Forgiveness

In this broadcast, Pastor Tanner thanks those who attended their anniversary celebration and invites others to join their church. He then discusses the importance of forgiveness and its purpose to help us live burden-free and avoid unnecessary judgment. He emphasizes the need to not take offense and to understand that some actions are due to ignorance. He warns that if we don't forgive, God will not forgive us. Forgiveness is essential for living a free and abundant life. Well, good morning. This is Pastor Tanner, and welcome to our broadcast for this morning. Thank you so much for being here. And for all of you all that came out and shared with our anniversary celebration on last Sunday, I want to thank you publicly. Thank you so much for being here. Your love was felt from the time you touched the front door. And me and my wife and our family just really appreciate understanding and knowing how much you appreciate us. So thank you so much for coming. If you are actively looking for a church home, and especially if you're unchurched, but you want to go to a place that will not judge you, a place that will love you just the way God made you, and will encourage you, which is what God tells us to do, to edify and build up one another, we would love to have you come and consider being a part of our family. Community Church is located right in River Ridge, and at 116 Florida Street, there in River Ridge, right next to the levee on Florida Street. And we're just, as soon as you cross the Kenner line, you're in River Ridge. And then, of course, you come toward Harahan, and River Ridge is right there in the middle. And turn on Florida Street, and turn to your right, heading toward the levee, and you'll see our church. And we start at 8 o'clock every Sunday morning, so obviously you're listening now. Church service is probably over by now. But we'd like to have you come and be our very special guest. And if you do come, let me know you're in the building. I would love to be able to meet you, speak with you, share with you, and do what we can to make sure that this place might become a home for you. So that's my ask for you, my proposition to you, and I look forward to seeing you there. I'd like to tell people I want them to follow me as I follow Christ, and I want to be that kind of a pastor, especially in these times, that will not shame you or bring embarrassment upon you or myself and so forth. And so I'd like you to be a part. I really would like you to be a part and bring your talents, bring your gifts, bring what God has given you to help our ministry do great things. So we'd love to have you, and looking forward to it. Now, today, I want to talk about something that I know can be a challenge to many people in the body of Christ and so forth, but doesn't have to be, and we really have to work on this one because I don't want anyone that's supposed to be in heaven with me one day to miss heaven over something like this. And so I want to make sure that we get this part handled. And so what are we talking about today? We're talking about forgiveness. Forgiveness. And I know some people may think I understand that. I have a good knowledge of that and so on and so forth. And maybe you do. So if you do, then maybe you won't stay here for this. But if you don't or feel like there's still more that could be learned, then this might be a great place for you to stick around for the next little while. So I want to talk about forgiveness, and I want to start by talking about its purpose. And maybe you never thought about what is the purpose of forgiveness? Why did God make it such a heavy weight upon those of us who would be Christians? And it's probably the heaviest thing that there is, maybe besides love. But there's more weight on forgiveness and or not forgiving than there is on love. And so because of that, I think it's worth talking about it. And since God himself in the form of Jesus shared so much about it to our benefit, I think it just does us well to kind of understand its purpose. So forgiveness is to allow us to get through life. To get on with life. To live that life he talked about, which is life more abundantly. It is to empty ourselves of baggage and the sin that can so easily beset us that we may run this race and so forth. Because unforgiveness is like a weight on our neck and a weight on our shoulders. It does slow down the pace that we get through life. It does turn the run into a walk and sometimes a walk into a crawl. And so the purpose of forgiveness is to help us to live as burden free as possible. That's the reason. The other purpose for forgiveness, if you're counting, the other purpose for forgiveness is to get us away from judgment, especially undeserved, unwelcomed, and unnecessary judgment. To get us away from observing the moat in our brother's eye and ignoring what may be taking up the entire space of our head. It is to help us to move on through life and to help us to not become judgeful or in the seat of the scornful or anything like that when it comes to how we live our lives. It's that important. God wants us to be at liberty. He wants us to be free. He wants us to not be burdened. And he knows there are certain things that will keep us from really enjoying all he wants us to enjoy. And so he wants us rid of that stuff. That's why he talks about there are some things in his life that is going to anger you, that are going to make you angry. But he also says in your anger, however, it's important that you discipline your life in such a way that you can be angry but sin not. Now, will people get on your nerves? If you are living, they absolutely will. Will people test your fiber? And they absolutely will. Will people disappoint you? Yes. Will people let you down? Yes. Will people fail you, not live up to your expectations? Yes and yes. Because people, even those who are working toward perfection, have not perfected yet. And there are people who have perfected in certain areas of their lives that are almost beginners in other sections of their lives. And this is a process. And so forth. But forgiveness is ours to give. When we are offended. So that's the purpose is to understand that he wants you to have a judgment free and full life. That's the purpose of forgiveness. Now, let's talk about maybe what could happen to not have us to need to do it so much. And that is, if you don't want to have to forgive so much, then you're going to have to learn to not take offense. Because what we're forgiving are offenses against us where someone has offended us in some form, fashion or shape. Someone has offended us. And because we are offended, we now have to forgive because we have been offended and we got to forgive that offense. So one of the things that you will learn as you live and further discipline your life is you will learn to not make everything an offense. And not to take all things personally. And when you can discipline your life to understand that some things that people do is out of just ignorance, just don't know better. So, for an example, it's easy for me to forgive someone who's prejudice because I don't make prejudice. Their prejudice is my problem. Their prejudice is from their ignorance and is their problem. And I'm not going to make it my problem and therefore get offended and then now have to forgive. Because if I never get offended by it, I have nothing to forgive. Does that make sense? And so what happens is you have to think about in your life the things that get you angry, the things that become offensive to you. And ask yourself, should this really matter to me as much as it seems to? And should this be something that occupies as much of my headspace as it actually is occupying? And could this be something that I could just let go and get on with my living and so forth and enjoying my life? Is this thing my problem or that person's problem and so forth? And then decide how you're going to live. And that's the point of it. And so once you think about that and think about, is that something you can do? So order of the day number one is see if you can stop taking offense to so many things. Maybe ask yourself, am I overly sensitive? Why does all this stuff that other people do bother me to the degree that it does? Why am I so upset? Why am I so angry about this thing that was done or said? And you have to learn sometimes that other people have their issues. And am I making these people's issues mine and all these things hurting me more than hurting them? And you'll likely find that that's likely the truth, that you're being more bothered by it, hurt by it than they ever would be and so forth. So maybe that might be something to consider. Maybe there's oversensitivity. Maybe you're just taking offense too often. And maybe just understand that the issue is not you. It's the persons and leaving it with that person. That could be one solution and so forth. The other thing that you should appreciate, though, that makes this important is God wants you in freedom and liberty so much. He wants you living without judgment so much that he said, if you don't forgive and this is important. If you don't have the ability to forgive when you are offended, to forgive when you are wronged or perceived wrong. You forgive when someone has ignorantly or purposely done something or said something against you that you take offense with. And you can't forgive them for it. Then God says, neither will I forgive you. And let's just wait for a moment. He is basically saying not only I'm not I'm not going to forgive you for your shortcomings, for your sins against me, for your sins in your heart. For your sins in your mind. For your sins against others. I am not forgiving you for not forgiving them. Add that sin to it because that's a sin because I've told you to forgive. And so this is what we continue with God. And while we think that we're the victim, we deserve some mercy here. We deserve some grace here. God is saying, well, if you are a victim, you're also a disobedient victim because you can stop being a victim the moment you forgive. You can stop being the person who's short in the stick the moment you forgive. But you're refusing to forgive, which means you are succeeding to remain a victim. And God, that is troubling to God because Jesus' blood was to set us free. He came to have life and have life more abundantly. And this is worrisome to God. And so God says, let me just add this weight to this. If you're going to carry a weight, let me add this until and unless you forgive them. I will not forgive you. And so forth. And that to me should be enough reason to forgive. Now, and if you're going to practice forgiveness, you should do it the way God does it. Oh, OK. Well, how does God forgive? Well, God forgives, number one, completely. Yeah, you should have made note of that. God completely forgives. When God forgives, he erases the incident from his recall or from his memory. When God forgives, God forgives and forgets. So God, once he forgives, it's like it never happened. I want you to think about that. When God forgives you, he cleans the slate as if the thing that offended him, the failure, the shortcoming, whatever it was, is gone forever. And we know that God wants to forgive us any offense. So the Bible says he is faithful and just to forgive us. He is going to do it. If you ask him for it, he's going to do it. Right. And this will be true unless we've not forgiven others. If that is, in fact, the case, like the man in the Bible who was forgiven a debt he could never pay and when found one of his fellows that owed him a week's wages and not only attacked the man, but had the man cast in a debtor's prison. And when people saw how that man had been forgiven that morning and how he'd attacked that man that afternoon, they ran back and told the king who had forgiven this man more than his family could ever pay what he had done. If you remember the story, he was brought back into the king's chamber and the king asked him, please tell me this is not true. Please tell me this is not true. And of course, he couldn't because he had actually done that and man was in debtor's prison. And so he reestablished a debt on the man that he could not pay, which put his whole family in captivity and turned him over to the torturers until the debt should be paid. That is the picture of what unforgiveness can bring about. That not only does God say, I cannot believe you can't forgive that person in light of all I've forgiven you and in light of all you've done. And yet this person has done this offense against you, not counting the many you've committed against me, but this person did this offense against you. And you're telling me and explaining to me, explaining to your pastor, explaining to people, explaining to anybody who will listen, why you can't let it go, why you cannot forgive. But yet you expect me to forgive you. And I see way more than that person did. I got to forgive the way you think. I got to forgive your heart. I got to forgive those unspoken things you carry inside of you. I have got to forgive your shortcomings concerning God. I've got to forgive a whole lot of things I've asked you to do that you don't do and a whole lot of things I told you not to do that you do. I got to forgive all of that almost daily. And this person offended you last Wednesday and you're still carrying around on this Thursday. And that that's hard for me. And so God is like, OK, well, since you've got a problem with that, I'm going to have a problem with that. Now, that brings us to the third issue. So now the Lord says no sin is entering into the kingdom. So any sin that's not forgiven is active sin. Any sin that hasn't been forgiven is actual sin being carried by us. And no sin went into the kingdom. This is a problem. This is a problem. So a person really dying with unforgiveness is really dying as a sinner. Someone that has an active sin and they continue in that sin and it's there between a sin and a sinner. They continue in unforgiveness, which means they continue as a sinner. And no sinner and no sin is coming into the kingdom. So then. God is saying, if you haven't been forgiven, you're not going to be with God for all eternity. And who's the one has to give you forgiveness? God. But why don't you have it? Because you could not forgive. And so since the time you decided you couldn't forgive and all the short fallings and things in your heart, things in your mind, things in your words and all that, that have gone against God, every idle word, all that stuff. Is sin to him. Everything he told you not to do that you did is sin to him. Everything that you do that you weren't supposed to do is sin to him. Every thought you had that was not a thought that pleases him. You know, the scripture says, think on these things. Every time you thought of other things that were not those things and so forth, that that goes unforgiven. Well, my God, if all of that goes unforgiven, you are rank sinner. By the time you leave this place. And that is why it's so important. Because without it, we don't get his forgiveness. Now, notice he didn't say, if you don't love, I won't love you because his love is unconditional. He loves us in spite of us. He loves us when we don't love ourselves. That's kind of God he is. But yet when it comes to forgiveness, he says, if you don't forgive, I won't forgive you. He means something about that relationship. And if you don't know this by now, God is a relationship. God. God is not like broken relationships. He's not like failed relationships. He does not like wounded and torn relationships. He believes in restoration. And that's what he gives us every time we fall short and come to him in repentance and ask for forgiveness. He restores. And he expects nothing less from us. He expects us to do it. And I know so many times when people hear me talk about this, they want to say, Pastor, you just don't know what they did. You just don't know. You just don't know what happened. You don't know the whole story and all that. Not necessary. Don't need to know the whole story. Don't even want to be told the whole story. Because the end of the story, it better end what I forgave him. It better end with I forgave them and I restored the relationship to the degree I could. It is not right for a man of God to tell you to leave this person, get away from that person, stuff like that. Because if Jesus heard him saying that, he would have a real problem with that because he loves the world so loved it that he was given for it. And with that kind of love for mankind, that kind of love for the world would kind of stand against you deciding, I don't know, I can't be around them. Right. This is what Peter was saying really to Jesus when he asked this question, said, Jesus, I have taken offense or the way he said it. My brother has offended me so far seven times already in this day. Seven being the number of completion. In the Hebrew day, in the Greek day, seven being the number of completion, I feel I've completed the course of forgiveness. But I'm going to ask you the question, since you are a rabbi, since you are a teacher. How many times, how often should I forgive my brother who offends me and has offended me so far seven times this day? And the Lord said, I will tell you, you should forgive your brother 70 times, seven times a day. Which would be you should forgive your brother 490 times per day if he comes and asks you to forgive him. And if he don't ask you to forgive him, you should forgive him. Now, what Jesus is hoping is that no one's going to sit with a piece of paper or a calculator and say, OK, we had 465. Now we have 466 and I got a few more and a 24 hour day still exists. Because it would mean on the next day you got to start over, back over from one. He's making the point or illustration is you will forgive every time forgiveness is necessary. Or how about you tell me the thing and the time you don't want me to forgive you? What is the thing you don't want me to forgive you of? What is the number of times I should stop forgiving you? Give me a number. And that's a very dangerous game to play, right? And so we would not give God a number and therefore God has not given us one. And so consequently, we forgive because God commanded us to do so for us more than the person. There are many, many people who offend you who don't even know you're offended. Maybe their tone of voice, maybe the way they said what they said, maybe the exact thing they said and and how they said it. And you got offended by it. Well, some people just happen to talk a certain way, just have a certain tone in the way they talk. Some people came up in a house that they had to almost shout to be heard. And they've learned to talk that way. They had to be deliberate to be taken serious. And they've learned to talk that way. And there are some people that their parents never raised their voice. There are some people that only talk in a certain tone of voice and so forth. And the two encounter each other. It's not that one's trying to be obnoxious or offensive. This is just the way they have been communicating most of their lives. And the other person doesn't like loud people and forceful talking people and so forth. And they just take offense to it. And yet those same people, they may take offense to somebody that can't speak up, that don't make themselves clear and so forth. The key is without knowing background. And many times you don't know the background of people you encounter. You don't know their story. You don't know all they've been through and so forth. You just got to believe that God's working on them just like God is working on you. And understanding that and appreciating that and forgiving other people. And then I wouldn't want to close today without talking about the hardest person to forgive. And that's yourself. This is that needless pain that we bear because you notice by now that you're harder on yourself than anyone else could ever dream on being. You just are. We are harder on ourselves. We demand more of ourselves. We push ourselves to more limits. We just are. And we are critical of ourselves more than we are anybody else. And we don't mean to be. It's like we can't hardly help it. And when we make a mistake, many of us carry it too long. Many of us just can't get through it, get by it, get over it and so forth. And if you had a problem with other people, imagine the problem you have with yourself. And when do you decide whether you were a great mother or not a great mother? Were you a great father or not a great father? You were there or you were not there. But when do you decide to forgive yourself? Oh, yeah. And God counts you also when he counts people and things you've not forgiven. And you are included in that. And at some point, you've got to have a new day. At some day, you've got to feel those new mercies. At some point, you've got to decide that my world is new. My relationship, my day is brighter. At some point, you've got to decide to live and not die, as it were. And that decision to do that has a lot to do with whether or not you can forgive yourself, release yourself and allow yourself a chance to live. To really live, to get back out there, smiling and laughing and enjoying life. And stop getting around that person putting your misery face on or your offended face on or I'm sorry, I got to go face. Because that's depriving you of the blessings of God that should be on your life. That's depriving you of the fullness of life you should be living because you're trying to communicate to that person, hey, I'm still offended. I'm still bothered. I'm not OK. And so forth. And you have a God to pray to, a God that heals, a God that restores, a God that forgives. And yet you tend to want to carry this way longer than you should. So forgive yourself. Every failure, every fault, every shortcoming, forgive yourself and do it like God does. Forgive and forget it. Throw it out. Like Paul said, I'm not perfect. But one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind me, I press toward the mark of a high call. You have got to learn to forgive those things that are behind you and press toward that mark. This has been Pastor Tanner. I love you. Like to see you soon. Have a great rest of your day.