What it Means To Forgive - Pastor Daniel Batarseh

Our duty to forgive is a vast subject. So vast because there are so many scenarios that run through our minds that we present, and each scenario sometimes requires a specific application to it. And one one sermon is not gonna be able to solve every issue or question, but let's just be reminded of the basics today. Let's just revisit the foundational understandings of what it means to forgive. And I think we can start at a place found in the book of Luke.

Would you turn there with me in chapter six and verse 27? Luke six twenty seven. Again, the reason why this is being done this morning is because I don't want one person to be left in the dark about what it means to forgive as a Christian. And with the subject still fresh on our minds from last week, I think we should be able to at least get some greater clarity from the word of God. Can we pray together right now and ask him to help us?

Heavenly father, in this moment, we understand the high call to forgive, but we also are quickly met with the difficulties to walk in it. You must help us. Please inspire us. Please impact us. Lord, please do a miracle in our lives in this aspect.

Lord, we know that where we stand today is a result of the miracle of your love. Help us extend that to others. Lord, remove any hurdles, any obstacles in our minds that would object to what is being said. We submit to the authority of your standard and we pray Lord that our hearts would receive it joyfully no matter how high it may seem. We know that your Holy Spirit gives us wings like eagles to arise and to achieve things that are impossible in the flesh.

We trust in you now as we hear what you have to say. In Jesus name, amen. Jesus said, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you.

Pray for those who abuse you. I start here with a passage that does not directly deal with forgiveness because it actually speaks of the foundation of forgiveness, whether people realize it or not. I'm sure most of you can hear these words and read them and if you're honest with yourself, place it on one of the top most challenging and radical things that Jesus asks of us. Notice it doesn't say love those who were once your enemies. It says love your enemies now.

Says love those who hate you now, who are cruel to you now, who abuse you now. Not what they did before, what they are currently doing in this moment. The people Jesus is speaking of are those who are demented in their ambition to harm you, who have a twisted liking to actually hate you, who actually find it a daily discipline to curse you, and find a way to abuse you, and make life difficult for you. And I bring this up because all these things that Jesus mentions undoubtedly has the potential to provoke offense in the heart. In the flesh, even if you are saved, to experience what Jesus is presenting here has the potential to create a resentment and an unhealthy unrealistic craving for vengeance.

And what we have to understand here is that the world standards to what people do to us in this way is if they create harm for you, you have the right to create even more harm back to them. But look at what Jesus teaches. The response to these horrible acts is that he actually expects us. You know what's amazing? He's not just like ignore them.

He's not just being neutral to them. That would that would seem noble. Just just look past it. No. No.

No. No. No. When the opportunity arises, do good to them. Do good to them.

Do you feel the weight of what it means to be a Christian? Do you feel that the the call, the high call to be a holy people? I'm not just asking you to be neutral, I'm asking you to return good. But what's the connection between loving those who don't deserve it and forgiveness? I believe the answer is found in first Peter four eight.

You know this very well, don't you? Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love does what? Covers a multitude of sins. Love covers a multitude of sins. Do we see the connection between love and forgiveness here?

Love is proven in our choice to willingly overlook other people's offenses and to treat and relate to them in a way that looks past their imperfections. It's important to know that the imagery of covering somebody somebody's offenses doesn't mean that you pretend that they didn't do something to you, Nor does it mean that when somebody sins that you turn a blind eye and you just try to imagine that that's not happening. No, no, no. What it does mean is that you determine, I'm not gonna hold this wrong against you. And listen, some people's sins can be so severe that it warrants legal intervention.

But what covering a multitude of sins means is that even if legal intervention is applied, I will make it my ambition to never ever ever resolve to make personal retaliation against you. Now that might sound poetic and that might sound inspirational, that might sound quote worthy, but come on men, what does it actually mean? Like tell me what it means to practically forgive. What does it look like? What does it feel like?

What does it sound like? What does it think like? Well, forgiveness is the is the choice to refuse to hold on to the desire to punish someone when they've punished you. It it says, I am not going to seek revenge for the affliction that has been caused to me. More than that, it says, I am determined to give God his rightful place to be the judge of someone else's trespasses While I position myself to be in the place to actually as we just heard, be ready to extend good instead of evil.

You know, God knew that this concept would require more than one illustration in our Bibles to get a full comprehension of what it looks like. He gives it to us in the form of commands and he gives it to us in the form of real life experiences. And one of the strongest pictures of this is with the life of a man who experienced, I believe, one of the greatest series of pains that a human can endure. You might be thinking of the Lord Jesus and that is the ultimate example, but I'm thinking about a picture of Jesus who is Joseph. Joseph in the old testament experienced, I believe, one of the greatest challenges to forgive because he experienced pain from the closest people to him.

That's what wounds are really known. The closer someone is to you, the greater the pain is because you have a certain expectation. And when that expectation is not met, the pain is deeper. Sure, love your enemy. I know my enemies are gonna hate me.

I know those who hate the gospel are gonna hate me, but my brother, the one that I shared a womb with, the one that we had memories with, my brother in Christ, the one who vowed to to to walk with me until we enter into those gates, my sister who reviles me and claims to be a follower of Christ, that's where we feel the pain. But I believe in one scene, we get a picture that paints the contrast between what it means to forgive and what it means not to forgive, and I would highly encourage you to turn your bibles there to Genesis 50 verse 15. This is at the end of the story. This is at the end of the book of Genesis. And at this point, it's been many many years since Joseph's identity has been revealed and his brothers have been reconciled to him and have been living with him in harmony.

It's a joyous picture of of really reconciliation. But something happens at the end of the book. Jacob dies. Jacob's gone and the brothers are fearful. They're fearful that now, Joseph has been harboring a plan to seek revenge and he's gonna execute it now that his dad is out of the way.

But notice here in verse 15, what it says. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said it may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him. That's unforgiveness. That's what unforgiveness looks like. Paying someone back for what they did to you.

That was Joseph's brother's interpretation and guess what? It lines up with the rest of scripture. So look what happens. So they sent a message to Joseph saying, your father gave this command before he died. Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you and now please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.

Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Do you see the contrast here? If you wanna know this morning whether or not you have unforgiveness abiding in your bosom, ask yourself this one question. Do I have the desire or a plan to pay someone back with the evil that they have shown to me? If you can say I am free from such a thing, I am liberated, that is not a meditation, that might be a temptation from time to time, but it is obliterated in my life.

You can know that you're free from unforgiveness. You know what's amazing is that when they came to Joseph and they tried to convince him that their dad said, we don't know if his dad said it or not, but they're trying to bring in his authority to to to calm down any rage in the man that was about to be unleashed on his brothers. Joseph weeps. He weeps. He hears his brothers and he actually can't handle it.

He actually breaks down. Why does a man weep? I believe because he sees his own brothers that are not convinced of his character, that he is willing to cover their sins. That it's been dealt with many many years ago. He was broken by the realization that they are in this unhappy condition.

Thinking that at any moment, he's gonna bring up our past defense, rub it in our face, maybe revile us or worse with the power that he has absolutely crush us and maybe even our children. This is a picture of Jesus. There are many people who profess Christ who are not convinced that Jesus has forgiven them and it's been twenty years. It's been ten years. You know what Christ does to greater Joseph?

He weeps for you. You're not convinced of my mercy, are you? You're not convinced that it's been dealt with. You're not convinced that my blood covers your sin. It's done.

It's done. And I believe as Christians, true Christians, we should weep. We should weep if there are people in our lives that are not convinced that when they repent and ask for forgiveness and we assure them of it, that we actually mean it. We should weep if if people have that kind of interpretation of our mercy toward them. Joseph is broken, he's shattered about this.

And here's the amazing thing, in a few verses you're gonna see what forgiveness looks like. If we see here what unforgiveness is, look what forgiveness looks like in verse 21 of the same chapter. Joseph says, so do not fear. I will provide for you and your little ones. Thus, he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

Do you see? Forgiveness doesn't just say, I will not return wrong to you. It goes beyond that. It says, I will not reserve my good towards you. I'll actually give that.

I'll go above and beyond than just being neutral. Now there is a call for wisdom here when it when it says that we should love our enemies, and the wisdom is this, that sometimes circumstances demand us to love from a distance. To love from a distance. You think about David who honored King Saul, who respected him, who did not speak ill of him, who even sang his praises when he died when the man was just a terrible person, who refused to kill him, to take the throne from him, to listen to people, to take vengeance. He refused all of those things, but you know what David didn't do?

Go back to the palace and work for the man. Why? Because the man wanted to kill him. Forgiveness does not mean you tolerate abuse. Forgiveness does not mean that you are willing to allow somebody to continually expose you to harm.

It's not this gullible attitude that says, well this is what Jesus requires from me, so so let me just stay in this place where you can do whatever you want with me. Even Jesus said earlier that you are to do what in one sense? Pray for those who abuse you. I'll pray for you from far. I'll show my love to you to ask God to to bless you, but there are some some scenarios where I can't be near you so let me love you from a distance.

Especially when somebody's unrepentant or dangerous. And we can all admit that whether we love somebody from a distance or love somebody close, that's a difficult thing to accept. There's so many hurdles, so many obstacles to reaching that point of forgiving somebody and one of them is this, the intrusive feelings, those stings that you sense in your gut of pain and hurt when you even meditate for a moment what happened in the past. How can I get past this? I'm trying to manage these feelings, never mind trying to trying to be nice to you.

Which reminds us of what Christian love is. The very thing that makes Christian love stand out is that you don't need the emotional bandwidth to love. The feelings to bless somebody are not required to bless somebody. And that can only be done by the power of the Holy Spirit. You know, oftentimes when we are wronged, we confuse the inability to forgive someone with the inability to forget what they've sinned against us with.

We confuse forgiving someone's sin with forgetting their sin to us. There is no call in the Bible for you to erase your memory of past trauma. But you know what you have people doing? They're so confused about this, that they waste their energy and trying to to to erase past experiences from their thoughts, from their dreams, from where they go by default when they're just in a neutral place, and condemn themselves if they can't get rid of it, instead of spending their energy on loving those people regardless. It should bring us tremendous relief this morning that forgetting does not equate forgiving.

And sometimes the pain is just as fresh, but it calls us still to go the extra mile into love. And here's the beauty and the power of love, when you exercise that love, the feelings tend to follow it. The emotions tend to follow suit. But here's the thing, although we have the freedom to know that forgetting does not mean that I necessarily forgive, we should also realize that we don't have the license to actively rehearse what has been done to us. For me to just continually rehearse what has been done, if you do that long enough, you will stifle the power and the potential of love.

And you and I are especially not called to bring it up to others and to revisit it with them, especially with a resentful spirit. Would you like to know that the example of this is found in the same man that we just learned about? Go to Genesis 40 with Joseph, and this is when he's in prison. And when he's in prison, he faces two officials of Pharaoh. He interprets their dreams and when he comes to the interpretation of the cupbearer's dreams, God reveals to them, hey, this guy is getting out.

He's gonna go back to Pharaoh and so he thinks, this is my chance. I did you a favor. Now could you do me a favor? Could you get a good word for me to Pharaoh? But look what he says in the midst of all of that in verse 14 of Genesis 40.

He says, only remember me when it is well with you. And please do to me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh and so get me out of this house. Now look at verse 15. For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews and here also I've done nothing that they should put me into the pit. If you know the story of Joseph hearing that, if you've read this before, your one eyebrow should raise up.

You know the story. He says, I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews. Where's the mention of the jealousy of your brothers? Where's the mention that they threw you into a pit? Where's the detailed account that they sold you to a caravan of Ishmaelites?

What we see here is that Joseph purposely, strategically leaves out those details because that's what it means to cover a multitude of sins. He puts all of that in the shadow, all their sinfulness in the shadow and he emphasizes his innocence. He did not see it necessary to bring up the details of his brother's record of wrong to those who would not benefit from it. Why is this important? Because before us is a person who definitely did not forget what happened to him, but who wasn't bitter about it either.

Who wasn't resentful, who wasn't eaten up, who didn't find relief in trying to poison other people's minds that have no relation with what's going on. No. His soul is at rest. I see here before even Genesis 50 that he forgave his brothers. But how can a man come to such a point?

Come on. Think about it. How can you come to a point with all the abuse that you've endured to not excessively share that hurt with a resentful ambition? And not only that, but even choose to bless when they show up on the scene, when you actually are now given the authority with one word to say, you want to know what it feels like to go into a pit? Go into a pit.

I have a hunch. I have a hunch this morning that a great part of it has to do with the discipline that Joseph had of interpreting everything. Everything through the lens of God's sovereign good purpose. You love that verse, don't you? Genesis fifty twenty?

What you've intended for evil, God meant for good? Do you realize that is in the context of him reassuring his brothers that he forgave them? No wonder he could forgive them. Because he saw their evil and it went through the lens, it went through the filter that God was sovereign even over your sins towards me to bring about a greater good in me and a greater glory to him, you're forgiven. You're forgiven.

If you need any motivation to forgive, be convinced of that truth. No matter how traumatic it was, no matter how bitter the betrayal was, no matter how vicious the sin was. I don't know what you've endured, but have you ever been thrown into a pit? Have you been sold to slavery? Have you been falsely accused and put into prison for something that you didn't do when you were trying to obey God actually?

Maybe you have. But look at this man. Here he says, all the evil that you did to me, God actually was orchestrating it for my good. So how can I actually be angry at you when God meant it for good? If you need motivation, besides the ultimate motivation of Jesus Christ forgiveness for us, remember Joseph.

Remember this man. And remember the truth that not only saved his soul, but saved others. And no wonder he's a picture of Christ. Now we can end our thoughts on forgiveness there, but there's another level to it that we must understand. And here's the understanding of forgiveness.

There is an aim that it has. Forgiveness is a great call, but listen, forgiveness is not an end in itself. Forgiveness is a means to an end. What do I mean? There is a goal that forgiveness has.

There is an ultimate purpose that it longs to to bring us to, And that ultimate purpose is what? Reconciliation. Reconciliation. And if you need proof for that, just think of this, when God extends his forgiveness, what's his purpose in it? Is it just not to judge us?

Is it just to erase our record of wrong? Or is it to rebuild a relationship that was shattered because of sin? See that's the full effect of forgiveness. That is the the the maturity, that's the maximum place that it wants to bring us. And what's amazing about that is that it's proven in the language of Jesus when he speaks and instructs his church on how to confront somebody about their sin.

Go to Matthew eighteen fifteen, and I want you to see something that maybe we don't consider often. You see forgiveness is the bridge that brings two parties to meet in the middle and to enjoy the harmonious relationship that was once damaged because of sin. In Matthew eighteen fifteen, Jesus says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. Now look what happens. If he listens to you, you have what?

You have won an argument. You've proven that you are more righteous than something. You you had the you had now the license to vent your emotion and your pain? Is that the is that the winning of confronting somebody in sin? No.

Here is the goal. Here is the prize. You've gained your brother. You've gained your brother. The language here speaks of succeeding of winning something of great value, a treasure, which is a person that God allowed you to do life with in his kingdom.

See their confession of wrong and your openness to not hold it against them rescues that brotherly bond and preserves a beautiful aspect of fellowship within the church. So Jesus's mind must be our mind. When we are seeking to confront with the goal to forgive, there's a goal beyond that and that's to reconcile, to rebuild and repair what has been broken because of one or two people's faults. But the full restoration of a relationship that was broken because of one person's sins, listen, is not entirely dependent upon the forgiveness from the victim. Listen, the end goal is reconciliation but oftentimes that goal is not met.

And not because that person is not willing to forgive, but because there's another ingredient that is necessary and that is the offender's repentance. So all of our goals in this place is to not just forgive but to, through forgiveness, reconcile, but that can only be known when it is matched with somebody else's confession and willingness to forsake the sin that has been caused to bring the separation in the first place. In other words, reconciliation is not always necessary. It's the goal, but oftentimes it's not met. And that's proven in the same text, isn't it?

Because what happens if a person is willing to confront and forgive but the other is not willing to confess and repent? Well, you know the process. What's the process? The the ultimate active discipline is this, that a person forfeits his right to have a relationship with you and then forfeits his relationship with many other believers in that local body that he's connected to. In other words, the result of his lack of repentance when it is met with a willingness to forgive is the opposite of reconciliation.

You give up the right to be rightly related and to know the wholeness that you once had with other believers. You might be thinking, why? Because God in his wisdom knows what he's doing here and here's what he's doing. He wants to teach his own that you cannot hold on to sin without a price. It's never free.

It's never free. If you're determined to hold on to your sin and not repent of it, not see the wrong for it or claim to repent but continue in it hypocritically, then it will cost you something. And among the things that it will cost you is the precious joys and blessings that are only found in Christian community. But even that that extreme thing has a redemptive goal in mind. So that when that sinner, which James calls even believers, that sinner walks away and pursues what his dark desires will bring him to, he will realize, I need to return to the warm light of godly fellowship.

I can't do this anymore. What am I doing? And that's the goal here. A sinner who refuses to repent gives up his right for right relationship with others. Now my one might say, So in order for me to forgive, somebody needs to repent.

No. You and I are always called to forgive. We are called to always release somebody, to say, I canceled your debt. There's no grudge in me. I'm not going to plan to hurt you.

I'm not I'm not here harboring things where I I daydream about you seeing in pain and you seeing damage. No. No. No. I release you from that.

But what happens is the offender bars himself from experiencing the full effect of your forgiveness, which is reconciliation. In fact, the danger is if we reconcile with somebody who doesn't repent, they may never truly repent. God in his wisdom says, no you have to withhold something when they are willing to hold on to their sin. And whether we believe this or not, it is exemplified in Jesus Christ. We heard it from brother Daniel in the beginning of the service.

You know these words where Jesus on the cross in Luke 23 says, father forgive them for they know not what they do. Notice that our Lord declared his willingness to forgive to those who have wronged them when there was absolutely no indication that they were seeking for his forgiveness. In fact, while he is praying this, can you imagine that fragrant of mercy? While he's praying this, they're gambling for his garments. Like, talk about being vile and dishonorable.

The sinless son of God is petitioning the father to extend forgiveness to you and you are you're gambling for his clothes? And as you know, the posture that Jesus presents there is extended to all sinners today. But even with those gracious arms wide open to embrace anybody, you know this, do all experience relationship with Christ? Are all reconciled to them? Do all have peace with the father?

No. Because of one thing, they didn't repent. They didn't repent. But this is a model that Christ is presenting to us. Right here as he's hanging on the cross, he's giving us an example and here's the example, here's the principle that in the absence of repentance, there is the presence of a forgiving spirit.

I'm willing to forgive. I'm willing to leave justice to God. And there they are sinning against him still. But he's there waiting for them to repent and he is waiting to experience reconciliation. There was one person that we know on that day that turned to his side and said, please remember me.

And he said, you will be with me reconciliation today in paradise. And you might be thinking that's wonderful, but can you please remind me again, what does it look like to forgive somebody who does not repent? I say look to Christ again. And Peter gives us commentary, you don't have to turn there first Peter two twenty three. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. Hey, we just came full circle here with our message. We just came full circle with our understanding of what it means to forgive even those who don't repent. It means this, I will resist the temptation of finding a way to get back at you by leaving judgment to God, while I give myself to loving you instead. And love will look different in different ways.

In Joseph's case, loving his brothers who sinned against him means I will take care of you and your little ones. And he spoke kindly to them. Forgiveness in this case with Jesus Christ who is nailed to a tree, he did what he could. He didn't threaten them. He didn't curse back at those who were cursing at him.

He prayed for them. In this moment, the best way I can love you is to pray for you. So I'm gonna pray for you. I think it's worth adding this while we're in the subject of reconciliation because I wanna make this comment. There are sinners in this world and there are smart sinners.

And the adjective that I use there is not a compliment. I use it to be synonymous synonymous with deceptive sinners. So what are you talking about? I'm saying that there are people who know their bibles well enough to understand this rule that as a Christian, you are willing and you are called to return the privilege of communion no matter how many times I sin and claim to repent. To the true believer, that principle is one of the most comforting assurances that no matter how many times I fall, I can be restored to my relationship with God and with my brothers and sisters.

But there are those who are perverted in the heart, who see that principle and use it as a card that they pull out and to wave in the face of good hearted believers to say, you have to keep me. You have to keep your life open to me while I can continue to abuse you with little to no consequence. They cry, I repent. They'll say it. They'll even appeal to Jesus command that no matter how many times somebody repents, you must forgive them.

But over a stretch of time, there is no sign of change, no willingness to make restitution, no humility, and no honoring of the mutual agreements to rebuild trust. So this requires a discernment with believers. This requires a discernment with believers and hey, this requires a greater discernment for spiritual leaders especially. To be able to know when somebody's apparent honor for holiness is legitimate or masquerade. You know, Paul speaks of such people in second Timothy and we'll get there in a few weeks.

Listen to what he says when he speaks about a list of the quality of souls in the end days, in the last days. He says in second Timothy three five, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Listen, avoid such people. Avoid such people. So there are those who know how to dress up godly.

There are those who know how to quote Bible. And there are those who are unfortunately naive enough to not see past it, and then they are damaged because of it. And listen, if discernment by the spirit of God is not exercised and a body of believers just blindly accepts anyone who knows how to quote a few scriptures with a wooden interpretation, listen, there could be a tolerance of great harm against the members of that church that can be avoided if discernment was applied. And that's what he says in the next part. He says, there are those who have an appearance of godliness.

They have an appearance of godliness but denying its power, the power for holiness. Avoid such people because why? This is what they do. Verse six. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women.

Burdened with sins and led astray by various passions. So they come with an appearance of godliness in your life personally and especially in the life of the church. And one of their ambitions is to actually come into the intimate parts of people's lives and to take advantage of them, and in this context, weaker women. To manipulate their emotional frailty, their past failures, the trauma that they've experienced, so that they can indulge in their own flesh. And so we have to understand, not everybody that says, oh, I repent.

Oh, forgive me. Oh, aren't you supposed to restore me? Not everybody is worthy of such a thing if the repentance is not true, if it's not tested, and if it's not genuine, lest we create greater harm in the name of obedience that is being exercised with a lack of wisdom. Now, again, we can speak so much about this, but I wanna make one final point because there might be some in here who who hear all this, they're barely saying amen. They're like, right?

This is hard. I get it. It's difficult. I believe one of the greatest things, the greatest difficulties of the Christian life is to do this. I I I can understand the the pain.

I can understand I can understand the walls that come up. I can understand the justifications. I can understand your explanations of why you are the way you are and you're withholding forgiveness. But I wanna say this in closing, that to do so will not just affect your health as modern psychologists will say. No.

It will give Satan ammunition in your life. It will give the enemy something to work with in you to advance his purposes. And here's our final text before we break bread today as a church. Please turn to second Corinthians two. You know this very well, this is about the man who in first Corinthians sinned against his father's wife and was excommunicated from the church, but he repents.

He's sorrowful. He realized that he doesn't wanna pursue this lifestyle, He wants to be restored to to a holy people with a holy God. And after that is recognized by Paul himself, he calls the people to do something, which is found here in verse 10. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ.

Now look at this. So that we should we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs. What a fantastic insight. Here's a call to forgive. Here's a call not just to forgive, but now that repentance is being shown, reconciliation is a possibility.

And what he's saying here is that, look, in the context of Christians hurting one another, that's the context here. What he is saying here is that, in this moment where a brother has wounded another or more than one, and here we are now on the threshold of a decision to be made for this person to be forgiven and restored, Satan is right there. Satan is right there with a strategy and oftentimes his game plan is toward the offended. Toward those who have been wronged. And the enemy right there is whispering.

He's there whispering suggestions that this person has done something so grievous and traumatic that, come on, you're actually gonna forgive them? You're actually gonna say it's okay? What if they do it again? What if they're gonna take advantage of you? Look at the shame that they brought to the church.

Look at the embarrassment. You had a relationship with this person. Look at the embarrassment. Now that you're associated, you're actually just gonna say, yeah, it's okay. Paul is saying, listen, be careful.

Don't let Satan take advantage of your pain. Don't let the enemy have a foothold with your anger and through that create a stronghold because offense is a breeding ground for destruction. Offense is the soil, the bed of soil that the enemy loves to plant his ideas to bring harm in so many directions. And here it's obvious. We can know that for certain, one of the things, one of the wreckages of unforgiveness is the person who is seeking that affirmation that you have indeed looked past me, you've covered my sin but is not receiving it.

He says, be careful lest he be overwhelmed with excessive sorrow. Don't let the guy go down a dark path and be overwhelmed with the reality that you might not have forgiven him. And that's why he says reaffirm your love for him. With your words, let him know it is over. It's okay.

It's done. It's in the past. I forgive you. I'm not holding anything against reassure him of that. And in some situations, I emphasize that, and in some situations, we have to also say, I'm willing to reconcile.

I'm willing to rebuild with you a relationship that has been severed. But with that being said, listen, when the offender desires that reconciliation, you cannot think that it is automatic. That is unfair and that is unrealistic, Because when trust is lost, it takes time to rebuild it. And you have a lot of people that offend in grievance ways, really, and they want things to just go back to normal in a moment, just over one conversation. No.

It's not gonna be real. You have to be patient and you have to earn that trust over time, depending on the sin of course. But secondly, listen, when we withhold forgiveness, it's not just gonna harm somebody that's looking for it, that's needing it, that needs to be healed. No. Satan strategy is against the offended person as well.

You can take an entire message on that. The strongholds that Satan creates in a person's life that says, I'm not going to forgive. But let me put it this way in summary, if Satan can get you to withhold forgiveness, then he has succeeded in making you look less like the Christ that your savior longs for you to reflect. And I'm sure that you are familiar with the severe warnings through the mouth of Jesus himself about what the father will withhold from those who withhold forgiveness to others. And so we have to understand that forgiveness has the power to heal others, restore, rejuvenate, renew, display the gospel, but in Satan's mind, the opposite has the potential to bring destruction not just to one person, but you know what Paul is worried about here?

The church as a whole. That through this situation, that there'd be discord, division, extended pain, self righteousness, a lack of mercy within the church. Oh, the enemy is a clever fellow. Never forget that when you are offended, Jesus is waiting for you to call upon him for the power and the grace to extend forgiveness and Satan is right there on the other side whispering with persuasive arguments why you have the right to not forgive. But we have a revelation.

We have the revelation of revelations with other revelations under that that leave us without excuse. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. I heard one brother say when somebody was expressing their sorrows and it was extensive, it was it was prolonged, it was it was in a resentful way, this brother looked at him and said, look, did they crucify you yet? Did they crucify you?

Well well, no, obviously not. Okay. Then you have a long way to go. You have a long way to go. And if I really believe that Jesus forgave me for everything that I've done, and not just wipe away my debt, but it's saying, I want a relationship with you.

Do I have the right to not extend that to others? Saying, yeah, okay. I know that. I grew up hearing that. Okay.

Are you like Joseph who understands that every single thing, no matter what happened to you many years ago, no matter what happened to you with the closest people to you, are you under the persuasion that every evil that's been done to me as a follower of Christ, God meant for good, so how can I hurt you back? God used you. God used your foolishness for my gain and my sanctification. Consider these things before we come and we reflect and proclaim the sacrifice of Jesus for us and also the oneness and the unity of the body. May the Lord Jesus Christ give us the grace to forgive.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we prepare to eat together at the table of the Lord, we ask we ask, Lord, that we would not be foolish to think that this is a vertical experience, but that, lord, you call us you call us to extend it horizontally. Help us understand that the memory may still be there. Even the the pain might be there. But, lord, may all of that be covered with the determination to say, I will not do wrong in return.

I will not revile. I will not plan to hurt. I will not even defame as a way of relieving my pain. I will cover a multitude of sins. Help us also to know that Satan is tricky, and he will try to take advantage of the mercy that we are supposed to show and give people a false sense so that they can take advantage of those who are called to love.

Protect us. Protect this church. Protect our friendships. Lord, this is much deeper than we might have thought, so help us. Help us, Lord.

All we give to you today is our willingness to obey. Now show us how to do it. With every circumstance and context and situation, show us how to exemplify your forgiveness. And, Lord, today, we come to be reminded of the ultimate motivation to forgive, your forgiveness, your grace. That as we come, we are being told again that you do not hold our wrong against us.

You do not bring up our past to our face. You don't use it as a weapon to try to shame us or paralyze us. We give you thanks. In Jesus' name, amen.