Dirty Bible Words - Week 1 - St. Peter - Pastor Bill Monday
Dirty Bible Words
Week 1 - St Peter
Pastor Bill Monday
This is the first Sunday right after Easter kicking off a new series, Dirty Bible Words. As I mentioned before, we're going to consider forgiveness as beautiful as it is, how dirty it can be to practice. Before we jump into our message, which is inspired by Matthew 18, especially verse 35, where Jesus says, “unless you forgive you will not be forgiven” before we consider that and everything that comes with it. Let's pray.
Sanctify us by the truth. O Lord. Yes, set us apart and grace. Give us grace to live like you and this truth, we know it's your Word that alone, Amen.
Dirty Bible Words. Just to whet your appetite where we're headed with the series. This first word that we consider the f word, of course. “Forgiveness”. That's something that Jesus offers on the day of his resurrection right after Easter. But what comes next? Well, next week, we're going to take a look at the s word, the s word “submission”, of course. Submission is not a very popular term today that we should submit ourselves to those in authority over us, but though it's a dirty word, we're gonna wrestle with that and see what a blessing it is from God. After that, we're going to talk about the d word, “doctrine”, of course. Doctrine isn't a popular term either today, but Jesus was all about doctrine, or teaching, and that's how He guards and protects us. So we'll work through that dirty concept. Finally, our fourth week, we're going to take a look at h e double hockey stick. How? Which is a Doctrine, in fact, Jesus taught more about hell than any other Prophet or Apostle. So, we're going to dive into that too. And see how He has rescued us from this place that was never meant for us. But for now, how about the f word of forgiveness? We're going to find today from our message, that it is, as offensive as any other f word you can think of. And yet, God has put His holy stamp of approval on this word and He wants to see it in our lives appreciated that. He offers it unconditionally and that we might be like Him and offer it unconditionally too.
I mean you think about fast forward forgiveness to submission & Doctrine? Maybe, you think. There's one that's not like the other and it may be that's forgiveness. Maybe you're thinking like, what is so offensive about forgiveness? Forgiveness is beautiful, it's everything, I mean, did you come here today because you want to hear, you're forgiven, you love and you did and that's what God commands us to preach and teach. So how can forgiveness be dirty, ugly, brittle, divisive, controversial? Well, C.S. Lewis kind of reminds me of this and I think this will make sense. In fact, the more we talk about forgiveness today the more we'll see, this is a tough thing C.S. Lewis, if you're not familiar, he's this scholar, a brilliant mind from the 20th century. He was once an atheist and an Oxford, Cambridge Professor turned, Christian prolific writer. He wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, which is about Christ & His interaction in a different world. An interesting read for kids or adults, like he wrote a lot on Christianity. He wrote defense about Christianity wrote “A Treatise on Christianity”. He's an amazing apologist, defender of the faith, in his work on “Mere Christianity” talks about the virtue that is forgiveness, kind of the middle of the whole work, and it's really central to what
makes us different from any other faith.
Forgiveness, by grace. This is what c.s. Lewis writes. Since everyone says, forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. That's World War II. And then to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It's not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue. It is that they think it hateful and contemptible. That sort of thing makes them sick. They say, and half of you already want to ask me, “I wonder how you feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?” The Gestapo, of course, was the secret police of Nazi Germany, that would round up Jewish people to have them sent off to concentration camps and killed, murdered.
If you were Jewish and you lived in Nazi Germany, would you forgive the Nazis? That's what they were asking, C.S. Lewis about forgiveness. “Unconditional,” he says. Honestly, so do I. I wonder very much if I would forgive. So do you agree that there is something dirty about forgiveness. It's ugly, ugly business. It's offensive. It's an F word. And when we see it that not so much with God, perhaps, I mean, that's beautiful, we love being forgiven. Although, in a few moments, we'll see how dirty of a business that was. But when it comes to others, when it comes to your spouse, or your brother, or your sister, or your friend or strangers when it comes to mine…how easy do we even forgive, or are we would say?
I mean, would you forgive a Nazi if you lived in the times of World War II, or maybe more pressing, relevant today? Would you forgive a human sex trafficker? Would you forgive a pedophile, especially if your child was a victim? Would you forgive a serial killer? I mean, is that what we're talking about with forgiveness? There's so much of me that would want no part of that. It's hard enough to forgive people we love. But monsters and it is kind of interesting though. We kind of define monsters however, we decide today. Would you agree that forgiveness is this nasty business that many of us aren't inclined to do it? Surely not by Nature. And yet, here we have Jesus. He comes along. And as we look to define forgiveness today, let's make this clear from the very top. Forgiveness is the only option Jesus says. There is no, like maybe I'll forgive you after I've had some time to think it through. Maybe, eventually, I'll forgive you. if you do this that or the other.
Maybe I won't forgive you at all. Jesus says, NO, those aren't options. Not if you're mine, you're a child of God. You'll reflect God's image. God's image is holiness, righteousness, always forgiving. So are his children. He says it this way, doesn't he say this is how my heavenly father will treat you unless you forgive your brother or sister from the heart. If you do not forgive, even the smallest act against you. You cannot have the Father's Love.
Strikes, the heart doesn't it? I started thinking about all the people, I have problems with and how much I'm not like God. I struggled to forgive. Is my forgiveness and forgiving others, really that closely tied to God is it truly the only option? God help us all if it is. Jesus says it is. All right. So let's define forgiveness because we got to get this straight, right? This is essential, and this is getting real serious, real quick. What exactly is forgiveness? You know, that's a popular question that we pastors get. Especially when there's hurt.
Especially when someone's really wrestling with resentment, and bitterness and vengeance. What do you mean forgive? And if so, and I love Jesus, what does that mean? What's it look like to forgive? Forget? Let's let the scriptures kind of guide us along and as we kind of take this clinical look at what forgiveness is from, the Bible will get real practical in a moment. But for now, let's start defining forgiveness a little more clearly. Not only is it the only option but we should understand that forgiveness is the satisfaction of a debt that's owed. We're talking about reconciling a debt. That's, that's the picture the Bible presents. So, picture sin as a, is a debt, and you really, when you think about Sin is thievery, which you owe for, that you're guilty of. And I think about Matthew 6, verse 12, when our Lord Jesus was asked by his disciples, teach us how to pray. Jesus is given 7 requests of that prayer. Is this request about forgiveness?
I say it this way. Forgive us our debts as we forgive, our debtors. At least that's the old King James Version but that's really true to the original Greek. Today, we say “sins” because that can capture a lot more of what we're used to. We don't necessarily think about it as a debt, but it very much is. So kind of walk down how we sin and see how it is sin thievery. And that we owe, we owe God, and others, for robbing people of precious things. First commandment right? First Commandment. You remember this? Keep God number one, have no other gods. Well, if I make something a God I'm actually stealing Glory from God. You see, God says, I want you to have me as your only God. Why not? Because God needs anything but so that you might be blessed and protected in life. He wants you to honor him for his glory. His glory is the honor that's due Him for rescuing You and Me by Grace, forgiveness. Now if we go and take that Glory, that's due to the Lord God alone and we put it somewhere else, we are putting our hope and trust and stand with things that can't forgive and can't rescue. So, we're stealing from God and we owe him for that.
Or if I defy the name of God, I sabotage his reputation by how I live, or what I say that's false or I'm stealing from His name. I'm stealing from His reputation, giving them a bad name. I owe Him for that or the third commandment of, I don't really listen to His word and if I try to find worse and belonging elsewhere and not rest from here, I steal from God and I owe him. Going down the line at the other table of the law about loving each other. If I don't honor my father or mother or those in authority over me, the church or the stage where your employer I'm stealing usurping their authority which is theirs. That we might be an orderly people and be peaceful. I'm causing all kinds of chaos. Well, guess what? I owe them, I owe society. I owe God, that's a debt that needs to be paid. To say the same thing about the fifth commandment, if I steal life from somebody, I owe. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life. It is not mine to take life. That's God's alone. By stealing for marriage, the sixth commandment. If I take the blessings out of marriage, I hurt children. I hurt chastity, sexuality, and I hurt companionship and I owe.
That's why Jesus says there's a debt when you sin. Ask God to wipe it away to pay the debt, to reconcile the books. So you can go clean and there's a connection as we forgive and reconcile, the books of others. This makes perfect sense. Why Jesus' name from the cross would say, in John's gospel chapter 19, verse 32. “Tell-a-sty” it's an Aramaic word, “astounding”. The Greek literally means paid in full. It's a Marketplace term. We might translate it. “It is finished”. But this nuance to it means that's in debt. I paid in full. It's the defining word from the cross that Jesus proclaims the world, after he lived a perfect life for you and gained all the currency, we need to be right with God. And then by his perfect life, died a horrific death. He sees, this is the dirty business of forgiveness suffered. How literal how so that he could proclaim it a victory for you and me is painful.
Those debts are all forgiven, this is the work of God, isn't it? Which is why I, again another passage, we take a look here, a 2 Corinthians 5:21, this is why Paul in celebration thinking about Jesus and the resurrection day he says, “Look, God made him who had no sin to be sin or more. So a sin, offering a sin payment, so that you could be right with God reconciled. To God, you could be his righteousness fulfilled in every way payment payment, for the wages that we owe for sin, which is death. Spiritual death, physical death, eternal death, all of that Jesus experienced, so that we could be forgiven. See how God satisfies the dead, all dead, not just between us and him, but all of us & each other.
He gets me thinking, and I know I'm being kind of pretty clinical here, in the definition forgiveness. But again, this will hit home in a second. When David in Psalm 51 verse 4, that's his great confession of sin. Saw that this is the Psalm he wrote, after he committed an affair, had an affair with Bathsheba, Uriah the Hittite’s wife, and then he went on to make sure that Uriah, the Hittite would die in battle. So, Is guilty of murder and then he tried to cover it up. He abused his authority, and he owed God so big and offended so many others. David recognized his only hope of course was pleading for mercy from the only God who is offended by sin. The only God there is he said, against you, you alone have I sinned. Lord. And so you're just when you condemn. Find it interesting we make so much about when people hurt us as if they owe us something. But David recognized the truth. No, we just owe God. Even when we sin against each other and it's His to forgive or not. I look at it this way, if pulling out of the parking lot today and run into a car caused some damage, what do I owe her? Who do I owe, right. I don't owe the car, really? I need to fix that somehow, but who do I owe? I owe the owner of the car. I got to go fight me, owner, and apologize, right? I don't stay with a car like, hey I'm sorry buddy, try to wipe it clean. It does nothing.
In a similar way, when we sin against each other. You and I, we belong to God. We need to confess to him. And he alone can forgive.
Which leads us to another passage. That kind of puts it all together as we recognize that God alone is the one we sinned against. He alone can address every debt, every weakness. John chapter 20, 20 through 23, Jesus rises triumphant from the grave, his whole point and rising from the dead. Was that you could experience the deepest form of love, which is forgiveness, and by that forgiveness have life forever. That's something only God can forgive. That's why the Pharisees in Jesus' earlier ministry, they were offended that Jesus would dare forgive anyone because that's God's business. Sad thing is, they didn't recognize Jesus as God, but Jesus comes along. And he says, look, I give you this amazing miraculous, dirty gift. If you, if you forgive someone their sins, the heavens are changed. What's forgiven on Earth is forgiven above, you have that divine power. Now, I give you the spirit. I give you the ability to do what God alone can do. You’re his vessel. Paul celebrates that in 2 Corinthians 5. Paul says this, I'm going to read it to you because that we know this so well. Oh, it's so new when we get practical with forgiveness, Paul says. From now on WE regard, no one from a worldly point of view, I mean the world looks at others but you're not forgivable, you're not worthy, you're not loved. Why would I love you? We don't look at people that way anymore. Why? Well though, we once regarded Christ, that way we look at him at the cross and in non-belief, he's a scandal. He's offensive, let him be crucified. Now we don't see it that way. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, are a new creation. The old has gone, the new is here. All this is from God who reconciled us. Again a financial term to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation of forgiveness that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them and He has committed to us, to you, to me this message of reconciliation of forgiveness. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors. As though God were making His appeal through us to others. That's the amazing nature of forgiveness, which costs Jesus, all bloodied and dead.
If God alone, then can satisfy the debt of sin, which would otherwise destroy us forever and God has given me this gift to be able to forgive you, and you me…who am I? And how arrogant would I have to be to tell a brother or sister, or a stranger you aren't worth of my forgiveness. First of all, I don't have the power to forgive on my own. Who am I? I belong to God, but then, if I would keep someone from being forgiven because of something little that they owe me, even as big as it might be. I'm telling Jesus literally, “you can stay in hell. You can stay dead. Your forgiveness doesn't work here.” And that's blasphemy.
So, let's get real practical. Let's define forgiveness because it is life-giving not only for us, but for others and this is what makes it different from the rest of the world. If we're going to define forgiveness, we should do it this way. Somebody hurts you, you make a declaration in Christ Jesus. You can, you're empowered to, I won't make you pay for that. I will charge Jesus, let him be damned, not you.
That's dirty business, isn't it? And that's so hard to do, but know this, that's what forgiveness is. You're committing to someone who hurt you, I will not make you pay. Jesus paid for that. I would rather have him, my savior, be damned so that you might not. Because that's what he did for me. And if we're going to forgive and forget, you know what forgetting means, it's not like you forget that it happened. No, it's that every time you remember it, you choose. You choose to say to that person, I won't make you pay. But again, I will keep crucifying Jesus. Let him pay. Cuts us to the heart, doesn't it? But here's the truth in Matthew's gospel. Jesus says this another way he said, look, this is how it all works. The measure you use against someone else. Is the method your God will use against you. That means if I turn a cold shoulder to you because you've hurt me, I should expect on Judgment Day, God will turn a cold shoulder to me. If I raise my voice and I accuse you and be ready to you and abuse you, because you've hurt me, I should expect that God verbally on Judgment Day will condemn me publicly with words. If I raise a fist and physically become violent and avenge, I should expect God to raise his fists of Justice and crush me on the last day. But if I extend Grace on the last day, God extends Grace. And it's His grace that changes us to do that. So hear me out to see if this forgiveness business is as dirty as it is. Do know this, we don't earn God's forgiveness by forgiving others. It's not a cause and effect, it's a result. If you really know how much God is so forgiving you and me, forgiveness is the only option for others. That's what God desires.
Sturdy as that is. So that's forgiveness when we talk that way and in my counseling experience, I've noticed for major objections when it comes to forgiveness again because we as God's people, we want to do this, but we have our reservations and rightly so. So as we begin to wind down this message, I want to share with you these objections and how Jesus addresses these. Why? So that you can be a forgiving people. So that you can be bitter-free and resentment-free and vengeance-free so that you can live life as a victor. Not as a victim, letting someone else have power over you because of their sin. So here's the first objection.
Do you know what they did?
Do you understand what they did to me? How could I ever forgive them? You don't understand. And I've heard that. And you know what my response is to that? My response is to you, “Right, I don't know and I don't take it lightly. What you've been through, whether it's physical abuse or verbal abuse, sexual abuse, the hands of someone else. Whether it was from childhood on until you were an adult, recently, one time or a lifelong thing. I don't. I don't know.
It's so common. It breaks my heart how wicked this world is and how much debt there is to be paid. And so I’m sure my heart goes out to you and I'm praying for your peace and your healing. I understand. I don't take that lightly. Do you know what they did to me? But then I share good news though, I don't know, guess what Jesus knows. Jesus knows the hurt that you have experienced when I say that, not just head knowledge, but experiential knowledge. Jesus too was abused in every way, physically at the cross. We see that so clearly. Verbally at the cross Sexually too, he was stripped naked. Publicly ashamed for the whole world to see. In what way was Jesus not abused, even suffering hell? Make sure that because you have a Savior who comes alongside and sits in the darkness and that grief and that's in with you. And then after three days, Jesus says to you and me, let's get up. There's new life to be had, and the key is forgiveness.
Even as I have forgiven. And that's the only way to be free of bitterness and hurt, vengeance and to become a victor. And that's just a victim, no matter how severe the trauma. The second objection kind of in his extension of this one. The second objection. But what if they're not? Sorry, even what if I forgive? And they just reject it and they want to accuse me more.
Get this is our answer.
Jesus still forgives. If you get that at the cross, when Jesus was being crucified, what was his first word, his first word was “Father, forgive them, they don't know, they don't know what they're doing and they keep doing it. They forgive them anyway, and that's so freeing to know. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you hurt me and I forgive you, if you mock it, if you don't care, I pray that you would change. I pray that I would always change if someone forgives me.
But in the end, we're like Jesus. It doesn't matter. Our job is to love. And only that. And that's peace, that gives us peace. We don't have to keep fighting. We can be at peace with others, even if they want to still fight.
This third objection: But what if they hurt me again? Which is a real objection. Does forgiveness mean letting them turn it into a license to sin? Do I just keep being abused? God wants me to have that kind of life? And his encouraging word is, no. God encourages us to set up boundaries. It's a Biblical concept. It's therapeutic. We can protect ourselves. God doesn't want us to put ourselves In Harm's Way and so if someone is abusing you, if it's a marriage, that's my experience, infidelity God doesn't say, you have to stay in that marriage. It is already been broken. You protect yourself. If the trauma is so much that you can't face that person, can't trust them. God says be protected. In life you are my refuge.
But forgive them. Commit to having them, not pay and then stay away from the sight of Heaven. And then that helps them too to understand that sin has natural consequences and it keeps them from being able to hurt you again. But I want to caution this idea of boundaries. I've seen it too often today and maybe in our culture and the way things are headed people often use boundaries as job forgiving. I've set up a boundary. I'll never talk to them. I'm comfortable with this boundary. When the true response is love and forgiveness because you're protected enough and they're not in danger of sinning anymore. So when we say boundaries using The Godly way and there are many times where you have to Don't be abused. Find comfort in Christ be protected. But don't use boundaries to make people pay for your sin and theirs. God's already forgiven it.
Last one. But what if I don't feel like forgiving
I get it and I've heard parents say, look, I can't make my child forgive them, they're upset. They're angry when they come around, maybe then they'll have that conversation. I understand that. But again, we look at Jesus at the Cross. When Jesus was at the cross, was He feeling good about anybody? Even a holy, perfect God is hurt and is grieved. Praise God. He didn't wait for his feelings to come around to forgive us. He just willed it. Through unconditional, sacrificial Love, he just had it willed, it forgave. And then you and I are changed. And now he feels really good about you and me. And there's forgiveness because Jesus Reigns.
Will it? If there's someone that you are at odds with today and they've hurt you, will it? Forgive them anyway. And keep forgiving them and keep at it and feelings will come feelings of love. It's dirty business, isn't it? It's an f word told mistaken. But there's no board. Beautiful of a concept and what God gives us. Your sins are forgiven and you have this gift. May God help us to use it because this world is literally dying to be forgiven. May God bless us with hearts that forgive. And every time we fall short, maybe go to the cross and find the power. We need to be a forgiving people. Amen
