Forgivness

Introduction

Well, good morning. It’s good to be with you this morning. To stand before this audience and be invited by the elders to meet with you on this occasion. And it’s just a great joy for my family and myself. And I hope this morning will be beneficial to you as we study God’s word together. It was on April the 18th of 1942 that 16 B-25 bombers were launched from the USS Carrier Hornet. Their mission, which would be later called Doolittle’s Raid, was to uh to bomb military and industrial targets in Tokyo, Japan. The last plane launched that morning, there was a bombardier by the name of Jacob De Shazer. They were able to complete their mission, but as they were making their way to China, where they were supposed to land, they ran out of gas and they had to bail out.

Unfortunately, they bailed out into Japanese occupied territory. The entire crew was captured and they were taken to Japan. There they were separated and they were tortured. They were beaten. They were placed in isolation on very little rations. De Shazar fought back against his captors, and for that he was beaten even more, and his rations were cut even more drastically. But sometime during his imprisonment, uh, one of the guards gave him a Bible. And he began to read that Bible. Uh something he never read before. In fact, the Shazer would have probably claimed to have been an agnostic or even maybe an atheist until that time. But as he began to read, things started to change in his mind. And he was impressed by what he read in Paul’s writings in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, the great chapter of love.

And he determined, you know what? I’ve got to start to live by this. And when that clicked in his mind, things started to change, and his attitudes with his guards. And in turn, their attitudes towards him changed. They started treating him more fairly and even increased his rations. Well, when the war ended, Jacob kept reading his Bible. And when he got back to the States, he enrolled in a small Bible college. He finished in two years. He determined to be a missionary. And he wanted to be a missionary in Japan. And so for the next 30 years, Jacob de Shazar, once a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese army, preached to the Japanese about Jesus, about love, and about forgiveness. It is forgiveness that I want to talk with you this morning about.

I want to go to a passage of Scripture that’s very familiar to every one of us here. It’s not in Matthew chapter 6, and it’s called oftentimes the Lord’s Prayer. But in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus Christ is going to speak to his disciples on the subject, certainly a prayer, but in that prayer, there’s something very important for us to learn about. Matthew chapter 6, starting in verse 9. In this manner, therefore pray our Father in heaven. Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us in temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen. Now again, we are we often call this the Lord’s prayer. But why does Jesus pray this prayer? Well, if you were reading wrong, as our good brother read from Luke chapter 11, you find out that the disciples came to Jesus and they asked Jesus to teach them to pray as John had taught his disciples. Now I find that rather odd because here are the Jews coming to ask Jesus to teach them to pray. Prayer was all around them. If they’ve been raised going to the synagogue, they went to the house of prayer. They’d heard prayers there. If they were walking down the streets, they would have heard people praying in the streets. In fact, in Luke chapter 18, does not Jesus see two people praying in the streets?

They went to the temple. They would have heard the prayers of the priest, who often lifted those prayers out of the Psalms. And so here the disciples come to Jesus and they tell Jesus, Jesus, teach us to pray. What were they really wanting to know? It’s found in Matthew chapter 6, verse 6. For what they wanted to know of Jesus was how to pray privately. In Matthew chapter 6, verse 6, when you pray, go to your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Lord, teach us how to pray privately to our Father. And Jesus does that. And in the midst of this prayer, in the midst of this prayer that we call the Lord’s Prayer.

1. Forgive Us Our Debts

And Jesus says this. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Two truths that are linked together. And Jesus says, unless you have one, you can’t have the other. So first off, what does Christ say? He says, forgive us our debts. You know, I think we do a very good job when we lead public prayers to ask our Father to forgive us of sin. I think we do an excellent job in that. In fact, we may have prayers five minutes apart, and both those men will ask our Father to forgive us of our sins. Now, why is that? Well, it could be that we’ve made that statement, Father forgive us just a cliche. And that’s something we know as we were raised in the church, or maybe not raised in there, that we’ve got to throw that in there somewhere in that prayer.

And so we say that with real, really we’re not thinking about what we’re saying. Or maybe perhaps we think that we’ve got to wear God down, that he’ll finally forgive us. If we repeat it enough, he’ll finally forgive us.

We really are. We’re aware that we sin, that we fall short of the glory of God, and thus every opportunity we have to ask for forgiveness, we do that. But did you notice what Jesus does not use in that verse, in that passage? He doesn’t use the word sin, does he? He uses the word debt. Debt. And I find that interesting because that word debt in the Greek is only found one other place in the New Testament. It’s found over in Romans chapter 4. Turn to Romans chapter 4. Look at verses 2 and 4 there. Romans chapter 4, Paul uses this word debt that Christ uses here in Matthew chapter 6. He says, starting in verse 2, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but listen to what he says, but as debt. That’s debt. Now, what does Paul mean by that? Well, let me illustrate it to you this way. My first real job was in 1971 at my uncle’s standard oil gas station. Now, if you’re my age or older, you’ve heard of a standard oil gas station. Or they became later amico. I don’t think they even exist anymore. He paid me a dollar thirty-five an hour. I was rolling in dough. I was showing kids at school $5 bills. But you know what? When it came time for him to pay me at the end of the week.

He was not paying me out of the grace of his heart. He was paying me something he owed me. He was indebted to me. And so he owed me what I had earned in working for him that week. Now, when it comes to God, we are in debt to God, aren’t we? What do we owe God? First of all, what do we owe God? Well, do we not owe God total obedience? What do the wise men say on this occasion in Ecclesiastes chapter 12? Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man’s all. That we owe God our total obedience. Now let me show you what Christ says about that. Look in Matthew chapter 5. Christ says something about adultery. He shows us how we must be totally obedient when it comes to adultery.

In Matthew chapter 5 and verse 32, Christ says, but I say to you, whomever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality, cause her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery. What’s Jesus talking about there? He’s talking about the outward sign, the outward obedience that we have to have concerning not touching someone that does not belong to us. Outwardly, we must be obedient. But before he said that, he talked about the inward man also. Look at verse 28. But I say to you, whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Here’s not the actual act of physical adultery, but what takes place in the mind, the imagination, the fantasy, the inward man.

And Christ’s point is that adultery can take place outwardly and inwardly. And we must be obedient to God in both areas. We owe that to God to be obedient. But the problem is, we so often fail, don’t we? We so often fail when it comes to our obedience to God. Now, what can God do to us? What can he do with us? Well, first off, he could probably forsake us, couldn’t he? He could forsake us and give us up. Maybe he could have us thrown in debtor’s prison. You’ve heard of those? Debtor’s prison? Back in olden times, you couldn’t pay a bill. They would actually arrest you and throw you in debtor’s prison. Charles Dickens’ father was thrown in debtor’s prison on one occasion. And during that day and age, as they threw the husband, if they threw the leader of that family into prison, they threw his family in the prison.

Many times in Dickens’ novels, he would talk about some source of debtor’s prison because it had such an influence on him when he was young. You know, God could do that to us, couldn’t he? He could throw us in debtor’s prison and say, be gone with him, take him away. But thankfully, God can also forgive us. He can forgive us. And Jesus says, what do you need to do when you sin? When you owe that debt to God, you need to pray. Forgive us of our debts. God wants us to confess our sin. He wants us to pray to him. And him promising us to forgive us of our debts. If you’re still there in Romans chapter 4, look at verses 7 through 8 there. Paul quotes from David’s confession in Psalm chapter 32.

Here’s how David described what had been done to his sin. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. David speaks about being forgiven, or actually the word means sin away. My sin’s been sent away, David says. It’s been covered, draped. And God has not even imputed this sin to me, he says. Or maybe you have in your translations not counted or not taken into account. David says that’s what God has done for my sin. That’s what he’s done for me. He’s taken away that penalty, that just penalty that I’m due because of my debt. And he sent it away, he’s covered it. He’s not even counted it towards me. It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve sinned. It doesn’t matter if you’re addicted to your sin. It doesn’t matter if you like your sin or if you hate your sin. It doesn’t matter if you got caught or got away with it. It doesn’t matter if it’s private or public. God can forgive us of sin. He can set us free of the penalty of sin. But that doesn’t mean he set you free of the consequences of that sin. I think we’re mostly familiar with 2 Samuel chapter 12, aren’t we? As Nathan confronts David about his sin, about what he’d done. And Nathan tells David, God has put away your sin. The penalty of your sin has been arrested, it’s been put away. But David, you’ve got consequences you’re going to have to live with.

2. As We Forgive Our Debtors

And in verse 10 there of 2 Samuel chapter 12, Nathan goes through the consequences of that David is going to have to deal with for the rest of his life. What I’m telling you this morning is that God can put away your sin, but you still may have to live alone the rest of your life. You still may be financially broke the rest of your life. You still may have a disease that you brought on yourself the rest of your life. But God can put you away sin. And we see that with David. And we see the great statement that David makes about that. He can do that for us. He can do that for us. If we in turn do that for someone else. The second part of this prayer back in Matthew chapter 6.

As we forgive our debtors. You know, so important was what Christ said that he gave a PS to this prayer, a postscript. Matthew chapter 6, verses 14 and 15. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Folks, there’s a lot of things in scriptures that we might read and we might scratch our heads and say, What is God talking about here? What’s he mean by this? This is not one of those places. Jesus could not get any more clearer than what he says concerning our forgiveness of those who wrong us than what he says here in Matthew chapter 6, verses 14 and 15. You can’t get any clearer than that.

Jesus says that we must forgive to be forgiven. You know, Paul picks up on this in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Colossians chapter 3, verse 13. Bear with one another. Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive us, the Lord forgave you. And if we still don’t get the message, Christ gives us a parable in Matthew chapter 18. You know, sometimes I think we think those parables, oh, they’re for those people back there who lived during the days of Christ. No. There is much for them as it is for us today, aren’t they? That we might learn through a story, through an example that Jesus gives about forgiveness.

In Matthew chapter 18, we have the parable of the unforgiving servant. The man who owed a tremendous amount of money to his master. He couldn’t pay it back. The master forgave him of that debt. And then the man goes out and he shakes down, somebody owes him a, you know, just a few dollars, you might say. The master found out about that. The master found out what the servant did. He says in Matthew chapter 18, deliver him to the tortures until he should pay all that’s due to him. And then Christ gives us warning in verse 35, in Matthew chapter 18, so my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses. What does James say about forgiveness?

3. Forgiveness Releases Us From Our Past

For judgment? He’s without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. We must forgive. And when we do, three wonderful blessings come from it, I believe. First off, when we forgive, it releases us from our past. For some reason we’ve got in our mind that when we forgive, we must forget. You ever heard that before? Forgive and forget. Let me ask you this. When Christ forgave, when God forgives, does he forget? Does this just divine amnesia? Does an all-knowing God forget what you’ve done? No. He doesn’t forget. But what he does is that he chooses not to remember. That’s two different things. Forgetting and not remembering are two different things. Forgetting is passive. It just happens. Not remembering is active. It’s something that you choose to do.

And what God does for us is that he chooses not to remember. Not to remember. We have passages about this, don’t we? How about in Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 34? Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 34. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I will what? Remember no more. Isaiah 43, verse 25, I am he who blots out transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

God’s saying, I’m not denying that you’ve sinned. But what I am saying is that I will never use this sin against you again in the future. I will remember no more. And he tells us to do the same thing. If you’re sitting there this morning and say, I can’t forgive so-and-so ever because I can never forget what they’ve done to me. God has not asked you to forget. He’s asked you not to remember. And when you actively don’t remember things that’s happened to you, you can get past those things. And you can be released from your past.

4. It Refreshes My Soul

That’s what our God wants us to do. If he wanted us to forget things, he would never give us these supercomputers we sometimes call brains. That remember every little detail. But not remembering what our Lord wants us to do. So it releases us from our past. It also refreshes my soul. When I forgive somebody, what I’m doing, I’m promising that person, I’m not going to dig this up any longer. That’s buried, that’s done, and I’m not going to go digging up bones.

5. Forgiveness Restores Relationships

And I’m certainly not going to sit around and pout about it for the rest of my life. That so and so he did this to me, and he said this about me one time. When I say I forgive you, that’s it. We start from that point and go on then. And so it releases me from my past, it refreshes my soul. I’ll tell you another thing that forgiveness does. It restores relationships. Ernest Hemingway wrote a book one time called The Capital of the World. And in that book, he told the story of a father in Spain. He had a son by the name of Paco. The father and the son had a terrible argument, and eventually the father threw Paco out of the house. Well, time has gone by now, years perhaps, and the father missed his son, and he wanted that son back in his life.

He went all over Spain looking for the man, couldn’t find his son, but finally said, I’ll put an ad in the paper. And so he goes to the largest newspaper office in Madrid, Spain, and he puts this little little ad in there. And it says this. Here are the exact words. Paco, meet me at the Hotel Montana on noon on Tuesday. Always forgiven, love Papa. Paco is a very popular name in Spain. And the next morning, when that father went to meet his son. 800 Pacos had showed up. They were all looking for their father. And looking for forgiveness. Did not forgiveness restore the relationship between Joseph and his brothers? Genesis chapter 45. Was not forgiveness what restored the relationship between the father and the younger son who left there in Luke chapter 15.

You see what forgiveness does. And we may be estranged from somebody in our family right now, or somebody we even worship with, and how forgiveness can restore that relationship. Isn’t a wonderful thing that that can happen? By just simply forgiving someone who’s wronged you. That’s the blessings that come from forgiveness. Well, you may ask, what if he never asked to be forgiven? Must I forgive someone who refuses to repent? Does God forgive us? If we refuse to repent? Ask yourself that. If I am to forgive as God forgave, Colossians chapter 3, verse 13, then I need to take from God’s example how he forgives. Does not God forgive those who humble themselves, who confess what they’ve done wrong, and ask for forgiveness? Yes. I in like minor manner ought to do the same.

Now I certainly don’t carry any grudges or bitterness against that person that never asked me. And I must be prepared, even as the Father there in Luke 15, running towards that person who comes back and wants forgiveness to give that person the forgiveness that they’re wanting. It’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Forgiveness. If we just practice it more in our homes, in our churches, our families, so many problems would be resolved. I truly believe that. We just forgave our brother. If we just forgave our neighbor. If we just forgave our spouse, think of how many problems could be resolved. You know Paul says in Romans chapter 1, in that long list of terrible things that men like to do, including that list are the unloving, the unmerciful, and the unforgiving.

Conclusion

How would you like to get to the end of your life and the Lord say, I’m sorry. Because you wouldn’t forgive. I’m not going to forgive you. Well, I started this morning talking about Jacob the Shadzer. Let me tell you about one other man. Jacob DeShazer has been 30 years preaching in Japan. And over the course of those 30 years, a Japanese man by the name of Mitsu Fachado came across the tract that Jacob had written, read it, wanted to know more, so he finally went and heard this man preach. Mitsu Fachado. Probably never heard of his name before, have you? Jacob DeShazer was shot down because he was part of Doolittle’s raid. Doolittle’s raid was actually a response to what took place on December 7th of 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese lieutenant commander who led that raid. The one who cried out, tore, tore, torah, when they caught the Americans by surprise was a man by the name of Mitsu Pachada. Mitsu Pachada, who was raised a Buddhist. Became what we would call a Christian. And then he spent the rest of his life preaching about Jesus, about love, and about forgiveness. May we do the same. Let’s bow in prayer. Our God and Father, we’re so thankful that we can approach you this hour. We’re thankful, Father, for the blessings that we enjoy as your people in Christ. We pray, Father, we never take these for granted. Understanding always that all our life is made possible by what Jesus did for us. The love that was shown, the great blessings that we enjoy as your people.

And we pray, Father, that we always live a life that is pleasing before you. We pray at this time, Father, if there are things that we’ve done, there are things that we have wronged you in that we might be forgiven of. And we pray, Father, that we may be people that offer forgiveness to those who have wronged us. May we be your people that are truly lived by your book, be guided by your word, as we journey through this life to the home that you have awaiting for us. In Christ’s name that we pray. Amen. We’ll break for a classes, I believe, this time.