Forgive
Let’s open our bibles to the book of Ephesians, and find chapter 4 and while you’re going to Ephesians I will join you in a moment as I’m gonna go to Hosea and read again our series Scripture. This is our overarching theme… and it’s found in the book of Hosea, chapter 14 and verse 4… God tells His people… that when you repent and turn to him… he says, “I will heal their faithlessness , I will freely love them.” Now, I ask for grace as I turn to Ephesians to join you, and as I find chapter 4 where you should already be…
and now find with me verse 25. We’re gonna read 25 down to verse 32… it should take us to the end of the chapter. 25 Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. 26 Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and don’t give the devil an opportunity. 28 Let the thief no longer steal.
Instead, he is to do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need. 29 No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. 30 And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice.
Here’s the Scripture that’s on my heart this morning… it’s in verse 32…. 32 And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you, in Christ. And all of God's people said, Amen. Over the course of the last two weeks, we’ve learned that God Fully loves. He desires faithful love from his people, and last week we learned that living in perfect love requires intentional effort to love God and to love others well, even in the face of fear and uncertainty.
And we learned that fear never stands a chance when we are living and pursing God’s perfect love. In laymen terms what that means, is that we, as God’s children, pursue holiness in our lives. John reminds us that perfect love is complete love. It’s love that is whole. It’s without measure… and it’s a love that is available in it’s entirety and fullness to us through Jesus Christ. So when we take the knowledge that God truly and fully loves us without measure, right, and we take faith, and we couple our faith with repentance.
What we find is that this union brings us forgiveness. And so this morning I’d like to talk a little about forgiveness.. But before we get to forgiveness, let’s look at the requirement of forgiveness.… What’s the requirement for forgiveness… It’s simply this…. Paul tells the Ephesians… that Kindness, compassion forgiveness must be, In Christ. Two words are the requirement. In Christ… everything we do must be in Christ. When we woke up this morning, our first breath of grace must be in Christ.
When we lay our heads down on the pillow filled with the days joys and sorrows of today and already carrying the worries of tomorrow, we must “in Christ” yield them to his calming hand. The moment a sinner looks to Christ, the burden of his sin rolls from off his shoulders. If Christ has washed you and clothed you in scarlet, and delivered you from sin, then your eyes must stay upon the one who went to the cross and made a way..
That’s the requirement, For Love, That’s the requirement, for kindness, That’s the requirement. for compassion and forgiveness… the requirement begins “in Christ”. There is no other substitutes…. And when we come to Christ with repentance on our hearts, and a desire to turn from our old ways… there you will find a savior who’s ready and willing to forgive. I found a definition on forgiveness this week and it makes my heart tender…
It said this: Forgiveness is to surrender the right to hurt others in response to the way they’ve hurt us. Where could you find a better definition when you think of Jesus? Can you imagine, Jesus, laying upon the cross, Stripped, bleeding, humiliated. Being nailed to the cross and in pain and agony, but with kind, and compassion bursting out of every wound, and in humility, looking into the eyes of the ones hurting him, and saying with the very precious life giving breathe he had left, Father, forgive them…
because they do not understand what they are doing. Can you imagine what kind of compassion and love, and kindness Jesus has, to pray blessings over the one hurting him. But yet, in His love, and in his forgiveness, Jesus is hoisted up for the world to see…. Look, world!!… it’s Love on a stick!!… but people don’t see it when they are blinded by their own selfishness… When we are blinded by our own selfishness and greed and desires and preferences, they will try with all of their might to hurt those they feel that are taking away thier comfort…
isn’t that the way the world works. Isn’t that the life we’ve been saved from? Isn’t that the life that has been washed away in the crimson tide? You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours… but if you stab me in the back, I will stab yours. There’s no difference to the evil in this world and to the selfishness of this world when it comes to those hoisting love on a stick.
But just as they hoisted love they also hoisted thief's and robbers on a stick as well…. I guess the mindset is this… we are no respecters of persons… we will crucify sinners and saints alike. But for those who have come to love Jesus, they see the cross as a beautiful thing. The cross and crucifixion upon calvary is the most beautiful moment to the Christian. Yes, it pains us to see our beloved Lord in agony.
Yes, it hurts to watch him struggle to breath…. But without the cross and the perfect sacrifice to atone for our sins, there can be no other way to the Father… and without a way to the father there can be no access to faithful love. Jesus says, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If we want to taste the sweetness of kindness, and the warmth of compassion and the grace of foreignness, then it must come, personally by one means, and one means only…
it must come through being, in Christ. That’s the beginning to forgiveness…. Jesus showed it on the cross as he was being nailed to it… It’s easily defined as…to surrender the right to hurt others in response to the way they’ve hurt us. Isn’t that calvary? Jesus surrendering the right to hurt others in response to the way they hurt him? Here’s the greatest hindrance to a Christian… One of the greatest hindrance to the Christian, is a Christian who creates suffering more than they seeks to love those who are suffering.
I believe, that when hurt comes, one of the greatest issues within a Christian is when it wants to take that hurt and churn it. They want to agitate it and before long, hurt turns into bitterness. Bitterness is the butter of the enemy… And when we have bitterness on our hands, we can’t cling to Jesus. We cannot hold onto both. But God gives us forgiveness… Forgiveness is when the salve of grace can come and take all of sin, and hate and bitterness and by faith and grace it gives us the ability to come, and to cling to Christ.
If you feel you’re struggling to walk with Jesus or to forgives others as Christ has forgiven you, perhaps you need grace. More, and abundantly sufficient grace. Paul tells the Colossians: Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. I do not know how to put this next word, that I am going to say. There must forgiveness of others or there cannot be salvation; at the same time you must not do it from compulsion; you must do it freely.
Remember, God told us in Hosea, I will freely love them, and I desire faithful love. Did you know you’ve got to love your enemy to get into heaven? I’ve said this before, but you can’t tell me anyone has Christ in then, yet they show the fruit of having no love for others. No kindness, no compassion and no forgiveness. You can’t force love, you can’t imitate love either… it must be a genuine love the world can’t reproduce.
It’s a love that money can not buy… listen church.. There is no grace where there is no willingness to overlook the faults of others. There’s no forgiveness for one, without that one extending it to another. John said, Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
You can’t receive forgiveness from God and not extend it to others. Paul said, forgive one another, as God has forgiven you. How do we extend it to others? We extend forgiveness through opportunities of kindness and compassion for them. Have you ever thought about the meaning of the word kind? Kind has two amazing meanings. First it means to show kindness, to be kind to others. It’s the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate to others.
But the second meaning, means this…to be similar and to mean to be alike To be kind means, to draw them into your group. Into the loving embrace of the church. It mean to be of one accord, to be of kind means that there is unity. Luke tells us in the early part of Pentecost that the early christians lived in unity. They lived to encourage, to show compassion for one another.
They came together and sold their belongings, and land and brought the money to the church. It's a sense of familiarity. It's a sense of unity, it's a sense of love. It was so no one in their group would suffer. Could you imagine right now, if every person who calls themself a member of this church, sold every single possession that they own, and sold everything that they had, and then they brought the money to the church, just to make sure that everyone in the church was living in unity, and now one had more than the other.
I often think about that, that we are called to be kind, we are called to be kind to those who are around us, we are called to see the marginalized, and those who are the least of these, we are called to love and to be compassionate. Is that not the second thing that we learned in our Scripture today? Paul says that we are to be kind and we are to be compassionate to one another?
What does it mean to be compassionate? What does it mean to show compassion to one another, to show compassionate moments of our life? It means that we show sympathy and empathy for others. It means that when we see them in a situation that we know that could be a situation of bondage, we are tender hearted, we are soft hearted, we are sensitive to what they are going through, we are sensitive to what they are dealing with.
And when we look upon a brother or sister with a caring heart, a compassionate heart, and we have a desire burning within our heart to be christlike, and to bring them to into the fold to be of a kind, to be one one accord, what we'll realize is that we will begin to be who Christ has called us to be. God’s love must come into us, and through us.
Without hindrance to us wanting to control his love. Can I ask you something this morning… Does your life point others to the cross? It can. We need more forgiveness so that we can lead others to forgiveness. We need people who point life to life itself. Jesus. This week, someone sent me a song and it’s touched me deeply. I was sitting in my office praying for the message today and I began listening to this song she had sent.
She had asked me if she could sing it this week, and Of course, I said, you do what the Holy Spirt is leading you. I trust God and I trust you. And I do trust her. Gods anointing is on her life and she’s shining brighter today than she has ever before. You can tell she’s walking with Jesus… But as I was listening to this song that she had sent me, I began to focus on these words…
I wanna heart that loves everybody, even my enemies I wanna love like You, be like You, just like You did. That’s love. That’s love that points to the cross. A heart that’s willing to forgive is a heart that loves and points others to the cross. They point others to Jesus…. As this song plays… I simply ask, for you to ask… do I have this kind of love?
To forgive as I’ve been forgiven? The early Christians.. it says in acts 2: They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity. We take the elements because it represents the Lords Death… the body that was broken for you, and the blood that was shed for you… Holy God, We gather at this, your table, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, who by your Spirit was anointed to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, set at liberty those who are oppressed.
Christ healed the sick, fed the hungry, ate with sinners, and established the new covenant for forgiveness of sins. We live in the hope of His coming again. On the night in which He was betrayed, He took bread, gave thanks, broke the bread, gave it to His disciples, and said: “This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Likewise, when the supper was over, He took the cup, gave thanks, gave it to His disciples, and said: “Drink from it, all of you.
This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.” Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Matthew 26:27–29, Luke 22:19) And so, we gather as the Body of Christ to offer ourselves to you in praise and thanksgiving. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us and on these your gifts. Make them by the power of your Spirit to be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the Body of Christ, redeemed by His blood.
By your Spirit make us one in Christ, one with each other, and one in the ministry of Christ to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen. And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, let us pray: Our Father, who art 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. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, broken for you, preserve you blameless, unto everlasting life. As you eat this, Do so in the remembrance that Christ died for you, and be thankful.
The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, shed for you, preserve you blameless unto everlasting life. As you drink this, Do so in the remembrance that Christ died for you, and be thankful. Prayer.. may we point others to the cross. *