Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: Okay, now we're good. Little early this morning sometimes. Our speaker again today is Jim Myers, who is one of our supported missionaries. We're blessed to have him back with us. Just a little bit about Jim. Jim and his wife, Phyllis. Phyllis is also here right here in front.

Jim and his wife, Phyllis, have been involved in ministry in the former Soviet Union since 1993. Jim heads up James F. Myers Ministries, whose primary purpose is to train national Christian leaders in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere in the world. Jim travels a lot, believe me. But his primary focus has been in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he started the Word of God Bible Church and Word of God Bible College. So we're blessed to have Jim back with us again. Jim.

Jim Myers: Thank you. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I give thanks to you for your mercy upon this nation. I thank you that you have preserved us as a nation. We have liberty. We have prosperity. We have blessings that go far beyond any nation that has existed in history. And we know that it's not because we're a great and righteous people, but because you're a great God, a God of grace and mercy.

And Father, we confess we deserve judgment, for we are an evil people. And yet you have sustained us. And I pray that you will continue to keep us free so that we might continue to proclaim Jesus Christ as the only savior, so that we might continue to publish your word and distribute it in thousands of languages all around the world.

And so this day, I would ask that you protect the leaders of this nation. I pray that you will also give them wisdom, the ability to see things for what they truly are and to make decisions that would be in accordance with your word, so that they might be a blessing to us. So we give thanks for these privileges that you have provided to us.

And may we, as your people, live according to your word so that we can choose life and not death, so that we can choose blessing and not cursing. And may we seek to walk worthy of the Lord, to please him in all respects, so that we might fulfill the purpose for which you have kept us alive and put us in this place at this time.

I pray that this morning, as we open your word together, that your Holy Spirit will give us understanding that we might be better prepared to fulfill your purpose and bring you glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

So there was a holiday yesterday. I imagine most of you are aware of that. It's the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Did any of you read that? Did you read that yesterday? No, nobody did. Well, I'm going to make up for that. I'm going to read it to you now. It's an incredible document, not very long, but it changed the course of world history. This of course was written prior, was written actually on July 2nd, but it wasn't signed until the 4th of July in 1776.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.

And accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

And then they list some 27 specific grievances and violations of British law perpetrated by the King of England. They list very specific violations. I won't read those. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity.

And we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these United colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states.

That they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved. And that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all the other acts and things which independent states may of right do.

And for the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor. That is the Declaration. There are so many today who want to tear down the very foundations of America. This nation was founded primarily by those who were believers in Jesus Christ, those who held the Bible in high regard, those who worshipped the creator God.

There are many today who try to dismiss the founders of this nation as being deists. A deist is someone who believes there is a God, but they believe that God created the universe, wound it up, started it spinning, and then walked away and has no further interaction with his creation, so that a deist would not be involved in the affairs of men. That's their belief.

But as we read the founding documents, we see that this is far from the case. They talk about the creator God, divine providence. They talk about the fact that they believed that God was involved in national affairs. These were not mere deists. These were people who believed in the God of the Bible. And upon biblical principles, the United States was founded.

Of course, we recognize that the founders were all sinners, every one of them. They made a lot of mistakes. Some of them held bad views on various topics. We're all fallible. We're all sinful. And yet it was their declaration that we want to put ourselves under the sovereign dominion of a righteous God. And it's on this basis that the United States of America was founded.

I believe that it was because of these founding principles and the fact that they derived principles for the nation directly from the word of God. We have three branches of government. Why do we have three branches of government? They got it from Scripture. Comes right out of the Old Testament. We have a unique nation. Is it perfect? Absolutely not.

But the basis upon which it was founded was biblical truth and a belief that there is a God who is sovereign and who is righteous and who demands that men live in accordance with the principles that he has laid out in his word. Are we proud of America? I am. I love this nation. I love the very principles which have made us great.

I love the fact that there are people who have wanted to defend this nation so that we could have freedom. But I want freedom not simply to be free, but to have freedom and the blessings of almighty God so that we can continue to propagate the word of God, so that we can continue to send out missionaries, so that we can continue to be a nation.

Our money says, "In God we trust." What a testimony that is. We may not think about it anymore. It's been on our coins and our money for so long. And yet people all around the world see that. In God we trust. I pray God will keep us free just for his own name's sake, lest if we go down, people will say, "Their God wasn't big enough."

So we've just had this great celebration. And I hope you're reminded of the grace of God. America, America, God shed his grace on thee. May he continue to do that. And so as we see these American flags, I'm reminded. And I can tell you as one who has lived overseas many years and have traveled to many countries, it thrills me to see the Stars and Stripes. It really does.

I give thanks to God for what he has provided through this nation. This nation continues to be the number one missionary-sending nation in the world. Now we're losing missionaries rapidly, but still there is no nation that has ever sent out so many missionaries. And we're still leaders in that area. We publish Bibles in thousands of languages and we distribute them around the world. It's coming from here.

So we can look at our military might. We can look at the wealth that we have in this nation, the tremendous prosperity. We can look at many things that the world would envy. But the thing that moves me is the grace of God and how he has blessed this nation. And that we should seek the betterment of this nation, righteous leaders in our governments so that we might bring glory to the God that has made us and preserved us a nation, as it says in the fourth verse of the Star-Spangled Banner.

So we salute America, but at the same time, let's not forget that we are here only by courtesy of the grace of God. And as Daniel records three different times in his book, the most high God rules in the kingdom of men and he appoints over it whomever he chooses. Sometimes we've had some really evil men in the White House and in Congress. But it's the most high God who rules in the kingdom of men. He put them there.

And so instead of getting very angry and being very abusive verbally about those who might be in leadership, we need to ask, "What does God want me to do in this situation? How can I glorify God even though we have evil leadership?" And I've long said that this nation can endure evil leadership, but we cannot endure an evil people.

And if we, the people in the nation by and large, are evil and if we turn our backs on the word of God, then surely judgment will come. But we are still here. And while we are here, there is hope. And while we are here, we must always keep in mind we are here for God's purposes. So let's keep our focus on that.

Now we're going to come to our Bible study. This morning in Sunday school and in the service, I want to talk about forgiveness. What is it? What does it mean to forgive and how do I do it? There are a lot of commands in Scripture. We read them, we know that we should do it, but we really don't know how to do it many times. Forgiveness is one of those areas.

This is a very important topic. The Lord Jesus put much emphasis on it. The apostle Paul puts emphasis on it. So we need to understand it. Forgiveness. Why do we need forgiveness? Well, because we're guilty, because we have done wrong. And because of that, we need forgiveness where we have done wrong and we need to forgive others who have wronged us.

Dr. Karl Menninger, the famed psychiatrist, once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75% of them could walk out the next day. People walk around with a lot of guilt and they want forgiveness. They don't know how to get it. But today, we're going to talk about your responsibility to forgive others who have wronged you.

So we see some commands found in Scripture. Colossians 3:12: "Therefore, as the choice ones of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, putting up with one another and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do." Why would you have a complaint against somebody else? Well, because they hurt you in some way, they wronged you, they sinned against you.

Matthew 6:14. Now this immediately follows what is known as the Lord's Prayer. You all can recite the Lord's Prayer, I am sure. Now in that prayer, it says, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." But then it goes on and we get down to the end, "thine is the kingdom and the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen." Did you ever read the next verse?

He says, "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses." Well, that's serious, isn't it? You don't want to forgive somebody who has wronged you, then God won't forgive your sins?

What about 1 John 1:9? "If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Well, yes, you can confess your sins, but what if you don't confess that sin of refusing to forgive somebody else? That's a sin because we're commanded to forgive and if you don't do it, then you've got this sin that you haven't confessed and this sin that you are perpetuating.

So if you don't forgive others, then it says God's not going to forgive you. In Matthew 18:34: "His master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due him. And so my heavenly father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses." That is serious.

In the New Testament, we have two different words for forgiveness. The first one is charizomai. Comes from the Greek word charis, which is the word for grace. And the word means to be gracious, to show grace, to forgive on the basis of grace. What is grace? Grace means you receive something that you do not deserve, something you don't earn, something you haven't worked for.

That's grace. Forgiveness of others is an expression of your own grace mental attitude. And you need to deal with others in grace, not giving them what they deserve, but giving them what they need and giving them from your heart this idea of forgiveness. So it's related to grace when you forgive somebody.

There's another word for forgiveness, aphiēmi, which means to release from legal obligation. Sometimes this word is also used for divorce, but it means to cancel a debt. It's to cancel a legal obligation and therefore it comes to mean to forgive. Now we have three categories of forgiveness. We can remember them if you can remember words that rhyme: eternal, paternal, fraternal.

The first is eternal. Now this is a judicial forgiveness. This is found in Colossians 2:13. It says, "And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses." Now this is a past transaction. It's completed. God has forgiven you. That's once and for all. And it's the Greek word charizomai. It means it was grace.

We don't deserve God's forgiveness, but in grace, God has dealt with us and forgiven us all trespasses. So that is judicial or eternal. And that applies even to your future sins. Christ died on the cross for all sins, even the ones that you'll commit later today or tomorrow. They've all been taken care of and when you put faith in Christ, there is a judicial, eternal forgiveness.

Now once we become the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, God is no longer dealing with us as a judge dealing with a criminal. Rather, he is going to deal with us in a family sense as our father. We are his children. And children often disobey their parents. And when we sin, we are disobedient, rebellious children. But God deals with us as a father.

When your children disobey you, you don't put them in jail. You may discipline them, that's probable. But you're not a judge. It's not a legal proceeding. It's a family issue. And that's the way it is in the family of God. So now we need to have paternal forgiveness. So when we sin, when we violate God's commandments, we are sinful, rebellious children.

And what do we do now? Now we confess our sins to the father. And he is faithful, which means he will always do this no matter what the sin, and he is just in forgiving our sins. He's just in forgiving our sins because they were all paid for at the cross. That's 1 John 1:7. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses us from all sin and he cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

Now this word to forgive, this is that other Greek word aphiēmi, which literally means to send away. It means to cancel an obligation. So it's like there was a debt that you owed and whoever you owed the money to just tore up the contract. And so that contract then is null and void. The contract that required you to pay has been canceled. And so God will forgive us our sins and he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The third category is fraternal. Now this is family fellowship between siblings. Did you ever squabble with your brother or sister? Well, it often happens in the family of God and often we are going to offend one another and sin against one another in one fashion or another. And there needs to be forgiveness between siblings.

Now this third category, fraternal, is going to take place in two different directions. One is horizontal. This is between you and the other person. This is personal. Somebody has wronged you and now your fellowship with them is broken. You know how you get out of sorts with somebody, there's been some sort of argument and now you don't want to talk to them. You want to walk past them.

You might even walk into church and say, "Boy, I hope they don't come past me today. I hope they sit on the other side." You just don't want to talk to them. Your fellowship has been broken. You're still in the same family, but there needs to be horizontal. This is between you and the other person personally. And horizontal forgiveness is where you personally forgive someone who has offended you.

But there is also a vertical dimension. And this is between you and God. And this is where in your heart, you forgive the offending party without even confronting them. So they wronged you in some way, hurt your feelings, maybe they did something wrong and it hurts you. But you can still forgive even though you don't confront them. And we'll talk about how you can do that.

Ephesians 4:32: "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you." This is charizomai again. It means it's a grace action. We are to forgive in grace just as God forgave us in grace. Now in this passage in Ephesians 4:32, he says, "be kind." The word "be" is the Greek word ginomai, which means to become something that you were not before.

It means there needs to be a change in your thinking and in your behavior. You need to become something. Now this is a command. It's a present tense which indicates this is something you have to keep on doing. This is not something we do naturally. It's against our nature. And so we have to keep on becoming. Active voice, you are responsible for this.

It's not a matter of saying, "Oh God, change me." Well, God didn't change me, so it's his fault. No, you are the one responsible for it and then it's a command, it's not an option. Now he says "be kind." This word "kind" is a very interesting word. It means to be pleasant, kindly, gracious. It means to be non-irritating.

We find this word in Matthew 11:28-30: "Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Now the word "easy" here is this word to be kind.

Well, how does kind relate to being easy? Well, the word means easy to wear. It's like a yoke that they would put over the neck of oxen and they're going to pull a plow, they're going to pull a wagon. And when they would put that yoke on the ox, they had to make sure that it wasn't going to create friction, that it would just chafe and rub so that sores would actually develop.

The word means to irritate, to annoy. So if you're going to be kind, it means you don't rub someone raw. It's not something that you want to do with the friction. And so you're to keep on becoming like this. You aren't this way naturally. You need to work on this one. Keep on becoming kind and gracious. And in many of our relationships, honestly, we're not very gracious with one another.

Some people are not easy to wear or get along with. So oftentimes this creates divisions in families, marriages, unfortunately also in churches. And what happens is oftentimes we want everyone to be nice to us, but we don't particularly care if we're nice to others, especially if it's somebody who has wronged us in some way.

But the command here is that you need to keep on becoming gracious and kind no matter what others do. So don't be an irritation, rubbing people the wrong way. Don't be an annoyance. So you're to be gracious to others. That means you exhibit grace in your life to them. They might deserve your scorn. Maybe they've done something wrong.

And as far as what they deserve, it may be something bad, but that's not your place to inflict that judgment upon them. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Can you trust the Lord or not? And oftentimes we're saying, "No, no, I'm going to do this myself. God, you stand back and let me punish this person because they hurt me."

And if you get into that frame of mind and you operate in that way, as we will see in the second hour, it's going to make you miserable. It's going to create for you just torture of soul if that's your attitude. But we are to be gracious to others. Grace in our thinking toward others, grace in our action toward others. All of our thinking and doing should be grace in function.

And this means that you don't deal with others on the basis of their character, but on the basis of your character, just as God doesn't deal with you on the basis of how good you are or what you deserve, otherwise we'd all be gone. Your character should be the character of Christ and it will be when you are able to walk by means of the Spirit.

So we are to keep on becoming kind to one another. The word "one another" here is what's called reciprocal. It means it's an action that ought to go both ways, but sometimes it only goes one way. And so maybe you want to be gracious to somebody, they don't want to respond in kind. But Paul wrote in Romans chapter 12, "for your part, if possible, you be at peace with all men."

Sometimes it's not possible because it takes two people to have a reconciliation. It takes two parties. Sometimes the other party doesn't want to reconcile, they don't want to be right with you. Doesn't matter because God tells you what you're responsible to do even if the other person continues to be unkind or nasty.

And then Paul said in Ephesians 4:32, "you need to be tenderhearted." Now this word tenderhearted is very interesting. Literally translated it would mean healthy intestines or on a lower level, good guts. But it means to be compassionate. It's the opposite of being indifferent, callous or hardhearted.

So in 1 Peter 3:8 he said, "finally all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous." So here it means I need to understand and recognize you have feelings too. And I can't be hardhearted and say, "I don't care how you feel, so if you feel bad, big deal. What's that to me?" No, we're not to be that way.

We're to understand that these other people, they are brothers in Christ, they need our love, they need our compassion and we need to be tenderhearted. So you consider the other person. You need to care about what they are experiencing. All right, forgiving one another. Again, means to give freely, graciously, to pardon, to forgive.

To forgive one another "just as." The word "just as" is an adverb of comparison. It means in the same way as. You are to forgive others in the same way as God has forgiven you. God the father forgives us in Christ. Ephesians 1:7: "In Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace."

God forgives us on the basis of his grace. So this word, it's the cancellation of an obligation. So somebody may owe you something. Can you forgive? Well, what are we commanded to do? So God in Christ forgave you. God forgave you, it's an aorist tense which means this is a done deal, it's a completed transaction.

And it's at the point of your faith in Christ, God in Christ forgave you. And the verb here is in the middle voice, which we don't have in English, but in Greek it means this is something that was done for your benefit. This is good for you. God did this for your benefit and God really did this. He has forgiven us. God forgave you.

Now between Ephesians 4:32 and Ephesians 5:1, you have a chapter break. Chapter breaks are very helpful for us. They help us find our way around the Bible and that's good. If we didn't have chapters, it would take us a long time to find something. If I wanted to talk to you about Isaiah chapter 40 and we didn't have chapter divisions, I say, "Okay, turn in your Bibles to comfort ye, comfort ye my people."

And it would take you a long time to find that. So we have chapter breaks that didn't come to us till about the 13th century, 14th century, somewhere in there and they're very helpful. But sometimes they cause us to not really get the context because we tend to stop at the end of a chapter or we begin our reading at the beginning of a chapter.

Frequently that's okay, but sometimes they didn't do a good job when they divided the books into chapters. And here's one case. Because Ephesians 5:1 says, "Therefore be imitators of God as dear children." And so people will say, "Well, how can I become an imitator of God?" Well, the answer is found very clearly in the context.

What did we just read in Ephesians 4:32? "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be an imitator of God." In what way do we imitate God? By being forgiving. That's the context. So the word "to be" again, it's to become, to become something you were not before.

We need to keep on becoming imitators of God and again this is a command and I need to imitate God in the area of forgiveness. The word imitator, it's mimētēs in Greek, from which we get our word mime or even imitate. Be imitators of God. So how do we imitate God? Some say, "Well, it's by producing the fruit of the spirit or other things."

But in this context, very clearly, it's forgiving others. So God forgave us, we are commanded to forgive others. Now how should we forgive? We forgive from the heart, we forgive completely, we remove the reminders of the wrong that was committed against us, we are to show mercy and not anger, and we are to reaffirm our love for the offender.

Oh, we don't like doing these things. These are hard. They go against our nature. Of course, our nature is sinful. So let's take a look at each of these. Forgive from the heart. So in Matthew 18:35: "my heavenly father will do to you if from your heart you do not forgive your brother his trespasses." So this is something that comes from the heart.

This is not some insincere apology, "well, I'm sorry." Well, that doesn't say anything about the offense that you committed. This is a forgiveness. I tell people don't apologize. Never apologize. Where do we get that? And I can remember when I was just a little kid and my mother said, "tell him you're sorry. Tell your sister you're sorry."

Well, I had to say the words. I was forced to do that, but I wasn't sorry at all. Especially with my sister. But I had to say the words. What is an apology? An apology by definition is a defense. So you wrong somebody and then you say, "oh, I'm sorry." Well, are you really? Or is this just another lie? Is it just some words that come out of your mouth?

And it doesn't in any way acknowledge that you were wrong. When you say, "I'm sorry," what are you saying? "Oh, well you didn't like it? I'm sorry you didn't like it. I'm sorry you feel that way." But it doesn't do anything as far as acknowledging wrongdoing. So if someone wrongs you, you need to forgive. And we'll talk about how to do that.

We are to forgive completely. "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." How far is the east from the west? That means unlimited. If you start going east, you'll never start going west. You'll always be going east. That's why it doesn't say as far as the north is from the south, because if you're in the south and you start going north, at some point you're going to start going south again.

But this is unlimited. It's complete. And then remove reminders. "You've cast all my sins behind your back." Sometimes people want to keep a memento of how somebody wronged them. Years ago, Phyllis and I were first married, had very little money, things were really tight. And I went out and I did a job for a woman. I worked really hard for a week.

The end of the week, she wrote me a check. So I went, deposited that check in the bank on Friday evening. Saturday, I wrote a bunch of checks. The next week, I found out the check that woman gave to me bounced. And so not only did I have the money that she owed me, I also had a $15 charge on all the checks that were bounced on my account because the check wasn't any good.

And so I took that check back to the bank and they said, "No, this account has been closed." So it's not just something I could resubmit later. The account was closed. I went back to the woman's house and she was gone. She had moved. Oh, I was angry. I took that check, I went home, I pried up the glass on my desk and I slipped it underneath there.

Every day, I would go in and sit down at my desk and here I am, I'm supposed to have my Bible study, and I'd see that check and I got angry. Day after day, that was just a reminder. And finally I said, "I've got to deal with this. I can't just keep being angry all the time because of this." And I pried up the glass, pulled out the check, tore it up, threw it away and oh, what a relief that was.

You need to get rid of the reminders so that it's not in front of you all the time. And we need to show mercy, not anger. Micah 7:18-19: "Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea."

We need to show mercy, not anger. I understand getting angry, but what does God require of us? In 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 7 and 8: "On the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and to comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow. Therefore, I urge you to reaffirm your love to him."

We don't like this. Somebody wrongs us, we don't want to reaffirm our love to him. We don't want to forgive. And yet we need to be compassionate. We need to consider the other person. You need to care about what they are experiencing. All right, forgiving one another again means to give freely, graciously, to pardon, to forgive.

To forgive one another just as, the word "just as" is an adverb of comparison. It means in the same way as. You are to forgive others in the same way as God has forgiven you. God the father forgives us in Christ. Ephesians 1:7: "In Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace."

God forgives us on the basis of his grace. So this word, it's the cancellation of an obligation. So somebody may owe you something. Can you forgive? Well, what are we commanded to do? So God in Christ forgave you. God forgave you, it's an aorist tense which means this is a done deal, it's a completed transaction.

And it's at the point of your faith in Christ, God in Christ forgave you. And the verb here is in the middle voice, which we don't have in English, but in Greek it means this is something that was done for your benefit. This is good for you. God did this for your benefit and God really did this. He has forgiven us. God forgave you.

Now we talked about the two types of fraternal forgiveness: the horizontal and the vertical. First is the horizontal. That's between you and the other person. It's a personal exchange where you're going to have to deal personally with that person who wronged you. But then in the other instance, it's just between you and the Lord. Somebody has wronged you and you're going to give it to God.

So the horizontal, Luke 17, verses 3 and 4: "Take heed to yourselves." Now when you find this frequently in Scripture, "take heed to yourselves," that means you are responsible for this. Pay attention to this, this is for you. "Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you saying, I repent, you shall forgive him."

Now this is an overt response to repentance. That's between you and the other person. You're required to forgive, that's personal, personal interaction. But in Mark 11:25-26, we have a very different situation: "Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive," and then "him" is in italics in your text, meaning it's not part of the original text. It doesn't say forgive him, it just says forgive.

"That your father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your father in heaven forgive your trespasses." Jesus said this numerous times. Paul said it. We find it in Peter. So this is serious. So this forgiveness is done while praying. Therefore it's done by praying.

Whenever you stand praying, and I don't think standing is necessarily the thing to focus on here, it could be any position. But here you're praying. If you have anything against anyone, why would you have something against someone? Because they hurt you, they wronged you. Forgive, so that your father in heaven may also forgive you.

Now the word "to forgive" here is aphiēmi, it means to release from a legal obligation, to cancel a debt, to forgive. So this forbids the nursing of grudges, criticism of the offender behind his back. It's just you're going to release him of any obligation. So we have different actions commanded. In Luke, it says forgive him.

That means you're going to release the offender. You're seeking here to restore a damaged relationship, to restore fellowship. But in Mark, we have a different concept. You're going to release him to God. So this vertical forgiveness, it's to release the person into the hands of God for judgment.

This means you don't have a personal vendetta against the person, but you give them to the only judge, to the only one who can truly absolve them from their sins. And so when I forgive in this way, I'm just going to give them to God. And it means now you're out of my hands. It's between you and God. Now I'm free to give you my love and my patience and I'm going to let God take care of you.

So the biblical perspective is that forgiveness is a prerequisite to God's forgiveness. We've seen this in numerous passages. If I don't forgive, then I have sin, the sin of unforgiveness. And that's very serious before the Lord. John writes that loving God and hating people are contradictory. You say you love God, but you don't love your brother, you hate your brother because he hurt you?

We can't do that. And forgiveness in the heart should be granted before it is requested. So forgiveness gives the offender what he needs rather than what he deserves, and that's grace. Psalm 103:10, one of my favorite verses: "He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor has he rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."

See, God hasn't dealt with us according to our sins and we need to treat others also in grace. And then forgiveness is to be granted when requested without limitation. If someone says, "I was wrong, forgive me," then you are required. And some of you say, "I'll never forgive." Well then you've got a problem.

So forgiveness is an act of obedience. It is not an act of feeling. It's something you are required to do. And we forgive as God forgives us. How does God forgive? He casts our sins behind him, that is, he removes the reminders. He removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west. That's complete removal.

And he forgives when we acknowledge our sins. So it's an act of grace. It's unearned, undeserved by us, and we are to forgive in the same way. So what is forgiveness? How do I do it? Well essentially forgiveness of the other person is a promise that you make. It's a promise that you are not going to dwell on the wrong that was done to you.

1 Corinthians 13:5 says that love does not keep a record of the wrongs that it has endured. Somebody wrongs you, you can't write it down and keep a record of it. That's not love. So if I forgive, it says I'm not going to keep on dwelling on that. Now, things pop into your mind and you can't control that, but you don't have to leave that stuff in your thinking.

Instead you can do something like Philippians 4:8: "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are right, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and anything worthy of praise, think on these things." You might need to make a list of things that you're going to think on, the good things, the virtuous things, the lovely things, instead of dwelling on the wrong.

It's a promise that you will not bring up the incident in judgment. Now, you may need to talk about it, but it's not going to be in a judgmental fashion. So you can forgive somebody and that restores your fellowship and then you may need to deal with other issues, but it's not a matter of you being judgmental.

So it's a promise not to bring it up in judgment to the person or to yourself, where you keep dredging it over and over in your mind, that rotten person, that bad person. And you don't bring it up to others. So it's a promise you make when you forgive. Okay, I'm not going to bring it up in judgment.

It's a promise you're not going to talk about the offense to others. So you have words, not words that tear down and that hurt, but rather words of edification to give grace to the hearer. So you're not going to talk about the offense to others and you're going to remove the reminders of the wrong and reaffirm your love for the offender and then you're not going to hold the offense against the person. That's the definition of forgiveness.

So we're going to stop at this point. Now, we have but scratched the surface and only introduced this topic. The Bible has much to say about this. So when we come back in the worship service, we're going to continue this topic and I hope give you some more understanding of how important this is and what you have to do in order to be pleasing to God and have peace with others.

Father, I give thanks that you've given us all the instruction in your word that we need so that we can properly relate to you and your plan for us here in the world. And oftentimes we are concerned about having our own way and our own rights, but may we learn truly to love one another and to forgive one another so that we can imitate you in this area and bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ and have a testimony as one who is forgiving. So help us to understand these things. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.