27. Forgiveness [Matthew] - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

no theme that has arisen more from getting to know the people and our stories. This is how you deal with people who have hurt you because what happens if you do what Jesus said? What if you go to talk to the person who hurt you and what if they don't care? What do you do if you go and talk to the person who hurt you and she cares and tells you she's sorry but your act is not so sure she's sorry enough and it starts to eat at you, what do you do if someone misbehaves? with you and you don't have the opportunity to go talk to that person because they passed away or because I've moved away or because time has created such a gap that it's going to be too painful to bring this up again.

What do you do with someone who has genuinely apologized to you but you can't get over it? Has anyone ever had a personal conflict with a human being before? Well, so there you have it, so Jesus is speaking to you if you are his disciple, if you are one of his followers and apparently Jesus wants his followers to live as a sign of the kingdom as a sign of the new humanity and in a different way. of being human beings, which means becoming secular in our ability to forgive and show mercy, so this is what I would like to do.

I almost never do this type. Of course, but since I've had this conversation so many times, I wanted to pretend that we were having a cup of coffee and that way I can have about 350 cups of coffee here in one on the web. environment and because what does it mean to forget 77 times? What does that mean? I've discovered it personally and then whatever in pastoral ministry, are these teachings of Jesus about

forgiveness

? They're actually very easy to misunderstand, they're often misapplied, and sometimes they're even abused in a way that hurts people even more than they already are, so I just want to do two things: clarify what Jesus does not mean by

forgiveness

so that we can be very clear what Jesus means by this. unlimited capacity to forgive that we are supposed to show by following Jesus and what I normally never do is make a list, but I am going to make a list simply because I want to make this as clear as possible, this is what I want to do what we hear in this teaching, not seven times seventy-seven times unlimited, really unlimited forgiveness, and so we hear that and I think one of the most basic misunderstandings that people have about Jesus' words here is what I call the misunderstanding of the doormat. from Jesus' teachings on forgiveness, which is basically okay if I forgive someone, but Jesus basically asks me to just lie down and keep taking it and taking it again take the wrong again whatever it doesn't matter just forgive and forget take it and hope that Jesus will bring justice one day and you don't need to know a lick of Greek, you don't need to know a little bit of ancient history, you just need to know how to read English and in the next 10 minutes you will see how absolutely wrong, that is, forgiveness means something, but it doesn't mean lying down and becoming someone else's doormat to trample on you, are you with me?

Last week Josh talked about this passage, he looks at Matthew chapter 18, just the words right before this. correct word look in verse 15 do you remember what Jesus said to do if within the community of disciples another brother or sister is sinning and here we would be talking about a case in which they sinned against you? Do you remember what Jesus told you to do? so the first thing you do is talk to them, you don't have a prayer meeting about them and you don't just go into denial and just say "well I'm supposed to forgive" so let it go. go and do nothing about it, go talk to them for the love of them, for the love of them and the love of the community, you are going to talk to them and if they don't listen to you and they don't care about you and they will own what they did, what do you do, then you get someone else, you get someone else in the community who knows them and also loves them and cares about them and then you go talk to that person and then what do you do if they don't? open yourself to what has been done to you you go back to even more people you see this you come back you take it to the broader church community whatever the network of relationships and support around those people is and then you have another CD so whatever is here and which one , so Jesus told us to do this when we hurt each other, but then we somehow scrambled the next paragraph and thought about forgiving seventy-seven times.

I guess I'm supposed to accept it and suffer in silence. Jesus is talking out of two sides of his mouth or we are not good readers of English, we need to learn to put these two teachings together and when you do, Jesus' teachings on forgiveness do not become any less intense. I think they actually become more powerful. and realistic and more personal, so I never preach the list because I'm already bored by the time I'm halfway through the list, but I would do it again, just for clarity. I have found that working on this is helpful. exercise, so pretend to be rotten, I'm drinking 350 cups of coffee right now, so to Jesus, whatever forgiveness means, can it mean that when someone hurts you you just ignore it and overlook it?

Can Jesus say that? Well, apparently not, because what's the first thing you do? What are you supposed to do when someone hurts you in the church community or what do you do? You talk to them. How many of you have heard the phrase forgive and forget or the idea that love will simply walk over people when they have wronged you? Love will cover someone's evil against you when you go through the forgiveness process, but love does not overlook what Jesus means, it is the exact opposite of ignoring or forgetting and is certainly not tolerating. A lot of people think that forgiveness means that I'm actually treating what they did to me like it's no big deal and like it doesn't matter, no, it's a big deal and of course it matters, that's why you're going to talk to them right, because They do it for love of themselves and they like the man yes.

They don't realize that this is how they treat people and for the love of the community, if they treat me this way, the bellboys will treat a lot of other people this way and maybe it's like I'm out of line. rocker, maybe I'm taking this too personally so I actually help get someone else involved like Jesus says here so that based on the testimony of more than one witness, because maybe I'm the one who's wrong, I need someone pointed it out to me. me because my thinking is too clouded here, but whatever we do, we won't, we won't do any of those first four things right there, we won't ignore or forget, we won't forgive or apologize to you with me here.

This is a very simple observation, but it took someone else to point it out to me before I realized what forgiveness was and what it was and was not forgiveness, whatever forgiveness means, it also does not mean tolerating or allowing. more bad actions or abuses and In fact, I think this is one of the most common misunderstandings and abuses Jesus is teaching here how many times am I supposed to forgive seven no no no no seventy-seven times just take it just take it stop reading the previous paragraph, if someone has hurt you, mentally I feel very bad about you, what is the first thing you do?

This is pedantic, but this is what I would do in our cup of coffee. So what's the first thing you do? Go talk to them. What if they don't confess? What they have done to you, don't think it's wrong, think you're stupid and too sensitive and they don't want to apologize, what do you do? You get someone else, what if they don't listen to you? Someone else just stops and thinks about what Jesus is doing here, whatever that means, especially if it's an unsafe situation. Does Jesus imagine that you will ever be alone with that person again? dasappan ashes will you ever be alone with that person again?

Not apparently Jesus thinks inside you. The community creating safe limits of increasing distance between you and the offender is what we must do for each other here in the community of disciples, whatever it is seventy-seven times, it does not mean returning to the arena to hurt yourself. again, are you with me here? I mean, it's just the moment you see I just want to be very clear and this is a big room and what do the statistics tell us? Statistics tell us that right now in this room there is a There are a large number of people who are in a relationship in a marriage or in a family where they are being physically abused, they are being hit, they are being verbally abused, emotionally , yelled at and shamed, where they are being sexually abused.

I'm in this room right now and I want you to hear very clearly that Jesus is calling you to forgive the person who has hurt you, we will talk about that, but if you are in one of those scenarios, your first priority is not to forgive them, but to get to safety and talk to another person and put yourself in a situation where you can regain stability where there is distance and safety so you can really begin the hard work of forgiveness that has to come if you are a follower of Jesus, you are with me here and somehow that message is not communicated in church communities and some of you may know firsthand that the abuse of those who suffer in silence becomes the doormat.

I'm just going to take it for Jesus. Jesus is. He's not asking you to do that He's asking you to forgive He's not asking you to stay in a dangerous or abusive situation and so just pause because I know this is important and your hope even has to do with the safety of people. people two names of pastors here at Hope's door Bree and Tom, if you find yourself in one of those abusive situations that I mentioned and you don't have anyone to talk to because you don't have someone who is safe, here you are to protect the people in your church community who I would love to talk to you and connect you with people who can really help you and who are qualified to help you.

With me, this is serious and we must take it seriously as a church community because there are so many church communities that have made mistakes and people's lives are destroyed because they think they are being faithful to Jesus, but in reality they are just being reckless. You are with me? Back to the list, forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation or restoration, and it is not. It means that things go back to the way they were go back to the paragraphs before Matthew chapter 18 verse 15 if if the person who is wrong with you is going to be reconciled with you, what does that require for someone to be wrong with you?

I mean, they really hurt you and it means correcting what it will take on their part to get to a place where you two can truly reconcile. what does it mean for them? Well, it means that they're going to have to like own up to what they did, they're going to have to do it. To assume it, they will have to find a way to see that it was wrong and that they need to apologize, that is really a huge amount of work. I mean, I really think you know you can paint this from the perspective of being. wronged by someone because that's what Peter says, but I mean how many of you have had someone come up to you and say, hey, like you made me feel this way when you did this to me, it's just not a fun conversation, you know? ? and then they immediately put you on the defensive and you say, aw and those are roots, what it takes is this really profound change on the part of someone who has offended or harmed another person to come to own it, it's a lot of change. and the humility that that person requires, then the question is what do they not like, what if they don't want to own it, and what if they don't do the hard work.

Can I forgive them? and one of the most common. misunderstandings is that what Jesus asks us to do is not only forgive but also make sure that reconciliation happens but can you control a reconciliation? Can you control whether someone apologizes to you or not? you have no control over that right you can't force someone like realize that what they did was wrong, you can try or you can use every verbal trick in the book correctly and you can make sure, but for deep humility and repentance to happen in the other person you have no control and there are times when reconciliation becomes impossible becomes impossible because the person who hurt you has died, is no longer alive, the relationship is so dangerous or so destructive that you really like it, you can't, you can't be close to them.

Jesus wouldn't want you to be around them and you can't talk to them anymore. What are you doing? And forgiveness is different from reconciliation. Forgiveness is like this two-way street where both people come, they humble each other. I'm forgiving. I'm acknowledging what I did. It takes time for you to rebuild trust in the relationship etc, forgiveness is needed, apparently it is not needed and this is significant. Look at the last line of Jesus' parable in Matthew chapter 18. Look. In verse 35, where does Jesus say forgiveness takes place? Where is the root act of forgiveness? Look at the last sentence of Matthew chapter 18, where do you forgive in your heart?

You control the thoughts and emotions at the will of another human being. You can not. Therefore, forgiveness is something different from reconciliation. There are times when reconciliation may not be possible. Still you are calledto forgive and you are called to forgive regardless of how that person responds to you. It's just a completely different act, which means. Just because things will never be the same again, it doesn't mean that you have to be best friends again, it doesn't mean that you will be able to enjoy being together and have any kind of healthy relationship, it's just different it's a completely different act you guys with me here last doesn't mean necessarily that the offender escapes the consequences think think whatever forgiveness means not excluding them yourself going to them with another person going to them with more people and if they do not recognize it they will not see that what they have done to you violates the teachings of Jesus and then what is what?

Jesus says you do it with someone who says he is a follower of Jesus but with all his behaviors and decisions he is hurting people and they don't care and they don't think it's wrong? What did Jesus say? What is the consequence? he says: treat them as he would a pagan or a tax collector. Now Josh talked about this. How many of you heard we were here last week? So Josh talks about this. How did Jesus treat the tax collectors? Did he like to paint big T's on his forehead? Of course, wow, how did Jesus treat the tax collectors?

He approached them, dined with them, and celebrated the celebrations of the kingdom, but what did he do? He called them to follow him. You don't cut off the person you recognize like oh, they really aren't. a follower of Jesus, so why would you expect them to follow the teachings of Jesus if they are not followers of Jesus? It should change the conversation. I've been wrong about this person, but I actually like the more important conversation someone else needs to have. with them because I'm not going to be in the same room with him anymore is that they need to take into account their own sin and selfishness and whether they're going to do it or not, that's the conversation right now and if that's really where their heart is. and their mind, then the grace of God will begin to do the work in them so that they realize that we need to do this how it works here and those are real consequences apparently in the mind of Jesus forgiveness does not mean that there are no consequences and this It's very complicated and this is really complicated because there may be some moments when Jesus is calling you to free someone from the consequences of their behavior.

There may be situations where freeing someone from the consequences of their behavior is actually the most socially irresponsible way. What you could do, especially in situations of violence or abuse, is appropriate for them, for a person who is consistently violent or abusive towards other people, so that you can release all the consequences, whatever it is, what are you doing? You're just setting it free so this person can be violent and abuse other people that's irresponsible, are you with me here? So, I'm saying that too much this morning, but I'm, you're with me, right?, but I'm just trying to generate a clear understanding of whatever Jesus means, I think.

For this case specifically it requires wisdom and discernment to know what this means because it always means some release from consequences, but to what extent is it likely that you cannot discover it for yourself? That's why you need another person. Because? You need two other people to help you resolve this situation, so those are just simple observations from Matthew 18 about what forgiveness doesn't mean, so forgiveness doesn't mean that, what does it mean? And here Jesus is brilliant because he doesn't put a list on the screen and bore people to death, he tells a parable, he tells a story and I just want to highlight a few things from this brilliant, brilliant parable and they are his insights that I got from one of the most practical and useful books. about Christian forgiveness read in my life and if I had a thousand medicines, give Mountlake by Lewis Smedes called the art of forgiving, how to forgive when you don't know how and what, I would have a whole chapter on this parable. here and he brings up a series of things at once, you see them, it's like, that's exactly what Jesus is saying here where again let's start at the end where does Jesus locate the act of forgiveness? where do you do it in your heart now?

Of course, that's a metaphor, right, your heart beats with blood, that's what your heart does well, right, muscles contract? Remember science class, everything is so obvious, so in the Bible the heart is a metaphor and it's actually different than the way we think in the West. of heart we think of heart when we say heart what kind of human activities are we thinking about in your heart what do we do with our heart in the United States do you love you feel you feel things well it is the center of emotions and in the Bible it is different the Bible does not have a word for brain, did you know there is no brain in the Bible?

Okay, there's just who knows what they thought was gray matter for them or whatever, in the Bible your heart does it, but we've separated between our brain and our. heart we think of feeling, will and logic in the choice, but in the Bible the use of the word is simply read throughout the Bible and circled every time it occurs in the heart, it is a lot of work but It's really interesting, you will learn a lot in the process and what you learn is that in the Bible the heart is about choice and feeling, it is about the center of your emotions and your will, which means that for Jesus forgiveness is a choice, It is a choice that you make and that you start to feel like.

If you make the decision, it will probably never be something you want to do or feel like you want to do, but it is something that he wants his followers to do, it is a choice that becomes a feeling. and what is that journey? It's that trip and I'm brilliant so you have this parable about the guy who owns millions of dollars to a king he's supposed to laugh and then he says I can pay it back really you're really like an idiot why why would you? use that tactic correctly and then what does the King say he's going to do what's justice for this guy who owns millions of dollars? what would be fair and again it is loaded with cultural difference fairness and what happened in your culture was that they sold you debt service or debt slavery, which means that you and your family are going to live with this person to declare that you know that You owe this money until many years pass and you work to pay it off, that's how things work in your day, but releasing this guy from all his debt he goes out and finds someone who has a few thousand dollars and what does he do what is it? his response to the guy who owes him a minuscule amount and Jesus is very careful to paint the picture slowly here what does he do to him first he strangles him, he is strangling him, pay what you owe me, the guy says the exact same words to him that he said to the king, who also owns billions of dollars, but refuses to release the guy from his debt and kicks him out instead.

Where is the prison now? If you didn't notice a contradiction there, I pointed it out, but really think about what Jesus is painting right here. If you throw someone in jail, what can't they do if he's going to pay you a few bucks? a thousand dollars can't work I can't work so Jesus is talking this is what unforgiveness does to us it makes us irrational it puts us in a state of vengeful frenzy where we don't even see that it stopped being justice a long time ago and in It's not really about whether this person can say sorry or pay us back, it's that you don't want him to be able to apologize to you now, you might think yes, that definitely doesn't describe me and maybe it doesn't describe you all the time, but be honest with yourself. yourself and at least you haven't wanted to go there once with the person who hurt you, it's stupid, it's just human nature, it's what we do. the spiral of human history look at human history and tell me we are not totally irresponsible when it comes to justice and reward we not only want justice we want to feel the satisfaction of a lease a brief choke before someone throws us out haha ​​provided and in We actually want to put this person in an impossible situation so he can know what he really did to me and it may not be how you feel all the time, but you can't deny that at least you felt that some of the time and Jesus knows it so It's not just about this guy having amnesia for what he was forgiven, we'll talk about that, it's about that, forgiveness is first and foremost a decision to give up what he is by nature and even a certain right to retaliate and take back to this person, it does not mean that there are no consequences, remember the paragraphs before this, but it does mean some kind of release from something that you could do but choose not to do, that is the first step to The act of forgiveness according to Jesus in this parable means refusing to put this person in a scenario where it will be impossible for them to make up for what was done to them.

Deny that this story has been written 7 billion times. this planet now and Jesus says that the kingdom of God is here and he is being born again as a new type of human being and in the kingdom we conflict differently, we do it differently, we give up our right to retaliate and we do this heart we choose to change the attitude of our heart and in the parable I think this involves a few things here, you choose and you allow your decision to create space for your feelings in this decision to forgive, which first of all as a Christian means remembering forgiveness of God for me. and that's clearly what's in this whole parable, right, is that this guy has, I mean, it's ridiculous how quickly he's forgotten the enormous debt that he's been forgiven and then he's willing to retaliate and put this other person in an impossible situation because of the little thing that has been done to you now you may not feel like it so you may not feel that the thousand dollars that someone owes you is just a thousand dollars, you may feel that it is zillions of dollars and you may feel that you have only offended to the King a thousand dollars more or less.

Are you with it? So in which case, I'm just a man, let's go back to 101, let's go back to Christianity 101, you, you and I are divided in more ways than we can handle. We realize the blind spots in our character, and in reality, it is not just about our own individual failures, but the fact that you and I are united in a social network called the human race, where my decisions are actually seen. totally affected by your decisions and people in New York in Los Angeles and Hong Kong and China and then our decisions affect some people in China and then things in Thailand like it's all connected and the ways they hurt me and sin in the ways you were hurt and sinned against you as a child by your parents and then by your grandparents and the baby boom generation, it's such a complex web that it's never just about me and my debt to God, it's about me and our debt before God, look what we have done. to their world, look what we do to each other, I mean, I won't even quote the newspaper headlines, like look, we live in the city of Keynes, we live in the city that was built and the ultimate secularist in our world and the little lamb.

X Within all of us, as if this is simply that we have created this disaster and we owe millions of dollars to the creator of our good and beautiful world, made human beings to reflect his image and look what we have done to the place and look at what that we have done to each other and the moment I forget it and the moment I forget what the King has done in response to what we have done to his world and it's just Christianity 101 is that God is so committed with his good world then, instead of taking revenge and simply burning the place that comes among us in the person of Jesus, and he personally absorbs and takes into himself the ruin, the sin, the evil in death that we have all created in His good world as an act of love and in the resurrection he offers us his life, he offers us liberation from the consequences of what we have done here, which is to live in the hell that we have created here in the Hereafter and he frees us through his loves and the The moment I forget is the moment I really started to think that I have a higher ground than any other human being and that somehow the fact that I have been wronged is actually more significant than the way I and we have wronged God and just like if my toe is just a little bit cold, just a little bit, you know, it's going to feel great and I'm going to do it, it's my decision, I deserve it because I had been wronged and then Jesus is mine. to somehow create that little bit of euphoria.

The ground is the moment when I have completely forgotten if it would even mean being a Christian in the first place, which is that and then this is what God's forgiveness when I recognize God's forgiveness of me this is the immediate result it is suddenly rediscovering the humanity of the person who hurt me because yes, life is the way someone hurt you and hurting you was selfish and sinful, yes, but this is what we do when we are hurt and it is a natural response, but You have to stop and think about it. What we do is here we are a complex human being with a long life history and they have all kinds of motivations for why they do what they do and they hurt me, but what we do.What we do is we take their complex humanity and boil them down to this person, which is what they did to me, so they lied to me and then all of a sudden in our minds it's not just that they lied to me, but that they were, they were.

I was born with a forked tongue, you know they are liars, not only did they cheat on me, they are cheaters, so we do this and all this, this is how we demonize other human beings and then once we do this, we like it for an entire culture of people to do this to another culture of people it's over, it's war it's because there is no attempt to humiliate us and recognize that yes, you are bad, but in reality I still am, oh, like you are selfish, but I, I am selfish. I may be selfish in different ways than you, they make me hurt other people in different ways than you hurt me, but we are both just a mix of good and evil no one is completely bad and no one is completely bad we are all one. mix and recognize God's forgiveness of me and us strengthens and humbles you before the cross to be able to see some humanity and goodness in the other person and recognize that they have the same level of commitment as me and then once you arrive there, it is a decision that you make, it is a decision that is summarized here in verse 33, what The master said to the servant: shouldn't you have had mercy in the same way that I had mercy on you instead of embracing the hatred and instead of imprisoning this person and putting them in a possible situation that they will never be able to pay for?

I will return you even if you wanted me to have mercy. I am going to choose to treat this person and think of this person with compassion instead of hate. I guess what I do is forgiveness according to Jesus. Have we stolen his power? read Matthew 18 in context and see what it doesn't mean and what it does mean, I mean, imagine if we really lived like this, imagine if we really reached out to each other when we hurt each other, don't gossip, don't hold it sacred. prayer gossip sessions, you know, imagine if we actually did this, imagine, I mean, I think it would transform our relationships, it would transform the kind of community that we could become last week when you know, Twitter came and Facebook and all the news channels.

I live because of the unrest from the shooting at Aqua Community College in Roseburg, I mean, we're so tired of this, right? and what is the response of Jesus' followers to this repeated type of senseless violence, which is a lot. There are many things, but one of them has to be forgiveness, which apparently does not mean ignoring it, which apparently does not mean tolerating it and allowing it to continue, but it does mean treating people with compassion and not hatred. that murder of others on June 17th the last tragic mass shooting was at the Immanuel Methodist Church in Charleston South Carolina barely three months have passed and then Dylan Roof walks into the Wednesday night prayer meeting

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study waits until more passes of an hour and a half-long meeting and then it just breaks out and nine people died two days later the daughter of one of the women Ethel Collier was murdered in chapel 71 her daughter had the opportunity along with the other nine families of the victims who died in that shooting, guys, you can watch it on YouTube.

Family members stood in front of a microphone and spoke to the person who murdered their families. This is what Nadine Collier said. I forgive you by addressing Dylan. I want everyone to know that you took something very precious from me. I will never speak to her again. I will never be able to hug her again. But I forgive you and have mercy on your soul. You hurt me. You hurt me a lot. of people but if God forgives you I forgive you hmm thank you Jesus for Nadine you