Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] So we're going to close our series this morning. Pray like Jesus. We've been looking at some of the prayers Jesus prayed. I think about 26 prayers that are recorded within scripture. But we've focused on a few prayers. And the one we're closing with today, I think, is the one that is the most important for every single one of us. It's a prayer of forgiveness. It's a prayer that made sense of the, the devastation of the cross when Jesus was in this place where everybody who he loved, everybody that he came to give himself for, rejected him and abandoned him. And he prays this prayer on the cross that set me free.
[00:00:46] Hundreds of people in this room free. And billions of people across the globe have found freedom and forgiveness because of this prayer. Let's read together in Luke, chapter 23, verses 33 to 43.
[00:01:01] When they came to the place called the skull, they crucified him there along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left.
[00:01:09] Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. The people stood watching and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, he saved others, let him save himself if he's God's messiah, the chosen one. The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. There was a written notice above him which read, this is the king of the Jews. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him. Aren't you the messiah? Save yourself and us. But the other criminal rebuked him. Don't you fear God? He said, since you are under the same sentence, we are punished justly for what we are getting, what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong. Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus answered him, truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. Would you pray with me this morning as we we speak on forgiveness? This morning, Father, I thank you.
[00:02:19] I thank you that you are such a kind and gracious and loving God.
[00:02:25] We do not deserve the mercy that you show us. And yet you poured your love out to us when you allowed your own son to be crucified, to die on a cross, a death that he didn't deserve. That I deserved.
[00:02:41] Jesus, we say thank you. Thank you for modelling forgiveness so that we could learn to forgive others and even forgive ourselves.
[00:02:51] God, would you speak to us? God, I pray that our hearts would be so in tune with your heart.
[00:03:00] Lord, let my words be filled with grace. And compassion.
[00:03:10] May you speak to our hearts and empower us to be able to forgive others.
[00:03:19] In Jesus name, amen.
[00:03:23] Amen.
[00:03:25] I learn so much from my children.
[00:03:28] Any parents find themselves getting life lessons as your children live out in front of you?
[00:03:36] I remember so many times I've seen the grace and the compassion and the empathy.
[00:03:42] Forgiveness extended from our children to us. The times we've messed up and we've blown it as a parent. And our kids still want to come and give us a hug and love us anyway.
[00:03:55] I love that we see generosity flowing out of our children.
[00:03:59] I also love that our children, they understand right and wrong. Josiah, our middle child, he would watch me as I was driving.
[00:04:08] He'd watch the road, he'd watch the speedo. He'd watch the signs that said how fast I was supposed to be going. And if I was creeping over, he would tell me, dad, you're going too fast. Slow down. Sorry, son. Sorry. Sorry.
[00:04:25] Our children also, they're not perfect. I know you'll find that hard to believe, but our children also know where those buttons are. Anyone have a child like this? They know which button to press and the reaction that will come when they press that button, whether it be with us as parents, whether it be their siblings or their friends, and they have the ability to push each other's buttons.
[00:04:50] Every now and then, I find myself having to come in in the middle of a conflict and deal with something or process something. We've got three rules in our house. They're very simple. Take risks, make mistakes. Take responsibility.
[00:05:07] I think too often we say to our kids, be careful, be careful, be careful, be careful, be careful. I think we need to tell our kids, take risks.
[00:05:15] Take risks. Go do something no one's ever done before, but think it through. Use wisdom. Take risks. Make mistakes. It's okay. Our children have to know that if they have a go at something and they mess up or if they get it wrong, I've said to them, I want to be the first person that you tell when you're in trouble.
[00:05:35] And what you're going to get is you're going to get a listening and empathetic father that's going to say, we will find our way through this. But then the third part is, take responsibility. And I find myself in those conversations where I'm hearing the noise. It's all happening, and something's. And I haven't heard all of the information, but I am now in the take responsibility phase of their relationship.
[00:05:59] And then I hear one side of the argument, and it's pretty solid. Then I hear the other side of the argument and I feel like I need a law degree sometimes just to work out who's right or wrong.
[00:06:09] And most of the time, I've found this. With children and adults, we tend to tell about 90% of the story and we leave out the 10% where it was actually my fault and I was in the wrong. And so often they hit me, they pushed me, they stole my. And what did you do? Well, and then they share what it is. And then sometimes we come out of those conversations and I find myself seeing one child almost celebrating because their cause has been vindicated. Right? They're feeling better about themselves. But inevitably, if one wins in the argument or the conversation or the outcome, there's a good chance there's another one that's hurt. There's another one that's feeling the pain of the outcome.
[00:07:00] Now, anyone gone through life without conflict, yet no one ever had an argument or a disagreement with anyone? No. Okay. Yeah, we've all had arguments, we've all had disagreements. We've all fallen out with friends, with family.
[00:07:16] We've all been hurt.
[00:07:18] Maybe some of us have been badly hurt, abused, disappointed, let down, broken because of relationships. And we find ourselves in this place where things aren't right and there's deep hurt. And this deep pain fence can creep in when something has been unresolved or you feel like you haven't truly been heard and you move on and they've moved on and you look at them and they look like they're having a great time and you're feeling the pain of what's happened in your life and it's like you should be feeling pain. Like I feel pain.
[00:07:55] You want to give a little wave of testimony? Yeah. And it hurts. And it hurts when we're out of relationship with people.
[00:08:04] And I think forgiveness is the greatest miracle that we can ever see, even far greater than a leg growing back.
[00:08:13] Because forgiveness is all to do with our heart and our ability to be free from this hurt, this offence and this unforgiveness.
[00:08:27] As a father in the early days, sometimes in my moment of frustration, I would try to sort the problem out, right? And I used it with great parenting technique. Say sorry. And you say, sorry.
[00:08:44] Sorry, sorry. I'm like, what a great parent I am. Look at that. Look at that. I've just solved a crisis.
[00:08:53] Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
[00:09:00] Have we ever done that with our friends?
[00:09:03] Come on, big people.
[00:09:06] Sorry. Sorry, too. But actually we're not. My father reminded me a few months ago this was back in the day. I talked about the old wooden spoon, was quite familiar with my bottom.
[00:09:24] I was the naughty kid. Surprise, surprise.
[00:09:28] And I remember, well, I can't remember the indiscretion, there were many, but in this instance I think I had upset one of my siblings and my father was saying say sorry.
[00:09:40] And through my tears as a four year old I'm saying I can't speak, I can't say sorry.
[00:09:48] And so he provided me with some good logic which was, well, if you can say I can't speak, you can also say I'm sorry logic. But for a four year old mind and a heart, you know what I was saying? It wasn't that I couldn't say sorry, I was saying I'm not sorry and I don't want to say I'm sorry if I'm not sorry.
[00:10:13] And sometimes we can say sorry to someone but actually we haven't forgiven them.
[00:10:21] And I think we need to add new language, not just words but a heart response that says I'm sorry, please forgive me.
[00:10:35] We need to add that into our language because to say sorry is one thing, but to invite somebody to forgive our debt is a whole other thing.
[00:10:47] So we're looking at forgiveness in the way that Jesus responded.
[00:10:53] Repentance, asking for forgiveness is a part of the gift that we've been given, is our free will.
[00:11:00] Forgiveness is a gift from God that we receive through his power and his grace and we can extend to others.
[00:11:09] See, when I forgive someone, I'm also setting myself free.
[00:11:14] Theologian Louis Smeeds. He writes, to forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover that prisoner was you.
[00:11:24] And maybe some of you have had an experience of this where you held onto the pain of what somebody did to you.
[00:11:33] And at that point where you finally and fully forgave that person and the weight that came off your shoulders was incredible.
[00:11:45] I have multiple times found myself finally through the grace of God and the power of his forgiveness, forgiving someone and all of a sudden I'm free.
[00:12:01] But there are many that carry unforgiveness and offense right through their whole lifetime and never fully find freedom. And I believe today such a grace on this morning for some brave and courageous people to forgive those who have hurt them, those who have wronged them, those who have abused them, broken them.
[00:12:30] What ive discovered is I cant forgive in my own strength.
[00:12:34] Forgiveness is a gift from God and if we ask in faith, I believe that God gives us the ability to forgive others.
[00:12:46] But recognising that forgiveness is an event and its a process.
[00:12:53] This is how it sometimes works for me.
[00:12:56] I forgive someone and then 03:00 in the dark hour of the soul, 03:00 in the morning, it's like, oh, I'm angry at them again and so I forgive them again. So God, please, I'm feeling the pain, I'm feeling the anger, I'm feeling the hurt. God, I forgive them again and then I forgive them again. And we talked a couple of weeks ago. Peter says, how many times should we forgive? Three, maybe six, maybe seven.
[00:13:21] What's a good number? Jesus says, a number that you won't even be able to get to by the time forgiveness has been fully outworked in your life. 70 times seven.
[00:13:37] It's important as we talk about forgiveness because forgiveness can radically change a community of people. But it's important as we talk about forgiveness and what forgiveness is that we also understand what forgiveness is not. Because I'm talking right now and there's some people going but you don't know what I've gone through. And you're right, I don't. I don't know all of your stories. I don't know the depth of the pain and the evil that has even happened to you.
[00:14:07] So let me explain what forgiveness is not so that we can understand what forgiveness truly is.
[00:14:14] Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting. Okay? Forgiveness does not mean forgetting.
[00:14:22] Im not saying you forgive someone and you let that person back into your life with full access. Thats not wise, thats not good, thats not safe, its not healthy.
[00:14:32] Forgiveness is not denying the evil that was done by somebody.
[00:14:38] Forgiveness is not excusing or ignoring the sinful or even criminal behaviour.
[00:14:45] Forgiveness is not pretending it never happened or that you weren't hurt.
[00:14:52] Forgiveness is not removing consequences for wrong behaviour or condoning evil or abuse. That's not what forgiveness is. It's not letting other people continually abuse you and take that further.
[00:15:09] We have a legal system in our country that entitles you to justice and retribution when we've been wronged. And if you ever find yourself and you have found yourself in that place where you have been wronged, we encourage you as a church to go and use those systems and those people that can help you find justice and the correct judgment in your situation.
[00:15:34] What we have as christians though, and this is the power of today, and this is the power of this message, is that we have the ability to find freedom from the ongoing pain of those who have hurt us and in and through God's power release them from the judgment we may have held and where they might have held us.
[00:16:01] And through God's power, forgive and release them.
[00:16:07] I have emotional scars, not physical scars, but emotional scars of moments. I can look back on a moment in my life, and I'm thinking of one right now.
[00:16:18] When I was in the middle of it, it hurt.
[00:16:22] It ripped my life apart. I didn't think I could be in ministry or stay in ministry. It was too hard. I wanted to quit. I wanted to run away. And hideous, sleepless nights, that churning stomach in every conversation. I was so devastated by what had happened, and I had to walk through, and I'll share the story in a moment. And I had to walk through forgiveness.
[00:16:49] And I look at that scar now and I go, oh, there's no pain there now. There was deep pain before. I see the scar, but there's not pain here now. And that's a full and a final process of forgiveness. It took some time for my heart to walk through.
[00:17:06] And so it's okay that if at the moment it's raw and it's painful and it hurts. And even me talking about this is really stirring some stuff up. We have been praying as a team for the grace of God to be in this place and that this, for some, will be the first step of saying God as much as it hurts. I forgive that person. For some, this might be a final step where finally you are now released from that pain of that unforgiveness.
[00:17:39] But I'm praying and believing that all of us will be able to take a significant step forward into the grace of God and his forgiveness.
[00:17:47] So why is forgiveness so important to God? Why did Jesus say, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing?
[00:17:56] You know, as Jesus looked down from the cross, he looked down on a world and a situation that would have just broken his heart.
[00:18:05] The roman soldiers completely ignoring the pain he was experiencing, and they're casting lots to see who would get his clothes.
[00:18:14] What about the criminal on the other side of the cross mocking jesus while he's been crucified himself? The religious leaders that mocked him caused the trial to happen and put him on the cross. The crowds that cried, crucify, crucify.
[00:18:32] What about those that he had hoped would be at the cross but weren't?
[00:18:37] What about those friends that said, we'll never leave you, Jesus, we got you back, and they weren't there?
[00:18:44] That is too much for a human heart to handle.
[00:18:49] Could you imagine for a moment everyone that you'd given your life for said, I reject you utterly.
[00:19:00] And Jesus hung on the cross, experiencing all of that.
[00:19:08] And he says, father, forgive them.
[00:19:12] He was releasing everything that had happened to him. He says, father, forgive them. Forgive them.
[00:19:23] He asked his father to forgive the thief on the cross who mocked him. He asked his father to forgive the roman soldiers who yanked his beard and 39 lashes, who put the crown of thorns on his head and then hid it into his head with a stick, made him carry his cross. He said, father, forgive them.
[00:19:46] Father, forgive the crowds that not long ago, like just within that week, it said, hosanna.
[00:19:54] Here he is, the king riding on a donkey. We welcome our king. And then the crowd is now crying, crucify him. Crucify him. Father, forgive them. No bitterness, no offence, no seeking revenge, but a heart of compassion and forgiveness.
[00:20:15] And here's why Jesus went through all of this.
[00:20:19] Because today, you and I still need forgiveness.
[00:20:26] Today you and I can still extend forgiveness to others.
[00:20:33] It's important to note that Jesus prayer, father, forgive them, does not mean that everybody was forgiven without repentance and without faith.
[00:20:43] We still have to come to Christ, each of us on our own at some point in our life, and say, God, please forgive me for living life my own way. Forgive me for the sin that has separated me from you. Forgive me for abandoning you and rejecting you. Each of us, we have a time in our life where we will have that question asked of us, and maybe for some today.
[00:21:09] But Jesus said, Father, forgive them.
[00:21:13] Repentance that leads to forgiveness can only come as an act of our free will and through the power of goddess. What it does mean is that Jesus was willing to forgive them. Forgiveness, in fact, was the reason he was on the cross. The words, Father, forgive them shows the merciful heart of our God.
[00:21:32] Isaiah 50 312 was Jesus was fulfilling that prophecy. He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
[00:21:42] Give me a wave if you're a transgressor.
[00:21:45] A transgressor simply means someone who has missed the mark, have sinned, fallen short of the glorious standard that God has set of holiness from the cross. Jesus interceded for sinners.
[00:22:01] He interceded for us.
[00:22:04] For those that were still to come, he stood and he hung in the gap for us.
[00:22:11] And today he's risen and glorified. One Timothy two five says he is one mediator between goddess and mankind.
[00:22:20] That is good news right there, because I can't stand before God on my own merits.
[00:22:28] I'm not good enough, will never be.
[00:22:31] I could live a whole lifetime trying to please God and all the religious fulfillment, and I would just miss it by one and not qualify. And even if I got most of them right, I'd probably be dealing with pride. And there I go again.
[00:22:48] When Jesus said, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. This declaration from Jesus was one sentence within the context of the passion, the passion of Christ.
[00:23:00] But it was the message that he came to teach and bring.
[00:23:06] The world he came into was, if somebody's done you wrong, you take them out, you get revenge. Revenge is fine. That's the world he came into. Jesus taught it differently.
[00:23:20] Jesus says, actually, you forgive. Forgive someone who's wronged you.
[00:23:28] The only lamb qualified to be a sacrifice for all. Jesus says, father, forgive them.
[00:23:37] Jesus heart was free in that moment. And moments later, when he speaks his last words, father, into your hands I commit my spirit. He breathed his last in that moment, and he was free.
[00:23:52] Free.
[00:23:55] He was always free.
[00:24:00] But he wasn't holding any judgment to those who had hurt him. So there's two powerful truths as I bring it to a close this morning that we can learn from the forgiveness offered by Jesus on the cross. First one is Jesus forgave so I could be forgiven.
[00:24:18] Jesus forgave so I could be forgiven. Two Corinthians 521. For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with Goddesse. Through Christ.
[00:24:31] Jesus took my place. He took your place so that we could be forgiven. We could be made right with God through the work of the cross. Ephesians one seven. In him we have redemption through his blood, the blood that was poured out on the cross for us. The forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace.
[00:24:53] We all need God's grace. I need God's grace today. I'm going to need God's grace tomorrow. I'm going to need it right throughout the rest of my life.
[00:25:04] But that grace was made available through what Christ did for me. Nothing I can do and try will ever make God love me more or less. But I can't earn my way into God's good books. It's only through Christ that salvation comes to me and to you.
[00:25:25] The second thing we see, and maybe the team could come now as we bring it to a close, and we're gonna have a time of ministry, inviting anybody, various stages of your walk with God, whether today is your very first step in following him, or maybe today is a significant day because you have to let go of some stuff that you have held on to an unforgiveness in your heart. We really believe that God wants to work in our lives today and that we would respond in faith and with great courage to begin to forgive those who might have hurt us.
[00:26:04] The second thing this morning is that Jesus forgave so I can forgive others.
[00:26:11] Ephesians 432, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you.
[00:26:21] I told you that I struggled with unforgiveness in a moment, and it was such a difficult time for me. We were pastoring a church quite young in the journey, making lots of errors. We had a young family. I wasn't doing so well. It wasn't moral failures as much as it was youthful exuberance, getting things wrong, missing the mark, kind of missing conversations and relationships with people.
[00:26:49] And in that moment, there was, I suppose, a stirring where some others thought that maybe they could do a better job of leading the church. And in reality, probably they could have. But it got messy, it got ugly, and there was a moment of conflict where someone wanted to lead the church rather than us. And it just kind of came to a head, really messy kind of experience for the whole church and leadership and eldership, and I didn't know how to deal with that. I wasn't doing well in that moment.
[00:27:24] And as we walked through this process, the guy that had been involved in it, he came to me. He came and knocked on my door, and he says, I'm sorry, mike.
[00:27:37] Please forgive me.
[00:27:41] I closed the door on his face, and I said, I can't.
[00:27:46] I can't forgive you. And I walked away.
[00:27:50] Come on. This is the pastor of the church.
[00:27:54] It's me being real.
[00:27:57] What forgiveness costs.
[00:28:01] I was hurt, like, really badly hurt.
[00:28:06] Probably not even close to what maybe you have experienced, but for me, that hurt was real.
[00:28:16] I had to go to God with that, because in my own strength, I had nothing to be able to forgive. Not a single. There was nothing in me that could say, fine, I forgive you.
[00:28:31] And I remember just weeping and weeping and weeping. I closed the door and I just wept and I wept. It's like God, I want to forgive, but I can't.
[00:28:39] And I was reminded now, obviously, I went back to the word of God, because that's all I've got. Because if I'm left to my own thoughts and my own ideas and my own concepts, I'm going to get myself and everybody I lead in a whole lot of trouble, and we're back to the word of God. I. I saw Jesus in the way he forgave others the way he forgave me on the cross. For that moment, I wouldn't forgive.
[00:29:04] I said, God, please help me because I can't forgive without your help.
[00:29:13] And maybe this is our first prayer today.
[00:29:16] God, please help me because I can't forgive.
[00:29:21] I need your help. I need your strength. I need a reminder of the grace that you've given to me, that I would give it to somebody else.
[00:29:30] You know what? It took a couple of weeks, and eventually I went back to this man and I said, I'm sorry. I said I couldn't forgive you then, but I do now.
[00:29:40] Please forgive me.
[00:29:42] I apologized to him because I hadn't led him well, and he was a byproduct of probably my bad leadership. And the conflict came out of me not leading well. So I acknowledge my mess.
[00:29:55] And you know what? We're not best friends, but to this day, we are friends.
[00:30:01] Like I said, there's a scar.
[00:30:04] But when I think of him, and we've met him since, and we've been with, it's not sore. There's no pain attached to that. There was in the moment, but not now.
[00:30:15] I believe God wants to take you right where you're at today. His grace is sufficient for you for today. In this moment, I would discourage you, saying, I'll park this and deal with it tomorrow.
[00:30:28] Today is the day. Today is the moment. There is a grace on it. Come on. We sense it in the room, don't we? We sense Holy Spirit is already moving.
[00:30:40] Would you be brave and courageous?
[00:30:43] Have I not commanded you be strong and courageous? Was the commander. Joshua said, God, I need your help to forgive those who have wronged me.
[00:30:54] Matthew 18, Jesus tells the story of a man who had a debt worth 20 years of wages. Can you imagine being in debt to 20 years of your wages?
[00:31:05] Impossible to pay back in his lifetime?
[00:31:09] The master brings him in and says, time to pay out. He pleads with the master, give me grace. Give me some mercy, please. Please. I need time to be able to pay.
[00:31:21] To which the master extends mercy and says, not only, I'm not even going to make you pay it back, cancelling the debt.
[00:31:34] Now, if that happens to me, my response is jubilation. The weight that would come off your shoulders, right?
[00:31:41] Maybe when you gave your life to Christ, and there are hundreds here who have made that decision, that weight came off your shoulders. That weight that you carried, that sin, that guilt, that condemnation came off, and you felt that freedom. That is what that man should have felt.
[00:31:57] And yet he walked out the door, he saw someone who owed him the equivalent of 20 pounds and said, pay up.
[00:32:06] To which this man says exactly the same thing. Show me mercy, please, give me time. I can pay you back, but I just can't yet.
[00:32:17] He says, no, I won't forgive that debt. In fact, I'm going to throw you into prison until you pay off that debt.
[00:32:26] Now, the first master hears about this, he says, I forgave this great debt. And yet he can't forget. Forgive a small debt like this.
[00:32:38] It says the master, there was anger, there was a rage that burned, and this man was thrown into prison.
[00:32:47] Now, what we often miss in the story is now they're both in prison.
[00:32:52] Maybe they were cellmates. That would be awkward, wouldn't it?
[00:32:57] But in reality, neither of them could get out. But one of them had the power to release them both.
[00:33:08] I wonder sometimes whether our unforgiveness also keeps others in captivity.
[00:33:15] That the freedom that they are to experience can sometimes be because we have held an unforgiveness and an offence in our heart.
[00:33:24] And maybe just today, God is gracing you with his presence to say, God, I'm going to release them today.
[00:33:35] Remember, this doesn't excuse what they did. It doesn't lessen the evil or whatever it is that had happened to you.
[00:33:44] Forgiving is not saying that what they did was right.
[00:33:48] Forgiveness is setting them free and setting yourself free. And Jesus wants to do that in your life today.
