Deeper S4, E7: Forgiven

Jesus told a parable (riddle) to one of his closest disciples when he asked how often he should forgive someone.  The answer implied we should never withhold forgiveness, and then the riddle confirmed that.  So - here we fuse together Jesus' clear teaching that we should forgive from the heart, with his other teaching about the need to repent and turn away from things that are wrong.  If we forgive, where is the justice for the wrong things done to us?  And what should our response be to those who do, indeed, keep on wronging us? 

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Okay, hi, welcome to uh season four, episode seven of our deeper podcast, and in today's podcast, we're going to be thinking about the word forgiveness. Forgiveness is a central theme in the whole of Christianity, um, probably one of the most central. And uh in today's passage, what we're going to do, what we're going to do is we're going to read a parable, which is like a riddle that Jesus tells about two people who both need to forgive, one of whom completely doesn't, and how he is dealt with. And then we're going to think about ourselves and the world around us. Um, but we're also going to think about what forgiveness isn't, as well as what forgiveness is. This might be quite a difficult one for some of us to listen to. So just give yourself enough wiggle room in this to be in a place maybe with a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, somewhere where people might not disturb you as you listen. Because sometimes Holy Spirit brings up things when we talk about forgiveness that we thought we were over, but maybe clearly we're not. So this one is called Forgiven. Father God, I pray as we come to look at this concept of forgiveness from this parable that Jesus tells us. Help us to uh be ready to be spoken to by you, to be awakened by your Holy Spirit. If there's a person or an issue that needs to be dealt with, bring it to our mind, but only if you know that we are ready to deal with those things. I pray God that human part of us, which may be dreading hearing about forgiveness, guard us, keep us safe. Thank you that Holy Spirit brings up things in our time when when He knows we are ready. So we we trust you and we give ourselves over to a good Father as we think about this idea of being forgiven and forgiving others. Amen. Amen. Okay, so I think what we'll do is we will start with the actual parable, and we shall go from there. So this is the parable of the unmerciful servant, is what we've called it. Not sure what Jesus would have called it. Uh, and it's from Matthew chapter 18, if you'd want to read along with me, starting at verse 21. So here we go. Peter, as one of the disciples, Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or my sister who sins against me? Maybe up to seven times? Jesus answered, I'll tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began this settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children all be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him. Oh, be patient with me, he begged. I will pay back everything. The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the whole debt, and let him go. But when that same servant went out, he found another servant who owed him just a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him by the neck and began to choke him. Pay back what you owe me, he demanded. This other servant fell to his knees and begged him, be patient with me, and I will pay it back. But the first servant refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay this debt. Other servants saw what happened, and they were outraged. They went and told their master everything that had happened. And the master called in that first servant and said, You wicked servant, I cancelled all your debt because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you? And in his anger, the master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay back all that he owed. This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or your sister from your heart. Lord help us to understand what it is you're trying to say here and to put it into actual practice in our lives. Amen. It's like a debt. And the bigger the sin that's happened to us, the bigger the bad things that have gone on, the bigger the need for forgiveness. Um but I do want to be clear, just as we start thinking about forgiveness, that when Jesus teaches crowds of people, uh, as well as teaching on forgiveness, he teaches on a thing which we call repentance, which is where you change your actions. You look at your life, you take stock, and you make changes. He also teaches on justice and he also teaches on change. Jesus doesn't shy away from addressing evil, addressing hypocrisy, addressing abuse. He calls for change and repentance and tells multiple stories about needing to recognise when our behaviour is wrong. He even gives us systems and processes to deal justly with sin. I mean, even in the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments is expanded into this 613 laws throughout the Old Testament, all of which actually deal with how we worship God, with whether we are uh stealing or committing adultery or lying or all those kind of things that we know of. So in no way, in no way, does the Bible tell us that forgiveness is just about letting everybody off everything, as if God's like this massive doormat, or we should be doormats too. God even removes people from situations of hurt and abuse and hate. I do want to say, before we talk about forgiveness, if you are in a relationship with somebody, or you're in an organization or a church, and you recognize that you are being hurt in those situations, uh the Jesus thing to do is to bring up with that person or with that organization or with that church the hurt that is happening. And if nothing is done and nothing changes, then the godly thing to do is to remove yourself from that situation. So we're gonna pause here for just a moment. Father, I pray that if there's anybody listening to me speaking right now, uh, Lord, you would help us to recognize the things that we need to remove ourselves from in order to stop the poison poisoning us, the the doubt, the difficulty controlling us. Lord, if we feel manipulated or we feel talked down to, we feel abused in any way, give us the courage to be able to tell somebody who can help us to remove ourselves from that situation. Now I know that I've got a very strong justice driver. My kids would probably tell you that my justice driver is maybe too strong, and sometimes I find myself whining around the house about all these things that go wrong all the time, as if it's my responsibility to fix everything in the world, all the injustice that's to come through me, and I'm the one who really needs to control all the power. Um, what actually the Bible tells us that we should do is that we should forgive sin and we should leave the justice to God. Now, sometimes leaving the justice to God does mean using the systems and the processes that God has instituted here on earth. So leaving something to the police or leaving something to, for instance, a safeguarding investigation, or leaving something leaving something to the social care or social workers, all of that stuff is God's justice playing itself out here on earth. And sometimes we can't see that happening. So what we want to do is hold on to this, hold on to this grudge because we can't see the justice happening. So why should we forgive? If if forgiveness and justice are so tied together, and actually justice needs to happen, what is the point of forgiveness? I was looking for a story that I could share where with about a person who really, really would find it hard to forgive, and a person I knew. Um, and I had the privilege when I first moved to the Isle of Man in the 90s, um, there was a man called Robin Oak, who was one of the chair, one of the trustees of the charity that I worked for. And Robin was also the chief of police for the whole of the Isle of Man. Him and his wife, Chris, they were just this amazing, amazing, good, godly couple who were just so good, so good to me. Um and when I had been here for a little while, Robin's son, who was also in the police force, he was in the police force in Manchester, uh, he was stabbed while he was at work as a police officer while he was in Manchester and and he died. Um and Robin talked quite openly with the churches here and churches across about how he knew that of all the things that God wanted him to do in that situation, the the primary thing God wanted Robin to do was forgive the man who had stabbed and killed his son. He even wrote a book called The Forgotten F-Word, which was just such an incredibly humbling and reality-checking uh read. If you ever get a chance to read it, The Forgotten F-Word by Robin Oak is an amazing, amazing book. The reason that we need to forgive is because people are not the son of their worst moments. The reason we need to forgive is that we need to give other people the same grace that we hope that God would give to us. The reason we need to forgive is that God gave his son Jesus to wipe away that debt as if there's a screen above us with all these things written on it that we do, and God wipes it clean because of the death of Jesus. So who are we to write things back on those screens above people's heads? Holding on to unforgiveness does a few things. It it grows bitterness, it grows judgment, it grows control, it grows gossip, it grows hatred, it grows distrust. I don't want to grow into that kind of a person. Whereas forgiving people grows grace and mercy and wisdom, it grows peace and goodness and patience and love, and I do want to grow into that kind of a person. We're gonna finish today with what's called a visualization where I'm gonna take us through something that I'm gonna use your imaginations to try to guide us to help God help us to be able to forgive ourselves and forgive other people. If you notice in the parable that Jesus tells, which is what kicked off this whole discussion about forgiveness and forgiving other people, the first thing that happens is that that that servant owes such a massive debt to God or to the master who represents God in the in the parable, and and the master wipes the whole debt free. So that's where we're going to start. So maybe where you are, if it's safe to, if you're not driving, just close your eyes and we're going to just pause for a second. I'd like you to imagine that you are in the presence of God Himself, He has welcomed you into this beautiful, comfortable room, and He's walked you in, He's held your hand, and you're standing by a fireplace. God is holding both of your hands, and He says, Look me in the eye. You look into the face of God, looking, gazing at His face, and He looks at you and He says to you, My child, I forgive you, I wipe your debt clean. And there is a board next to you with all of your sins written on it, and He gets a cloth and He wipes the whole thing absolutely clean. There is nothing written on this board, and God says to you, There is nothing between us, there is no debt that you owe. Jesus has wiped it clean. And then you get a pen and you write onto that board the thing that you know you really struggle to believe that you deserve to be forgiven for. This thing that every time you ask for forgiveness, it comes back again and again and again, and you write it back onto that board. And God says, wait. He takes the pen from your hand and he wipes it clean again. And he looks to you and he says, My child, there is nothing between us. I have forgiven all of your debt, all of your sin. It has gone. Trust me, I love you. You are free. The next thing that happens is that God hands you a book. This book has the faces of everybody you have ever interacted with. And he says to you, I want you to just flick through this book for a moment because there's someone in here who I know you are struggling to forgive. I have forgiven them. I want you to be able to do the same. So he lets you just flick through the pages. You stop on one page in particular, and there is a familiar face to you. It may be someone you were expecting, it may be someone you thought you'd already forgiven, it may be someone from such a long time ago. You see the face and you remember. God says to you, leave the justice to me. I ask you to clear their debt with you. You have the courage to say, God, I forgive this person, and then you get that cloth, and you wipe that accusation away from their board, and you look at their face with that clean board, and you feel differently about that person. It's important, Lord, as we come to the end of this podcast, that we reiterate that forgiveness uh is not the same as staying in a situation which is dangerous or abusive or hurtful. So we pray, God, that though even though we may just have forgiven something really big, Lord help us to remember that it's still there is wisdom in leaving an abusive situation, it is the good and the godly thing to do. Father, I also pray that if people have been impacted by what it is that they've said or they've seen or they've heard and and they need to talk to somebody, I pray that they would know who to talk to. Yes. If if what you've just experienced um means that you need to probably go to the police about something, please do do that. There are lines you can ring. Um if you need to go to a safeguarding person, the safeguarding person for uh Pioneer Church or for St. Linion's Church is on our website. You can just head there, pioneer.im or St. Linion's.im, and you can find exactly on there who to contact about that. Uh if you're not part of our church, then we would recommend that you go to your own church leadership and you tell them what is going on. Let's finish with a prayer. Father, I thank you so much that whether forgiveness comes with uh this beautiful sense of breaking free of peace, of us being free rather than the other person being free. And we thank you, God, that we can trust that you are a God of justice, and justice will come either in this life or in the next. And thank you, God, that we don't have to hold on to that sense of justice. It's not up to us to bring about that just action. Uh, we are only responsible for ourselves. So I pray, God, that we would be people of peace and mercy and forgiveness and goodness, and we would also be people who are wise and sensible with the things that we are involved with, the people that we stay connected to, and you would give us the courage to get out of situations which are difficult, but also the courage to forgive and to let go of hurt in Jesus' name.