Real Forgiveness | Douglas Wilson

the text this morning is from ephesians chapter 4 verses 31 and 32. these are the words of god let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind one to another tenderhearted forgiving one another even as god for christ's sake hath forgiven you our gracious god and father we now gather around your word and we pray that your holy spirit would be pleased to work in our hearts so that we would see the exact places that you would have us apply these words father i pray that no one would come out of this service with any fog the ambiguity operating i pray we'd all know what you called us to we pray in jesus name and amen the message this morning is on real forgiveness i thought we we could use with an academic topic everyone knows that the christian faith revolves around the forgiveness of sins but because there's a gospel logic involved in this and not just uh aristotelian logic gospel logic the first become the first or last and the last first that kind of logic because there's a gospel logic involved in this that eludes every form of carnal reasoning we have to be careful to understand what's actually involved what is real forgiveness what does it mean to receive forgiveness what does it mean to extend forgiveness so let's consider the text there are two ways of conducting life together one is the enemy of life together so we should not call it the way of conducting life together but rather the way of attempting to conduct life together but always blows apart so this is the enemy of life together the other way is the true friend of life together one drives apart and the other knits us together one explodes things and the other knits things together the way that explodes families and churches and denominations and workplaces and businesses partnerships friendships is the way of keeping score with the intention of winning keeping score with the intention of winning it is the way of bitterness wrath anger clamor slander and malice that's one that's verse 30 31. this all sounds pretty bad but we have to remember that all of these plug uglies travel under an alias we're christians and so we don't call these things those names we call them something else so people who are in the grip of this call themselves righteous and they have a deep commitment to being right and this approach makes koinonia community impossible so the devil has a problem and that pro you might say well of course the devil has a problem he's the devil but his central problem is that he is self-righteous the central problem the devil has is that he thinks he's right and that's because his uh standard is his own mind his own the way he sees that the way he sees the world the way he sees things is righteous by definition and that's the way to find yourself at odds with everyone and everything the alternative here is kindness and tenderheartedness kindness and tenderheartedness verse 32. and the way that kindness and the way that the kindness and tender heartedness live out is by forgiving one another forgiving one another and doing so in exactly the same way that god has forgiven us for the sake of jesus christ so there's one template which is malice bitterness clamor strife scratching their eyes out that's one way and but and of course you don't call it by a negative name what you do is you call it by uh the principle of the thing or uh but i'm but this is the this is the central issue i tell you and and so on we call it by other names and then there is kindness and tenderheartedness now i pointed out in the first service that this verse verse 32 was the first if not one of the it was one of the first if not the first verse i ever memorized as a child i memorized it not because i was a godly little boy but because my mother quoted this verse all the time there was a pack of little kids and she would say constantly be kind one to another tender hearted forgiving that was her favorite verse i think or perhaps another verse that was her favorite was from numbers when moses was speaking to the people and he said be cert be sure your sin will find you out that was also one of my first memory verses be sure your sin will find looking at our family um i i suspect our kids first bible verse memorized was depart from me ye works of iniquity because that's what nancy quoted all the time so be kind one to another tenderhearted we've heard it a lot be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another but what does it boil down to it boils down to forgiving one another and that means we need to know what forgiveness is what is it and what it isn't what are the substitutes that we offer in instead of real forgiveness and what does that real forgiveness look like more importantly what does it taste like what does forgiveness taste like what's the aroma of real forgiveness we often feel like we are asking god for his forgiveness when what we are really doing is we are asking him to accept our excuses this is what forgiveness is not it is forgiveness seeking forgiveness from god is not asking god to accept your excuses and because we know that we're to forgive others as we were forgiven as per the text we often seek to forgive others by agreeing beforehand to accept their excuses whenever possible but unlike ourselves they better have a good one so but we have this rough treaty worked out look uh the we often bump into each other i'll accept your excuses if you accept my excuses that is a patchwork job that's not gonna hold anything together for long it's it's a jury rigged repair so you accept their their excuses they accept your excuses and we stagger on together but asking others to accept your excuses or accepting other people's excuses is not the way of forgiveness our problem is that when living together with other sinners we frequently run smack into what can only be called inexcusable what do you do if your whole method of getting along is to accept excuses and then somebody up and does something inexcusable it can't be excused there's no excuse for it and because it's inexcusable our scheme with the excuses doesn't work or suppose you do something that's inexcusable and every excuse you frame everything you come up with just sounds incredibly lame because what you did was inexcusable well you're looking for an excuse to cover it but what you need is forgiveness to deal with it not an excuse to cover it but forgiveness to deal with it forgiveness deals with sin and sin by its very nature is inexcusable sin if if excuses could cover sin then jesus didn't have to die if excuses could deal with sin then when jesus prayed in the garden is there any way for this cup to pass from me god could have said well excuses will do it good excuses will do it creative excuses will do it you don't have to go to the cross the reason jesus had to go to the cross is because sin is inexcusable but sin is not unforgivable those those those are not identical uh conditions you have done something inexcusable but that doesn't mean it's unforgivable forgiveness deals with sin and sin by its very nature sin by definition the thing that makes sin sinful is the fact that it's inexcusable so what's inexcusable is not thank the lord unforgivable so let's make a few distinctions one the first distinction i want to make is the difference between pardon me and forgive me suppose you accidentally back into someone at fellowship hour and you make them spill their coffee you naturally say pardon me or excuse me you're you're backing up someone was coming at you and you stepped back and you knocked their coffee over them by this you mean to say that you did what you did to them in a way that was entirely unintentional it was completely unintentional and they respond accordingly don't mention it no problem the accident was an accident you see it was an accident they see it was an accident everybody knows it was an accident and so they extend a cover for the excuse they accept the pardon me they accept the excuse me so the accident was an accident and it was therefore excusable now you were responsible for the accident but you weren't guilty you're responsible for the accident that you um you don't ex look around for someone else to say pardon me you're the one that did it you're the one that bumped into them so you're responsible for the accident and so you accept responsibility by seeking their pardon right pardon me excuse me you're responsible for the accident and you accept that responsibility but you are not guilty of plotting it on purpose but suppose instead of that scenario suppose you looked across the fellowship hall which we're going to build lord willing but not so you can sin in it suppose you looked across the fellowship hall and there across the hall you saw your enemy swanking around over there as pleased with himself as only a conceited pharisee can look and so you lowered your shoulder and ran straight into him knocking him clean over coffee and everything now under such circumstance and let's let's say you did that and then you did a little touchdown dance under such circumstances the only reason you would say something like pardon me would be if you decided to taunt him on top of everything else your pardon me would be sarcasm it would be twisting the knife it'd be kicking him in the head in this kind of case your behavior is inexcusable all right it's inexcusable but that doesn't mean that nothing can be done about it suppose your friends saw what you did and let's say they uh took you aside and explained the way of the lord more accurately to you that's not the way of fellowship that's not what the sermon was talking about yes he used that illustration but not as a pattern doesn't mean that nothing can be done about it the inexcusable is not the same kind of thing as the unforgivable but this this brings us up short and the reason it brings this up short is because of that surreptitious deal that we all have going you accept my excuses i'll accept your excuses when the inexcusable is done to us right when the inexcusable is done to us you go into business with a fellow christian you have some sort of business arrangement with a fellow christian and his incompetence or sloth or dishonesty costs you 25 000 that's a big ticket item or your spouse is unfaithful to you or your child erupts into a little volcano of ingratitude just all you know in gratitude the behavior is inexcusable and it is manifestly sin sin at the top sin at the bottom sin from front to back sin from side to side everything about it is sinful when that kind of thing erupts if we've been living our lives with the patchwork of accepting and receiving and extending excuses we are helpless we don't know what to do because the person let's say let's say the person who knocked over the person he thought was a pharisee and people took him aside and remonstrated with him and rebuked him and admonished him and let's say that he accepted it all he he took it to heart and he understood the air of his ways and let's say god gave gracious repentance to this person and they bring him so he could bring him over to you so that he can seek forgiveness he comes over to seek forgiveness and he says would you please forgive me for running into you knocking you over and and you say well you're a christian so you say of course i have to forgive you but that's the surface there's other stuff going on underneath right you say you say the right thing i forgive you and then you say because of the stuff underneath but i'm just curious why why did you do that now why did you do that now what happens here is that we are sometimes fishing for the excuse we're asking him to say something like well i've had a migraine headache for the last three days and i just lost my cool or i was up half the night doing it and you know and i just you know i don't know what came over me or um i had way too much coffee this morning and you know it can be pretty lame and we will accept a pretty lame excuse just to keep us in excuse world we like staying in excuse world because we know that sometimes our excuses are pretty lame and we and we want to we want people to accept that coin we want to we want to be able to con continue to conduct transactions that way but suppose he's been well instructed by the people who rebuked him and he said well to be frank um i i knocked you over because i've been hating you for six months i just i just and then there you were just acting like you belonged in church and and so i decided to i decided to take you down a few pigs and and my friends have explained to me that hate that kind of hatred is wrong but that was why i did it as i hated you and i wanted to hurt you and i see that i did um would you please forgive me for hating you for hurting you for wanting to hurt you and for knocking you over and you go and you ask for a minute to go deal with this why why do you have to go to process this because you're telling yourself i can't forgive that he's telling me he did it on purpose he's telling me that with his eyes wide open he tried to do it to me on purpose how can i forgive that but see this is the thing that's the only kind of thing you can forgive right the other stuff that's inadvertent the other stuff that you can excuse that but you can't forgive something that wasn't inexcusable the thing that makes it in the thing that causes it to come before you in need of you extending forgiveness is the is the very fact that there was no excuse for it and and when someone comes to you and just lets go of all excuses like the prodigal son coming back to his father i've sinned against heaven and against you no excuses absolutely no excuses that's true repentance and sometimes we struggle with it because he's trying to move us from the realm of excuses where we're where we're fairly comfortable to the realm of forgiveness which is where christians are supposed to live so but this is a fallen world and things can give even get a little bit more complicated than this simple but complex the sin part is complicated the forgiveness part is straight up the middle but there is another category what if we don't have something that is purely wicked or purely accidental suppose for a moment that it's that it's a mixed bag suppose for a moment that this guy has had a bad attitude he has hated you for months but also suppose he's had a migraine headache for three days and all you know all the excuses are there the excuses are there and the sin is there the inexcusable thing is there and then the extenuating circumstances are also there suppose it's a mixed bag yes you snapped at the kids but it was at the end of two days of a roaring migraine headache yes you said some things to your wife that were rude and thoughtless but she was the one who started the argument and she's the one who would not let it go and uh you asked her three times to let it go and she would not let it go so finally you said some rude and thoughtless things yes you sent your you sent that email to your boss that you regret sending but it was two in the morning and the beer you'd had made you careless so there's an extenuating circumstance you offer that and someone says well the beer part is a problem also that's that's a separate problem you made yourself care okay but let's say there's some element of extenuating circumstances and some element of inexcusable behavior and the way we live our lives that's is oftentimes where we find ourselves is it not so in this situation there are extenuating circumstances but we should all remember two things about this the first is that we will tend we have a tendency to stretch our legitimate excuse part to cover over the sin part so we've got this mixed bag where there's the the extenuating circumstances part and then there's the sin part and we want to get the cover from the excuses to cover the sin also we all have that natural tendency but the only thing that can actually cover sin is the blood of jesus christ the sin part cannot be covered by anything other than the blood of jesus because if it could then jesus again didn't have to die but every person in this room every last person in this room provided you're descended from adam has this tendency we have the tendency to want the excuse that we oftentimes have yeah i did have a headache or yes i was up all night or yes we want that excuse part to cover over the sin part and when apologizing we lead with the excuse when apologizing we lead with that excuse bob sorry about yesterday i had a long day and i didn't really mean what i said and bob often responds in kind because he wants to play the same game when he needs to he says oh well because you didn't mean it forget about it because you didn't mean it forget about it in other words because the you who said those things was not the real you the you who said those things the you who did those things was not the real you because that's the case he can let it go but the only reason people put up with something that lame is because they they know that they're going to be in need of that process themselves sometime have you ever um have you ever seen someone in a in the grip of carnal reasoning apologize for something on television the ceo of a corporation that got busted for something or uh some politician caught in a scandal how does he apologize he says things like um the things that i did that i take full responsibility for the things that i did are not in accord with my core values yes they were that's exactly that's why you did them you were revealing your core values when you uh um be sure your sin will find you out right out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks jesus says so what happens is we want to say i want to put some distance between me the one offering the apology and the thing that i did there was this other creature there that did that thing and so i want to distance myself from that my core values are are over here apologizing and this wretched creature whoever he was that's not in accord with the virtuous person that i am i remember years ago many decades ago now where uh there was a kid in jail in lewiston he killed his parent murdered his parents and he was in jail for having murdered his parents and he heard via the grapevine that that some of the kids in his high school class he was a high school kid some of his kids in his class were talking about him surprise right and he wrote a letter to the editor he wrote a letter to the editor and he said in the letter to the editor i am basically a good person in other words yeah okay we've got this thing over here but i am a good person because i am the one making the evaluation i'm going to be my own standard that is a pathological case but all of us know what what it's like to do that all of us are tempted to to do that and it's likely that we're tempted to do that kind of distancing between the real me the real me who loves virtue and the wrong me the the sinful me who is not to be really identified with me but the sinful you is identified it that is you and that's why you need to be forgiven that's why you needed to go to the cross that's why your essential you your rebellious essential you needed to be crucified with christ on the cross but in the ex in excuse bill people want to say oh i'll put distance i'll just put arbitrary distance between the you who's apologizing and the you who did those things and because you who did those things isn't the real you i will let it go that's one problem we want the excuses to cover the sin part the second problem and this is a real one the second problem is that we want our excuses to be way stretchier than our neighbor's excuses we think that our excuses are way stretchier than our neighbor's excuses and again if you're descended if you're in this room and you're descended from adam this is the tendency this is how the devil's gonna come at you you're going to see because well you're you're aware of all your excuses right you're aware of that headache you're aware of the pressures you're aware of what someone told you and someone else told you and someone else told you you're aware of everything that came down to the point where you erupted when someone erupts at you you're not aware of anything that happened all you see is the final behavior all you see is the offense so you think well your your excuses are stretchier than his excuses his excuses have to be pretty lame because all you see is the end result but remember all they see about your behavior is the end result that's all that they see about of you they don't know of any and in fact you you know that you know that they don't see all those things which is why you're tempted to lead with them that's why you want to rush in there to explain but as c.s lewis pointed out one time the chances are excellent why because you're descended from adam the chances are excellent that our neighbors excuses are way better than we tend to believe the our neighbors excuses are probably better than we would want to believe and it's also true that our excuses are way lamer than we want to think they are so we ought to budget for that we when we're seeking forgiveness when we're receiving forgiveness from god and we're seeking forgiveness from other people and when we're extending forgiveness to to other people you want to know that your adversary is the excuse and you want to be looking at your excuses there you want to be looking at your excuses with a jaundiced eye you want to be looking at their excuses with a charitable eye while at the same time forgiving the inexcusable part so when we handicap the competition between us and our fellow christians we are not being nearly as objective as we think we are when we are saying well i'm going to wait my excuses i'm going to i'm going to weight my sin we tend to have our thumb on the scale we tend to judge other people more strictly than we judge ourselves jesus talks about this kind of thing all the time all right judge not lest you be judged for the judgment with which you judge you shall be judged in matthew 7. this is why jesus tells us that this is the gospel logic this is the kind of gospel logic that he's talking about that i mentioned at the first so what we want to do is realize that the golden rule is a gospel logic sort of thing the first will be last and the last first is a gospel logic sort of thing forgive and you'll be forgiven is a gospel logic sort of thing so all of this is a variation on the golden rule all of it is a variation on the golden rule the basic christian response is to forgive as we have been forgiven in our text the apostle paul is simply repeating what the lord taught us when he taught us to pray every time we pray the lord's prayer which we're going to be doing in just a few minutes at the end of every message at the end of every sermon in our liturgy we sing the lord's prayer together now every time we pray the lord's prayer we ask him to forgive us the same way we forgive others that's what we're asking the way many christians live the room actually ought to become a lot quieter when we get to that part do we and the only reason we are able to sing it uh is we are not we stopped reflecting on it we've we've done it so many times that we think oh the lord's prayer we sing the lord's prayer isn't it wonderful to sing the lord's prayer but when the lord gave us this prayer in in matthew 6 this part of the prayer forgive us as uh treat us the way we treat others forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us that's the one part of the prayer that jesus circles back around on to give commentary on we're going to consider that in a few minutes but what are we actually asking for when we say lord forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us this is what we're saying lord please doubt the sincerity of my repentance the way i doubt his lord dismiss my excuses with a wave of your hand the way i dismiss his excuses lord please keep a hidden tally so that if i ever sin in this area again you can bring everything up again and throw it in my face the way i do the way i do with him in jesus name i pray amen given the attitudes that we often harbor toward fellow christians the words of the lord's prayer are words to choke on given the way christians often treat other christians these are words to choke on why why don't we choke on them well it's because we've rubbed them smooth we made them palatable with music right we set it to a lovely tune and now we can sing it without thinking about it lord smash me like a bug like i want to smash him like a bug lord treat me the way i treat him lord mull over my offenses the way i'm all over his offenses lord have a match please would you please have imaginary conversations in your head with me at the end of which i'm a devastated ruin the golden rule teaches us that we should do for others what we wish they would do for us we should do for others what we wish they would do for us this is in the same spirit but there's a higher level of danger in it here we are asking god to treat us the way we treat our brother if i give my brother an orange he might give me an apple but if i give my brother a stone when he asks for bread and then i ask god to treat me in the same way i may found out i may find find out that the stone he gives is one that could crush me i can find out that this god can give a way bigger stone than my brother ever could and why on earth would i ever ask for that why would i request it why would i set it to music that's just you just don't want to do that right this is the parable uh where the master has the slave where he he forgives the slave a kajillion dollars right he's and the slave was going to be sold and he was going to be sold off his wife and his children and family sold off to pay pay something for toward the debt and the master had mercy on him and just forgave him and then the slave went out and found another slave and started to choke him for a much smaller amount now how would he how would this first slave defend himself if we called if he had an opportunity he would say oh i was forgiven this great amount so i decided to do a sweep out of all the accounts receivable that i had and then i could give something to the master who kindly who so kindly forgave me but the master wasn't in it for the money the master wasn't in it for the money the master was setting an example he didn't want the slave to pay him back he forgave the money the money was the forgiven part he forgave the debt he wanted the slave to imitate him and so the he this slave got the wrong end of the stick on the illustration why because the illustration is the gospel logic thing the master forgives the debt and he wants the slave to go and do likewise he wants the slave to become the same kind of person to the people who owe him money that he was with the slave but the slave went out and said no i'm going to go squeeze these people for what they owe me so i can pay something back to my master i can show him that i'm being financially responsible or whatever excuse he cooked up but the master was very angry with that and he showed it demonstrated that the person who received forgiveness there did not comprehend what he was receiving when he received that forgiveness and so this helps us address the question how is this consistent with sola gratia how's this consistent with salvation by grace alone jesus says when he's commenting on the lord's prayer he says for if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you but if you forgive not men if but if you forgive not men they're trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses so if you refuse to forgive your brother it's not the case that you're failing at earning your salvation it's not like god said here's the latter up to heaven and you climb the ladder up to heaven by forgiving other people forgiving other people is not the good work that you do or the good series of good works that you do in order to earn your way into god's good graces no but it's what's the what is the case is if you refuse to forgive your brother you are revealing to the world and to your lord in heaven that you have no understanding of what salvation by grace through faith actually is you're demonstrating not that you had salvation and then it was taken away from you because you didn't measure up what what you're demonstrating is that you don't have any comprehension of what's going on at all you you say that you've responded to the gospel but if you respond to the gospel if you sign a little card or you go forward at a meeting or you grow up in the church and you've been baptized forever and you know you've been you're a professing christian but if you live a life of no forgiveness if you live a life of no slack no forgiveness no grace toward others then you're demonstrating that your profession whether by water or revival meeting going forward whatever it is you're demonstrating that you don't get it you don't get the gospel because if you get the gospel you give the gospel if you get forgiveness you you give forgiveness if you receive forgiveness the very nature of the case requires you to give it so if you refuse to forgive your brother you're revealing to the world that you have no understanding of what salvation by grace through faith actually is and this brings us back to verse 32 again and be kind one to another tender hearted forgiving one another and this is he's telling christians to do this because christian let's be frank christians might not right he's telling christians to do this because there are pressures that would prevent us from doing this all right forgiving one another even as god for christ's sake hath forgiven you now there are complications complications and and there are some thorny issues here how how can i forgive someone uh let's say uh yes it was lots and lots of money or how can i forgive someone if it was lots and lots of money and they're not sorry how can i forgive someone if they haven't sought forgiveness because forgiveness routine ordinary forgiveness is a transaction right when someone comes to you and says i wronged you i sinned against you would you please forgive me they're what they're asking for is a transaction they're soliciting from you a promise and and if you forgive them you are promising them that you're not going to resurrect this offense and throw it in their teeth the next time the next time something goes wrong in your relationship so if someone loses their temper with you and they come back and seek to seek your forgiveness and you extend your forgiveness then let's say six months later they lose their temper again and you say you're like you are you're always like this you remember last june when you did this before and you bring it up and throw it in their teeth well if you do that now you have to go seek their forgiveness because you broke your promise you promised that you wouldn't do that that's what forgiveness is so forgiveness is a transaction a person seeks a promise they solicit a promise i was wrong would you please forgive me you give them that promise and that's the the transaction is complete that's the way forgiveness is supposed to operate that's how it operates within the boundaries of a christian community but and this is the important thing this life is sometimes messy and there are sometimes people who need to receive your forgiveness who have not requested it they are still either too proud to admit their fault or they're too confused or too incompetent or whatever it is they're too muddled up to acknowledge that they sinned in this way so if someone steals your car do you have to run out into the street and yell down the street after them i forgive you no it doesn't work that way but how does it work do i have to do i have to forgive people who have not yet sought forgiveness and the answer is yes and no you can't complete the transaction that i was just talking about until they are willing to to engage in the transaction it takes two to conduct that transaction you can't you're pushing the buckle into the seat belt but you don't hear the click until you're good with each other he's sought forgiveness you've extended it you've sought forgiveness if you need to and he's extended it and and the relationship is restored that transaction is what restoration of relationship depends upon in a christian community but there are times when the person is fully convinced in their own mind that they did right or they knew they did wrong but they're too proud to admit it they don't want to or they they're afraid that if they admitted that uh they were wrong in this case that you would come after them in other cases all sorts of ore they didn't sin against you but they sinned against your kid and you've got a mama bear thing going you know let's say there are all sorts of complications so what do we do jesus on the cross said father forgive them for they know not what they do now jesus jesus is not forgiving them there but he's asking the father to forgive them he's asking the father to forgive them and he's asking the father to forgive people who were obviously demonstrating no sign of repentance no they were they crucified him they were do a number of them were taunting them taunting him and so jesus says father forgive them for they know not what they do how does that part work if the person is not seeking forgiveness what you need to do is do business with god where you complete as far as it's as far as it's possible with you as far as your end of it is concerned you've forgiven them you wrap the whole thing up in a package you put your forgiveness for them in a box and you wrap the box like it was christmas and you have the box sitting by your front door so that if they ever show up at your house you've got it right there you just you don't have to go hunt for it it's not up in the attic it's not you don't or you don't have to run out to try to get by it you know it's it's there and it's wrapped and it's ready to go you are like the father in the parable of the prodigal son who's looking down the road right he sees his son coming afar off it says the father is on tiptoe we that that parable i think is uh badly named we call the parable the prodigal son it some people call it the parable the self-righteous older brother i think it should be called the parable of the running father the parable of the father who is eager to forgive and was there was there something to forgive yeah this wastrel of a son he gets gets his father's inheritance and he goes down the road and he buys drinks on the house and spends it on uh prostitutes so the older brother says he he he does as bad a job with his godly father's inheritance as it would be possible for a loser son to to it's as bad as it gets and the father is god has got that present by the front door the fatted calf the hired band the party everything is right there ready to go when the sun shows up on the horizon the father doesn't have to think about it he doesn't have to mull it over he doesn't have to go in the back room and get grace all right you need to get the grace to forgive as soon as you're aware of the offense that's when the great that's when you get the grace that's when you wrap the present and in this life might not be the person might not ever seek forgiveness they might die before they seek forgiveness they might move to another part of the country they might die owing you an apology owing you a visit where they seek forgiveness but as far as you're concerned it's all wrapped up as far as you're concerned it's all there and this is where we have to circle back to our text we must remember that christ is all recall the words forgiving one another even as god for christ's sake hath forgiven you every recipient of forgiveness needs to be eager and i want to italicize that word eager needs to be eager to extend it not just willing to extend it not just okay under duress i'll do it because i'm a christian uh you don't say things like yes i forgive you as a christian but i'll never forget it you know you don't talk like that you need to be eager to extend it and if you cannot extend it to your brother whom you have seen how can you receive it from god whom you have not seen but we're convinced of better things concerning you where can and why am i convinced of better things concerning you if you want to be a member of a joyful cheerful christian community and you're here are you not you're you're you're in the midst of a joyful vibrant happy cheerful christian community if you want to be a member of a joyful cheerful community then you want to be a member of a community where these things are understood and routinely practiced and you can't want everybody else to practice it and you get you you do the free rider thing you know everybody else has to conduct forgiveness and i'll just be a part of this cheerful uh band without having to do it myself well it won't be too long before their cheerfulness and their joy starts to irritate you because you are out of it you're you're trying to live in accord with the law of another realm christ's kingdom is characterized by this this is what god wants his people this is what he wants our communities our koinonia fellowship to be like and that means that everybody needs to practice it everybody has times when they need to seek forgiveness everybody has times when they need to extend forgiveness and we need to stop acting like something monstrous or strange or a blue comet happens when someone admits their sin if we have a traditional worship service we have a liturgy that respects an honor to honors god but koinonia fellowship is not based on dressing up real nice it's not based on a necktie and taking showers it's not based on grinning at people and saying praise the lord it's based on forgiveness the bedrock the bedrock of true godly joyful consistent christian community is this forgiveness of sin unless you've received forgiveness of sin and unless you extend it you can't be part of this and if you have and if you do then it's going to follow you everywhere you go it's going to be characteristic of your life our father and god we thank you praise you for your kindness to us i pray as we consider these things as we meditate on them that you would be kind to us and help us to be mindful of what we mean when we say these words to you the words that jesus taught us to pray this meal is not a dour meal this is not a sad meal in first corinthians 10 paul says the cup of blessing which we bless is it not communion in the blood of christ the bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of christ for those who know jesus this is a cup of blessing this is a table of blessing this is sharing in the blessing of god how is it blessing it proclaims the forgiveness of all our sin are you a sinner do you need cleansing then come jesus died for sinners he died to make you completely clean but how do we know that our sins are completely paid for we know they were completely paid for because jesus rose from the dead this is a law of nature in fact a law of the universe completely innocent righteous people cannot die if adam had jumped off a cliff right after he was made he could not have died i'm not sure what would have happened but he could not have died because sin is what makes us susceptible to death even jesus could not die until our sins were covenantally laid on him jesus went down into death by the weight of our sin but when each one of those sins was paid for when complete justice had been served there was nothing left keeping jesus dead jesus rose for the same reason most things fall down gravity this is why the bible says that if jesus is not risen from the dead we would still be in our sins but christ is risen from the dead and therefore our sins are no more our sins are buried in the deepest sea and can never be found they are removed from us as far as the east is from the west so are you baptized then come come to the table of blessing come with joy and make sure your kids know that this is not the table of being good this is not the table if you better not screw this up this is the table of christ risen from the dead this is the table of we are forgiven it's the table of relief and blessing so come and welcome to jesus christ in the night in which jesus was betrayed he took bread and he gave thanks so let's give thanks together our god and father we praise you and we thank you for jesus we thank you for his body broken his blood shed to make us completely clean thank you for this great blessing open our mouths now so you might fill them with this good these good gifts we praise you and thank you in jesus name amen what's the what's the secret sauce of of moscow what's the secret sauce of christ church people ask this maybe you're new you're visiting you're wondering he said actually i came here to find out it's real forgiveness that's it it's just jesus it's real forgiveness though and it's an utter commitment to have nothing with excuses no deal making just forgiveness just clean hearts real joy which is real community and real blessing that's what it is that's what you've received so go and give it the grace of our lord jesus christ the love of god the father the fellowship of god the holy spirit be with you all now and forever and amen

Channel: Christ Church

Views: 6,724

Keywords: Christ Church, ChristKirk, Doug Wilson, Douglas Wilson, Canon Press, CrossPolitic, Toby Sumpter, Moscow Idaho, Moscow, Psalm Singing, Reformed, Calvinist, Reformed theology, CREC, Blog and Mablog

Id: Xi_-JKCob1Y

Length: 47min 34sec (2854 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 17 2021