Somebody Loves You

Raul Ries: Many times if somebody hurts you, we tend to hold grudges against those people. And yet at the same time, if we're Christians and we know what Jesus Christ has done for each one of us individually, and if we have been forgiven, then why can't we forgive fully and totally without ever bringing it up again?

Guest (Male): Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. We're glad you've joined us for our study of the freedom found in forgiveness. Pointing to the parable of a prodigal son welcomed back by his father, Raul will show you that no matter what mistakes are in your past, God's grace can reset your future.

Stay with us for assurance of the Lord's ability to give you a fresh start. Here's Raul Ries with today's study.

Raul Ries: If you have your Bibles, turn to the gospel of Luke, chapter 15. Tonight I want to share with you about biblical forgiveness. I was thinking of God's great forgiveness for each one of us individually. And yet I think of how many people today that feel like God cannot forgive them for what they have done.

And they're carrying all this huge burden of guilt in their lives and never experience God's grace and God's true peace in their lives. I couldn't sleep at night sometimes, but it's so cool when the Lord forgives you, you can sleep like a baby and know that everything has been forgiven completely and fully.

In Romans chapter 8, verse 1, the Bible says, Paul the apostle talking, he says, "Therefore, now there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit of God." You see, the only one that condemns us is Satan. God forgives us.

And it's really important that whenever we sin against God, that by faith we believe the forgiveness of God. That he's there to cleanse and wash us and to forgive us and wipe out all of our iniquities and to make us white as snow. And yet Paul the apostle, in writing to the Romans, he writes here and Paul is saying to us that God is not the one who is condemning you at all.

It's the devil. The devil is the great accuser of the brethren. He accuses us day and night before the throne of God. Revelation 12:9 and 10 says that. He's always accusing the brethren because he doesn't like you and he doesn't like me. And yet the problem is always our sin that separates us from God.

And it's really not until we come to true repentance that we can experience the true peace and also the true forgiveness of God within our lives completely and fully. That's why in 1 John 1:9, John says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

And then in 1 John 2:12, he says, "I write to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake." Whose name's sake? Jesus. He's the one that went to Calvary and died for our sins. And yet we need to remember that when we do fall short, that we have Jesus Christ as our lawyer or as our advocate to defend our case when the devil comes to accuse us.

Before the throne of God, he can defend you. Because in the book of Revelation, like I said, chapter 12, verse 9 and 10, it says, "So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast out to the earth and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, 'Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God day and night has been cast down to the earth.'"

Day and night accusing the brethren. Who's that? The Christians. That's why Jesus Christ becomes my defender, my lawyer, my private lawyer to defend me. When John was writing 1 John chapter 2, verse 1 and 2, he said, "My little children, these things I have written to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate, a lawyer, with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world."

Notice what he says here, that we have this lawyer in my defense that is able to defend me. We must also remember what God already has done for us. Number one, what has he done? He's blotted out all of my sins. All of my sins are no longer there. According to Isaiah 43:25, he said, "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins."

I love that, that he doesn't remember anything that I ever did. It's already forgiven and forgotten. But our minds are so strong that Satan comes along and tries to play with our minds. And so as I begin to study and I went back this afternoon and just kind of going over my lesson, the Lord reminded me that he blotted out my sins and then he reminded me that he shed his blood for my sins as he has for you too tonight.

Every sin you have ever committed, he has blotted it out completely. Remember in Matthew 26:28, he says, "For this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." The blood of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, it was the blood of lambs, goats, turtledoves, and pigeons.

And when I think of forgiveness, I cannot help to think of Isaiah 55:7 where he says, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly forgive him." I like that. What have you done that you can't forgive yourself for where God wants to forgive you tonight? Seriously.

I don't care what it is. He will forgive you because he loves you so much. In Jeremiah 31:34, he says, "No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more."

No more. He takes it and he buries it in the deepest part of the ocean and he remembers it never again. He casts them as far as the east is the west, buries them in the deepest part of the ocean, and he says there are no more sin. It's gone once and for all. When we stand before the Lord one day, he's not going to bring up your past sins.

They're done on the cross. He's forgiven you, cleansed you, and washed you. He takes them and he removes them. In Psalm 103:12, he says, "As far as the east from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." Imagine that. He's taken our transgressions, willful sinning against God, and he's cast them away forever to the east and the west.

We really need to understand that when God forgives, he also forgets. He forgets, and yet we keep reminding him. Don't remind him anymore. It's a done deal. Ephesians 1:7 says, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace."

And remember poor David? David sinned against God by committing adultery with Bathsheba. He wrote Psalm 51. But remember Psalm 32, verse 5? He says, "I acknowledge my sin to you, oh God, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,' and you, God, forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah."

There's a pause there by David. Why? Because of the great love that God has for each one of us here individually. Maybe there are some of you here tonight that you feel like God has not forgiven you, or maybe you have something against another person that you don't want to forgive them. And yet then how can God really bless you if you're not willing to forgive?

Remember on the Sermon on the Mount in the Lord's Prayer, he said that if we don't forgive, that he cannot forgive us our trespasses. Forgiveness is very important in the life of the church, in the life of every believer. Why? Because we all mess up. We all do things that we shouldn't do.

And many times if somebody hurts you, we tend to hold grudges against those people. And yet at the same time, if we're Christians and we know what Jesus Christ has done for each one of us individually, and if we have been forgiven, then why can't we forgive fully and totally without ever bringing it up again?

Because remember what he says on the Sermon on the Mount? He says that if you have something against your brother and you're coming to the actual temple and you're bringing your sacrifice, he says before you can offer your sacrifice to God, you need to do what? Leave your sacrifice and go and make things right and then come and offer your sacrifice and God can accept it. Otherwise he can't accept it.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. Don't forget, you can email Raul anytime at pastorraul@somebodylovesyou.com with your Bible questions and prayer requests. For Bible-rich resources to encourage and guide you on your spiritual walk, visit somebodylovesyou.com. Now, back to more with Raul Ries.

Raul Ries: And people have to see the power of God in our lives and the power of forgiveness, that if we do not forgive, then we get bitter. And yet as we tend to love a person and to forgive that person even though they don't forgive us—maybe they don't understand, but I do understand what God has done in my life.

And I can go on with my life if I go to that person and they tell me, "I don't want to forgive you, that's between you and the Lord," I want to forgive you. And if I haven't done anything against you, I still want you to know that I want to clear my voice and I want to clear my conscience. Please forgive me in any way that I have come against you or done anything against you. Forgive me.

Why? Because I want to be in fellowship with the Lord. I don't want nothing to hold me back from being with Jesus. I want God to bless my life. I want to be able to sleep like a baby at night. That's why this beautiful story of the prodigal son is such an amazing story. Let's begin to read it in Luke chapter 15, in verse 11 it starts.

It's a beautiful, beautiful story here of a son's rebellion. Chapter 15, verse 1. He says, "A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the portion of my goods that falls to me. Give my inheritance.'" And he divided to them his livelihood.

And not many days after, the younger man gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there he wasted his possessions with prodigal living. He started living it up, drinking, partying, just throwing away his money. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land and he began to be in want.

And then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. Imagine, here is a son of a wealthy man that has an inheritance given to him. He goes out and he wastes all his money on partying and drinking, women, all these things.

This father could have said, "You know what? Forget you, son. I'll never take you back." And there are parents that do that. There are parents that disown their children. We should never disown our children. We should never do that as Christians. We could pray for them. We need to love them. We don't put up with their sin, but we need to love them.

And then as we look at the story here, here is now a child that once was so blessed, living in a palace. Took his money out, his inheritance, went out and became bankrupt, has nothing now. He's out with the pigs and he's feeding what the pigs are eating. And then he remembers that he has a father at home.

Look what it says in verse 17. He says, "But when he came to himself..." That's a good thing. When you come to yourself, when you realize, what am I doing? See, nobody can really come to true repentance unless that person comes to himself or she comes to herself. You see, and then God can work in your heart and God can work in your life because now you are in need and you recognize it.

He said this, "How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare and here I am and I'm perishing with hunger." What am I doing sitting here working in this farm with the pigs when my father is wealthy and he has everything, and yet I haven't been nice to my dad? I haven't been a nice person.

Then he goes on to say this, "I will get up and I will go to my father and I will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven before you.'" Isn't that beautiful? Broken before the Lord. True forgiveness, true repentance. "Father, I sinned against God and I've sinned against you. Please forgive me."

Notice, "I am no longer worthy to be called your son." I mean, that's incredible. "Make me like one of your hired servants and that'd be good enough for me." What do we see pride here? No, we see humility. We see brokenness. I think that forgiveness cannot work in any one of our lives until we come to be broken by God.

Broken in our lives, that it's not just words. Because how many times we say we're sorry but immediately we come back and we want revenge? That's not true brokenness. True forgiveness is forgetting and never again speaking about it. Never bringing up the issue ever again. It's a done deal.

And so here is a son saying, "I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants." Why? Because his son came to himself. He realized that he was lost, without hope, without God in this world. And then in verse 20 to 24, we see now his son comes back to the father and begins to receive forgiveness.

"And he got up and he came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him." What a beautiful picture. Can you imagine if you did that for your children? They would get blown away. Or if you do that for anybody that has come into your life that has become like a little snare in your life, a little thorn in the flesh to your life?

People can't stand the love of God. They can't stand it and yet God can do it. Can you imagine how this father was feeling? He's a type of God the Father, the way when we came to Jesus Christ how did he receive us? With open arms. Notice that. He says his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

And then the son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight and I am no longer worthy to be called your son." But the father said to his servants, "Bring out the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his hand, sandals on his feet, and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead but is now alive again. He was lost and is found." And they began to be merry.

Imagine that. No wonder the Bible says that when one sinner repents, the angels in heaven have a party. I love it. It's so awesome how God works and God teaches us through the scriptures how we need to be like this prodigal son. And this father that forgave him and gave him the best robe and made him a party and received him back unto himself.

And yet notice, verse 25, and now his other son was in the field and he came and he drew near to the house and he heard the music and the dancing. This is a son that's been with him all his life. And so he called one of the servants and asked what was going on. And he said to him, "Your brother has come home because he has received him safe and sound and your father has killed a fatted calf."

But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. Can you imagine? His son that had been with him for a long, long time. Here he had everything in life and he became angry because his father forgave his son, his other brother. He was mad about that.

How many times you and I get mad at people when God forgives them? We need to be careful. If God forgave you, why shouldn't he forgive them? Seriously. God's a forgiving God. We should rejoice that those people are not the same as they used to be but they changed. They've repented, they've come back to the Lord.

And then he said this, "But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. And he answered and said to his father, 'Lo, these many years I have been serving you. I never transgressed your commandments at any time and yet you never gave me a young goat.'" Notice, he starts throwing it in his face.

"That I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours comes who has devoured your livelihood with harlots..." He says, "You gave him your money that belonged to him, he went out and misspent with women and liquor and all this thing and you're throwing a party for him? What is the matter with you, Father?"

And he said to him, "Son, you are always with me and all that I have is yours. What are you hyping about? Everything that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad for your brother. Why? Because your brother was dead." Dead, he was on his way to hell. But now he's alive again. Notice, "And he was lost and now he is found."

Guest (Male): Well, there is no doubt that it's much easier to hold on to a grudge than to let go of hurt and move forward. But we hope today's message has moved you to forgive just as God has forgiven you. You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries.

The message you've heard today is titled Biblical Forgiveness. If you'd like to get an unedited version, we'll send one to you for a donation of $5 or more. Just call us at 800-634-9165. We'd also like to offer you a collection of five key messages from this series we're currently airing. They're available on CD and thumb drive.

Underscoring the Lord's astounding grace and life-changing love, this study will inspire you to seek his absolute forgiveness. You'll also learn how God can equip you with the strength and mercy you need to forgive those who've offended or mistreated you.

To order Raul's five-lesson study, visit somebodylovesyou.com or call 800-634-9165. We'll send this forgiveness series on USB for $7 or the CD set for $20. That's 800-634-9165. Or you can write to Somebody Loves You Radio, PO Box 4440, Diamond Bar, California 91765.

Be sure and take advantage of our wide array of free resources. Visit the Somebody Loves You worldwide YouTube channel every Tuesday at 10 AM Pacific for Straight Talk with Raul. We appreciate your year-end gifts to Somebody Loves You Radio. These help us reach even more people with the life-changing message of salvation through Jesus.

We invite you to join us again next time for more Bible-based wisdom from this series. You'll see that when you allow hurt and bitterness to fester in your heart, that unforgiveness can become an obstacle to the abundant blessed life that God desires for you. Now, here's Raul with a closing comment.

Raul Ries: And I think of every single one of us here sitting down tonight, how God has found each one of us individually. We don't deserve it. But by his grace and his love and his mercy, look what he's done, look what he's given to each one of us individually.

How we need to learn the actual power of forgiveness for our children, our grandchildren, for our wives, our husbands, our employers and employees, whoever it may be. That we don't keep grudges, but that we forget completely and fully and we never bring it up again.

Even when you get angry, what's the first thing husband and wives do? They start throwing mud at each other. Be careful of that. Don't do it. I am praying and hoping that this lesson tonight will give us an excitement that we can begin to enjoy God's forgiveness in each one of our lives. Because it's been demonstrated in each one of us tonight, just like God said.

Guest (Male): This program is sponsored by Somebody Loves You Radio in Diamond Bar, California.