| Subject: A different way of life |
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joe
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Date Posted: 22:30:47 09/24/07 Mon
One of the privileges of getting to preach to a
>Biblically literate congregation is that when I make a
>mistake you all are not afraid to point that mistake
>out according to Scripture. You may remember last week
>in this sermon series on the Lord's Prayer, I made the
>comment on verse 13 of Matthew 6 (the phrase "Deliver
>us from evil") I said that you and I are not to do
>combat with Satan. We are to flee from Satan and leave
>the combat to God. Well, one of you was kind enough,
>gracious enough to point out to me that's really not
>what Scripture says. In fact if you look at James 4:7,
>what Scripture tells you and me to do is this: "resist
>the devil and he will flee from you". Now I stand by
>the idea that you and I are not supposed to go around
>looking for Satan to take him on, but when he does
>show up we are to stand our ground in Jesus Christ,
>resist him, and we have God's promise there in James
>that when we do that he's the one that will high-tail
>it from us.
>
>These past three weeks we've been looking in-depth at
>the Lord's Prayer and hopefully this series has
>encouraged you on how to pray. Not only does Christ
>give us a great model for prayer here but hopefully
>His Holy Spirit is drawing you and me into a deeper
>understanding of prayer and a deeper passion for
>conversation with God. That's what prayer is, so
>Christ gives us this great model for prayer. I'd like
>you now to contrast that model He gives us with how
>not to pray. Last Thursday morning, the General
>Assembly of the State of Maryland was opened with
>prayer by a Baltimore County State Senator, listen to
>the prayer, "Lord God, Yaweh, Jesus, Budda, Allah,
>whatever your name is, whatever color you are,
>whatever gender you are, you know these people, you
>know that they are good. Pray for them, thank you."
>Now the only reason that the Maryland State House was
>not at that very moment struck by lightening was
>because deep in the very character of God is grace,
>mercy and forgiveness. In fact, forgiveness is such a
>part of who God is that our Lord Jesus Christ after he
>gave the Lord's Prayer to the disciples, takes one
>concept from that prayer and pulls it out, and
>isolates it and comments on it. That concept is
>forgiveness. This morning, I would invite you to open
>your Bibles to Matthew 6 we're going to take a look at
>the Lord's Prayer in its entirety beginning at verse
>9, we're going to read from verse 9 through verse 15.
>And then in verses 14 and 15 we see how Jesus will
>take the concept of forgiveness and really zero in on
>it. And we're going to wrestle with that this morning
>ourselves. Matthew 6 beginning to read at the 9th
>verse, this is the word of God,
>
>"This, then, is how you should pray: " `Our Father in
>heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your
>will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us
>today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we
>also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into
>temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'
>
>And here is Jesus' commentary now in verses 14 and 15.
>
>"For if you forgive men when they sin against you,
>your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you
>do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not
>forgive your sins."
>
>Join me as we pray: And now Father, as my words are
>true to your Word, may they be taken to heart. But as
>my words should stray from your Word, may they be
>quickly forgotten, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
>
>I'll bet you that you all don't know that the third
>week in February has been declared International
>Forgiveness Week. It's coming folks! It's right around
>the corner! We need to get ready! Let's do so right
>here and now. In this text before us in Matthew's
>gospel we see that forgiveness is big on Jesus' heart.
>Jesus has a real concern about forgiveness. Not only
>God's forgiveness of you and me but more precisely
>yours and my forgiveness of others. Out of all of the
>concepts that are there in the Lord's prayer, Jesus
>only selects one to pull out and comment on it and
>that concept is forgiveness. And I'll tell you this,
>as I worked on this text this week, just on these two
>verses, if you know me you know that when I work on a
>Scripture text I'm always looking for what I call the
>"bump of grace". As I worked on verses 14 and 15, I'll
>confess to you that I was taken aback. I was pretty
>much initially turned off by what Jesus was saying
>here. This text seems totally devoid of grace.
>Remember back during Advent I preached about Santa
>Claus theology? You do something and God responds.
>Look at this. It seems like Jesus is bordering on, if
>not jumping right into, this kind of Santa Claus
>theology. You forgive, then God's going to forgive
>you. You don't and you're basically toast. What's
>going on here? What is going on with Christ? Well, I
>think one of the things that Jesus is trying to do
>here for his disciples, and for you and me is trumpet
>a wake-up call. You see, Jesus knows human nature. He
>knows you and me inside out. He knows that often times
>when you and I listen to the language of grace over
>and over again we have a tendency to become lulled.
>Lulled into a presumptuousness about that forgiveness
>that unmerited, unconditional forgiveness that God has
>for us in Jesus Christ through His life, death and
>resurrection there at the very core of the gospel. And
>that presumptuousness can lead you and me to really
>think that we can be prayer warriors and faithful
>followers of Christ and growing in our faith and at
>the same time treat forgiveness of others as more or
>less an option in our lives. Not an absolute
>necessity.
>
>And so Christ is trying to wake us up here. It makes
>us stop and think, doesn't it? When you and I live in
>this real world, we're going to be wounded. We going
>to be wronged by many people. And the key question
>before you and me today is how are we going to respond
>when we are sinned against, when we're wronged? The
>world comes at you and me with all kinds of appealing
>options, but they're all unfaithful and they're all
>unhealthy. I'm going to flag four options the world
>presents to you and me for dealing with when we're
>wronged. Let's take a look at these.
>
>The first option that the world offers to you and me
>is this: We are wronged, and the person that has
>wronged us comes to us and says "I'm sorry", and we
>respond with, "Oh, forget about it, no big deal". No,
>that's not how we should respond. When someone comes
>and asks our forgiveness and says that they are sorry,
>they are coming with a serious heart. And when we say,
>"Oh don't worry about it", that's treating too lightly
>what they are treating very, very seriously. When you
>and respond like that to someone what we're doing is
>we are depriving them of a life and death necessity.
>And that is the necessity of forgiveness. Forgiveness
>is always hard. It is always costly. It is always
>weighted. And it's always necessary.
>
>Option number two that the world comes to you and me
>with. We're wronged and we respond by very craftily
>designing a process of retaliation and revenge. Road
>rage is the currently popular game of blasphemy
>against God. It's a blasphemy against God because the
>Lord says vengeance is mine, not yours. And anytime
>you and I take vengeance against someone, we are
>usurping God's authority stepping into His place,
>playing God and that is nothing less than idolatry and
>blasphemy and that is not a very healthy way to live.
>It's not a viable option.
>
>A third option that the world presents to you and me
>is the option of self-loathing. Someone comes to us,
>does us wrong and we respond with, "Well, I guess I
>deserve it. Woe is me. I'm a worm. I am a lowly
>worthless person. I deserve to have the world step on
>me". Uhuh, not a viable option. Folks, when you get
>into that kind of mode, you're buying the lie of Satan
>rather than standing your ground against him. These
>options are not viable. Jesus Christ cares so much, so
>much about yours and my health and welfare in the
>areas of relationships, our emotions, our spiritual
>life and our physical life that in verses 14 and 15 I
>believe He purposely uses language that sounds devoid
>of grace in order to rattle our cage to get our
>attention and help us understand the vital necessity
>of forgiveness.
>
>Forgiveness can never be an option. But as we read
>these verses, (verses 14 and 15) they sound so
>ungracious. But I don't think they are at all. The
>fact is that you can't talk about forgiveness without
>talking about grace. Grace is at the very heart of
>forgiveness. What Jesus is presenting here is not
>Santa Claus theology. Santa Claus theology says, we
>act first then God responds. When Jesus says, that
>when we forgive others God will forgive us, He knows
>that the only reason you and I can ever forgive
>anyone, the only reason you and I are ever able to
>forgive anyone, the only reason you and I ever even
>think about forgiving someone is because a preveniant,
>a going ahead of us grace, the Holy Spirit is at work
>in our lives, enabling us to understand how we've been
>forgiven in Christ Jesus and therefore we move out to
>forgive others.
>
>Friends, life at it's very heart is all about
>relationships. And unfortunately, but there is no
>other option, if you and I live in this real world we
>have no other option but to have relationships with
>other sinners. People who are going to wound us,
>people who are going to do wrong by us and Jesus is
>trying to drive home the point to His disciples and to
>you and me that until we get this forgiveness thing
>right, our friendships are only going to be able to go
>so far. Our marriages are going to eventually buckle.
>You will spend your Christian life as a church-hopper,
>because if you haven't been wounded by somebody here
>at Central yet, you will be. And if you don't have
>this forgiveness thing down right, then your going to
>buy one of the world's option rather than the option
>that Jesus holds out, which is forgiveness. And Jesus
>is reminding us in this seemingless graceless text
>that really is full of grace, that you can never
>separate grace from judgment. We always want to do
>that. We always try to look at grace at this end of
>the pole and judgment down here. The Bible doesn't
>have it that way. It's all of one piece. I think what
>Jesus is saying in verses 14 and 15 is really what
>Paul is saying in Chapter 1 of Romans. That if you and
>I are persistent in a practice of sin, and let me just
>say it straight, if you withhold forgiveness from
>someone else, you are practicing sin. And if you
>continue to do that long enough, what does Romans 1
>tell us? It says that God eventually removes His hand
>from us and gives us over to our own sin. And if you
>and I resist forgiving someone...we refuse to forgive,
>what's going to eventually happen is God will remove
>His hand and you will develop what you might call
>spiritual AIDS. Your spiritual immune system will
>begin to deplete. You will turn into a seething
>cauldron of disease, pustules of bitterness and anger
>and hatred will pop up. I've talked with many people
>who have AIDS. And the redeeming grace in all of that,
>is that often times they are more open to the gospel
>and to grace as never before. And sometimes you and I
>have to be brought to that point before we'll turn
>around and get going in the right direction again. You
>see forgiveness is so, so important that Christ wants
>to shake us up and get us to understand that it's
>absolute necessity if you and I are going to be
>authentic and faithful and winsome disciples of His.
>
>Leonardo Devinci was once wronged by a fellow artist.
>And so Devinci plotted how to get back at this guy. He
>happened to be working on the painting of the Last
>Supper at the time. So he said, "Yea, I know what I'm
>going to do!" And he went and he meticulously and with
>great detail painted this other artists face into the
>face of Judas. And I mean he worked overtime on this.
>He did it in such a way that no one would be able to
>mistake who Judas really was and this would heap scorn
>on this guy. Well everything went great until Devinci
>got to the face of Christ. And he began to paint the
>face of Christ. And he just had a block, he just
>couldn't do it. He was making no progress. He finally
>figured out that it was because of his unforgiving
>spirit, his spirit of revenge. So Devinci, went to
>that artist that had sinned against him and forgave
>him and surprise, surprise, you can see the results in
>the face of Christ in that world famous painting, the
>Last Supper.
>
>"But Ron you don't understand, you don't understand
>how I've been wounded! You don't understand what wrong
>has been done to me!" I don't. But God does! Do you
>really think that God's unconditional love for you,
>His unmerrited grace towards you, that He has poured
>out through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
>Christ, do you really believe that that cannot give
>you and me the power of forgiving someone else? If
>your answer to that question is yes then I've got news
>for you, Christmas is never going to be anything to
>you but a fairy tale. And Easter...well maybe a little
>bit more than a joke.
>
>Remember the story, Quo Vadis? There is this wicked
>guy Chelo. His friend Cloutus becomes a Christian. And
>he's angry about that and he sells Cloutus' wife and
>daughter into slavery. And meanwhile Cloutus is turned
>over to the Roman authorities and becomes a Christian
>martyr. He's one of the Christians that gets tied to a
>pillar covered with pitch and then staked out at the
>Emperor Nero's garden and lit on fire to provide light
>for the garden party. The garden party that night was
>illuminated by these burning Christians. Nero and
>Chelo begin to walk around the grounds surveying the
>lighting apparatus. And they come to Cloutus. And the
>wind blows the smoke away to the point where Chelo
>recognizes his friend in agony being burned to death.
>And the horror so strikes him that he becomes
>remorseful, in fact he cries out to Cloutus. He says,
>"In the name of Jesus Christ, please forgive me!" And
>through the popping of the flames and the agony that
>Cloutus is going through the voice is heard coming
>from him, "I forgive you!". And at that moment Chelo
>runs out of the party, runs out into the street, into
>the crowds and later that night of all people he bumps
>into the Apostle Paul. Who sits him down and explains
>to him the infinite riches of Jesus' forgiveness. And
>that night Chelo confesses faith in Christ and is
>baptized. Well, the next day he is turned over to the
>Roman authorities and they begin to torture him to try
>to get him to recant his new faith in Christ. And he
>won't. In fact he says, "I'm willing to die as my
>friends have died." And as they are piercing his flesh
>with iron rods, he actually leans down in humility and
>forgiveness and kisses the arms of those who are
>torturing him. Here is a man who has experienced the
>unconditional, unmerited grace of the forgiveness of
>Jesus Christ and thereby is able to forgive in the
>most ungodly of situations. He dies. But he dies as a
>man at peace.
>
>I remember my mom and dad telling me of the time they
>went down to the National Presbyterian Church in
>Washington to hear Corrie Ten Boom. This was back in
>the 1970's. And they told me how she got up and told
>the story of the crisis of forgiveness in her life.
>Right after W.W.II, she was speaking in a church in
>Hamburg, Germany. And she had been recounting the
>horrors that she had experienced in a concentration
>camp. She had seen her whole family killed, in fact
>she had seen her sister personally killed. And after
>her talk, she was standing at the front of the church,
>and people were lined up to shake her hand and say
>"nice talk" and that kind of stuff. And as she was
>shaking her hands, she looked back and, horror of
>horrors, she recognized the face that she knew she
>would never forget her whole life. It was the face of
>the SS guard who was in charge of the actual killing
>of her sister. She said at that moment "I had my
>crisis of faith. This man was going to come. Would I
>be able to shake his hand?" Not only that, when he
>gets up to her he looks her in the eye and says, "Miss
>Ten Boom, will you forgive me?". By the grace of God
>she extended her hand and took his and said, "I
>forgive you".
>
>Small village in South Korea, during the Korean War. A
>North Korean company of soldiers came through and
>captured the village. The commander of the company was
>a corporal who hated Christians. In fact he asked
>around the village, he said, "Whose the most vibrant,
>vocal Christian in this village?". And they pointed
>out a 19 year-old young man who was a college student.
>That corporal took that young man, asked him to recant
>his faith in Christ. He wouldn't do it. He said, "If
>you don't, I'm going to make you kneel here in the
>town square and I'm going to put a gun up to your head
>and I'm going to blow your brains out." The young man
>would not recant. He was made to kneel. The gun was
>put to his head and his brains were blown out.
>
>A few days later the South Korean army came through
>and recaptured that town, captured some of the North
>Koreans including that young corporal. And when the
>commander of the South Korean army heard what this
>young man had done, he took him and said, "We're going
>to execute you in the same way you executed that young
>man. Kneel down here in the town square". And he did.
>But he said,"Wait a minute. I want to get the dead
>boys parents to come here and witness this." He found
>where they lived and knocked on the door and said,
>"I'm here to tell you good news. We've caught the
>executioner of your son. We want you to come out and
>witness his execution. That man, a Presbyterian
>pastor, responded this way. He said, "You must be
>mistaken, we have no son. But we would like to adopt
>that young man to be our son." And they did. And he
>gave them hellish fits for a number of years. And they
>kept responding with forgiveness and one day that
>ex-corporal of the North Korean army professed Christ.
>Then accepted the call into the ministry, went to
>seminary, and was one of the most effective
>Presbyterian pastors in South Korea. He led dozens of
>people to Christ. He just died a few years ago of
>cancer.
>
>Well how about Tim Streeter. Two decades ago, he was a
>fifteen year old kid living in a suburb of
>Indianapolis. One day it snowed and he and his dad
>went out to shovel the driveway. A car with a few
>young black men from the inner-city of Indianapolis
>came by demanded money and then shot Tim Streeters
>father dead before his eyes. And the world said to Tim
>Streeter "Hate blacks, get even!". But Tim Streeter
>didn't listen to the world. You see he had a higher
>allegiance. He'd already committed his life to Jesus
>Christ. In fact as he grew out of adolescence he felt
>God's call on his life to work, where? In the
>inner-city of Indianapolis with African Americans. In
>fact, Tim Streeter wrote to the men who killed his
>father. They were now in prison. The shooter was on
>death row. I didn't write back. But the driver of the
>car did. And so Tim Streeter make an appointment to
>visit that man in prison. Now, are you getting the
>feel for the healthiness of a guy like Tim Streeter?
>Wouldn't you like to have this guy as a friend? I
>mean, can you see God working in this guy? Physically,
>spiritually, emotionally, relationally, health all
>over the place. But what about the felon in prison? He
>would later write to his mother that when he saw Tim
>Streeter walk through the gates of that prison for the
>first time the gospel became real to him and he too
>became a Christian.
>
>Who has wronged you? Maybe mildly sinned against you?
>Or violently wronged you? Who? What is your response?
>What will it be this week? Someone has written that
>forgiveness is the fragrance of the violet that still
>clings to the heel that crushed it. You and I can
>forgive. We will forgive. Because if we've met Jesus
>Christ at more than second hand, then we have gotten
>more than just a whiff of the scent of forgiveness.
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