Pastor Gary Shields: March 13, 2011 Living Debt-Free, Part V, "Forgiveness 2.0." My name is Pastor Gary Shields. As many of you I know, I live here in Janesville. Today Pastor Jeff is going to be preaching down at my church, and I'm going to be preaching here. First of all, I want to welcome all you 9:30 worshippers and all of you 8 o'clock worshippers that may have forgotten to reset your clock for daylight savings time. Today we're going to continue talking in this sermon series of "Living Debt-Free," this study of forgiveness and reconciliation. We're going to move today to what I call "Forgiveness 2.0," the idea of reconciliation. As we'll see, forgiveness is an act of one person; for reconciliation, there are at least two people necessary-confession and repentance to each other and forgiveness to each other. Let's begin with a word of prayer: Father, as we study Your Word today, open our hearts to this call for reconciliation that You have given to us and most importantly, the reconciliation with You, the gift freely given. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. There are several types of reconciliation. The first one I want to look at is reconciliation with yourself. I understand last week, Pastor Jeff preached to you about forgiving yourself. I know as a Christian, sometimes it's hard for us to forgive our past deeds. It's important that we forgive ourselves, but with "Forgiveness 2.0," it's where you learn to reconcile with yourself. Let me try to explain that to you. Let's look at 2 Corinthians 5:17. If you're using a pew Bible, it's page 1145. Pastor Jeff made a good start by helping you to understand that you need to forgive yourself, but I would say with "Forgiveness 2.0," it's more than forgiving yourself; it's reconciling the fact that through Jesus Christ, you are a new creation. Let me read the Passage. This is written by Paul, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" What a wonderful word that is to us. Let's understand what it means to accept this word as reconciliation to yourself. What Paul is saying here is as a Christian you're not turning over a new leaf. You now have a new life. You are not being reformed; you're not being rehabilitated; you're being recreated. A lot of people think that Jesus wants better people. I would tell you that's not true. Jesus wants different people. He doesn't want us to merely be more kind, more compassionate, more loving. He wants us to be kind, to be compassionate, to be loving, so we're not reformed, rehabilitated; we are recreated. What a greater example of this new creation in reconciling one's self to a new creation than Paul himself who wrote these words. If you remember, Paul was not a nice guy before he knew Jesus, was he? Usually when we think of stoning, we think of somebody taking a rock, bringing it back like a pitcher, and throwing it at a person. Well, that's not what a real stoning was. A real stoning involved the first witness either standing on a platform or a cliff about ten feet above the accused, taking a boulder, and slamming it down onto the body of that person. While guys were getting ready to do that to Stephen, Paul was kind enough to say, "Hey, let me hold your coats for you while you stone this man to death." It went beyond that. He persecuted and persecuted and persecuted the Christians, driving them out of Jerusalem, and that still wasn't enough. He figured, "I need to go after them. I cannot stop until they're destroyed." Of course, on the way to Damascus, he made a wrong turn, and who came into his life? Jesus Christ. I would say he made the right turn. He understood something. He was now a new creation. He wasn't re-educated. He was a new creation, and he reconciled himself to that and did marvelous things in the name of Jesus Christ. He was not perfect. Does anybody remember how Mark was thought to be a real wimp? No one really wanted to have anything to do with him. Barnabas helped Mark to understand the need for courage. Paul even admitted in his writings, "Yeah, I made a little mistake there. Now he's my brother," but he knew as a new creation that God had something in store for him. Just like as a new creation, God has something in store for you. If you not only forgive yourself of your past but reconcile and understand that God can make you anew, you can do great things for God because of His strength now in you. Another way to look at this is through "Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress." Has anybody read this? I sure wish they'd translate it out of Old English because I have to keep re-reading it to understand what's going on. In "Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress," we're talking about an ancient book; the hero, Christian, in the story comes up to a mirror. What he sees in the mirror is what we see of ourselves, that distorted image that shows us we're not whom we should be-sinners saved by grace. The amazing thing was on the other side of that mirror, the side that God sees, was not this distorted image of Christian, but the image of Jesus Christ. You see, when you become a believer, God now sees you as Jesus. You are filled with the Holy Spirit. When God looks at you, He looks at you as being righteous. He sees Jesus in you. This sounds so simple, but it's so hard. The act of reconciling with yourself is to go and be what God already sees in you. I warn you: that is a lifetime pursuit, and it's not going to happen overnight because we do have the flesh in us, and we struggle; but it is that simple. Go and be what God already sees in you. Reconciling with yourself and understanding you're a new creation is to break free from that past and go be what God already sees in you. Now that sounds pretty difficult, but we're going to now move on to something that seems in churches to be even more difficult. That's reconciling with each other. I honestly believe that one of the biggest problems in the church in the United States today is that too many people are interested in their own desires, interested in getting their own way so that there is no such thing as forgiveness anymore in the church. There is no such thing as reconciliation in the church. There is no such thing as "what does Jesus want to do with the church?" It comes down to learning how to have relationships. Let's turn to Matthew 5:21-24, page 959. What we're seeing here is the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus helps us to understand He didn't come to eliminate the law, to do away with the law, but to fulfill it. Here He helps us to understand how the law has expanded-in this case, for murder. He says, "'You have heard that it was said to the people long ago…'" which I'm guessing was during the time of Moses. "'"Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment."'" Basically, don't kill people or you're going to end up in court. But that's not enough. He says, "'But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother'" or sister "'will be subject to judgment.'" Now this judgment is not judgment in court. That's divine judgment, and I'm not so sure I want to know what that would be. Then he says, "'Again, anyone who says to his brother, "Raca," is answerable to the Sanhedrin.'" Now, there are no real English translations for Raca. It's an Aramaic word for contempt. The way I would describe it is Raca is what you as a Packers fan would feel toward a Bears fan. I can say that because Pastor Jeff isn't here. Then he goes even further. He says, "'But anyone who says, "You fool!" will be in danger of the fire of hell.'" Now the word used for hell here is Gahanna, which is where the Valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, was a place where children were sacrificed by fire to the Pagan god Molech-not a pretty place. Now, in the reign of Josiah, one of the few kings of Judah who got it, he realized they needed to draw closer to God and refocus on serving God. He turned that Valley into a city dump where fire burned constantly. It was a smelly, worm-infested dump. I'm not going to call anybody a fool ever again-what about you? You see, what Jesus is talking about here is anger. Is anger really worth it? Is holding a grudge really worth it? Or, is it more important to restore relationships? He continues on and says, "'"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother"'" or sister "'"has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be…"'" what? "'"…reconciled to your brother"'" or sister "'"then come and offer your gift."'" The men would go to the court of Israel during Biblical times at the high festivals, like Pentecost and Passover (ladies, you got stuck at the court of women). They represented the family and gave a sacrifice, an animal, to the altar. It was their form of worship. What Jesus is saying in essence is "how can you worship if anger and bitterness are in your hearts?" If you haven't reconciled with a person, how can you worship? I'm working at a church right now that has had its problems and was not really growing. The last pastor-who had problems and made mistakes-was pushed out; but we discovered something as we were trying to move towards revitalization at this church. For decades now, there has been an environment of mistrust; of rebellion; of allowing some sins because "well, that person is a high giver;" or "that person always does Sunday School, so we'll ignore that"; or getting legalistic to the point where they're going to beat somebody over the head with their sin, and there's nothing they can do to receive grace. If you look back to 1967, [you'd see] this church split from another church in that town over nothing but personality issues. One person desired this; one person desired that, and nobody really tried to decide what God wanted. As elders and the Board, we decided to go back to that church. In fact, at the same time, that church was feeling the same as we were. The elders came together and prayed with each other. Even though not one of the persons in that room was involved in that split, we as representatives of each church asked for forgiveness and wanted to reconciliation. What we discovered was that both of those churches had a cracked foundation because of sin that never really was exposed and confessed. I don't think it's any coincidence that not too long after that, six new faces appeared in the pew. Then a few weeks ago, as we had a seminar on restoring relationships, we spent a Sunday talking about confessing to one another. Twenty five to 35 people came up to the altar with me at the end of the service to confess their sins to their brothers and sisters in the congregation. Later that Sunday, the elders went to the previous pastor. This is a God thing-how typical of God; this pastor lives in the state of Washington and happened to be in the area because his father was sick. God is a hoot. They went to this pastor, and it wasn't to focus on what he did incorrectly because he did a lot of things incorrectly; it was to focus on how they treated him. They asked for his forgiveness. Not only that, but they thanked him because a lot of what he did paved the path to get us to the point where we are now. You could imagine there being one very surprised pastor. I hope he has gone back to his ministry feeling restored. Guess what happened within the next couple of weeks? Six more people showed up-new faces. I firmly believe in what it says in Acts 2:47 (page 1079), "And the Lord added to their daily number those who were being saved." You see, there's something we learned: I could sit here and preach on reconciliation until the cows come home, but the sure way to teach it is to model it. I hate when God does this because it's been bothering me all week. There is a couple, and I drive by their house, and God keeps saying, "Hey, when are you going to go over there and reconcile? Stop worrying about being right and [start worrying about] having a relationship." To model to you, after worship this Sunday, I'm going to go knock on their door-they live here in Janesville-and make that relationship right. I could preach to you until the cows come home, but the best way I can show you how true this is and what God can do in a powerful way when you reconcile with each other is to do it [myself]. That's what we've learned at the church we're at now. There are still some people who don't quite understand that yet, and we pray for them. We pray that they too will see what God is doing. That's reconciliation. Now I want to clarify that that reconciliation is a two-person action. Reconciliation sometimes means having boundaries. If a person says, "I'm so sorry. I want to reconcile," and turns around and sins again. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I want to reconcile," and then they turn around and sin again, I would say that's not a person who is truly repentant. Reconciliation takes two who confess their sins and are truly repentant, so where does that leave you as far as your obligations to that person and to reconciliation? Let's turn to Matthew 18:21-35 (page 975). This is the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness is the act of one; reconciliation is the act of two or more. So what is your obligation? Well, I can forgive and confess, but what if that person rejects me? Well, we have an audience of one. All we can do is what is right in the eyes of God. Let's look at Matthew 18:21-35. I tease Pastor Jeff because he preached on forgiveness, and he said, "I'm not going to preach on this Passage because that's what everybody is expecting," so surprise! We're going to talk about it right now. "Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?'" That sounds like a good number. Seven, eleven and twelve: those are good numbers-especially in the Bible, right? Seven has to be a good number. "Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not seven times, but…'" 70x7. So, 490? Is that what Jesus is saying? "Okay, I'm at 489. You have one more, and I'm done forgiving you." No, I don't think that's what He's talking about. What He is talking about is we have to keep on forgiving. Then He starts with this Parable that puts it in perspective. "'"Therefore, the kingdom of Heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him."'" Ten thousand talents-what does that mean? I did some research, and a talent is the equivalent of 60-70 pounds of a precious medal. It could be silver; it could be gold. I really think what we're talking about here is gold because what we are looking at is a debt that cannot be repaid. I got the old calculator out-one that can do a lot of numbers-and figured it out. The equivalent of 10,000 talents of gold today would be over $13 billion dollars. If you're a guy like me who loves cars or anything on wheels [here's a story for you]. My family and I go to Chicago, and there is a Lamborghini dealership that my son and I have to go to every time we go to Chicago-like I can afford a Lamborghini. I notice the salesmen never come up to me; I wonder why that is. The Lamborghini Murcielago-we're talking about [this car] going 200 MPH while you're standing still. It has a V10, 7-speed; you could just fly down the road at 25 MPH and just look like you're going fast. It cost $400,000. Yeah, it's one of those economy cars (congregation laughing). With 10,000 of gold, you could purchase over 33,000 Murcielagos. I don't think I could drive each one in a lifetime, but that will give you some perspective. What happens? It continues, "'Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.'" In Biblical times, if you owed a debt, they took it out of your hide. You would be put in jail; your children, your grandchildren, and your spouse would be sold into slavery, and you would be in jail until the debt was repaid. Let's face it: this dude was not going to see the light of day. What happens? "'The servant fell on his knees before him. "Be patient with me," he begged, "and I will pay back everything." The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.'" Whew!! Man, what a lucky guy. I would imagine after a lesson like that, he would probably be a pretty merciful guy. Let's see what happens, "'But when the servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii,'" which is about a paycheck. "'He grabbed him and began to choke him. "Pay back what you owe me!" he demanded' "'His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, "Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'" "'But he refused. Instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.'" Did I miss something here? Does this sound familiar in any way? Think of the debt we owe to God for His Son dying on the cross for us. Is there really anything anybody could do to you compared to that forgiveness? Think about it: what could they do to you that would make you feel you had the right not to forgive that person? You see, in reconciliation that is your obligation. To forgive, you're obligated to confess and then pray God will change the heart of the person you're reconciling with and they will do the same. Sometimes you'll have your hand bitten off. Other times, you'll see a movement of God beyond anything you could ever expect. You see, we have to do this. There is no option here. Why is that? It's because as I said: we've been reconciled with God. That is the third type of reconciliation. We've been reconciled with God-not through anything we did, but through His free gift. Let's look at Romans 5:6-11 (page 1116). "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless…" That's powerless to avoid sin. "…Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." He didn't wait for us to do the right thing. He just did it. The same goes with our reconciliation. Don't wait for the other person to do the right thing. You go and you reconcile or at least try to reconcile. "Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through Him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!" My friends, you see before we were believers, we were enemies of God. Didn't we always turn our backs on Him and walk the other way? But while we were still sinners, He sent Christ down to die for us; so if you're a seeker or you're not a believer, I need to tell you that today is the day you can accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Then through His Word, you'll discover how to reconcile with yourself and become that new creation that is in you and how to reconcile, forgive, and to love one another. Here's what God does. If you're still seeking and you're not a believer, Satan does a good job of writing your list of sins-adultery, cheating, lying, anger, drugs, alcohol… I don't have enough time to write that list. When you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, now God is your Father; and He takes this list, crumples it up, and throws it away. He asks us to try to do the same with each other. Let's pray: Father, it is only through You that we can be reconciled and know what it means to be a new creation. If there is anyone here who is seeking You for the first time, Lord, I pray that You will turn their hearts toward You, that they will stay after with someone here to pray with them and show them what it means to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. For those of us who have already made that decision, help us to understand our call to forgive, our call to seek reconciliation, our call to restore relationships. I pray this all in the beautiful, wonderful, merciful name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.