and be edified and change our lives for the better.
And it is in Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Amen.
The part of the chapter I wanted to look at there
was in starting in verse 12 where the Bible read,
put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved,
vows of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind,
meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another
and forgiving one another.
If any man have any quarrel against any,
even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
And the title of my sermon this evening
is Forgive Like Christ.
Forgive Like Christ.
Now forgiveness is a big part of the Bible.
It's one of the most principle things of being a Christian.
And it's also a very difficult thing for sometimes
for us to always take in mind because we have the flesh,
because we have the old man that does not want to forgive.
The old man does not want to pardon.
The old man wants to justify every wrong thing
that happens to him.
He doesn't want to let anything go.
He always wants to repay that which has done evil unto him.
But we see if you want to be like Christ,
if you really truly want to be a Christian,
what is a Christian?
It's someone who's like Christ.
Then you have to be able to forgive like Christ.
Go if you went to Jeremiah chapter 31.
You say, well, what does it mean to forgive?
Well, forgive would be similar to the word pardon.
It'd be similar to the word mercy.
But what's implied with forgiveness
is that there's a trespass.
In order for you to have forgiveness towards someone,
they have to trespass you in some way.
They have to do wrong unto you.
They have to do something you did not like.
They have to harm you, whether that's physically,
mentally, whatever, they did something you didn't like
that hurt your feelings, maybe even hurt you physically.
But we see the forgiveness is the pardon or the mercy.
Another thing would be forgetting.
The Bible says in Isaiah 43, 25,
I, even I, am he that blotteth out by transgressions
for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins.
So a part of forgiveness, according to the Bible,
this is my first point, is that it's forgetting.
It's forgetting what's been done unto you.
The evil, the wicked, whatever wrong has taken place,
you would need to forget that
if you really want to forgive that.
Says in Genesis, I'll read one other place for you.
It says, so shall ye say unto Joseph,
forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass
of thy brethren and their sin.
Now in Genesis chapter number 50,
we see Joseph's father dies, Israel, Jacob.
And when he dies, his brethren are worried
because they think that Joseph is gonna repay
all the evil that they had done unto him.
His brethren had sold him into slavery.
They were gonna kill him,
but then they just sold him into slavery,
went into Egypt into hard bondage.
And after their father had passed,
they thought, man, this guy is gonna lay into us now.
He may have gotten merciful unto us
because our father was alive,
but now we're really gonna get it.
We see Joseph has the right response.
He says, you know, I forgive the trespass of you.
He says, I'm not gonna do any evil unto you.
Why? He's just gonna forget it.
He's just gonna let it go.
He's not gonna harp on it.
He's not gonna bring it back to his remembrance.
The brethren are the ones that were having the problem.
They were the ones that were worried.
But look at Jeremiah 31, verse 31.
Behold, the days come, said the Lord,
that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
Reminds me of Ephesians chapter two,
where the Bible talks about us being a habitation of God
through the Spirit.
We are the ones that receive that new covenant.
We are the new house of Israel.
And this is what he's talking about in Jeremiah 31,
but skip down to verse 34.
So in talking to Christians,
those that would believe on Jesus Christ
after he was risen from the dead,
says in verse 34, and they shall teach no more
every man his neighbor and every man his brother,
saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me
from the least of them unto the greatest of them,
saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity
and I will remember their sin no more.
One of the most crucial aspects of forgiveness
is forgetting, is letting it go.
When you see bringing up some trespass
that someone brought against you,
when you just keep reminding them,
well, you said this about me, you said that I was ugly,
you said, you can't remember when you hit me the other day,
and you just keep bringing it up over and over and over,
the person's like, well, are you ever gonna
forgive me for that?
Are you gonna stop bringing it up?
Are you gonna stop bringing it to my remembrance?
Are you gonna stop holding it over my head?
Are you gonna stop just beating me and brow beating me
about how I kept doing this wrong thing?
If you wanna forgive somebody, you have to forget it.
You have to let it go.
And we see with Christ, you know what he does
with all of our sins, with all of our trespasses,
he forgets them all.
He's not gonna remember them.
When you stand before God in Judgment Day,
he's not gonna bring up every sin
that you committed today or yesterday or in the future.
He's not gonna remember them anymore
because it's all been forgiven through Christ.
If you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ,
he will remember your sins no more on Judgment Day.
Go if you would to Psalms chapter number 25.
And the Bible says in Romans chapter four,
it says, even as David all described it,
the blessedness of the man
undoing God and puteth righteousness without works,
saying blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven
and whose sins are covered.
It's a blessed thing when your sins,
when your trespasses have been forgiven,
when they've been covered.
Now he's not gonna see them anymore.
They've been covered.
You know, people though, they like to hold on to grudges.
They like to hold on to trespasses
that have gone into their lives.
When someone does them wrong, they want to repay.
They are gonna harbor ill will towards that person
and they're gonna treat them differently.
If you're treating someone differently
because of something they said about you,
because of the look that they gave you,
because of something they did wrong,
maybe they lied about you.
Maybe they stole something from you.
Maybe they said some mean comment about you.
Maybe they said something mean
about one of your family members.
And now you treat that person differently,
you haven't forgiven them
because the person that's forgiven them has forgotten.
They've let it go.
They're not thinking about it.
They're not dwelling about it.
And if you're dwelling upon it,
you really haven't forgiven it.
Forgiveness is not going around
and telling of everybody's faults.
Well, did you hear what so-and-so did to me?
Did you hear what so-and-so said on Facebook about me?
Did you see their post the other day
and you just keep bringing it up and up and up?
You're not forgiving your brethren when you do that.
Forgiving is forgiving.
But my second point,
if you wanna forgive like Christ,
is it's gotta be immediate.
It's gotta be right away.
That's what Christ was like when he forgave.
In salvation, it's definitely immediate.
Look at Psalms 25, verse 18.
Look upon my affliction and my pain
and forgive all my sins.
Go to Matthew chapter 14.
Let's go to Matthew chapter 24.
Now the Bible says that we want all of our sins
to be forgiven if you wanna go to heaven.
If you even break one of the least commandments,
you're guilty of all, you're guilty of going to hell.
So we need Christ to forgive all of our sins.
And whenever you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
all of your sins are forgiven.
And we see some examples of this throughout the Bible,
some earthly examples that illustrate the truth
of salvation.
Look at Matthew 14, verse 30.
But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid.
And beginning to sink, he cried, saying,
Lord, save me!
And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand
and caught him and said unto him,
O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
We see Peter when he walks upon the water
and he starts to begin to sink.
And he says, Lord, save me!
We see Jesus Christ just immediately stretches out his hand
and he saves him.
That's a picture of salvation.
That's an illustration of when a person calls upon
the name of the Lord, immediately the Lord saves them.
Immediately all their sins are forgiven.
Immediately he comes to their rescue.
We see that the salvation, the forgiveness of God
is immediate upon those that call upon his name.
Through faith, the Bible says in Psalms 32, verse one,
blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
It says in Acts 13, verse 38,
Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren,
that through this man, talking about Jesus,
is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins,
and by him all that believe are justified from all things
from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.
He says, look, you can't be justified.
Your sins can't be forgiven by the law.
You need to get the forgiveness of sins
that only comes through Jesus Christ,
only through his blood,
only through believing on Jesus Christ,
and immediately all of your sins are forgiven.
Immediately all your sins are forgotten.
You see, so Christ forgets them,
but not only that, it's an immediate forgiveness
that he'll give under those that call upon his name.
We even read in Colossians, in chapter number two,
it actually says,
And you being dead in your sins
and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
hath he quickened together with him,
having forgiven you all trespasses.
So the Bible makes it clear that he's forgiven
all of your trespasses.
You know, the Bible makes it clear that we also need
to confess our sins after we've been saved.
Once you've been saved,
even though all of your sins have been forgotten,
in the sense when you stand before God in the judgment seat,
he's gonna look at the blood of Christ.
You've been pardoned, you've been made a new creature,
that does not mean that we can just continue in sin.
What shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
God forbid!
Now, those that are saved, we still need to live holy.
We still need to live righteous.
Jesus Christ's expectation of a Christian is to be perfect.
You say, well, why do you teach your children to be perfect?
Well, Christ instructs us to be perfect.
The expectation should be perfection.
But you know what comes with that?
Grace is long suffering, God's mercy, God's patience,
God's love.
We see, if it wasn't for his long suffering
and mercy and grace,
we would all be like the Old Testament examples,
where when they committed fornication,
they died in the same day.
Where when they, you know, spilt it on the ground,
they died the same day.
When they lied unto the Holy Ghost,
they died that same hour.
We see, but through God's long suffering,
through his mercy, through his grace,
we can still receive the forgiveness of our sins
on this earth.
That he won't just chase and discourage with us with death
every time that we sin against him.
But it's important that we confess our sins.
Go to 1 John chapter number two.
So we know for salvation, he immediately forgets,
pardons all of your sins through the blood of Jesus Christ.
When you stand before him in judgment day,
none of your sins will be remembered.
And it's also the same after salvation
that when we confess our sins and forsake our sins,
God is ready to immediately forgive those sins
and to not chase us and scourge us, you know,
as much as we deserve many times.
Says in Proverbs 28 verse 13,
he that covereth his sins shall not prosper,
but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.
Look at 1 John chapter two verse one.
My little children, these things write unto you
that ye sin not.
And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous.
And he is the propitiation for our sins,
and not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world.
So the Bible is talking to the saved in 1 John chapter two.
And he's saying, look, if you go ahead and sin,
you still have an advocate with the Father.
Now in the Old Testament law, when someone would sin,
they would have to take a trespass offering
under the political priesthood.
They would have to take a lamb or a goat
or a turtle dove or something and offer it upon the altar
so that it could be in good standing with God.
So they can have, God would be pleased with them.
So God would not punish them severely
for their disregard of God's law.
It was a way to purify their heart towards the Lord.
It was a way for them to get right with God.
Now in the New Testament,
the Levitical priesthood has been done away with.
We don't have the Levitical priesthood.
We don't have a priest to go offer a bull or a goat.
We have one lamb, the sacrifice for all,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he's the advocate with the Father.
So if you want to be right,
if you want God to be pleased with you,
you only way to get there
is by going through your advocate Jesus Christ,
not through the Catholic priest,
not confessing your faults and your sins
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Going to him in prayer,
getting on your knees in your prayer closet
and confessing and forsaking your sins.
Look at 1 John chapter one.
Look back at just one chapter.
Look at verse number nine.
If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So the Bible makes it clear,
when we confess our sins, he is faithful.
He's always ready to pardon you.
He's always ready to forgive your sins.
He's faithful.
He's not gonna let you down.
We are the ones that let ourselves down.
When we don't forsake our sin,
when we don't confess and forsake the sins
that we've committed after we've been saved,
and if we want to be cleansed from all unrighteousness,
we need to go to him in prayer.
We see, what is Christ's response?
He's faithful.
He's immediate.
He's ready.
He's willing to forgive.
We see mankind is not always ready to forgive.
You know, when someone transpasses against you
and says someone lies about you,
when someone steals something from you,
when someone hits you,
if they were to immediately say, I'm sorry,
a lot of times our flesh is like,
no, I'm gonna ride this out a little bit.
I'm gonna give this guy a hard time.
I'm gonna say, no, I'm not gonna let that pass.
We see, if you wanna be like Christ though,
you gotta be faithful and immediate in your forgiveness.
You gotta be ready to forgive.
Makes me think of a story.
When I was, it was in sixth grade.
When I was in sixth grade,
it was the first class of the day,
and I was going into class,
and there was this kid,
and he said something mean to me,
or he made fun of me, I don't know.
And then he left all of his stuff on his desk,
and then he went to the bathroom.
And well, I thought it'd be a good idea
to take his notebook that had all of his material in it
and go hide it somewhere where he couldn't find it.
So I found like there's this big cabinet
in the corner of the classroom,
and there was this tiny little crack behind.
I just took his notebook and all of his stuff
and just threw it back there so nobody knew where it was.
And then I just went and sat down.
Later he comes in, he can't find it.
So he's like looking around, he starts asking.
And now all of a sudden it becomes this big inquisition.
The whole class is just like looking for this guy's notebook.
I mean, we're on a class search, the bell's wrong,
class has started, but instead of having class,
we're all just looking for this student's notebook.
And of course I know where it is, but nobody else does.
And I thought, well, I can't just immediately go find it
because then it'll seem a little obvious
that I'm the one that found it.
So I kind of like led somebody else over there
and I was like, maybe it's behind there, I don't know.
You know, and so he looks and he finds it.
Well, now all of a sudden the teacher, like I suspected,
is honing in on this kid that found it.
He's like, you must have been the one that stole it.
You must have been the one that took it.
And he's like, no, I didn't.
So she gets the whole class and she's like,
we're not gonna have class until the person
who put Logan's binder behind the cabinet confesses.
Until he confesses, we're not gonna have class.
You know what, I'm not saying a word.
I'm just saying death is fine.
And nothing's happening, so it's a few minutes.
The teacher starts to escalate the situation.
He's like, all right, the entire class is getting detention
unless the person confesses who stole the notepad,
who hid the notepad.
You know, at this point I'm like, I'm in too deep.
I can't confess at this point.
Well, some of the girls in the front of the classroom,
they're like, I've never had a detention.
So they start crying.
I mean, they're crying, they're like,
I've never had a detention, this isn't fair.
Why would I get a detention?
And I mean, I didn't know what to do.
But I just said nothing.
And basically the whole class is just wasted.
And eventually it kinda came out, some of the kids
figured out that I was the one that took it or whatever.
And so these girls are coming up to me at lunch,
they're like, please, can you just tell me that it was you
so I don't have to have detention?
And I just wouldn't do it.
Well, I went home that night and I felt awful.
I felt really bad about it, but I was like too afraid
to just confess, I was too afraid to just go
and tell the teacher.
And I broke down, I told my dad about it,
we talked about it for a while.
I basically decided, okay, it's right for me to just go
and tell her in the morning so that nobody else
would get in trouble.
So I get the bravery, I guess it was a word,
to just go and tell the truth in the morning.
I tell the teacher, I say, hey, I'm the one
that took the notepad, please don't give anybody else
the detention, just give me whatever I deserve.
And she's like, yeah, I knew it was you,
it's no big deal, just don't worry about it.
So nothing even happened.
She just wanted me to confess up.
She just wanted me to just tell the truth.
And when I did, she forgave it immediately.
Now that's the kind of response that Christ would give.
That's the type of love and forgiveness that Christ,
I don't know if she's as late as a Christian,
but I'm just saying this is an earthly example
that sometimes you fear something
that doesn't even really exist.
And if you just confess and forsake your sins to the Lord,
he's ready to forgive your sin.
He's ready to pardon you, he's ready to be merciful unto you.
Our God loves mercy over judgment.
He does not want to punish and discourage you.
Just like my children, when my children disobey me,
when they misbehave, I don't want to discipline them.
I don't want to spank them.
I don't want to beat them.
I want to be merciful and loving unto them,
but if they won't get it right, guess what?
They're gonna get beat.
They're gonna get the rod of correction,
but I want to be merciful unto them.
If they're willing to confess and forsake their sins,
a loving father should sometimes instill mercy,
should instill grace,
should be long suffering with their children.
Bible says foolishness is bound in the heart of a child.
So we see a child, he's bound to do wickedness.
If you have children, you know he's gonna do wrong.
So we have to instruct them in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord.
Go if you would to Luke chapter 17.
So how should we be as Christians?
If you want to have Christ's forgiveness,
if you want to be like Christ when you forgive,
you need to be willing to forget.
But not only that, we need to have the response
of being willing to do it immediately.
If you want to truly be like Christ,
we have to be ready to do it immediately.
Look at Luke chapter 17 verse three.
Take heed to yourselves.
If thy brother transpests against thee, rebuke him.
And if he repent, forgive him.
And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day,
and seven times in a day turn again to thee saying,
I repent, thou shalt forgive him.
And the apostle said unto the Lord, increase our faith.
I love that saying, increase our faith.
He's like, man, if he does me wrong,
I'm supposed to forgive him right away.
Even seven times in a day?
You better increase my faith
because that's how I feel in my heart.
That's not what my flesh wants to do.
My flesh wants to get back at my brother.
He wants to speak evil of my brother,
wants to retaliate against my brother.
What does Christ say?
Thou shalt forgive him.
Is that a suggestion?
Is that like, well, maybe you should forgive him.
He's saying, look, if you want to be like Christ,
thou shalt forgive him every single time
if he what, repents.
Now of course there is the condition, there is the caveat.
This guy is sincere.
I'm not saying when you go,
when your brother comes and he says,
yeah, I'm sorry you got offended
that I said you're a loser and liar and an idiot.
Will you forgive me?
That's not repenting.
We all know what repenting is.
It's not, you know, this half-baked apology.
You know, women can just see right through it.
If you give your wife a half-baked apology,
she can see right through that.
You don't really mean what you're saying.
And she's not gonna want to be able to forgive you for that
when you're not willing to just, hey, I truly repent.
I'm very sorry that I said that.
I made a mistake.
I didn't want to say that.
I didn't want to do that.
I'm sorry I let you down.
Will you please forgive me?
We see if it's coming from a place of genuine,
a genuine heart,
the other person is to respond in immediate forgiveness,
an immediate forgetting, an immediate,
yes, I'm ready to forgive you.
Says, go if you would to Leviticus chapter number five.
So, what did we learn?
We learned that forgiveness is forgetting.
We learned that forgiveness is many times immediate.
But the third point I have is that Jesus Christ
is willing to forgive the ignorant.
Says in Luke chapter 23 verse 34,
then said Jesus, Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do,
and they part as raiment and cast lots.
Not only should we forgive those that are repentant,
but we should have a lot of forgiveness in our heart
towards the ignorant.
We see that Jesus Christ died for the sins
of the whole world, not because we loved him,
but because he loved us,
and he has his forgiveness towards us
that he wants to shed upon us.
Look at Leviticus chapter five verse 18.
I'm sorry, verse 15, let's back up.
Says if a soul committed trespass
and sinned through ignorance
and the holy things of the Lord,
then he shall bring for his trespass
unto the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flocks,
with thy estimation by shekels of silver,
after the shekel of the sanctuary for a trespass offering.
And he shall make amends for the harm
that he hath done in the holy thing,
and shall add the fifth part thereto,
and give it unto the priest,
and the priest shall make an atonement for him
with the ram of the trespass offering,
and it shall be forgiven.
And if a soul sinned and commit any of these things
which are forbidden to be done
by the commandments of the Lord,
though he wist it not, yet is he guilty,
and shall bear his iniquity.
And he shall bring a ram without blemish
out of the flock with thy estimation
for a trespass offering unto the priest.
And the priest shall make an atonement
for him concerning his ignorance,
wherein he erred and wist it not,
and it shall be forgiven him.
So you see in the Bible, there's a specific rules given
about someone who would sin through ignorance.
What does that mean?
It means they didn't know the commandment of the Lord.
They didn't understand that what they were doing was wrong.
They didn't realize what they were doing
is trespassing against the Lord.
And when it comes to their knowledge,
either through their own study
or through the rebuke of another,
they're supposed to offer a trespass offering.
And the Bible says, hey, he's guilty.
Look at verse 17.
Though he wist it not, meaning what?
He knew it not, he didn't understand it.
It says, yet is he guilty.
So we see he's not necessarily pardoned from his iniquity,
but the fact is when he makes his offering,
he shall be forgiven him.
We see that the Lord is willing
to forgive those that are ignorant,
but he still had to make atonement for his sin.
We see he's not just forgiving the ignorant on a whim.
He's not just forgiving the ignorant just because.
They still have to make their sacrifice.
They still have to make their pardon unto the Lord,
but when they do, it's forgiven unto them.
So when someone trespasses against you
and they don't even realize it, this happens all the time.
People would say something mean about you
or hurt your feelings or take something from you,
and maybe they didn't even realize it.
Maybe they didn't even know that what they did
was they hurt your feelings.
When someone does that, we should be ready
to forgive them when they make amends.
When they say, I'm sorry, I did not realize
that was gonna hurt you.
I did not know that that was gonna harm you.
Go if you would to 1 Timothy chapter number one.
It says in Jonah 4, verse 11,
and should not I spare Nineveh that great city
where it are more than six-core thousand persons
that cannot discern between their right hand
and their left hand and also much cattle?
We see Jonah.
Jonah is a character in the Bible that's very interesting.
There was a city of Nineveh.
They were wicked.
They were murderous, according to the Bible,
at one point in their time of their history.
We see this as a bad people,
people that Jonah does not like.
He does not like this nation.
He does not like this city, as it were,
and the Lord is saying, do you not have any pity
on those people?
They don't even know the difference
between their left hand and their right hand.
They don't know the commandments of the Lord.
No one's opened the Bible and showed it unto them.
It'd be like today when Christians,
they listen to all this Fox News,
and they just hate Muslims.
They just hate all those that live in another country
that have never been given a clear presentation
of the gospel, that don't really know
the commandments of the Lord,
that have been led away in a false faith,
yet they just hate them.
They don't want anything to do with them.
They would love it if they just got nuked off the planet.
That's the spirit that Jonah had in his heart
towards the Ninevites.
He did not want them to be saved.
He wanted their city to be destroyed,
and even when God was merciful unto them,
he was angry unto death, as he said.
He's like, man, I'm so angry.
Obviously, he wasn't parallel to the gourd,
but he's like, I'm angry unto death.
We see that Jonah did not want them to be saved.
That's not the right spirit.
If you wanna be a forgiving person like Christ,
you wanna have compassion and mercy unto the ignorant,
unto those that don't know.
How many people do you go out and just show them the Bible,
and they get saved, and they say, man,
no one's showed it to me like that before.
I've never heard it explained that way before.
Having compassion and forgiveness on the ignorant
when you go and you knock on their door,
and you ask them, hey, if you were to die today
or 100% sure you'd go to heaven, oh, yeah, I know.
Yeah, I know.
It's by being a good person and going to church
and living a good life.
I mean, they're just sitting there lying to you,
being truthful.
Well, you should just forgive that person immediately.
Say, this person's ignorant.
They don't even know what they're saying.
Nobody's just clearly showing them with the Bible.
They're just contradicting themselves.
Maybe they're a little crass with you,
but you know what?
You should have forgiveness in your heart
towards the ignorant so that they can be saved,
so that you can turn them from the error of their way,
and not just the unsaved, even a Christian.
There's a lot of Christians today.
They have just pretty much no knowledge of the Bible.
They don't even understand half of the Bible.
They don't understand most of the Bible.
They might be saved.
They might think, they might know they're going to heaven,
but when it comes to most of Bible prophecy,
when it comes to most of the parables,
when it comes to most of the commandments,
they're very ignorant of the Bible.
And we as God's people, if we wanna be like Christ,
we should have forgiveness in our heart towards that person
because we once were a Christian
that didn't understand the whole Bible.
Look, I don't understand the whole Bible.
I'm not even close to understanding all the Bible.
None of us are that close to understanding the whole Bible.
We're all learning.
We're all growing.
And you know who shows me a lot of things in the Bible?
Man.
There's a lot of times I've learned stuff
from somebody preaching the Bible,
from somebody showing me something in the Bible.
So why would I get so arrogant and prideful
that I can't say, hey, could I show you this in the Bible?
You know, someone showed me this.
This is how I learned.
Could I just show you what the Bible says here?
Can I just teach you what I learned?
That's the type of person that Christ is like.
He had forgiveness and mercy on the ignorant.
Look at verse 10 of the chapter number one, verse 12.
And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord,
who hath enabled me for that he counted me faithful,
putting me into the ministry,
who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and a jurious.
But I obtained mercy
because I did it ignorantly and unbelief.
You see, Paul, if you met Paul today,
I think unfortunately a lot of Christians
would just write him off immediately.
I mean, this guy's a blasphemer, he's a persecutor,
he's injurious, but he was doing it ignorantly.
And you know what?
God had mercy on him.
The Lord Jesus Christ had mercy on Paul.
And what did he use Paul to do?
Oh, okay, just turn the whole world upside down
with the gospel.
So when you meet that person, that street preacher,
who's a blasphemer and a persecutor and a jurious,
maybe you could have some mercy on the guy.
Maybe he's just ignorant.
Maybe he's not a false prophet like we all presume.
Maybe he actually could be turned to the Lord.
Maybe he could do big things for the Lord.
We should have mercy and forgiveness towards the ignorant.
Now I'm not saying a guy who comes to you and says,
hey, have you heard the good news of Joseph Smith?
Can I teach you the Book of Mormon?
I'm not saying that you should just invite that guy
in your house and be super merciful.
Look, somebody that's preaching a false gospel
and knows what they're teaching, hey, reject that heretic.
You know, rebuke them with the Bible sharply
and after he, you know, doesn't hear it, just reject it.
I'm not saying just to bring anybody in.
What do we see as constant through the Bible
of those that are ignorant?
That they repent, that they bring their sacrifice
unto the Lord, that they're willing to change their mind.
They still at least are humble about their ignorance.
They're not just stuck in their false gospel
and their false wicked view.
Go to Matthew chapter five.
It's the last verse to look for this point.
But the Bible says, if our gospel be hid,
it's hid to them that are lost.
The people out there that aren't saved, they're lost today.
They're ignorant of God's truths.
Jesus Christ said to the woman in the well,
you know, he said, if you knew the gift of God,
you'd ask for it.
These people are not choosing to be saved many times
because they just reject the gospel.
It's because they don't know it.
It's because no one showed mercy on them
to open the Bible clearly and boldly proclaim the gospel.
There's so many people in this country, in this nation,
in this world that wanna be saved if you just show them,
if you just open your mouth boldly
and proclaim the gospel to them,
if you just make it clear unto them, if you make it plain,
if you'd have a tear in the eye,
he that goes forth and weepeth bearing precious seed
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him.
He that weepeth.
That guy has compassion in his heart.
That guy has love in his heart.
That guy sees the ignorance that I was ignorant one time.
I wanna get this guy saved.
Look at Matthew 5 verse 44.
But I say to you, love your enemies,
bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you and pray for them
which despitefully use you and persecute you.
You wanna be like Christ?
Well, when they lie about you,
when they beat you and they persecute you,
when they despitefully use you,
you know what you're supposed to be?
Blessing, blessing the guy, wanting him to be saved,
wanting him to turn from his wicked way,
wanting to love the person.
That's what Jesus Christ is emphasizing here.
Not necessarily saying that,
this doesn't say just love every person,
but when someone despitefully uses you,
when you have your personal enemy at work,
when they've lied about you on the job,
when they've talked dirty about you to their boss,
when they took your promotion that you deserve,
you know what you should do?
You should pray for that person and bless them
and encourage them and be like,
hey, I hope you succeed, brother.
I hope you do a great job.
How hard is that?
When someone lies about you and persecutes you,
but that's the type of person Christ was,
the type of person that Christ,
the forgiveness that Christ had towards others,
when they do something wrong unto you,
he would bless those that cursed him.
Go to 1 John, or go to Mark chapter two if you would.
So we've learned that someone who forgives forgets.
You see that Christ, he forgives immediately.
We see that Christ has much compassion
and love and mercy towards the ignorant.
But not only that, you see that there's,
with forgiveness, there's intercessory forgiveness.
Intercessory forgiveness.
It says in 1 John five verse 16, I'll read for you.
If any man see his brother sin a sin
which is not unto death, he shall ask
and he shall give him life for them
that sin not unto death.
There is a sin unto death.
I do not say you should pray for it.
So the Bible says, look, when you would see your brother
commit a trespass and it's not even necessarily against you,
that you would pray for them that God would be merciful
and forgiving unto that person.
They didn't necessarily even do anything wrong to you.
You just see them overtaking a default.
You see them commit a sin against another person
in the church.
You see them doing something wrong to somebody else.
And instead of just going around and gossiping
about that person and telling all the evil about them,
the Bible says that you would actually pray for that person.
You would say, hey, did you hear what so-and-so said?
That's gossip.
We don't wanna continue gossip with more gossip.
Why don't you pray for that person?
Say, I asked all the person to do something wrong.
I'm gonna pray for them.
I hope God's merciful unto them
because God will repay our sins.
And if someone's in an unrepentant sin,
God's gonna cloud up and rain on that person.
You know what you should want for your brother?
Is to pray for them so that God would be merciful unto them.
You know why?
So that when you fall, when you slip,
when you do something wrong, when you trespass,
there's people praying for you,
for God to be merciful unto you,
for him to forgive you and your trespass.
Look at Mark chapter two, verse one.
And again, he entered in Capernaum after some days,
and it was noise that he was in the house.
And straightway, many were gathered together,
and so much that there was no room to receive them.
No, not so much as about the door.
And he preached the word unto them,
they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy,
which was born of four.
And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press,
they uncovered the roof where he was.
And when they had broken it up,
they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.
When Jesus saw their faith,
he said unto the sick of the palsy,
Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.
I love the way this is worded,
because you see, a group of guys,
they just love their friends so much that has the palsy.
They love this guy who is afflicted, who is suffering,
and they want him to be pardoned to the Lord.
So they're willing to go to any length
to get this guy healing.
They're going out of their way to help this guy.
They go on the top of the roof, they take off the tiles,
they lay this guy down to Jesus
just so that he can be healed.
And the Bible says when Jesus saw their faith,
when Jesus saw the faith of his friends,
the Bible says, thy sins be forgiven thee.
We see it through the faith of another person,
sins were forgiven for someone.
The Bible says in James 5, verse 16,
confess your faults one to another,
and pray one for another that he may be healed.
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man
availeth much.
You know one reason why you should try to be righteous,
why you should try to follow God's commandments?
So that when you pray for other people,
God will answer those prayers.
How selfless for you to decide,
I'm gonna follow all of God's commandments,
I wanna be righteous just so I could pray and help others.
Just so when I pray unto God,
he would have respect unto my prayer
because I'm following his commandments
just to help another person that's at sin,
that's struggling, that has faults.
We see being righteous is not just all about yourself.
Being righteous could be to help others,
to be a clean vessel, to be used by the Lord,
to go out and preach the gospel with boldness,
to be effective, not only that,
so when you pray for others,
God will have respect unto your prayer.
Go if you would to 1 Timothy chapter two.
The Bible says in Acts chapter eight,
then answered Simon and said,
pray ye to the Lord for me,
that none of these things which ye have spoken
come upon me.
A guy that just got saved, he has a wicked idea,
he wants to buy the Holy Spirit,
he wants to go on YouTube and download the Holy Spirit,
and he's like, you can't do that,
you have no part with us.
And he's like, hey, will you pray unto the Lord for me?
I know I messed up, he was repentant.
And you know what, Peter should have done,
he should have prayed for that guy right there.
We don't have the whole story, probably did.
But we see the prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
If you don't want your brother to suffer,
if you have love in your heart,
if you have the compassion that Christ did on the ignorant
for his brethren, you would pray for him.
Look at 1 Timothy chapter two verse one,
I exhort therefore that first of all,
supplications, prayers, look at this word, intercessions,
and the giving of thanks be made for all men.
You know, another part of the Christian life
is making intercession for others.
We see this model all throughout the Bible.
We see Aaron is one of the greatest examples
of someone who's an intercessor,
where God's wrath is about to be poured out
on the children of Israel for their wickedness,
and Aaron steps in the way of the wrath
so that the wrath would stop,
so that his brethren would stop suffering
and dying and perishing.
We see the purpose of a leader
is to be an intercessor for others.
Jesus Christ is the ultimate intercessor.
He's the advocate with the Father.
He's our mediator.
There is one God and one mediator between God and man,
God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
We see Jesus Christ is our mediator under the Father.
We see as ambassadors of Christ,
we too can be intercessors for the brethren.
We can be one that would pray for the brethren,
that we can put our prayers under the Lord.
In Ezekiel 22, the famous verse,
and I sought for a man among them
that should make up the hedge
and stand in the gap before me for the land,
that I should destroy it not, but I found none.
Bible says God was looking for one God
that would just make intercession,
not for his sin, for the land, for other people,
for other people,
because he had forgiveness in his heart.
He wanted to forgive people like Christ.
See, the last point I'm gonna make
is the importance of forgiveness.
Go if you would to Matthew 18.
The Bible says in Luke chapter six, verse 37,
judge not, and ye shall not be judged.
Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.
Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.
Now in Luke chapter six, he's talking to the saved.
He's talking to his disciples.
He said, look, you're gonna be persecuted
for the Son of Man's sake in verse 22.
How in the world is that talking about unbelievers?
Are unbelievers gonna be persecuted
for Jesus Christ's name's sake?
No, they're gonna be persecuted for the Son of Man's sake.
No, he's talking to the saved.
He's preaching unto the saved,
and he's saying, look, you shouldn't be judging.
You shouldn't be condemning.
You should be forgiving.
You should forgive so that what?
So that you can be forgiven.
We see if you want God to be merciful unto you,
if you want God to be long suffering unto you,
when you sin, when you disobey God's commandments,
you should be willing to immediately forgive.
And we see Christ ties his forgiveness towards you
to how you forgive others.
Are you quick to forget?
Are you immediate to respond?
Do you have compassion and love in your heart
towards the ignorant?
Are you making intercession for the brethren?
Look at Matthew chapter 18, verse 21.
Then came Peter to him and said, Lord,
how oft shall I my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
Until seven times?
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times,
but until seventy times seven.
Therefore is the kingdom of heaven
likened to a certain king,
which would take account of his servants.
And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto them,
which owed him 10,000 talents.
But for as much as he had not to pay,
his Lord commanded him to be sold.
And his wife and his children and all that he had
in payment to be made.
The servant therefore fell down and worshiped him saying,
Lord, have patience with me and I will pay thee off.
Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion
and loosed him and forgave him the debt.
But the same servant went out
and found one of his fellow servants,
which owed him 100 pence and he laid hands on him
and took him by the throat saying, pay me that thou owest.
And his fellow servant fell down at his feet
and besought him saying, have patience with me
and I will pay thee all.
And he would not, but when cast him into prison
till he should pay the debt.
So when his fellow servants saw what was done,
they were very sorry and came and told him to the Lord
all that was done.
Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him,
O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt
because thou desirest me.
Shouldest not thou also have had compassion
on my fellow servant, even as I am pity on thee?
And his Lord was raw and delivered him to the tormentors
till he should pay all that was due unto him.
So likewise shall my heavenly father do also unto you,
if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother
their trespasses.
Why am I preaching this?
Because it's so important.
God makes this important that if you do not
forgive your brethren as he forgave you,
he's going to cloud up and rain on you.
He's going to make you sure that you pay
all of your indebtedness, all of your faults, all of your sins.
When you think about Christ, what did he do for you?
Is it really fair?
You say, well, is it fair to just forgive my brother when
he trespasses against me?
Is it really fair to just let it go?
Well, what did your Savior do about you?
When they took the innocent, spotless, perfect lamb,
and they started accusing him, they
brought him before the chief priest and they lied about him.
And they railed on him.
They were calling him a blasphemer.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the God that
created the entire heavens and the earth,
the one that created all of these blasphemers standing
there, and they're screaming at him and yelling at him
and railing on him.
And they're saying, I adjure thee by the living God
that they'll tell us whether they'll be the Christ,
the God.
He knew that he was the Son of God.
He had no doubt that he was the Son of God.
But they're lying and they're railing on him.
Then they begin to spit in his face.
Then they buffeted him.
You say, what does buffet mean?
It means to repeatedly hit, to repeatedly strike.
They keep striking the God of the world,
the God of this universe, the one who loves them,
the one who's ready to forgive them.
They keep buffeting him, and they
keep smoking him with the palms of their hands
is what the Bible says.
Then they begin to mock him.
And they begin to say, hey, prophesy on us.
Who smoked thee, Lord?
Who smoked thee, Son of God?
And they begin to rail and to mock and to spit.
The Bible says, and when they accused the chief reason
elders had accused him, he answered them nothing.
Was he sitting there riling them back?
Was he sitting there just speaking evil back?
No, he's just taking it.
He's taking all the searching.
He's taking all the beating.
Then Pilate, therefore, took Jesus,
and he scourged him is what the Bible says.
They took him out, and with a whip, they began to whip him.
One, two, they whip him probably 39 times,
40 save one, every single strike not deserving one.
He was perfect.
He was the spotless lamb.
He was without sin.
And he keeps getting spotted.
And we see the blood is pouring down
his back for nothing that he did,
for no wrong that is in him.
He's the creator.
He's the one that loves these people.
He wants to forgive them.
They stripped him.
They made him naked.
How ashamed to be naked before a whole multitude of people
while you're being whipped.
And they put a scarlet robe on him, and they mock him.
They take a crown of thorns, and they wrap it around his head.
And they mock him as if he's God.
They say, oh, you're God.
And they bow down.
He knows one day they all will bow down.
But they mock him, and they're spitting on him,
and they're beating him.
And the blood is pouring down his head.
Then they gave him vinegar to drink mixed with gall
so that maybe just a little bit the pain would lessen.
And you know what your Savior did?
He spit it out of his mouth.
He felt every single punch, every single wound,
every single strike.
He felt it all for you.
The Bible says, then they nailed him to the cross.
They took the nail, and they drove it into the hand.
Then they drove it into the other hand.
Then they took his legs, and they nailed it
through his feet.
And they raised him up on the cross.
The Bible says that we could see the hands
of the print of his nails.
He wasn't on a stake like the Jehovah's Witnesses say.
He was on a cross.
The left and the right got a nail through it.
Then the Bible says in Isaiah 53,
he says he was stricken.
He was smitten.
He was afflicted.
He was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of the peace was upon him.
And with his stripes, we are healed.
You say, it's not fair.
It's not fair that the God of heaven,
the creator of the universe, our perfect Savior and Lord,
would have to endure all this affliction and all
this suffering for you.
You know what he said?
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
We see the forgiveness of Christ.
When he goes through the ultimate suffering
and humiliation and shame and every type of anguish,
mental, physical, every type of suffering
that you could ever imagine, more so than we could ever
imagine, he's the king.
He's the Lord of lords.
He's the beginning and the ending.
He's everything.
And he's the one that's being mocked for saying
that he's the Son of God, for making himself equal with God.
You say, but then we just don't forgive our brother.
We see the Lord Jesus Christ took all of that pain,
took all that suffering, took all that affliction.
And then when you won't forgive your brother,
oh, did you see what he said on Facebook about me?
I can't forgive him for that.
How much does the Lord Jesus Christ look at that and say,
do you know what I did for you?
Do you remember what I suffered, the affliction and the pain
and the torment I did for you?
And you can't even forgive your brother for a cross word,
for taking something from you, from doing some kind of wrong?
You know what?
It makes God angry.
It makes God very mad.
And he's going to make sure you pay,
you get what your just reward is when you will not
forgive your brother.
Go to Matthew chapter 6.
You say it's so important for us to remember
what Christ did for us.
Why?
So that we can understand the forgiving love
that we can have towards others.
When we see how much love and compassion
our Savior had towards us, it can
help us realize how much love and compassion
we should have towards others.
We see, we didn't deserve that.
We didn't deserve for Christ to die for our sins,
to suffer the afflictions that he did.
And not only all the suffering and the afflictions
he spent on earth, he spent three days and nights
in the heart of the earth, in hell,
suffering even worse torment and pain and affliction
and suffering.
The father turned his eyes from his son.
We don't even know all the anguish and suffering
our Lord truly paid for us.
But you know what he says to the person that won't forgive?
Thou wicked servant, you ungrateful hypocrite,
for you to just take your brethren
and treat them despitefully when your Lord did everything
for you.
He's ready to forgive.
He's immediately going to forgive.
And we see Jesus Christ, he's asked, teach us how to pray.
Says in Matthew 6, verse 9, after this manner,
therefore pray ye, our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from the evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
For if you forgive men their trespasses,
your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you forgive not men their trespasses,
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
We see that are key.
If you want forgiveness from the Lord Jesus Christ,
if you want forgiveness from God for your sins,
for your iniquities, we need to be
willing to forgive our brethren, to forgive
those that would go against us, that
would do evil against us, that would steal from us.
Someone doesn't shake your hand.
Someone doesn't greet you.
Oh, I don't like that guy now.
Really?
Your Lord Jesus Christ did all of that for you?
And you can't even forgive your brethren
when he doesn't shake your hand, when he doesn't greet you,
when he doesn't pay special attention to you,
when he forgot to call you, when you had a plan to go meet up
and he bailed on you?
I mean, how many times does that happen?
You make a plan with somebody, you're
going to meet them for lunch, you're so excited,
and they bail on you.
Just forgive them.
Just forget.
Be immediate to go out with them the next time.
Seven times that day you met them for lunch
and they forgot you every single time.
I mean, you kept trying to meet them in some place
and they just wouldn't show up.
You know, my family really struggles with forgiveness.
And it's really frustrating under me.
We would always get together and we'd play games.
And my family, we play games hard.
We don't mess around.
We follow the rules.
We're hardcore.
We're out to win it.
I mean, the point of the game is not for fun.
It's to see who's going to win.
In my family, it's cutthroat.
But you know what?
Tensions get high and words get said,
well, at least my dad's not like that.
At least my dad's not an idiot like you are.
At least my mom would never say this.
I mean, just all kinds of even worse things than that.
And we see what would happen if now our family can't even
hang out together because people just can't
forgive one another.
You know what?
Your brother is going to trespass against you.
Your brother's going to say evil against you.
Your brother's going to do wrong because he's flesh,
because he's man, because he has the old man.
He's not perfect.
And when he trespasses against you,
you should be ready to immediately forgive them,
ready to immediately restore them.
Why?
Your Lord Jesus Christ did everything for you.
Christ is our life.
That's what we read in Colossians chapter 33.
Can't even hang out.
Now, just as a caveat,
I'm not saying that you should just forgive everybody
for everything, no matter what the case, okay?
If someone's a pedophile in your family,
if someone's some sick, disgusting, false prophet,
or some pervert, or some sodomite,
hey, the haters of the Lord,
hey, I'm not going to forgive them.
The Bible says I wasn't supposed to pray for my brethren
if they sent a sin unto death.
And you know what?
I'm not going to pray for one of these sick,
perverted, disgusting freaks.
You know, the Bible says, love your enemies.
Look, 99% of the people out there that do you wrong,
they're not falling in this one caveat.
And the person that comes and repents unto you,
that seeks for forgiveness,
we should be ready to restore them
and forgive them like Christ.
Why don't we just forgive like Christ?
Why can't we be a Christian and be Christ-like?
The Bible says, when he talks about the woman
who came and washed his feet,
says, wherefore I say unto thee,
her sins, which are many, are forgiven.
For she loved much, but to whom little is forgiven,
the same loveth little.
When you realize how much Lord Jesus Christ
has forgiven you, it helps you love him a little bit more.
It helps you realize, hey, he did everything for me.
Shouldest not thou also have had compassion
on thy fellow servant, as I had pity on thee?
Let's go some prayer.
Thank you, Father, so much for your word.
Thank you so much for your,
your just innumerable forgiveness towards us.
The fact that you're willing to forget
all of our iniquities and all of our sins
when we call upon thy name,
the fact that you have mercy on the ignorant,
that you make intercession for those,
and you're just immediately ready to receive all of those
that would confess and forsake you.