about the picture that Jesus is painting here . If you throw someone in prison , what can they not do ? Work , right , they can't work .

Speaker 1 39:48

So Jesus he's talking about , here's what unforgiveness does to us . It makes us irrational . It puts us in a state of like this vengeful frenzy where we don't even see that it actually stopped being about justice a long time ago and it's actually not about the person even being able to say that their sorry to pay us back . And some of you think , well , I mean , that definitely doesn't describe me . Well , I would say it doesn't describe you all the time . But if you're really honest with yourself that you haven't at least wanted to go there with at least one person who's wronged you , it's lameic , it's nature , it's what we do , it's the spiral of human history . Look at human history and tell me that we're not totally irresponsible when it comes to justice and recompense . We don't want justice . We want to fill the satisfaction of at least a short chokehold until someone pulls us off , where we actually want to put this person in an impossible situation so they can't know , so they can understand and know what they actually really did to you . You want them to feel it and it may not be how you feel all the time , but you can't deny it that you felt it some of the time . And here's the deal . Jesus knows , he knows that , and so this isn't just about the guy having amnesia for what he was forgiven .

Speaker 1 41:28

So quickly , to wrap this up what is forgiveness ? What is forgiveness ? What forgiveness is in Matthew 20 , in Matthew 18 ? I don't even know what I'm saying right now . Here's your deal , here's your list . Forgiveness , first and foremost , is a decision to give up what by nature , and even certainly your right to retaliate and get this person back . Forgiveness , first and foremost , is a decision to give this up , this lamech nature . It doesn't mean that there's no consequences Remember the paragraph before this one but it does mean that there is some kind of release of something that you could do , but you choose not to do . That's the first step in the act of forgiveness .

Speaker 1 42:14

According to Jesus and this parable , it means refusing this person . It means refusing to put this person in a scenario where it would be impossible for them to ever make up what they did , and refusing to do that . That story's been written like seven billion times on this planet , or really like 77 billion times , and Jesus says that the kingdom of God is here and it's becoming born again like a new type of human . And in the kingdom we do conflict differently . We give up our right to retaliate and we choose to change our heart attitude . It's a new heart . It's new every day and in the parable I think it involves a few things .

Speaker 1 43:03

It's first you choose and then you allow your decision to create room for your feelings into the decision to forgive , which , first of all , as a Christian , actually means remembering that God's forgiven me , and that's clearly what's all over this parable . This is like Christianity 101 , that God is so committed to this good , good world that , rather than enact revenge and roast the place , he comes in the person of Jesus and he personally absorbs and takes onto himself all the pain and the evil and the destruction and death that we've created in this good world as an act of love . And then the resurrection offers us life , a new life , that dead things come life . He offers us this release of consequences of what we have done here , which is to live in the hell that we've created here on this earth and hereafter , and he releases of this by his love , in recognizing God's forgiveness of me and of us in powers , you and me . It humbles us before the cross to be able to see a glimmer of humanity and goodness and another person and recognize that they're really on the same level as compromises me . Here's the best way I can say this what helps me get through my days .

Speaker 1 44:32

We're all broken people and when I'm a part of a mess , I get there . I have to get to a place where I say why am I surprised that a broken person is acting broken ? You know how freeing that is To be like . Well , that's just a broken person acting broken and you get to just let that go and you realize I'm in the same place , I'm at the same level of compromise as they are , and I get to lead with curiosity and grace and then , once you get there , it's a decision that you make and it's a decision that summarized in verse 33 , where the master says to the servant shouldn't you have had mercy , the same way that I had mercy on you ? And just imagine if we lived like this . Just imagine if we actually went to TH Shudder when we were wrong in Shudder and don't start with gossip , or hold sacred prayer meetings , gossip sessions . Imagine if we actually did this . I think , actually I truly believe , it would transform our relationships . It would transform the kind of community that we could actually become to offer compassion instead of hatred .

Speaker 1 45:51

So my trip to Cambodia real quickly , I got to go there , like I told you , to encourage and equip a bunch of pastors . But I was shocked while I was there . You can see a picture in just a second of a room that I got to teach in for a week . A man named Christopher is who invited me . He started a church 30 years ago and some of you may know this , some of you may not know this , but there was back in 75 to 79 , there was a huge genocide that happened in Cambodia . Three million people were killed by their own people , by the Marouge , in a revolution that was taking place , and Christopher is actually a survivor .

Speaker 1 46:34

What happened to him is he was 20 years old . He was living in Penang Pen and the war had just kind of gotten broken up and there was celebration that this war was done . And then this revolution started by this group of people and they just started killing everyone . Entire generation lost their life and so they asked everyone to leave . They looked for anyone who was intelligent . They put them to camps where they were killing him . They'd walk up . Christopher had glasses . He had to take off his glasses . He stopped wearing glasses , changed his name , because if you were educated they would kill you . They'd walk up to you on the street and said I want your watch . He said that's my watch . You died . There's bodies everywhere , he said . They were holding up grenade launchers to houses , saying leave now . You have 30 minutes to leave . Don't take any of your possessions , get out of here . So his family was one of this His father's mother , his brother and sister in himself took off in their car and fled and he said it was like the movies where just people in carts and cars just one way out of a city and so they went until they ran out of gas , ran out of gas , slit the tires , made shoes , continued to flee , ended up getting captured and he ended up being in a camp .

Extraordinary Stories of Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Speaker 1 47:37

We worked these 16 hour days . His parents and his brother and sister got shipped off to other places . He eventually saw an opportunity and escaped into Thailand and he said it was one of those things you don't look right , you don't look left , you don't look back , you just go . And by God's grace , he got there , found a refugee camp . About 10 years later , for some reason , he decided to go back into Cambodia . He decided to plant a church there , started a church , and one weekend a man came there and gave his life to Jesus . He led him to the Lord , said I wanna be a part of this new kingdom ethic , but then also told Christopher , there's things that I've done in the past I don't think God can actually forgive me for . And so , christopher , I swent to him . He'd forgive you for everything . That's what he did . He came here . He wiped out all of your stuff . It's a clean slate . It's a new thing . You're right , you can't do anything for it . He's done it for you .

Speaker 1 48:27

About 15 years later , this man's been in Christopher's life . Christopher didn't actually know really who he was until new stories came out because this man was being pursued by the UN Because he ran a camp that was responsible for killing 25,000 of the most intellectual people in Cambodia , and two of those people were his parents . And the UN asked him to come testify , not about what who he had killed , but that he had given his life to Jesus , and this is why he was sharing all the information and trying to have retribution for his sins and his past . So we got an hour and a half to speak at the UN . This is all stuff you can find tell us and I'm like sitting there going what it's like . I sat in front of this man . We cried , I told him I forgive him . He asked for mercy and forgiveness and he gave it to him .

Speaker 1 49:17

So there's that story . I'm like trying to wrap my head around this being like what ? Like that's . That's not normal . So they explained to me oh , there's a another , another situation that happened Im Ching . I said oh , who's Im Ching ? He's like all this woman . She came same situation came to my church , started coming , gave her life to Jesus , then came up to him . I he got . The baptizer came up to him , said I have a rice mill . I would love to dedicate this land and my community where you put a big cross . I'm gonna do a church , I'm gonna reach out to my community and plant more churches . And so he did that same thing happen years later that the UN started pursuing this group , this high group of people that Im Ching was actually responsible for killing 500,000 Cambodians a half a million . That's really hard to wrap your head around . You can see this next slide in a second . See a picture of her . And I Was worse to be . Oh sorry , real quick . This one first . This is a the camp . One of the camps went to used to be a high school when they tortured and murdered the 25,000 I was talking about this man . So just a second , you'll see this next one . So I'm trying to wrap my head around that . She's 80 years old now . I got to encourage her and equip her because she's doing the same for a community , and I'm trying the whole time to grasp what kind of human , the lame-act , she was Before this .

Speaker 1 50:39

And we're having dinner and Christopher is the guy in the yellow up front by me . We're having dinner and he invited some of the other pastors and they're all at the end of the table and Im Ching is actually there too . She's behind the other woman . You can't see her , but he goes around and the man sitting next to her On your right there they called him the assassin . Thousands of people he murdered , used to carry an AK-40 . He said I used to carry an AK-47 . Everyone kill people and now I carry around a Bible and preach to people . The guy next to him was like the driver of number one brother . Number one took care of him . The other one gave military supplies to everyone , nina's to say .

Speaker 1 51:19

Here's the deal . We're sitting at this table breaking bread , eating , and Christopher is explaining who these people are that are all directly connected with the murder of his mother , father , his brother , his sister and his wife's entire family , all of his friends , three million people . These are some of the top People who are involved in this organization and every one of these people sitting at this table , over these years , christopher has ordained , they are pastors and they have planted churches and they love Jesus . And I'm like , sitting there , that was not the response I had . So they don't speak . They can speak , I may . They don't speak English and I'm like I can't even eat anymore . I'm just like I don't . This doesn't make sense and I ask them In front of them because they don't , they don't know .

Speaker 1 52:07

I'm saying like Christopher , you're telling me like this is actually happening right now , how and why , like I don't understand . And he gave me like the the cliche answer , but it wasn't cliche to him at all , he was just like I don't know , I can't tell you other than it's God's love and that's what he told us to do and it's a choice . And I'm like I know , I know because , weirdly enough , I'm teaching on that when I come back but like it's real in person , it's so intense it's then this makes no sense . And he was like , yeah , it doesn't , and they're just doing life together and like for the kingdom , because that's what it looks like to be in this kingdom ethic . And now they're holding each other responsible for this kingdom ethic . You know , it's the perfect example of the lamek to this unbridled now mercy and forgiveness . So I honestly don't know what you're supposed to do with that story other than like I've seen it and I've seen way more extreme things and it blew my mind and I felt like I needed to share a bit of the you what , what I hope it never has to look like , but in real life looks like and Christopher's decided to do the really hard work of actually reconciling , like he did the forgiveness part , but he chose to keep going down the line In reconciling and building trust and investing into and linking arms With them as fellow followers and disciples of Jesus .

Speaker 1 53:33

So today I went in . This is special for us . This is special for us . We have been unveiling over the last five weeks our new vision as a church and as a faith me , what we want to embody and represent , what that looks like . We've been teaching about what represent looks like . We broke it down in those ways that ultimately , we want to represent Jesus , we want to represent ourselves and then we want to be present with him . That's how we get to do all of those things .

Speaker 1 53:58

So you want to bust out this commitment card . This is what we're gonna do . This is for you , not for me . And what do I mean by that ? I'm gonna ask you to fill this out and then you have that envelope and you're gonna self address it . You're gonna seal the envelope when you're done and then you're gonna put them up here in this basket . It's just a time of worship and response and commitment to the Lord , of living this vision out , and then I'm not gonna open it , I'm not gonna look at it , it's gonna sit in a box until six months later , so the middle of June to July , I'm gonna mail it back to you and then you're gonna open up and be like , oh yeah . Or you're gonna be like , oh yeah , where am I at ? What's going on with this ?

Speaker 1 54:36

So this first one there's a commitment to saying I'm gonna be present , I'm gonna show up regularly to worship service , I'm gonna spend time daily with Jesus to get invested into , so that I actually change In my attitude , my heart can become new and he can fill me with the hope and the healing . That's what Christopher said . He's like that's his message to everybody Jesus is the only one who can give you hope and healing . Then a commitment to represent Be in community life and show people what this looks like and care for each other , be a changemaker and serve this servant leadership aspect that you get to do this with other people . And then I'm asking you to put like a name or two . You all should be writing right now let's go , we're doing this , we're gonna try to wrap up to go watch football , come on .

Investing in Jesus

Speaker 1 55:22

So then this next one is Represents one name two . If you want who's one or two people that you can write down right now and if you need to take a picture of it before you put in the envelope , fine , that you can represent Jesus to in a really loving , unconditional , powerful way . And then the last one is comprehensive investment . And I use the word comprehensive there on purpose , because it involves everything . It's , it's all his , it's . What are we gonna choose To invest that's his already back into seeing this take place , seeing this happen .

Speaker 1 55:59

So you're gonna fill that out . This is per individual , not per family . You guys can talk about it if you want to later , especially the last one . You got it . What did you say ? We're doing ? Nice , I'm not gonna see this again . It doesn't matter , this is for you , just between you and Jesus , you and the Lord . And then go and stick it in the envelope . You can seal it . It's a self-sealable guy . Make sure you a self address it . I'm not gonna send it to you if it's not legible , because I don't want to waste the stamp , but if it's legible I'm gonna send it to you and then , yeah , so we're gonna Respond and worship . I'm gonna give you like another 60 seconds to go and fill that stuff out , then we're gonna respond and worship and there's baskets up here at the front . That's really just a physical response to say God , like I'm , I'm gonna commit to following you , to being a disciple and to be in present with you and representing your kingdom and Representing to someone else and all of this is yours . So give you about 30 more seconds to fill that out and then we're gonna worship and then we're gonna put these in the Baskets and then we're gonna go home and I get to see you next week .

Speaker 1 57:14

Let me pray , god , thank you . Thank you for your grace . Thank you for crazy stories like Christopher and Cambodia that I never imagined I would have experienced . Thank you , what we get to just think about and be stirred about just through his story . God , thank you for the release and the understanding of what forgiveness is and what it is not . Father , would you just give us the courage and strength to do what you've asked us to do , even in the midst of our weakness , and would you begin to bring healing where healing needs to happen . Where things are broken , would you be able to do amending work and would you begin to show us new things that we can be a part of the human pray Amen .