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[0:00] We said at the outset of this series that there's really only one thing wrong with this world. And it's the way people treat each other.

[0:12] We see conflict on every corner of the globe. We see broken homes, broken marriages, broken friendships. People's relationships tattered and torn, frayed at the edges.

[0:28] Dispatchers, separating, divorcing, anger, retaliation, retribution, and so on.

[0:40] It's just systemic to humanity. And, of course, it all stems from what is referred to as the fall of mankind.

[0:52] Why don't people treat one another in a right fashion? Simply because we are all in our fallenness, self-centered and self-serving.

[1:08] And I want my way. And when you want your way, there sometimes is a conflict because one of us isn't going to get their way.

[1:22] And it's usually the one that's the bigger and the stronger that gets their way. And the other is held under their thumb. That's the way it's been since Genesis chapter 3.

[1:34] And that's the way the world operates. But for those who name the name of Christ, we march to a different drumbeat. We are not supposed to buy into that.

[1:46] Our Lord said to his disciples when they were quibbling among themselves over who was to be the greatest in the kingdom, and who was to have the positions of honor and authority, one at the right hand and one at the left.

[2:00] And Jesus said, Those of the world strive after these things, and those who are great require people serving them and doing their bidding.

[2:14] But it shall not be so among you. You are not to operate that way. He who is to be chiefest among you, let him be servant of all.

[2:30] That completely flies in the face of world expectations, doesn't it? We consider those who are in positions of power to be those whom others serve.

[2:43] And our Lord took on the attitude and the disposition of a servant. The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.

[2:59] So we are talking about the biblical pattern, the biblical principles for maintaining human relationships, for people keeping their closeness and increasing it and developing it and deepening it and enjoying it more and more as the years go on.

[3:23] And today we move to the subject of forgiveness, getting it and giving it. And Gary is out of town this morning, so I'm going to ask you to turn to Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 6.

[3:40] Very, very familiar portion. One which the world refers to as the Lord's Prayer, but we refer to as the Disciples' Prayer.

[3:53] The Lord's Prayer is found in John, Chapter 17. And in Matthew, Chapter 6, beginning with verse 9, Jesus said, Pray then, as he addressed his disciples, Pray then in this way, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

[4:18] Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

[4:31] You can see the reciprocation there, can you not? It is a prayer that God will forgive us our debts or trespasses, whichever you prefer, in the same manner and on the same plane as we forgive others.

[4:46] Is that not clearly a conditional kind of forgiveness? We read on. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

[4:58] For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. For, if, here is that conditional aspect, if you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

[5:19] But, if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

[5:32] Now, how do you take that? It is hard to take it any other way, other than at face value, what it says. That our being forgiven of God is dependent upon and determined by our forgiveness of others.

[5:49] But, how does that square with certain other passages that we will consider a little later, one of which is in Colossians chapter 2, where we are told that we are forgiven all trespasses in Christ.

[6:02] I don't know about you, but, on December 8th, 1956, in Ellensburg, Washington, Main Street Baptist Church, I got down on my knees as a 21-year-old soldier boy who was going to be married three hours later, and I received Jesus Christ as my Savior, and I received His forgiveness, His pardon, His cleansing, His life, His righteousness.

[6:34] I received all of those things, although, I was scarcely aware of any of that, but I'll tell you one thing I did not do. I did not recount in the prayer that I mumbled through there in the presence of that preacher and my wife-to-be, I did not meander through a list of people that I needed to forgive who had done various things to me over my young 21 years of life.

[7:07] In fact, it didn't even occur to me. It didn't even think of it. It never entered my mind. But I do know that Jesus Christ entered my life and changed it forever in a way that no psychiatric couch could ever accomplish, and I became a new person in Christ with new desires, a new life, new ambitions, new interests, because if anyone be in Christ, he's a new creation.

[7:38] Old things have passed away. All things became new. That certainly was true of me, and everybody who knew me knew that a radical change had taken place. Yet, in connection with receiving God's grace, I don't recall ever even thinking about forgiving anybody about anything.

[7:58] So how would it be possible for God to forgive me? And were there people in my life who had wronged me that I had never forgiven? Of course there were.

[8:09] Lots of them. Hey, started on the grade school playground. Continued all through school. Continued in some workplaces.

[8:19] Because people do things to one another that they shouldn't do. They say things that they shouldn't say. And it hurts. It wounds you. And more often than not, there's no apology.

[8:33] No thought of an apology. You just kind of try to shrug it off and forget it and go on. And you know what?

[8:43] You do the same thing to other people. Say things and do things that you ought not to say and do. I did it. I had it done to me and I did it. I was both the offender and the offended.

[8:56] And I suspect it's that way with all of us in just about every sphere of life. In the workplace, in the neighborhood, sometimes in the church, at school, in marriages, we say and do things.

[9:11] And often, there's no apology and there's no forgiveness spoken of or extended. And yet, we are supposed to believe that God, just with some kind of big, gracious blanket, wholesale, forgives us all our trespasses.

[9:33] How is that so? We've got so many things on the blotter against us. People that we've wronged, people that we've not apologized to, how then can we possibly be a candidate for God's forgiveness?

[9:48] What's the explanation for this? And we will deal with that. So we continue working our way through the process that takes us from the committing of an offense and hurting of one another to the final resolution that results in restoration and reconciliation between the offended and the offender.

[10:11] And I want to emphasize that there is a logical and consequential development that takes place whether we realize it or not. Or let me put it this way, that should take place but often never does.

[10:32] Because what usually happens after we say or do something that offends somebody, what usually happens is nothing.

[10:48] We don't apologize, we don't ask for forgiveness, and they don't forgive us. And what we are generally thinking of and counting on is just dummy up, say nothing, give them time, they'll get over it.

[11:09] They'll forget about it, and things will get back to normal, and nobody has to do anything, just give it time. That's what usually happens, and that's what is usually in the mind of the offender.

[11:24] But it's the wrong way to go, especially for those of us who name the name of Christ. Now, we cannot expect the world at large to apply these principles.

[11:36] They don't know about them. For the most part, they aren't interested in them. They don't understand how they work or why they work. They do not see the dynamic of a gracious God behind this.

[11:48] But what we are talking about is principally for the household of faith. This is the way we are supposed to treat one another, so as to maintain, deepen, and strengthen our relationships, and to restore those that have been injured.

[12:03] Because as Christians, as people who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, we can do some pretty ornery things. We can behave in a very unchristian-like way.

[12:15] We have no excuse for doing so, but we can, and we do. We all know Christians can be nasty. Someone has said, like in the workplace, you have never really gotten a shaft until you've gotten it from a Christian.

[12:32] Christians wounding Christians. Nobody can take you to the cleaners, do you dirty, or give you the shaft like another believer. And that makes it hurt all the more, because you expect something better from them.

[12:50] There is a logical, consequential development that takes place, whether we realize it or not, or whether we implement it or not, or at least that should take place. What I am giving you is the way this is supposed to be.

[13:06] It is the way that God has made provision for. This is God's ideal dynamic for human relationships. Sadly, it is often ignored, even by Christians.

[13:20] This ignoring of God's intended dynamics for the resolution of human conflicts explains why so many human conflicts continue year after year after year.

[13:36] Why the pain and the hurt of the offense never heals, and why the closeness once enjoyed never returns. Because remember, it is not the offenses that we commit against each other that weakens our relationships and increases the emotional distance between us.

[13:59] It is the offenses that are never properly resolved. I think it is inevitable just on the basis of our humanness that we are going to say and do things to each other that we shouldn't say and do.

[14:16] We do it out of a fit of temper or retaliation or anger or jealousy or something causes us to say and do those things. And that's just part of our fallenness.

[14:27] That's just part of being a child of Adam. We are not perfect nor are we even close. But when we say and do those things, are we willing to put into practice the dynamic that God has provided for us to resolve it?

[14:46] Because let me say this as clearly as I can. Jesus Christ did not die on the cross and make this dynamic available to us in order for us to ignore it, but to implement it.

[15:10] Part and parcel of what was incorporated in the finished work of Jesus Christ when he died on that cross was to provide mankind with the basis of resolving differences and conflicts that exist not only between man and God, that too, that's the big item, but between man and man.

[15:41] And it is tragic to see in Christian communities strife, rancor, bitterness, ill will, people not speaking one to another, and sometimes this goes on for years, even within a given congregation, people go out of their way to make sure they don't make contact with a certain other person because of a long standing feud that they've got with them.

[16:13] That's not why Christ died. that is not acceptable in the household of faith. It is commonly and mistakenly thought that time itself will resolve the issue.

[16:30] It won't. Now, granted, there are petty wounds that we inflict upon each other. I call these the darts, or even the pinpricks, things that hurt one another, but just a little.

[16:46] And most of us, unless you've got really thin skin, most of us just kind of let that stuff roll off, and we just don't take it all that seriously.

[16:57] We all are recipients of little barbs and things that snide remarks and things that people say and do that hurt, not a lot, but a little bit, and it irritates us and it bothers us, but most of us, most of the time, can just shrug those things off and not let it bother us, and maybe not even let it affect the relationship all that much.

[17:19] But, when you get to the arrows and the spears, they pack a wallop.

[17:31] They penetrate. It is an arrow offense that goes right into the human spirit, and it lodges there.

[17:43] And then there are the really big, serious offenses that I liken to a handheld and thrown spear.

[17:54] And when that thing hits the human spirit and implants itself there, it creates a huge wound, and the person is really, deeply, deeply hurt.

[18:09] seriously wounded. It may even mean the end of the relationship. And we pointed out to you, the only one who can remove that projectile is the one who put it there.

[18:31] You can't pull it out yourself. and the way it is removed by the one who put it there is by a sincere apology.

[18:42] I told you to envision the scene, if you could, of people walking around with darts and arrows and spears sticking out all over their body.

[18:57] things that they have absorbed that people have put there over the years by one offense after another. A spear and an arrow and a dart and two darts and two spears and people are just absorbing all of these emotional wounds and hurts.

[19:17] And sometimes, sometimes there is a buildup of hurt and anger and animosity and vengeance that is dirty, no good.

[19:38] I'm going to go home and get my gun and come back here and take care of business. That's how it happens.

[19:52] They go in and shoot up a place. Find the people who have hurt them the most, made fun of them, bullied them, whatever, and you take that.

[20:05] And I don't care if I get killed in the process. So what? Life's not worth living anyway. This is how it happens, folks.

[20:17] This is what it comes to for some people. Every now and then, we read about another one, don't we? Hurts and wounds, never corrected, never fixed, never resolved, they just accumulate.

[20:35] And finally, this person reaches breaking point, the last straw, and I am going to get even. should never come to that, but it does.

[20:53] Some think that if you just let enough time pass, it will be resolved. And we prefer to think that if we have wounded or hurt someone else, we prefer to think that.

[21:07] Give it time, because if we do that, then we can avoid doing anything that is really tough and humbling.

[21:20] We can avoid eating crow. We can avoid having to craft an apology and go to them saying, I'm sorry, I was wrong, please forgive me.

[21:35] I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. I don't want to lower myself to do that. So I just give it time. Just give it time. And we can avoid uncomfortable conversation and avoid reliving the incident.

[21:51] So everybody, both the offender and the offended, just dummies up and pretends, pretends that it never happened. But it did happen.

[22:05] and the wound is there. And time will not remove it. It may lessen the pain of it, but it will not remove.

[22:20] It cannot pull out the projectile. It stays there, stuck in the human spirit.

[22:30] and as long as it is embedded in the human spirit, there is no healing. What affects the healing?

[22:44] The apology. When repentance takes place and a sincere apology is rendered, forgiveness is requested and forgiveness is granted then and only then is the projectile pulled out.

[23:04] And what happens when it's pulled? Then the healing begins. And the healing can be very complete except for one thing.

[23:19] leaves a scar. You can't have a healing without a scar. And there will be scar tissue. And the scar is a reminder of what happened.

[23:33] You know, any time you injure yourself physically, you tear the flesh, arm or leg or something like that, or it's really, really serious, what happens is there are just incredible God prepared properties that take place inside your body that all run to the rescue.

[23:56] They run to that point of danger where the wound is. All these little things that are so tiny, they're microscopic and you can't even see them, but they're white corpuscles and they begin to affect healing.

[24:08] They throw themselves into the fray and they sacrifice themselves. They give up their life to contribute to your healing. And the physical wounds starts to heal over and leaves a scar there.

[24:20] And I don't know about you, but on this old 75-year-old body of mine, I've got a few scars through, one right down the middle of my chest. And it goes from about here down to here.

[24:32] And no, relax, I'm not going to show you. But every time I shower, step out of the shower and stand in front of the mirror and dry all, I see that scar. And you know what it reminds me of.

[24:45] It reminds me that there was a team of surgeons that were there inside of my chest, prying my ribcage apart, and stopping my heart, and performing bypass surgery four times, and putting me on a heart-lung machine.

[25:08] and then when that finishes, they send an electric shock to my heart that jump starts it and starts thumping all over it.

[25:20] That scar reminds me of all of that, of that wound. That was a wonderfully inflicted wound, not the kind that hurts, but the kind that helps.

[25:32] But scars remind us of things, and there are a lot of people with emotional scars, where projectiles have been pulled out, and you cannot forget, because your memory will not allow you.

[25:46] You can forgive someone, but you cannot forget the offense, because you don't have the ability to do that. We cannot dismiss from our mind those things that we would like to.

[25:57] It would be nice sometimes if we could, but they're there. So the scars remain, and that's part of the reminder of our fallenness.

[26:09] So we have the offense committed, the wound inflicted, whether it's an emotional dart, an arrow, or a spear, and it results in distance and resentment.

[26:22] Resentment toward the offender, because when somebody hurts us and wounds us, we don't like that. Of course we don't, and we tend to hold it against them.

[26:38] We think about that person differently than we did before they hurt us, and the wound or wounds that they placed in us makes us reassess and re-evaluate what we think of that person, and the more they hurt us and wound us, the lower we view them, and the more it goes on, the lower and lower it gets.

[27:09] So, our resentment toward the offender is reflected in the way we think about them and in the way we act toward them. Often, it's very subtle.

[27:22] Maybe it's so subtle that men may not even pick up on it, but I want to tell you this, man, I'm giving you this as a fair warning. You and I and our masculinity may not pick up on it at all, it can go right over our heads, but it doesn't go over their head.

[27:42] They pick up on it. You need to be advised, guys, if you don't already know this, that femininity has emotional antennae out.

[27:55] And they sense things, feel things, pick up on things that don't even occur to us. That's part of what makes femininity femininity. And I am satisfied that God provided woman with that, not only for her own protection, but to help educate the clod factor that we men tend to have.

[28:20] It comes as standard operating equipment with all men. We have a jerk factor, clod factor. And I'm not saying that women don't, but we have perfected it as an art.

[28:33] And women are very unskillful in the clod and jerk factor. That's what we capitalize on. So that's just the way it is.

[28:44] That's part of our masculinity. masculinity. Someone said that, a fellow told his wife, he says, if you want me to know something, please, don't drop a hint.

[28:59] Don't beat it around the bush. Just come right out and tell me exactly what it is that you want or think. And don't drop these subtle little hints and expect me to pick up on them because I'm not going to pick up on them.

[29:13] And then when I don't, you get ticked because I don't. And when I say, what's wrong? You don't seem yourself today. What's wrong?

[29:24] Well, if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you. Oh, boy, that helps a lot. So just tell us. Just be honest and forthright. Awareness and responsiveness to the coolness prompts the offender to reflect and replay the incident.

[29:41] This is information. I want you to understand this because it's really important, really important. Awareness and responsiveness to the coolness. The coolness is the distance that is created between the offender and the offended when the one who is offended starts to pull back.

[30:01] And you know why they do that. That's a protective device. They are trying to take themselves out of range so they won't be susceptible to being hurt again.

[30:13] So they withdraw a little bit. And when you pick up on that and if you, men sometimes, as I mentioned, can be very, very dense.

[30:26] But when he has in mind an amorous evening that he has conjured up in his mind and the wonderful time of intimacy that he wants to look forward to, and she is not the least bit interested, do you know what she's doing?

[30:47] She is providing him with information and it causes him to say, ooh, she's distant, disinterested.

[31:03] What's wrong? And you know what he does? He starts looking back over the day and things that he has said or done, and he relives the situations, the encounters that they've had over the last couple of days, and in replaying this in his mind, that is processing information internally.

[31:27] Sometimes it's external, sometimes she tells him what he has done, and he's got something to think about, something to work on. That's information and that leads to repentance, a change of mind, and the change that is repentance, which is real, will lead to expressing it verbally to the one offended.

[31:55] This is the apology and it is a hard thing to do. It is a manly thing to do, but it is a tough thing to do.

[32:09] We would rather just forget all about it. We would rather apologize on the cheap, buy her some flowers or something, and just let those suffice, and she'll know what it's for.

[32:21] I won't have to put it into words, but the word apology means from words you have to verbalize it.

[32:33] After all, you verbalized the offense, didn't you? Or you gave action to the offense if it was something you did rather than something you said, and the only way that can pull the projectile from the wounded spirit and let the healing begin is the apology.

[32:57] apology, and it can only come from the offender. Repentance that is real leads to expressing it verbally to the one offended.

[33:11] Apologizing requires words of contrition or regret for committing the offense. It involves taking ownership and responsibility for my actions, and we would all rather blame it on someone else.

[33:28] Well, it's not my fault. I was just having a bad day. That does not excuse it. Well, if you knew what I've been through, you could understand, and you wouldn't be offended that I offended you.

[33:39] And this is all cop out stuff, and we're all guilty of it. We want to find somebody or something else to blame other than saying it was my fault.

[33:50] no excuse. My bad. I own this thing. That is so tough. It's easy for me to say it to you now, but it isn't easy to do it when the time comes, and that's why more people don't.

[34:12] It's very difficult, but it's very, very important. The apology is then followed with a request from the offender to the offended.

[34:26] Will you forgive me? And the request for forgiveness always has to be preceded by an explanation, a spelling out in detail what the offense was.

[34:46] you can't just say, I know I shouldn't have done what I did yesterday, but will you forgive me? That's short-circuiting the whole thing.

[34:58] That's trying to reduce it to a bare minimum, and that is thinking of me, so as to lessen my pain and the injury to my ego by just keeping everything nice and general.

[35:11] None of us is perfect, right? So yesterday I showed one of my imperfections. Will you forgive me? No! That doesn't buy it. That doesn't do it.

[35:22] We need to spell it out. What was the offense? Because only when you are specific and spell out what you said or did that was wrong, can the offended one be assured that you understand how you hurt them.

[35:39] That's the only way it works. And it is painful to do that. It is painful to the ego, but it is very, very necessary. The apology followed with a request from the offender to the offended.

[35:53] Will you forgive me? And this is often mutual because you know when there is a heated argument and people are trading barbs and saying unkind things to each other back and forth, both are the offended and both are the offender.

[36:08] We've got two guilty parties. Nobody's innocent. They both inflict wounds on each other. That's what often happens in an argument like that. And there is a need for both to express contrition, repentance, and ask for forgiveness.

[36:32] Sometimes makes both parties eager to skip it, thinking that, well, one offense cancels out the other so we're even.

[36:42] I know I shouldn't have done what I did yesterday, but she shouldn't have done what she did the day before, so we're all even. Okay? Everything's canceled out.

[36:53] No! It does not work that way. That's trying to repair the relationship on the cheap by just ignoring the painful aspects of it.

[37:04] It doesn't work that way. if both have been involved as offender and offended, both need contrition, both need repentance, both need apology, both need forgiveness.

[37:19] After all, we're talking about restoring two people, not one. So this cuts both ways. Some of these offenses, particularly in marriage, have festered for years and years and years.

[37:40] Sad. Life is too short to live it that way, especially married life. Even if you have a married life that lasts almost 50 years, it's too short.

[37:54] Believe me, it's too short. And couples over the years, instead of growing closer and closer together with a deeper and deeper relationship, emotionally start drifting apart.

[38:19] And the next thing you know, they really don't even miss each other that much. Because of unresolved offenses creating distance between them.

[38:35] And I don't know how many people I've heard say, yeah, well, you know, we just kind of grew apart over the years.

[38:48] We don't know how it happened or why it happened, but it just seems like over the years we just kind of, I don't know, just kind of lost interest in each other.

[38:58] and we decided that we might as well make it official. We just don't have that much in common anymore.

[39:09] We've been emotionally divorced for a long time. We might as well make it official. This is so sad, especially for believers.

[39:21] unresolved offenses provides opportunity for further offenses that come more easily and more quickly. Because the longer we allow offenses to go unresolved, the easier it is to add new ones to it.

[39:41] And we both become more and more insensitive to the feelings and even the wounds of the other. We just kind of get used to being treated in a negative way.

[39:56] And the fireworks go back and forth a lot more frequently and it's terribly sad. Apology offered and apology accepted.

[40:11] Forgiveness requested. Forgiveness cannot be demanded or assumed. You have to forgive me.

[40:26] You're a Christian. That's part of your job description, right? You have no choice in the matter. You have to forgive me. Oh, no, you don't.

[40:38] You have an option. And what is it? It's the hardness of heart that says, I don't have to forgive and I'm not going to forgive.

[40:50] Now, the party, if they are a believer, completely wrong in that attitude. You can do that. Don't tell me you can't. I know too many Christians who have.

[41:02] They just dig their heels in and say, I was hurt too deeply, I was hurt too much, I was hurt too badly, I am not going to forgive them. And I forgave them once and they did it again.

[41:13] And this time I'm not forgiving them. Familiar refrain, isn't it? Forgiveness cannot be demanded or assumed because forgiveness is a gift.

[41:30] You don't owe the offender forgiveness. You don't owe it. You may give it, but they are not entitled to it.

[41:46] And hardness of heart is the option. It should not be engaged in, but it can be because God created us with volitional capacities and we have a will.

[42:00] God will not make you forgive. He will encourage you to forgive. He will tell you that you ought to forgive.

[42:11] He will tell you that you have no excuse for not forgiving, but he will not override your will and make you forgive. You can bear very bitter feelings inwardly over a lack and unwillingness to forgive someone.

[42:30] it can do a job on you internally so that you are tied up within yourself with an unforgiving attitude. That's just part of the price that we pay for sinful behavior like unforgiveness.

[42:44] But make no mistake about it. Forgiveness is an option. If you don't forgive me, God will not forgive you.

[42:56] It says so right there in the Bible. Doesn't it? We read that passage in Matthew chapter 6 and I want you to go now to Acts chapter 13 as we bring this message to a close.

[43:11] Acts chapter 13 The Apostle Paul is speaking in a wonderful setting and let's just start reading if we may with verse verse verse well let's just jump in with verse 37 he's talking about Jesus Christ and his resurrection God bringing him back from the dead he said but he whom God raised Christ did not undergo decay therefore let it be known to you brethren that through him forgiveness sins is proclaimed to you and through him that is through Christ everyone who believes is freed from all things from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses now we also need to treat a couple of verses in

[44:16] Colossians chapter one Colossians chapter one in verse twelve Paul said giving thanks to the father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light for he delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins and he is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of all creation and in him we are forgiven all sins well if he has forgiven us all trespasses how did he do that and why couldn't somebody have said to

[45:16] Paul now wait just a minute Paul there's this little problem back in Matthew chapter five and six that talks about the conditionality of forgiveness and that if I do not forgive others who have wronged me God will not forgive me what about that what about that the only possible explanation the only way that a contradiction clear and simple can be avoided is to recognize the dispensational distinction that is involved here when Christ was speaking in the sermon on the mount he was talking to his Jewish brethren who were operating and functioning under the law of Moses they operated on an entirely different game plan that included sacrifice of animals observance of the Sabbath and certain other days all kinds of paraphernalia that were required items of worship in the mosaic tradition that were not optional but that were imposed upon the people as the people of

[46:21] Jehovah and when Jesus Christ died on that cross he brought an end to the old order the old covenant he established the new covenant in his own blood and it is under an entirely different game plan and that which made the difference of course is the death burial and resurrection of Christ when that happened everything changed in fact it changed so much that you didn't even have to be a Jew any longer in order to be accepted of God you could come to God through the person of Jesus Christ receive complete pardon forgiveness I call it forgiveness the freedom of forgiveness forever that's what you have in Christ and it has nothing to do with your confessing your sins and confessing all of those who are admitting all of those forgiving all of those who have wronged you I can't even remember all the people who have wronged me much less forgive them you can't either it's an accumulation over a period of years and it's a good thing because in Christ we are forgiven all trespasses freely fully forgiven forever there is a blanket of forgiveness

[47:43] God doesn't forgive you for everything except these two over here these are biggies something else is going to have to be worked out for no the finished work of Jesus Christ was more than adequate for the cleansing and forgiving of all our sin in toto he died for the sins of the whole world and that's a bunch and it includes all of yours I want to address in upcoming sessions the subject of do you have to ask for forgiveness in order to receive it or can you forgive someone who refuses to ask for your forgiveness that too as well as what about what about

[48:43]  I know God has forgiven me because he says he has but I can't forgive myself my mother God rest her soul went to her grave with that sensation of being unable to forgive herself for something and I know she lived with that and agonized with that for her whole life I know it's all straightened out now because she's in glory but the principle is one that probably will be repeated by some of you here in the congregation even this morning you'll be able to identify with my mom and what she went through and I'll share that with you next week loving father we cannot thank you enough for that which we enjoy through the finished work of Christ how that on the basis of your grace not our merit but your grace you are able to extend the hand of forgiveness to us when we embrace the finished work of Christ and trust him as our savior you cleanse us and pardon us and forgive us freely and fully forever we rejoice in that we pray now that you will send us on our way with the thrill of knowing that the old account was settled long ago thank you for Calvary in Christ's name amen you thank you you mylr