Full On Forgiveness // Overboard with Jesus, Part 7

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Forgiveness, it's a word that we toss around out there as though it's something simple to achieve. Someone's hurt you, just forgive them, right, okay, done and dusted, let's move on. But hang on, let's just hang on a cotton picking minute, if you've ever tried to forgive someone who's hurt you you'll know that it's just not an easy thing to do and that right there is why most people have the destructive darkness of unforgiveness lurking deep in their hearts.

To be honest forgiveness never used to be a thing for me. Why forgive? My motto in life used to be 'don't get angry, get even'. If you did something to hurt me or betrayed me or you undermined me or you ignored me I would find a way of getting even. Vengeance is sweet they say although from experience I can tell you it does leave a bitter after taste in your mouth.

It wasn't until age thirty-six that forgiveness became a thing for me. This is how it happened, Jesus met me in a dark time in my life, my saviour came for me and reached down into the dark pit where I was and lifted me out. Those aren't just words, that's what happened and today I look back and I still find myself asking, "why me?" I'm speechless at the idea that Jesus came for me.

There were so many people who were nicer than me, I was a shocker I have to tell you. I was tough, hardnosed, brutal in my pursuit of success and then one day I read this story that Jesus told, Matthew chapter 21 verses 18 to 35:

Then Peter came and said to Him, 'Lord if another member of the Church sins against me how often should I forgive, as many as seven times?' And Jesus said to him, 'not seven times but I tell you seventy-seven times. For this reason, the Kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves.

When he began the reckoning one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him and as he couldn't pay his Lord ordered for him to be sold together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him saying 'have patience with me and I'll pay you everything.

And out of pity for him the Lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave as he went out came across one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii and seizing him by the throat he said 'pay what you owe'. Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, 'have patience with me and I'll pay you. But he refused. Then he went and threw him into prison until he could pay the debt.

When his fellow slaves saw what had happened they were greatly distressed and they went and reported to their Lord all that had taken place. Then the Lord summoned him and said to him, 'you wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me, should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave as I had mercy on you? And in anger his Lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.

So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.

The end of that story is just a bit brutal isn't it? I mean really. Is forgiveness that big of a deal? Well apparently it is to God. I was perplexed by this story, this parable that Jesus used to teach Peter and the other disciples about forgiveness so it got me thinking.

God makes us humanity kicking it off with Adam and Eve, He gives us a free will full knowing that we were going to rebel, full knowing that we would fall short of His perfect standards, full knowing that one day the demands of justice, Gods justice (after all we'd expect God to be just, right?) would have to be met.

I mean if I break the law and end up in front of a judge as I did once as a young man by crashing my car, you'd expect the judge to be just. He gave me a sentence, rather a light sentence as it turned out at the time, a fine or if I didn't pay the fine a couple of nights at her majesty's pleasure in a prison.

That's what you'd expect but imagine, just imagine if that judge had been my father, my dad who brought me into this world and loves me beyond measure. Now in that instance the judge would have had a fundamental conflict of interests. On the one hand, he's the judge and by the very nature of his role his job is to meet our justice. On the other hand, he's my dad and he loves me and he doesn't want to have to do that.

Well that's precisely the dilemma that God finds Himself in only for Him it's much, much worse because as we read in Romans chapter 6 verse 23:

The wages of our sin is death.

You and I through our sin, our rebellion against God, are under a sentence of death. Make no mistake about it, an eternal existence of judgement and suffering, John chapter 5 verses 28 and 29:

Do not be astonished at this for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice and will come out. Those who have done good the resurrection life, those who have done evil the resurrection of condemnation.

There it is, a resurrection of eternal condemnation, that's what’s at stake here. So God sends Jesus, His one and only Son, the one through whom the whole of Creation was created, He sends that Jesus to suffer and die for you and me, do you get it? This is why forgiveness is such a big deal for God. This is why Jesus told this powerful parable about forgiveness. Matthew chapter 27 beginning at verse 45:

From noon on darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At about 3 o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice 'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani' that is 'my God, my God why have you forsaken me?' Some of the bystanders heard it, they said 'this man is calling for Elijah.

"At once one of them ran out and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a stick and gave it to Him to drink but the other said 'wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.' Then Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and breathed His last. At that moment the curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth shook and the rocks were split.

Do you get it? That's what Jesus did for me and for you so that we can be completely set free from that eternal condemnation, for God so loved the world, so loved you, so loved me that He gave His only begotten Son so that when we believe in Him we won't perish under that burden of eternal condemnation but instead we will have eternal life.

So He looks at you and at me and says, “well if that's what I did to forgive you how is it possible that you wouldn't forgive those who've sinned against you? Well, how is it possible?” That's the question that God is asking us today, how is that possible? So let me ask you whom haven't you forgiven in your life? For whom do you still harbour the darkness of unforgiveness in your heart?

This series of message is called Overboard with Jesus, it's about taking our lives out of the mediocre comfort zone where we're perhaps have been living and going all out living our lives full on for Jesus. There are so many people who want to do that, they just don't know how. Well get a revelation today, you cannot, you simply cannot live your life full on for Jesus if you're carrying unforgiveness around in your heart, you just can't.

Well if you're captive to unforgiveness today, if you're struggling to let go of that darkness, that destructive force of unforgiveness in your heart today here it is; Jesus came to set you free, let it go. Put it into His hands, pray for your enemy, get out there, go overboard with Jesus, trust Him and He will show up. He will grab your hand when you start sinking, because that's just what Jesus does.