Must I Forgive and Forget?

Introduction

Good morning. Welcome to all. So glad to see everyone. Glad to have our visitors with us. If you will, go ahead and turn your Bibles to Hebrews, the eighth chapter, Hebrews chapter 8. We have some men who are handing out outlines for the lesson. So if you’d like one of those, they have blanks where you can fill them in, and you may benefit from that. Last week I preached a lesson answering a question on forgiveness that one of our members asked me, and they asked me to preach on it, and I wanted to preach on it. And it was what I mean, it was, must I forgive those who do not repent. Today I want to do somewhat of a follow-up on that and answer another question regarding our forgiving of others.

And it is, must I forgive and forget. You know, when someone has wronged us and we have forgiven them, does that mean that we have to forget about it? Like God does, because God forgives and forgets. And indeed, he does. God remembers our sin no more. Once he forgives a sin, he remembers our sin no more. In Hebrews chapter 8, the writer of Hebrews, starting in verse 6, is arguing that we now have a better covenant than we’re under, that we’re under. And that the old covenant has been replaced by this better covenant. Verse 6, but now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as he is also mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.

Because finding fault with them, he says, and then he quotes from Jeremiah chapter 31. This great prophecy where God through the prophet Jeremiah is prophesying of this new covenant, this better covenant that would come. And in that quote, down in verse 12, it says, For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. That’s a quotation from Jeremiah 31, 34. Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. And this has a special application in the new covenant. Chapter 10 also quotes this verse in verse 17. It quotes that same verse from Jeremiah. So God will remember our sins no more. And we are commanded to forgive like God forgives. Paul said, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

And remember that great parable Jesus told at the latter part of Matthew the 18th chapter of this king who is settling accounts with his servants. And one was brought to him who owed them owed him this massive amount of money, and the king forgave that debt. Then that same servant went, and there was a fellow servant who owed him a very small amount of money, comparatively, and that slave was unwilling to forgive his fellow servant. When word came back to the king, the king was angry, and this is part of what the king said in that parable Jesus told. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave in the same way that I had mercy on you. And of course, God is that king.

And we are the servant who we have incurred this massive debt with God. He has forgiven us of that debt if we are indeed in Christ and if we have turned away from our wickedness and followed the path of righteousness. And so we are now, we are obligated, really, to have the same mercy upon others that God has had with us. It’s pretty pretty tremendous. We talked about last week that Jesus told Peter, even right before the parable that he told in Matthew 18, that you don’t forgive someone just up to seven times. Peter thought that was a generous number. But up to 70 times seven. There needs to be no limit to how much we are willing to forgive others. And in Luke 17, 3 and 4, Jesus said, Be on your guard.

If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you saying, I repent, forgive him. And so I made the point last week. That have you gone to God seven times in a day and asked for forgiveness? Have you ever done that? I know I have. And so we need to, we need to imitate that for forgiveness of God and extend that to others. Yes, even seven times in a day. That’s a tall order, brethren. It’s not easy. But we are commanded to forgive like God forgives. Now, the question might then come up: well, must we forgive those who do not repent? Well, like I said, I preached on that last week, so I’m not going to go into that.

If you are interested in learning more about that, then the sermon is available on the website, or you can ask for a DVD or a sermon CD of that sermon. And so coming back to this thought that God remembers our sins no more, we are commanded to forgive like God, does that therefore mean that we have to forget the sins that are committed against us? There are some brethren that are plagued with feelings of guilt and doubts about their salvation because they feel like, well, I haven’t been able to forget about these sins that people have done that I’ve forgiven. I’ve tried to forget them and I can’t forget them. Now it might be that you don’t have that issue and you’re not maybe plagued with that doubt, but it might be that you need some clarification on this topic.

And as we unpack this question, I think you’re going to enjoy this because we’re going to see a lot as we go along about God and a lot of practical applications for ourselves as well. And we’re going to answer the question, must I forgive and forget? And really, you could answer that question with a yes or with a no, depending on how you define forget. But if you define forget or remembers no more, as is actually the terminology, if you define it like the Bible defines it, then the answer to this question, must I forgive and forget, is a definite yes. But we have to just properly understand the question. So I’ve already answered the question that the whole sermon is based on. Really, the sermon title could have been, What does it mean to forgive and forget?

1. What Does It Mean for God to Forget Sins?

But once I kind of realized that, I didn’t want to go in and change all the sermon, the slides and everything. So we’ll just stick with that with that title. Now, this has to all begin with what does it mean for God to forget sins? Before we can understand what it means for us to remember others’ sins no more, we have to understand what it means for God to remember our sins no more. And it doesn’t mean that God literally forgets and cannot recall those sins if he were to try. That’s not what it means. One passage that I think can help us to see this is in 2 Samuel. You remember David had committed this great sin with Bathsheba, and then tried to cover it up by murdering her husband.

And Nathan the prophet came to him and rebuked him sharply for what he had done, and told him that as a result of this, there are going to be some physical consequences in your life. That the sword will not depart from you until the day you die, and that God will raise up an adversary from within your own household. And then we read there in verse 13 and 14, then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. Now, what would you call that? Repentance. Confession. And Nathan said to David, the Lord also has taken away your sin. What would you call that? Forgiveness. The sin is now removed. David will not have to suffer spiritually for what he has done, though there will be physical consequences ongoing.

And that’s a lesson in and of itself. Nathan continues, you shall not die. However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die. I simply make this uh or give this example to make the point that when God forgives a sin, or in this case, took his sin away, specifically was the language, it doesn’t mean that God totally forgot about the fact that David had sinned. Because David is going to continue to suffer some consequences physically for what he had done. You see? I mean, really think about it. For us to say or think that God literally forgets and gets this case of divine amnesia, where he cannot, if he were to try, recall those sins.

Uh really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Think of all the sins in the Bible. Just in the Bible, that we know that we’re forgiven by God. Here’s one. Or think of all the sins of David. He repented of all of them. Right? Or we think of Peter denying the Lord three times. He repented of that. Well, God forgave and forgot those sins. Well, he didn’t literally forget them in the fullest sense. Because if that were the case, then we would know something God doesn’t. Because we know about those sins, and God, I guess, forgot about them. You see how that doesn’t line up. So what does it mean that God remembers our sins no more? It remembers it means that he remembers our sins no more against us.

In Ezekiel 33 and verse 16, here talking about a man who turns from his wickedness and pursues righteousness. It says none of his sins that he has committed will be remembered against him. He has practiced justice and righteousness.

Romans chapter 4. Here we don’t have the language of God remembering our sins no more, but we do have language of forgiveness. Very vivid language. A very clear description of what forgiveness is. And Paul is here arguing that we are justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law. And what this means in the context, the works here are works of merit, whereby one is trying to earn his salvation. That is clearly defined in verse 4. But in verse 5, it says, But to him who does not work, that means to the one who is not trying to earn his salvation by his own rule keeping alone, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is accounted for righteousness. Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.

Then he quotes from the 32nd Psalm when he says, Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. The word impute there is uh, or as it is rendered in the New American Standard, the take into account, is from a Greek word that was a technical term in commercial dealings for entering a debt on a ledger. So imagine visa giving you a call. Oh no. It’s them again. So you answer the phone. And they say, good afternoon, Mr. or Mrs. So and so. I want to inform you that you have incurred a massive debt with visa. Okay, thank you. I knew that. We also want to inform you that we have decided to clear your account.

That’s not going to happen. But let’s just say that happened. Your balance is zero. That’s what God in Christ Jesus has done for us. He has cleared the record so that the balance is zero. So that, yes, the sin occurred. Yes, we incurred this tremendous debt, like that parable in Matthew 18, that 10,000 talent debt, which would really be in the billions if you were to look at that amount of money and put it into present-day dollars. It would be in the billions. We have incurred a huge debt with God, and through Christ Jesus, God tells us, I have cleared your record. He knows that the sins happened, but he does not impute them to us. He does not take those sins into account. The word is legislamai.

It means to reckon, to consider, to count, to hold in one’s mind. It’s the same word in 2 Corinthians 5.19, not counting their trespasses against them. For God to, on the other hand, remember our sins means for him to take them into account, as Jeremiah 14, 10 says, he will remember their iniquity and call their sins to account. This is a purposeful active remembering. That’s what we’re talking. Actually, there’s a slight difference between saying that God forgets and that God remembers no more. I won’t go into that, but I put a lot of thought into that and decided not to use it, but but maybe that’ll give you a little something to chew on. You know, brethren, we should relish the fact that we have been forgiven.

If indeed we have. Now, I’m not saying that if you’re not living right, then you need to sit there and soothe your conscience and make yourself feel like you’ve been forgiven. I’m not saying that. If you haven’t been living for God, then shame on you. I’m talking about somebody that is a baptized believer that is faithfully serving the Lord, that realizes he’s going to be saved because of the grace and mercy of God, but that God expects him to serve God faithfully. That individual can stand with confidence and say, I know that my sin is forgiven. And in the Old Testament, especially, we have some of the most sweeping promises of the forgiveness of God. Micah 7 19, he will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot.

Yes, you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. How deep is the sea? Deep. Who’s going to go down there and retrieve those sins? Nobody. Because God cast them into the depths of the sea. The point is they’re gone. They’re gone. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103 and verse 12. How far is the east from the west? Far. Really, really far. Isaiah 43, 25, I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. A beautiful idea of God just wiping away the transgressions. In fact, in chapter 44 and verse 22, I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud and your sins like a heavy mist.

Return to me, for I have redeemed you. I just get the picture of you. Look up and you see this cloudy sky. And imagine that just being wiped out, and all you see is crystal clear blue skies. Do you think about and meditate on the fact that because of what Jesus has done for us, that we can stand before God as pure as a newborn baby. That God can view us as having no sin, that we can be pure without spot or blemish. That’s a beautiful thought. We feel so dirty and so sinful. And brethren, we were sinners, but we are no longer to be sinners anymore. It doesn’t mean that we’re perfect now. But when we sin, we correct it and we stand before God justified in Christ Jesus.

2. Remember Our Offenders’ Sins No Longer Against Them

It’s time to rejoice about that. Amen? Amen. So, having established what it means for God to forget sins, now we can understand what it means for us to forget someone’s sins, to forgive and to forget, or to remember those sins no more. Now, actually, no passage specifically says or uses the language that we are to forget someone’s sins when we’ve forgiven them, or to remember those sins no more. That particular language is not used towards us, it is used of God. But we already established up front that we are to forgive like God forgives. So if he forgives and forgets, we must do the same. Well, it doesn’t mean that we are to erase those sins from our memory altogether. Besides, and you can be turning to Genesis 45, that may be impossible.

I mean, you can try and try and try to erase some things that people have done from you from your mind, and you can’t. I forget things all the time when I’m trying to remember. But there are some things you might try to forget that you can’t, right? And you think of Joseph. How could Joseph ever forget that his brothers sold him into bondage? How could he ever literally forget that, you see? Well, there’s no way. In verses, well, I just want to set this up a little bit. Joseph had been sold by his brothers as a 17-year-old young man. They hated him. They wanted to get rid of him. There was even discussion of killing him. But instead, he was sold to these Ishmaelite traders that took him into Egypt.

And so, uh, long story short, he becomes second in power in the most powerful nation in the world at that time, Egypt. And when the seven years of plenty had come and gone, and the seven years of famine were going on, people were running out of grain. And so the only place that had any was the place that had been preparing. That’s Egypt. So Joseph’s own brothers come to Egypt. They come to Joseph. They need food. Now it’s been several years. They don’t recognize Joseph. He’s much older now, and he’s all dressed in his Jew uh Egyptian garb and so forth. But he recognizes them and he tests his brothers rather extensively. I believe he was trying to see if they were good men. And once he was convinced of that, he reveals himself to his brothers here in Genesis chapter 45, verse 1.

Then Joseph could not restrain himself before all these who stood by him. And he cried out, make everyone go out from me. So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and he wept aloud. And the Egyptians in the house of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his brothers with tears pouring down his face, I am Joseph. Does my father still live? Oh, what if you’re the brothers of Joseph? Oh. He could squash us like a bug. What’s he going to do? He says, but his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence. Ever been so nervous you couldn’t even think of your name? And Joseph said, verse 4 to his brothers, please come near me.

So they came near. Then he said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Oh, wonder still what’s going through their mind. But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here. For God sent me before you to preserve life. He tells them not to be angry or grieved with themselves, because he wasn’t angry or grieved with them anymore. He had forgiven. Had he literally forgotten what they did, though? He just told them what they did. So it doesn’t mean that we have to literally forgive in the sense of not being able to, I mean, literally forget, in the sense of not being able to recall it anymore. But just like we studied in God’s forgiveness a minute ago, what this means is that we must remember our offenders’ sins no longer against them.

And that’s what we see Joseph here doing. He remembers those sins, but he’s not remembering them to their detriment and harm and destruction. In chapter 50, I just want to continue this story along because it’s so heartwarming and powerful.

Jacob and all of the brothers and the rest of the people were all moved down into Egypt. Joseph moved them there. And Jacob lived for 17 years there. We read that in chapter 47 and verse 28. So it’s now been 17 years since the event we were just talking about, where Joseph forgave his brothers. Now Jacob is dead. And his brothers are afraid. See, people are not used to experiencing forgiveness from others. And when you extend that to them, it will be an experience they may have never seen before. But I want to start reading there in verse 15. When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, Perhaps Joseph will hate us and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him.

So they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, Before your father died, he commanded, saying, Thus you shall say to Joseph, I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin, for they did evil to you. This is 17 years after he’s already told them that he forgave them. So they go on and say, Now therefore, please forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father. That’s what the messenger was communicating. And Joseph went, I mean, wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face and said, Behold, we are your servants. Now, verse 19. Joseph said to them, Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God. But as for you, you meant evil against me.

But God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive. Now, therefore, do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones. And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them, which I want to suggest is part of true forgiveness. It’s not just, well, I don’t hate you anymore. It involves comforting and speaking kindly. This was his chance. Because he couldn’t really have crushed them like a bug before.

3. Not Bitterly Dwelling on Offenses

So now I can do whatever I want with these knuckleheads. But instead of doing that, he doesn’t remember the sins any longer against them. And that is the point. And we learn from that and from these other things we’ve been looking at that forgiving, forgiving and forgetting means at least three things. First of all, it means not bitterly dwelling on offenses. Hebrews 12, 14, and 15, pursue peace with all men. Which men? All of them. And the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God. That no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled. Not even a root of bitterness needs to be in your heart. You gotta uproot it.

Because the root can cause the little twig to just pop out of the ground. And that’s where it all starts. You can’t stew on it. Have you ever heard of this word? Is you maggi jujung nainermech? I don’t know if I pronounced it right, but I probably did it better than you could because I practiced it. That’s not an English word. It’s not a Greek word or a Hebrew word. It is an Eskimo word. And according to Ministers Research Service, when the Moravian missionaries went to the Eskimos to teach them about Christ, they discovered that it was difficult to explain forgiveness because there was no word for forgiveness among the Eskimos. So they had to compound one. And this 24-letter word means not being able to think about it anymore.

4. Not to Lay Guilt on the Individual

I mean for forgiveness. It doesn’t mean that you totally forgot about it necessarily, but you just don’t dwell on it. You don’t stew on it. Clara Barton, the founder of Red Cross, was asked one time of an offense that someone had done against her years before. The person asked, Do you remember that? She said, No. I distinctly remember forgetting that. It’s a deliberate forgetfulness. Where we’re not going to let it just sit in our minds and trouble us anymore. You can’t keep the birds of negative thoughts from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair. So, do not bitterly dwell on offenses. Secondly, forgiving and forgetting means not to lay guilt on the individual. Don’t hold the sin over their head, don’t bring it back up as a manipulative, cruel attempt to remind the individual or as a weapon to use against them.

If you’ve forgiven it, let it be, as we say, water under the bridge. Bury the hatchet. Sometimes we bury the hatchet, but we leave that handle sticking out. So that we can yank it out and use it anytime we need to. Bury that hatchet. I knew a married couple, these were baptized believers, years ago. The wife committed adultery against her husband. She confessed in tears of what she had done. And I believe she repented.

5. Treat the Offender as if the Sin Never Happened

He browbeat her and used what she did to shame her and guilt her. Now, I’m not saying that what she did is acceptable at all. He could have divorced her. He had the scriptural right to do that. Nor am I saying that it was wrong for him to ever mention it again. I don’t believe that once you forgive and forget, then you can’t ever bring it up for any purpose. But you don’t bring it up to hurt the person ever again. I think really that’s the point. Thirdly, forgiving and forgetting means to treat the offender as if the sin really never happened. To regard the sinner with the same love, compassion, care that you would as if he never or she never committed the sin. That doesn’t mean there may not be consequences for what they have done.

But it means you’re not just going to hold a grudge against them. Love does not act unbecomingly.

Whereas the New American Standard says, does not take into account a wrong suffered. I think that’s the most accurate. In fact, I know it is because I’ve looked at it and what the Greek says. That is the most accurate and literal rendering of that actual Greek text there. And in that phrase, we have the same word, legislamite, that we saw in Romans 4 8, where we have the phrase, blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. It happened, but we’re not going to impute it to them. We’re going to remove it from that debt ledger. Why? Because we’ve forgiven it. That’s why.

Conclusion

And so, back to our question. Must I forgive and forgive? Yes. Yes, you must, if you want to be saved, if you want to be pleasing to God, if you want to imitate his grace and mercy and forgiveness, yes. But that doesn’t mean that you have to literally forget it where you could not recall it. It simply means that you no longer remember those sins against the individual. Indeed, as I said earlier, it is a wonderful blessing that we can be totally pure before God and appear before him innocent, as if we’ve never sinned. That’s the whole idea of forgiveness, brethren. It’s time to rejoice in that. But if you’re not a Christian, if you’re not walking in the light as he himself is in the light, then you do not have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ does not cleanse you from all sin.

And what that means is that in the day of judgment, if you are not a baptized believer, and if you’re not continuing to obey the gospel, that God will remember your sins. All of them. And you will have to pay for those sins. And the fact of the matter is we live in a wicked society. There is a world of iniquity all around us, and we live in, as it were, Babylon. And the Christians in the first century lived in Babylon as well. That parallel to the ancient Babylon, which was the Roman Empire. And in Revelation 18 and verse 4, it says, I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues, for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

He remembers those sins. You don’t want your sins on that pile. You want them to be cast into the depths of the sea. You want them as far as the east is from the west. You want them to be wiped as a thick cloud in the sky. Would you bow your head with me in a word of prayer? Our God and Father, we praise your name. We are unworthy. And though we do sin, Father, we realized, we realize now that you have purified us, that we can stand before you righteous and holy and justified. And we praise your name, because this is something we could not have done on our own. But it is only possible through faith in your son and through the grace and mercy that you have extended through him.

We could never deserve this. Father, we pray that you would teach us to emulate your forgiveness by forgiving others and remembering their trespasses no more against them. It is through your Son that we pray. Amen. Well, I’ve sort of already offered the invitation. If you’re not a Christian, today’s the day. It’s ready. The water’s ready. We’re ready. Are you ready? God’s ready. The Spirit invites you. It’s not our invitation. It’s God’s invitation. So why don’t you come? Why do you keep putting it off? What are you waiting for? You never know when this life could be just gone. Become a Christian today. It’s a life of hope and joy. It’s a life of forgiveness. If you want to become a Christian today, or if you’re a Christian who has not been walking in the light, then we invite you to come now.

And if we can assist you, if we can pray for you, or if we can baptize you, we’d love to do that now if you’d come as we stand and sing the song of invitation.