The Church's Conduct

Our sermon this morning is going to be specifically focused on 15 to 35. And the context is important, as I hope we'll see later. And as I was preparing for this passage and this message, it reminded me of an experience I had about a while back. There's actually two experiences, and they stand out because they were within two weeks of each other, and they were very very clearly different. They were similar in that I was going to two different brothers to ask for their forgiveness. But the experience of me going and asking for forgiveness was very different as their responses were very different. The first man, when I apologized, I said, I'm sorry, after I gave a very explicit, clear instance that I was apologizing for, the response was, thank you. The second person responded to my apology, I'm sorry, with a very clear, direct thing that I did, and he said, I forgive you. Now, that may not seem all that different, but those are worlds apart. See, whenever a Christian says he's sorry, the only real thing you can say in response is, is I forgive you. It actually is a little more telling, as the person who said thank you, he then wanted to explain to me other ways that I had sinned against him. And as I continued to apologize, he continued to not say I'm sorry, or I forgive you. The second man, however, when he said, I forgive you, he then explained to me, I understand what you were doing. I don't hold it against you. He tried to make sure I was received. These two were very different experiences because the first was extremely discouraging. I was seeking reconciliation to have renewed fellowship. And after that conversation, it felt like it was even further away. The second one was extremely uplifting. The fellowship between me and this brother has been strengthened. Grace abounded. I say this because today's passage is about reconciliation. Today's passage is about this sacred act that Christians are commanded to do, confessing sin, acknowledging sin. forgiving sin, apologizing for sin. These are sacred acts that Jesus Christ has commanded us. And so I'm speaking to you, church, I want to be clear, I'm speaking to you, those who are professing faith in Jesus Christ, those who are professing forgiveness in Jesus Christ, this is sacred. This is some of the most important things we will hear and understand about who we are and what we're supposed to be doing. Now we looked at Matthew 16 last week, and we saw that there's a confession that needs to be made. Peter said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus is the one Savior. He is God who has come down to save sinners. We must believe in Him. That was the confession of the church. Today we're looking at the conduct, and this conduct is confronting, confessing, and forgiving. Now if you're not a Christian this morning, we're very thankful you're here. I'm going to be talking about how Christians are supposed to deal with conflict, specifically sinful conflict. I'm glad you're here and I want to make sure there's a full disclaimer. The church is full of sinners. Sometimes those who aren't Christians, they get confused about who we are and why we gather in this building on this day and what we're doing. We, Christians, especially members of Jefferson Park here today, we're gathering because we realize we need to hear about Jesus Christ regularly. We are sinners who need to hear Christ died for us to forgive us of our sin. He died for us because that is the only way we can be forgiven. So if you're here, I want you to understand there are sinners all around you right now. Some of them are real rascals. We're not here because we're good people. We're here because Christ died for us and we're looking to be conformed to his image, to be more like him, to bring him glory. And one of the ways we bring him glory, one of the ways you would bring him glory is to confess your sins. I, God, have sinned against you first and foremost. I acknowledge I have rejected you. I have not worshiped you the way I ought. And I acknowledge that Jesus Christ, your perfect son, died to forgive me of that sin so that I can once again be reconciled with you, God. So that's the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we believe here. God just doesn't give you a blank slate from your sin. God forgives you for your sin so that you can once again know Him. God's welcoming and wanting to love you and for you to know His love. The goal is to be loved and to love Him. And so we're gonna be talking about our sin together. I hope you can hear about how the gospel is supposed to change a people. We're not always obedient to this, but this is why Jesus tells us these commands, so that we can know to be obedient. Let's turn to Matthew 18, we're on page 823. If you're using a pew Bible, please take that with you if you don't have a Bible. And really what we're looking at are two very specific instructions. First he states, and notice the language here, if your brother sins against you, verse 15. And then he states there's four steps you have to take. If your brother, sins against you, there are four steps, and a brother is assuming it's a Christian. If your brother sins against you, there's four steps, very specific. The second begins in verse 21, and I want you to notice, Peter says, how often will my brother sin against me, using that same language, and I forgive him. The first instance here is Jesus teaching how to confront. The second is how to forgive. Notice that the person he is talking to is the offended. I'm avoiding using the word victim. Jesus is talking about the person who is offended by sin, and he's addressing two particular difficulties that those who are offended by sin wrestle with. The first is this, the difficulty of properly confronting a brother who has sinned against you. It's difficult, let's just face it. When we're offended, when we're hurt, when we feel sinned against, it is difficult to know how to go talk to that person. It makes us very vulnerable. Second, it's the difficulty of forgiving the brother who has sinned against you. That, too, is difficult. I believe the reason Jesus is talking to the person who's been offended, and notice there is some implications where we can think about the offender, but the primary focus on who's offended, typically the person offended has the harder time. The one who has been sinned against has a harder time being obedient and knowing what to do, and so Jesus makes it very clear. You confront this particular way. You forgive this way. So the offended is given very precise instructions for confrontation. He's given a very clear instruction for forgiveness. It's absolute. Now I want to say there's three principles that we're going to just see in this passage. And this isn't the sermon outline. This is just three basic principles. The first is this. When there is sin and there's a confrontation necessary, first, keep your focus on gaining your brother. Keep your focus on gaining your brother, and we'll walk through what that means. Second, the principle based upon the steps, keep the offense as private as possible. Keep the offense as private as possible. And third, keep forgiving your brother's sin. Keep your focus on gaining your brother, keep the offense as private as possible, And third, keep forgiving your brother's sin. Now we're gonna be dealing with very important words. Sin, confrontation, forgiveness, reconciliation. These are four key words that need to be part of our language, the way we talk with one another, the way we talk from scripture. And so I wanna define our terms before we move on. Let's define our terms because we're talking about sin. Sin literally means missing the mark. God is holy and perfect and righteous and we are sinners because we have missed the mark. We have failed to do what he's told us to do. The most basic failure we can see in the garden with Adam and Eve is that they simply refused to give God the honor and the thanks he deserved. They refused their proper position as creatures who listened to the creator and obeyed him. So sin, first and foremost, is against God, refusing the creator the respect and honor and glory he deserves. Secondly, sin is against man. Sin is against one another. And this is refusing fellow man the respect and honor and glory they deserve. So let's just walk through some of the Ten Commandments and think about this. The reason God says do not murder is because your neighbor has a right to life. The reason God says do not steal is because your neighbor has a right to their property. The reason God says do not commit adultery is that your neighbor has a right to his wife and to purity. God gives these commands because we are given by God's grace these things. What we have to first see is that we're all sinners. As we Christians pursue this passage, this passage will be meaningless unless we first acknowledge we're sinners. Unless we first have the humility this passage demands to recognize we are sinners, we are wicked, we are fully dependent upon God's grace. We have received great grace to be in right relation with God. We have to give great grace in order to be in a right relation with God. It fully depends upon us recognizing our need of grace if we're truly going to be a people who give grace. The second words, first one is sin, that's missing the mark, it's refusing our proper place of giving God respect and honor and giving fellow man respect and honor. Second, confrontation. Jesus says, go and tell him his fault. Confrontation is speaking truth for the well-being and concern for the other. The desire here is to restore a relationship, to gain him. The goal is to help the brother see how they've sinned so that there can be restoration, there can be reconciliation. Notice there it's very clear. Go tell him so that you may gain your brother, verse 15. Confrontation has a clear goal. Confrontation, it can't be vague. It can't use words like never and always. Anybody who's married knows that whenever you start arguing and you start using never and always, that never ends well, does it? You avoid escalating. There's a grace required. There's a humility required. There's a desire to gain them rather than stick it to them. And then third, forgiveness. This is one of the most difficult words to talk about, because like the word love in our culture, it's somewhat been ruined. Forgiveness is so sacred, we have to make sure we're clear of this. Forgiving is no longer holding someone's sin against them. And that means we don't dwell on it. We don't talk about it, we don't let it become between us. When we truly forgive, it means reconciliation is in place. It means we're not just gonna say, ah, my feelings are gonna be hurt, I'm gonna choose to set that aside. No, I'm going to say, I'm going to set that aside so I can pursue you. See, sin stands between us, and it's setting it aside so that we can once again be in right relationship. Oftentimes, forgiving requires absorbing. The example that Jesus uses here with the king and the debt, that king absorbed the debt. He lost a lot of money so that that man could be restored. Oftentimes our forgiving requires we take a shot in our pride, takes a shot in our reputation maybe, takes a shot in our sense of righteousness and justice. and all of that so that we can gain our brother, be reconciled. Forgiveness, by definition, is a transaction. It requires the words, I forgive you. It's not something spiritually you just do in prayer. It requires the transaction so that reconciliation takes place. And here's the most basic definition of reconciliation. Reconciliation happens when somebody says, I'm sorry, and the other person says, I forgive you. That's reconciliation. If any one of those are missing, reconciliation has not taken place. And it means that whatever was between you has now been said, we're going to set that aside. We don't even think about it. We don't talk about it. We're going to pursue a relationship without that being in the equation. These are our terms, sin, confrontation, forgiveness, reconciliation. Now let's jump into our passage. Cheryl read the entirety of Matthew 18 because the context is important here. Jesus isn't just popping in in verse 15 and saying something. I believe he's welcoming in the church to be part of God's rejoicing over finding a lost sheep. And I want us to see in the context, verse three and four, truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, now this doesn't mean we don't have real mature thoughts. This doesn't mean we don't pursue the difficult doctrines of God. What it means is this, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven if you do not become like children who come humbly. Look at verse four. Whoever humbles himself like this child, One of the beautiful things about children is they're teachable. They're moldable. They recognize they're dependent. The problem with us as we get harder and harder in sin is that we become less teachable. We pretend we're not so dependent. So there's a humility already required in the passage regarding what Jesus is teaching. Let's look at the most immediate context, the lost sheep. Look at verse 13, if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. And then he launches in, this is how you're going to gain a brother. God rejoices over the restored brother. This is us being invited into knowing how we can participate in restoring and gaining back a brother. Because when somebody sins, they start being lost. First section. Here we go, verse 15. Jesus gives steps. If your brother, and believe, I think this is Christian language Jesus is introducing here, your brother in Christ, if your brother sins against you, they have committed something against you, notice the very clear language, first step, We've got the setting. If your brother sins against you, first step, go. It doesn't say sit and let it fester. It doesn't say Facebook it. It doesn't say talk to as many people as possible, does it? It simply says go and talk to him. There's an urgency here. Either you go or you set up a time and you meet face-to-face. Now, typically, we respond very differently, sinfully, because the natural inclination isn't to go and be reconciled. The typical temptation is to make sure they understand how much they hurt you, to withhold yourself, to either withdraw or to respond with anger. But you're saying, no, you go and you talk to him. And it's very clear, between you and him alone, and the goal is to gain your brother. Now let's just focus on you go to him alone. You go with a hope that you don't let the sin spread. You go with a hope that what you're gonna do is reconcile quickly so that others don't have to know what's happened. Jesus seems to be protecting the offender at some level, and his reputation. There's two Proverbs I think that go along with this. Proverbs 16, 28. A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisper separates close friends. Proverbs 26, 20. For lack of wood, the fire goes out, and where there is no whisper, quarreling ceases. The church, Christians, need to recognize that going and dealing with the sin one-on-one, face-to-face, is what is required. Someone who whispers, someone who talks about it with others, they're causing that quarreling. According to Proverbs, they're a fool. And when we go and talk to somebody, let's be very clear, the goal is not to get to the fourth step. The goal is to gain. The goal is to gain your brother. The purpose is reconciliation, a renewed relationship. Jesus is giving very clear instructions to care for the offender so that we know how to confront them properly. And let me just give you some application, practical application as you go. Go with prayer. Go with prayer. praying that your words would be the right words and that God would use even your wrong words to bring about restoration? Pray for grace to abound where the sin feels like it's abound? And again, I wanna go back, it begins with humility. You could be wrong. It may be that in the midst of the confrontation, you realize that what you thought happened did not actually happen. So you're not going just to tell him his fault, you're going to listen. Because you want reconciliation, you don't wanna prove a point. Second step, if he does not listen to you, verse 16. Now again, verse 15, if he listens, you've gained your brother. Verse 16, if he does not listen, take two or three others along with you that every charge may be established for the evidence of two or three witnesses. Now, the idea here of taking witnesses isn't so that you have witnesses that you've brought somebody else. and what you're saying, is that a witness to what you're saying? The idea that you're establishing a charge with witnesses means that somebody else saw or heard what happened. This means that it's typically a public sin. It means that whatever the sin was, you can go and talk to somebody else that you know saw or heard what happened and you can talk to them and you go together to convince this person who's not repenting yet to say, no, now it's not just me that I saw it, two or three of us have seen it. And the hope here is that they would be convicted. Wow, there's more people who are saying I'm a sinner. There's more witnesses and the hope is that they would listen. And I want to be very clear here. After you go and do step one, you talk to him alone, you obviously have to start talking to somebody. Because you have to gain witnesses. They're gonna be willing to go with you. And it may be that if you have a problem, if somebody's sitting against you, and you go talk to witnesses, they may actually correct you at this point. And they say, you're blowing this out of proportion. You may be the one that needs to be corrected that you're blowing out of proportion. Or it may be that they go and say, yes, we agree, we're thankful for your willingness to lead us in this, and you go and you prayerfully seek to gain him by explaining this is what happened. Then the third step. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. Now notice there's been an an escalation, there's been you and you alone, there's been you and two or three witnesses, and then it's the whole church. You go and tell the church, and what you hope here is that the church will say, brother, you've sinned against this brother, and you need to say I'm sorry, you need to realize that this is something between you, and now it's between the whole church, and then the church would speak, and you would hope that the humble brother would say I'm going to listen, and I'm going to acknowledge this is a sin, even if they don't realize this was clearly a sin. Because if this many people are coming to you and saying you've sinned, you should consider yourself deceived at this point. And then if he doesn't listen, there's a fourth step. If he doesn't listen, halfway through 17, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, Notice, if he listens, you gain him. If he doesn't listen, you bring witnesses. If he doesn't listen to the witnesses, you bring him to the church. If he doesn't listen to the church, this is what's supposed to happen. Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Now, we don't use that language today, but let me just try to explain what's going on here with the simple declaration tax collector. These Jews in Israel, they were under the Roman Empire. And in order for the Romans to effectively gather taxes, they recruited Jewish men to collect taxes for the Roman government from their Jewish brothers. A tax collector is somebody who betrayed his own people. They've decided that they would rather have wealth and prosperity and power with the Romans rather than to be a citizen of brothers in Israel. They are Israelites who have chosen to go with Rome for the well-being of Rome and their well-being of themselves, and they've betrayed their fellow Israelites. This is somebody who is not to be trusted. It's somebody who's not to be celebrated or embraced. Somebody who's treated with suspicion. It's somebody who is not aware of their sin and refuses to listen. Now, here we come across this letting loose and the binding language again, verses 18 and 19. Jesus takes another turn here. He recognizes, we recognize, truly I say to you, what you bind on earth is bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth is loose in heaven. The church recognizes that the person who refused to listen is no longer walking with Christ. That doesn't mean they're not in Christ. It doesn't mean they're not saved. It simply means there is now evidence that they are not truly walking in Christ and cannot be treated like a brother. The action of recognizing this, and it's simply recognizing it, is good for the church because it warns us of sin. When this happens, the church is warned of the sin that resides in us and so easily could overcome us. The action is good for the church because it purifies our fellowship so that reconciliation is abounding within the body. The action is good for the local church because it protects our witness. I want you to see the one implication of the offender. Over and over again, he needed to listen. He needed to hear that a brother, and then witnesses, and then the church, they're coming to him seeking to gain him. And if he continues to refuse, it shows he is not humbly walking with Christ, recognizing his need to confess sin. The offender, he needs to listen. He needs to go and ask, are these things true of me? And if all these witnesses are coming to him, he needs to recognize, even if I don't see how sinful I am in this, if everyone else is saying this about me, I have to believe it's true and therefore I will repent. Yes, you probably need to repent of sins you're not aware of. We all need to repent of sins that we're not aware of. That's what sin does to you, it darkens. Now 18 tells us a truth that's foundational for the instruction. Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth is loose in heaven. We saw this language from Matthew 16, and here it's about the whole church. Binding is uniting the repentant confessor of Christ to the church. When somebody confesses their sin, you bind them. You bring them back. The sin isn't in the way anymore. You're binding them. You're reuniting and reconciling. Loosing is disuniting from the unrepentant confessor because he's a betrayer. You bind brothers. You loose betrayers. Now I wanna walk through some seven basic application points that we can see from this passage regarding Christian confrontation. First, Christian confrontation requires humility. It means that we first wanna say, God, will you help me see the plank in my eye before I go and try to take the needle out of my brothers? It requires a recognition, I am a sinner, I need grace, and I'm going to go and talk to this brother as a sinner who needs grace so that I can show him grace and we can rejoice. It requires humility because even if it's done poorly, you can seek God's grace to show you sin to repent of. Secondly, Christian confrontation requires meeting face to face. Email and texting are fantastic ways of communicating information, basic data. They are not the medium by which you want to seek reconciliation. You meet face to face. Christian confrontation seeks to gain the other brother. You go considering the person more important than yourself, as we read from Philippians 2 earlier. you seek to make his and your own relationship with Christ stronger. Now here's a practical way in which you're going to seek to gain the other brother. Before you go, remind yourself as to why you love this brother. Remind yourself what you love about this brother. Remind yourself what you're thankful for about this brother and start the conversation with that. Let them know that the person talking to them is a friend. a true brother who loves them and sees God's work in them. Fourth, Christian confrontation addresses a specific problem, something that can be witnessed. You go seeking to be an instrument of grace to actually give an opportunity to repent. It's not meant to be vague. It's not some kind of character accusation that you always do this, you never do this. Now it's something very specific that allows a person to see this is what you've done, this is what you do in response. Fifth, Christian confrontation avoids quarreling. You avoid talking about it unless you're seeking to find witnesses, unless the person doesn't listen. You keep it as private as possible. Sixth, Christian confrontation requires a church. There actually has to be consequences for somebody who does not listen. There has to be a church in which this is happening. That is the context for how this is done well, because there has to be consequences for what happens when somebody doesn't listen. And finally, Christian confrontation seeks to honor Christ. This is the ultimate goal, to reconcile, to bring honor to the reconciler. That's the first section. This is what happens when you're sinned against and you need to confront the person, you go alone, you take witnesses, you take it to the church, and then the church recognizes this person is living like a betrayer, not a brother. The goal is to gain them so that they remain walking as a brother. Now the second section, this is a call to forgive. It's interesting, most of the commentaries pointed out that the first section would have been easier to hear in the original day, first century, and the second section would be harder to hear in the first century, and that's reversed today. More people have a difficult time thinking about confronting, and it's easier to think about forgiving, and I think that's because we've really weakened the idea of forgiveness. So verses 21 through 35. Peter came and said to him, now, here we are. Peter speaks up first. This is very typical among the apostles. He is the one who will oftentimes speak first. We have two parts to this. Verse 21 and 22, there's a dialogue, Peter and Jesus, there's a question and an answer, rather. And then we have a parable. We have a long teaching about the unforgiving servant. So let's first look at 21 through 22, which inspires the parable. Peter asks, and again, hear the language that shows this is clearly following from what Jesus taught. How often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times. Now, Peter is asking the exact question, all right, if you go and you confront your brother and you're seeking to gain him, what if he apologizes, how many times do I have to forgive him? And something tells me Peter's thinking seven times, that's generous. Seven times, that really shows how generous I am, and it's as if Jesus here is saying, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, come on. You just aren't getting it, Peter. It's not how many times you have to forgive him, it's how many times you get to forgive him. The point isn't how many times can I say I'll forgive him until I get to cut him off. Jesus is saying you haven't yet understood that I came to forgive you of sins you'll never understand. I came to forgive you of sins you've committed every day your entire life. It's not how many times he sins against you until you get to not forgive him anymore. It's that you get to keep forgiving your brother over and over and over again. Jesus said to him, it's not seven times. It's 77, or seven times 70. It's an infinite amount. You never stop forgiving. Because as we see from Paul, we can see a little more clear, we forgive as we've been forgiven. God doesn't ever say, once you start to cross this line, I'm gonna stop forgiving you. He says, I will forgive you. My son has purchased you. My son has washed you. The beauty of the question, the beauty of the answer is that forgiveness is supposed to be abounding because we have received such an abundance of forgiveness. Jesus says, no, you do not stop forgiving. And then he teaches a parable to help Peter understand why you don't stop forgiving. The parable has three main characters. There's a king, there's a servant who owed the king, and then there's a servant who owed the other servant. There's a king, there's a servant who owed the king, and then there's a servant who owed that servant. Let's look at these in order, verses 23 to 27. The king settles his debt. And recognize here, the kingdom of heaven is compared to a king who is settling his accounts, and he brings in one servant, and he says, you owe me 10,000 talents. That's like quite a few lifetimes of wages for a servant. This is the wages that it would take this man the rest of his life, his children, and probably his children and their children to pay back. You owe me 10,000 talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had in payment to be made. This is justice. What you just heard was justice. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. That's foolishness, he can't pay it back. And out of pity, The master of that servant released him. And notice, he doesn't say, I'll let you pay it back. He forgave him. He forgives him. So that he can be free, so that he can be with his wife, so that he can be with his children, the king says, I forgive you. We're gonna take that debt, we're gonna wad it up, we're gonna throw it in the fireplace, it's gone. I just lost 10,000 talents so that you can be free. This was a great act of mercy that was very costly for the king. Now look at verse 28 through 30. We wanna make sure we're clear. And when that same servant went out, He found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii. And seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, pay what you owe. One talent is believed to be around 6,000 denarii. One talent would be 16 years of wages. This man was just forgiven 10,000 talents lifetimes of wages, and he's going out to choke another man who owes him 100 days of wages. He is taking his own righteousness and his justice and choking him, saying, pay what you owe. We have another character, a minor character. So his fellow servant fell down, pleaded with him, sorry, the same servant. His fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me, I will pay you. Same thing the first servant said. He refused. Put him in prison until he should pay the debt. The minor characters, the fellow servants, they saw this, they told the king. Look at verse 32. His master summoned him. and said, you wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? In his anger, the master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. What we see here is A man who owed much. He was forgiven much. And the king seems to be assuming here, because you were forgiven much, certainly you can forgive little. Why would you demand justice for so little when you have received mercy for so much? What kind of a wicked man are you? The gift has not changed you. The grace you received you have not demonstrated. Believe me when you look at this text, it's a warning. It is a warning that we too quickly forget what a great debt has been paid for us when the father sent his son to die for us. It was a costly forgiveness. The son had to be crushed because our wickedness was so much. And when we choke others, when we demand righteousness and do not show mercy and forgiveness, we show we've never truly received that mercy. We've never been changed from that wicked one who owes so much. This is a warning for us. This is a warning for each of us to consider, have I truly recognized the great debt that I owed? Have I truly recognized a great debt that's been paid for me and am I truly living out giving others that same mercy? Do I forgive others? Do I hold grudges? Do I keep up boundaries? Do I make sure people remember what they've done to me? Do I dwell on what people have done to me? Do I keep accounts long on how everyone has done wrong to me? Do I have a history of broken relationships? This is a time where we think about these questions because what Christ is teaching us, we've been forgiven much. The things that are done to us are nothing compared to our spitting in the face of God, mocking Him, rejecting Him, nailing to a cross, wishing He were dead so that we could live our lives of sin. And yet He forgives us. We must forgive one another. How do I forgive someone? We ask this question because it's not easy. It's simply not the natural inclination of the sinful heart. Because our first thing is just want to say, I just want to justify my sin. I want to justify my anger because I'm hurt. And usually when we're hurt, we want the other person to know we're hurt. So they're hurt by our hurt. We want to be able to hang it over their head. We want to make sure we keep them in check. We wanted others to know what a jerk they were, so that they also realize this person is mean, they've hurt me. These are the natural inclinations of a sinful heart. Until we look to Christ, and we realize the righteous one was crushed for our iniquity. Our sins have been moved as far as the east is from the west. As we think about the cross, as we sang earlier, it pours contempt on all our pride. Our pride is what wants us to declare and demand justice. Our pride is what wants us to make sure everyone or the person who hurt us knows they hurt us. What's amazing about God is his son died even to forgive us of that sin. If you want to learn how to forgive, the first step is to look to Jesus Christ and to consider what he did. We deserve no forgiveness, but he died to wash us of every sin, and it is a costly forgiveness. We first have to recognize how much we depend upon Christ. how much he has forgiven us, and then we can turn to others and start practicing forgiveness. How quick you are to forgive demonstrates your maturity in the gospel. This is a clear principle. If you're slow to forgive, you're not very mature in the gospel, but the goal here is to grow into Christ, grow into his image, grow to be more quick to forgive, have shorter accounts with people. We shouldn't have accounts, we need to settle. So we think about forgiveness and we conclude, I want to point out there's three aspects to true Christian forgiveness. The first is this, forgiveness is intentional. It's a commitment. It isn't something we're going to naturally do, it has to be a choice that says I'm going to set aside this thing. It's not just saying I'm going to stop feeling angry, That's merely just wanting to be self-therapeutic. No, no, it's a commitment to say, I'm not going to let this thing make me feel this way about this person. It's a commitment that says, I'm going to sacrifice whatever kind of hurt I have, whatever kind of justice I wanna demand, and I'm gonna set it aside. It's a commitment that values the love of God and the love of the brothers. It's a commitment that does not value our pride. It's a commitment that says I want to gain them and make much of Christ rather than focus on my hurt. It's a real choice that has to be made. Secondly, forgiveness is a transaction. It's a real choice that requires real words to a real person. I'm sorry, I forgive you. This is the language of Christian love. These are the simple rules of reconciliation. True forgiveness is a transaction. I forgive you. There is no other response to give someone who says, I'm sorry, if we truly believe in Jesus Christ. Too many, I hear folks wanting to say, I forgive him in my heart, I don't need to go tell him that. No, you do. You can't say, I forgive him in my heart, and yet let that sin linger between the two of you. You have to set that other brother free for reconciliation. By not telling them, you're keeping them bound when they have said, I'm sorry. You cannot refuse to talk to the brother who has offended you. Humility demands that you listen and pursue grace. If someone says I'm sorry, you say I forgive you. It's a transaction that takes place. And thirdly, as I've said a number of times here already, forgiveness is directed towards reconciliation. You do it to gain your brother, to renew a relationship. You do it so that you can forgive after they repent. That is when reconciliation takes place. You don't keep people at a distance. You don't speak poorly of them. You forgive them. As we conclude, I wanna give some clear standards that I found in Ken Sandys, the peacemaker for real forgiveness. When we forgive, we choose not to dwell on it, that is the sin. When we forgive, we choose not to bring it up again or use it against the person. When we choose to forgive, we will not talk to others about that incident. When we choose to forgive, we will not let that incident stand between us or hinder our relationship. Friends, those are some tests. Is there sin that you're dwelling on, that you're talking about, that you're talking with others about, that you're letting hinder a relationship? These are sins that either need to be confronted or forgiven. Because the bigger picture here, This was meant to be a church of Jesus Christ. With the sacred language of I'm sorry, I forgive you, it's resounding, it's constantly being said because this is a church that needs to be exalting Christ, and we exalt Christ when we confess our sins and seek reconciliation. This is a core to who we are, to be a united body that makes much of Christ. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you, our master, have shown us, you've shown us great grace. We cannot begin to understand what a debt of sin we owe, and yet we know that when we look to Jesus Christ and his death on the cross, we know it is completely forgiven. Thank you. May our hearts May our hearts always be moved towards gratitude for how much you have forgiven us from and may it be demonstrated how we forgive others. May we be a church that is quick to forgive and slow to keep accounts. May we be quick to confess and to show forgiveness so that the gospel is constantly being spoken of and being spoken to one another. Let the glory of Jesus Christ be our aim as we gain, brothers. As we pursue, brothers, as we show the grace that you have shown us to one another. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.