Forgiving Grace

2:27 We're looking at, we started a series that I guess could be called a series on character or virtue. At least a lot of people would use those words out in our culture for what we're going to be talking about. But I don't think it's not, it doesn't fit. Those are not adequate terms. We saw last week that Paul, in the famous love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, says that we must remember that morally virtuous behavior can arise out of a heart filled with deep spiritual emptiness. In other words, what Paul said, just a real brief summary. He says people can live, they can be loyal to their families, they can be generous to the poor,

3:20 deeply committed to moral principles and to biblical principles as well. And the heart motive for that, the force for that, the dynamic for that, can be one of self-centeredness, self-absorption, self-interest, self-righteousness. So see, a character, morally virtuous behavior can arise out of a heart that hasn't actually been changed, that hasn't really been supernaturally changed. Now, just to give you an example, how do we, in traditional moral training, how do we teach people, encourage people to be honest? How do we encourage them not to lie? Now, it goes something like this. We say, don't lie or you'll get caught. Don't lie or society won't work. That's a more humanistic approach. The more religious approach is don't lie or God will punish you.

4:15 Don't be a liar. Liars are terrible. You don't want to be a terrible liar. All right. So that's how we train people. What's the motivation? What's the heart motive then that we're using to get people to be honest? And the answer is the heart motive is the deep insecurity and fear that the heart has got. We're playing on the fears. We're saying, you don't want to be rejected. You don't want to be caught. You don't want other people to think of you as a terrible liar, do you? Now, there's only a problem with this. It's a pretty big problem with this. And that is, yeah, of course, out of fear, you can harness the insecurity and fear of the heart to make people honest, but what makes people dishonest? Why do people ever lie? And the answer is they lie because of fear. You lie because you're afraid of losing approval or afraid of losing control or afraid of losing power or something like that. And therefore, in traditional moral training, You've only restrained the heart, not fundamentally changed the heart.

5:15 You haven't changed its character. The roots of dishonesty, which is the deep fear and insecurity, instead of dealing with it, you've just jury-rigged it so that it makes people honest, but it's artificial. It's artificial and therefore temporary. What do I mean by artificial? Only for a heart that feels absolutely loved is a lie, unnecessary, and therefore unnatural.

5:40 only for a heart that feels at that moment absolutely loved. So it's not afraid of anything, disapproval or anything. Only a heart that feels absolutely loved, only for a heart that's absolutely loved, is a lie always unnecessary and therefore utterly unnatural. I'll show you a biblical text later that supports that. And therefore, it's only an experience of the grace of God through Jesus Christ that changes the heart rather than restrains the heart. week, we're not therefore going to be looking at a list of virtues or a list of characters, though sometimes that's what it looks like. But we're looking at the marks of a supernaturally changed heart, which you find a number of places in the Bible. And we're looking at one each week for quite a few weeks. And we're going to be looking at how each one is cultivated in Christ. And the first one, now, you know, the first one, Paul makes a list of these marks of a supernaturally changed heart. It was in the text that we looked at last week in 1 Corinthians 13, He says love, and the very first one is patient.

6:40 And this word shows up again in Galatians 5, another very, very important list of the marks of a supernaturally changed heart, which is one of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, and patience is there. You find it in another list, especially in Colossians 3 we'll refer to later. Why do we need it? What is it? How do we get it?

7:05 why do we need patience what is it and how do we get it okay first why do we need it now in the very heart of this parable i'm not going to be able to look at all the passages that were read today but at the heart of the parable which starts on verse starts at verse 23 that jesus tell at the heart of the parable is this word patience it's right in the heart of it and if we want to understand what patience is we have to understand the parable and the key to getting the parable. This really changes the way you read it once you understand it. The key is, the exegetical key, as it were, is the magnitude of the debt. You see, it says a king had some servants, and he was settling accounts with his servants. Now, right away, what do you and I think of when you see the word servants? You think immediately of household servants or people around the palace. But no, this is not what, that's not what we mean by the word servants. here's the key. It says, and he found one servant that owed him, look, 10,000 talents.

8:10 Now, it's always a little difficult to translate sums. If somebody says to me, gives me a sum of money in the 1850s in southern France, and I say, well, how much would that be today? That's subjective. It's not that easy. However, and so this is subjective too, but you keep this in mind. In those days, the ordinary working man, I guess they didn't have working women, I guess, but the ordinary working man, ordinary laborer, made a talent to a talent and a half in a whole year. And therefore, if you want to get a kind of, my guess is the cultural analogy for us would be, take the average person who makes $30,000 a year and multiply by $10,000

8:57 excuse me, multiply 30,000 by 10,000. And if you are like me, if you're a liberal arts major, I can do this for you. Don't get out your palm pilot. I did it earlier. It's 300 billion. 300 billion. This servant, therefore, is not the cook. I don't care if he shops at Gristides. It's still not going to be that bad. That's a joke. I can't believe it.

9:29 You know, it didn't happen on the east side either. I, you know, gee. Just get rid of it. But anyway, it couldn't be. This is my last chance, so that's it. This is not a bunch of household servants under an emperor, under a king. These are, under an emperor, people who are out there ruling over regions or provinces or whole countries. and what this man has done is either through gross mismanagement or, and we'll get back to this, this is a significant statement, so listen, gross mismanagement or corruption somehow has squandered an enormous sum. And the reason it's so, the other thing I have to realize is, the reason it has such a dire effect on the king or the emperor is because in those days, is you didn't exactly have public monies. When Jesus pulled out of his pocket a coin with Caesar's picture on it and says, whose is this?

10:25 And everybody says, this is Caesar's. They were literally right. Because this gold or the silver, the actual metal, the coinage, was Caesar's. And the way it worked out was the emperor's actual money, his own wealth, went out to the provinces and it was used to build bridges and to build roads and to pay for police and to pay for military on. And then, of course, there were very heavy taxes, and the money came back in through taxes to the places that were using his money for all these improvements, and so on and so forth. And what this means, Jesus has deliberately put a sum up there that was so big. Don't forget, this is a parable. He made this up. This isn't any particular historical character. But he creates, he puts in an amount that even if this was the emperor of Rome, to lose this kind of amount of money could bring his very kingship into jeopardy. His ability to pay his army and so forth.

11:23 It could bring his very kingdom into jeopardy. But. in spite of the fact that this servant has removed all this money, and in spite of the fact this servant has basically put his very kingship into jeopardy, one thing the servant has not taken away is the man's inner composure. Because the servant looks up at him and says, be patient.

11:47 And the king forgives him. Now, what does this word patient mean? And it's a Greek word. It's a compound word. It's the word macrothymia. And unfortunately, the word patience in English is not compound. I don't think, therefore, it really gets across as well as the old English word. The old English translation of this word was always in the Bible, long-suffering. And the word literally, macro, which does mean long, macrothymia means literally to be long-tempered, long-temperate, as opposed to short-tempered. And the word thymia has to do with a boiling feeling. is this metaphor. Mercury at room temperature loses its composure, right? It loses its composure. That's one way to put it. It's just running all over the place. With most metals, you have to put more heat on them before they just run all over the place and lose all their composure and lose their shape and so forth. Therefore, macrothymia, which is saying long-temperate, means this.

12:51 spiritual patience is the inner power to bear injuries without meltdown spiritual patience mark of patience love is patient is the inner power to bear injuries without meltdown in other words things happen to you but they do not destroy your inner poise they don't destroy your inner joy they don't control you you are not made and controlled and affected and shaped by what is being done to you heat comes on heat comes on but you do not melt down now

13:29 so important. You know, Luke chapter 21, 16 in the old King James Bible says, in patience, possess ye your souls. And that's why this is so important. Why is it so important? All right. To be suffering is to be a victim. I mean, you don't have to do anything to be suffering. Suffering comes to you. Suffering happens to you without a choice, without your own personal choice. To be suffering

13:57 takes no choice. But to be long-suffering takes a very deliberate, active, bold choice. To decide to be long-suffering is to say, I'm going to bear my injuries without meltdown. And what that means is you make a choice to bear the things that are happening to you. Bear your sufferings, bear your troubles. And that's a complex choice because to bear your sufferings means on the one hand to accept them. You don't bear your sufferings if you're running from them You're denying that they're there. You accept them. But on the other hand, you resist. You're not bearing them. If you're letting them make you fall apart or if you're letting them make you do things that you don't know are wrong, if you're letting them destroy your joy. In other words, to be suffering takes no choice, but to be long-suffering takes a deep choice. To be suffering is to be passive, but to be long-suffering is to be active and therefore to take your life back, to possess your souls and patience.

14:56 and it's a way of freedom, and I want you to know that in a life, in a world, in which suffering is basically a law of life, there is no more important trait than the ability to be long suffering, to bear under injuries and sufferings without meltdown. However, in this particular parable, we have a certain aspect of long suffering, a certain kind of spiritual patience, of the bigger and more general. Because you see, the word thumia can mean boiling passion in general, but it usually in the Bible means anger. And that is the context in which Jesus is using it. And therefore, what we're learning about here is a particular kind of patience. And what is that patience? There's a kind of patience that we're looking at, and that is the ability, the inner power to bear injuries from other people, to bear mistreatment and abuse and snubbing of other people melting down into resentment and anger. That's what Jesus is talking about, a forgiving spirit.

16:01 And let me tell you why we need this so much. See, I know what's going to happen. If I don't say what I'm about to say for the next 90 seconds, and I go on and say, let me talk to you about how you can develop a forgiving spirit, the inability, the ability to bear injuries, mistreatment from other people without it letting you lose your inner poise, without it controlling you, without it carrying you along, without having you melt it down. Here's how to have a forgiving spirit. And I know that an awful lot of you, maybe even most of the people in this room are going to say, well, that's really not a problem. Right now, I'm not bitter with anybody. There's nobody I'm having trouble forgiving. Of course, I'm going to get this tape and give it to so-and-so, but I don't really need it. And I just want you to think of this. Don't be so sure.

16:44 Listen carefully. Hebrews 12, 15. Take care, lest any harbor a root of bitterness, defiles many. Take care lest any harbor a root of bitterness. Now, that's an interesting metaphor. Why is anger called a root? And there's two reasons. It's a metaphor and there's two ways. Well, what is the metaphor before I give you the two reasons? Here's the metaphor. Imagine you have a tree out in your yard and you say, I got to get rid of that tree. So you cut down the tree and you uproot the stump and you say, it's gone. That's that. But the roots are there. and they'll be springing up. Why is anger depicted as a root? And here's, on the one hand, it's because you would, you understand this, we can admit to others and ourselves, we can confess the sin of anxiety and of worry,

17:41 lust, depression even, not that it's a sin necessarily, but we can admit anxiety, we can admit depression, but we cannot admit anger. ourselves. We always minimize it. We never want to admit how angry it is. We are. But the other thing about this root metaphor is that anger works in a subterranean way in your life. It works in a subterranean way. It works in a hidden way. It's down there and you don't know it. It's affecting you and you don't know it. See, that goes right along with this whole idea of long suffering, which is the ability to not have what has been done to you affect you. Well, how does it affect you? See, we minimize it because we say, yes, I've been deeply disappointed in my parents, and sometimes I've been very angry at them, but, you know, that hasn't actually affected my approach to authority and other figures of authority. That hasn't affected my relationships with the opposite sex. That hasn't affected my attitude toward religion.

18:38 Oh, no? say yes I was hurt by that person but that hasn't really affected the way in which I relate to people oh no here's what we're being told we always minimize just how mad we continue to be and how much when somebody really hurts us unless there is an incredibly thorough gracious action of forgiveness that I'm about to I'm about to describe the anger from what happened to you passes into you and it twists you. It makes you cynical. It makes you hard. It fills you with all sorts of prejudices that you can't see. And most of all, it inflicts a kind of low-grade spiritual fever of self-pity that goes on and on and on and on. It all comes because of that mistreatment. It all comes because of the snub. I'm over it. I'm over it. Yeah.

19:28 take care lest any one harbor a root of bitterness which springing up defiles many look at the way this this parable ends one of the problems with parables is is uh interpreting parables isn't the easiest thing in the world and at the very end we see that god pardon we see the king you know uh jesus tells us about the king and the king comes and says since you are not done since you have not forgiven your fellow servant into prison with you. And notice what it says, to be tortured. And, oh, gee. I mean, as we're going to see, the king is a good guy, and he's a good model for us. So why in the world does Jesus Christ create a parable in which at the very end, he's torturing the man? Well, you have to understand that you can't look at every single character in here as a real person. They're all there. They're teaching illustrations. But I

20:26 to do it, if you do not learn how to keep anger when you're mistreated from passing into you, acting and affecting you subterraneously, in a sense, in a subterranean way, passing on into you, if you don't learn how to stop that, it's going to be torment. It's going to be misery. You'll be like in prison. You won't be living a free life. You won't be possessing your souls in patience. Okay. So that's why it's so important. Now, what is it? What is a forgiving spirit? And there's three things that the king does to the servant that I think are pictures of the three things that you have got to do when you're wronged, when you're snubbed, when you're hard. And we're not talking just about the big things that happen every couple of years where somebody really hurts you. I'm talking about every day, the snubs and the mistreatments and things like that. They're going to pass into your life too. They're going to pass in little roots of bitterness, little roots of anger,

21:22 and hardness toward other people, it's going to affect you. Unless you do have this forgiving spirit, and here is what it is, three parts. Notice what he does to the servant. It says the servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt, let him go. Took pity on him, canceled the debt, let him go. Let's look at those three things, not quite in that order. The first thing is he canceled the debt. the first step the first aspect of a forgiving spirit is that you do not take revenge and you do not make the other person pay the emotional debt of pain but you pay it down yourself

22:02 the first step or aspect of a forgiving spirit is you do not take revenge you do not make the other person pay the debt of emotional pain but you pay it down yourself

23:11 Now, here's what I do not mean. See, the king canceled the debt. And this is what I do not mean, because we're going to get back to this in a minute. This is not teaching that if somebody has wronged you legally, you should not take legal redress. This does not mean that you let everything go. That's not what we're talking about. Here's what I think we're talking about. When someone wrongs you, the premise of this point is, when someone wrongs you, it creates an emotional debt of pain. It's a debt, the debt that you feel, a sense of obligation that this person owes you. You feel it. You know, no matter what your theology, what your philosophy, what your philosophy of law, no matter what your worldview, you can't help it. Someone has wronged you and there's a debt. And it's a debt essentially of pain, emotional pain. And it's, it's, it's, it's got to be paid down. It has to be paid down. It It has to be paid down.

24:07 You say, what do I mean by paid down? Well, what most people do is they make the other person pay. Now, there's all sorts of ways to make the other person pay. I have a list, but I don't think I'm going to take the time. I mean, you know, you can insult them. You can be cold to them. You can be harsh to them. You can withdraw your friendship from them. You can try to hurt them professionally. There's all sorts of direct ways. There's more indirect ways, which is you gossip about them. You slander them. You ruin their reputation with other people. in fact there's even an indirect way to hurt people by not being direct with your revenge to say I'm not going to take revenge on you it would be beneath me you know it's just a way of indirectly you know

24:50 despising them here's the point you want to hurt them why because let's be completely honest when I inflict pain on somebody that hurts me it makes me feel better The debt starts, I'm paying down the debt. The more I see them ride, the more I see them twist, the more I see them hurt, the more I see, in fact, I don't even have to do it. If I see somebody else do it, I feel better. You know, I just need to, I have to get my pain debt down by seeing them pay.

25:23 And it works. And it works in the sense of, slowly you feel less and less that person owes you. Slowly you feel less and less of that pain debt. better when you see them hurting and screaming and crying and upset and losing their job and so on. You feel better. After why? But it passes into you. The heat has come on and it has passed into you. It has swept you along. It has melted you into its likeness. If you make the other person pay the debt. You are changing. It is controlling you. I mean, I'm sure some of you have been around, you know, I've make reference to this. It's not the biggest, it's just, it's such a, it was such an interesting illustration. I've thought about it all my life, but years ago, across the parking lot from the little church that I pastored, there was a family and the kids used to come, the little kids used to come to vacation Bible school and they wanted to come to our church. They wanted to come to Sunday school, but the parents didn't go to church. So one time I went over and I offered them. And I said to their father, you know, we'd be very happy, you know, we've no trouble for us to have someone come over and just bring them across the parking lot and then we'll bring them back. We won't make them go by themselves. And, and there'll be no inconvenience to you because they really want to come. And I, I never forget how mad this guy was, the father, the husband.

26:44 And he said, no, my father pushed his religion down my throat. My father made me be in church every single week and my children are not going to church. And you see, in his mind, he's beating his father, isn't he? His father wanted him in church. His father wanted his grandchildren in his church and they're not. I'm winning. Oh, really?

27:08 His father's still controlling him. He is not deciding whether to go to church or not. He's not looking at faith in terms of, is this right? Is this wrong? He's being utterly controlled by what his father has done to him. He's not looking at this. Is this good for my sons? Is this bad He's being utterly controlled by his father. He thinks I'm beating my father. He's beaten by his father. It's the only way his father will ever win. And he has won. We never ever want to admit it. But when we make the other person pay the debt,

27:36 we are becoming like the evil that was done to us. It's passing into us. It's hardening us. It's making us cynical. It's creating prejudices. It's distorting the way we look at things. It's creating self-pity. It's passing down. It's rooting itself in you. so the one thing you can do with a debt is you can make them pay for it and it works sort of but it'll change you and the other thing you can do is pay it down yourself absorb it yourself you notice when the king cancelled the debt it didn't go off into thin air he absorbed it, he ate it and the other thing you can do with a debt and you have to do it and it's going to be hard and it's going to be hard but it has to be done that debt will not just go away by ignoring it you pay it down You say, what do you mean by pay it down? I'll tell you. Every time you want to rehash the past with a person, but you don't, it hurts. Every time you want to rub their nose in it, but you don't, it hurts.

28:34 Every time you want to be cold to them, but instead you try to be warm to them, it hurts. Every time you have a chance to run them down to somebody else, and you don't, it hurts. Every time you see them prospering, and you refuse to stick little pins in them in your head, in your imagination, and you don't, it hurts. And what are you doing? Why is it hurt so much? It's costly not to take revenge. You are making the payments. You are paying it, but you're paying it down. And here's what's so intriguing. There's no doubt that the emotional debt of pain goes away if you make them pay. Eventually you feel better, and you have been twisted, and you have been warped, and you've been melted by the evil that was done to you. You've been misshapen. But on the other hand, if you refuse to bring the matter up to the other people and refuse to run them down and refuse to put little pins in your mind and all that sort of thing, if you refuse to do revenge of any sort, what's intriguing is in spite of the fact that it hurts, slowly, because you're not putting fuel in your anger, the anger will be going out.

29:44 It depends on the size of the wrong. It depends on the size of the wrong. I mean, it might only take days. It might take weeks. It might take months. It might take longer than that. It might take hours. It might take very little. It depends on the size of the wrong. But here's what's interesting. When you pay the debt down, it goes down. When you absorb it, you refuse revenge. It goes away. But as it goes away, you're free. It hasn't taken you out. It hasn't worked itself in. It hasn't misshapen you. It hasn't melted you. You possess your soul.

30:18 man because you've forgiven. Your father, your mother, your boss, the other person, him, her, you've beaten them. You've beaten them with love. The only way to beat anything. So the first thing is forgive means, first thing for a forgiving spirit, refuse to revenge because you do not make them pay the emotional debt of pain. You pay it down yourself. Secondly,

30:47 The second thing it says is he was moved to pity. He felt pity. He took pity on him. Now, what a shame. This is such a wimpy English word for a great Greek word. And the great Greek word means to be moved with compassion for someone else's misery. And this is extremely interesting and important.

31:07 Whenever someone wrongs you, automatically I'll tell you what your heart's going to do. Your heart is going to stress the differences between you and that person. and what you're supposed to do, if you want to have a forgiving spirit, if you want to possess your souls, if you want to have the inner power to bear injuries without meltdown, what you have to do is you, in your mind, you have to make a conscious decision to stress the commonalities between you and that person, not the differences. Huh? What do I mean by that? Whenever someone wrongs you, the first thing you do is you create a caricature of them in your mind. You know what a caricature is? You know how cartoonists make people look ridiculous? I desperately hope that I never get well-known enough to have anybody ever make a cartoon out of me. And I'm sure there's people out there, because this is New York, who can do it. Don't you think of it. Because what you do, of course, you know, you can have cartoonists who really are, you know, are kind of affectionate toward the subject. However, when a cartoonist wants to make someone look stupid, they take the worst feature on the face and they make it huge.

32:14 you know, the nose or whatever. So you can't not see it. And that, whenever somebody wrongs you, that's exactly what you do in your heart. What you do is you, is you reduce them. You make, you reduce them to what they've done to you. You see them as one dimensional. You see them as caricatures. Now here's what's interesting. When you lie, see, in other words, you see them only, they lied. You see them only as a liar. They betrayed you. You see them only as a betrayer. Now when you lie, well, it's a little different. Why? Well, you're complex. I mean, there's

32:44 And besides that, yes, there are bad things, but there's good things too. You see, you're complex. You're a three-dimensional person. You think of yourself in 3D. You think of yourself as a whole person, but not this person. You smack them down. They're one-dimensional. They're cartoon caricatures. And here's why. Deep in every human soul is a deep desire to justify yourself. Deep in every human soul, we are afraid that we're not okay. We're afraid that we're not valuable. We're afraid that we're not worthy. and what, and let me, that, that deep fear, which is, creates this desperate need to justify yourself actually is behind all kinds of things. It's behind racism. It's behind workaholism, just to show you the range. It's behind the reason why a lot of you see people out there who probably would be very wonderful mates, but you're never going to date them because they're not good looking enough and your self-image can't take marrying somebody who's overweight. All of that is I mean, this deep, deep, deep need to justify yourself, rooted in fear, is behind so much, and including that, it's behind whenever someone wrongs you, you think of all the ways in which you are not like that person. You say, I would never have done that. I would never have done that. Why? You need to feel noble. You need to feel better. You need to feel superior.

34:03 And if you don't want to be actually melded down, misshapen, twisted by this whole experience, you've got to look at that person and think about the commonalities. You've got to rediscover their common humanity. You've got to say, I'm a weak person. This is a weak person. I do stupid things, not the same stupid things, but this person does stupid things. I am fallible. I am weak. I am confused. I'm a mixture of good and evil. So is this person. And if you do that, you'll get your freedom. to do that, you won't. And the third thing, now here's the interesting thing. The first thing of a forgiving spirit is that you don't revenge, you pay down the debt yourself. The second thing is you identify with the person, the commonalities instead of the differences. All that's internal work, isn't it? And if you do that, you're going to get a freedom. There's going to be a freedom. The anger will be beaten away. It won't melt you down. It won't come into you. It won't distort you. Then you'll be free to do the third thing. No revenge. Identify with the person. Will the person's good. Have pity on them. And thirdly, it says he let him go. Now, we right away say, does that mean, why would he let him go? I mean, does this guy not care about justice and truth and what didn't this guy do wrong? Ah, interesting. Here's my theory. Here's my speculation on this.

35:27 the king doesn't know whether the loss the incur the incurring of this debt was due to mismanagement or corruption and because the king doesn't know which it is the king being a very charitable man lets him go deals with the personal side right he's dealt with the personal side he's not he's looking with compassion on the man who's put his own kingdom in jeopardy and he's not paying him back.

35:52 And he takes pity on the man. But what really led to all that? What's interesting is right afterwards, the servant leaves and he meets another servant who owes him, what, 100 denarii. Now, again, we don't know what that would be, but it would just be a few dollars. I mean, a trifle compared to the 10,000 talents. And what's interesting, this guy does not, the first servant does not simply say to the second servant, pay up. This is almost ludicrous. is putting this together. He chokes him. You owe me $50. And here's a man who's just, his life has just been given back to him. And what do we see? What does the king see? What does the servant see? This is a vile man. This is a vicious man. This is a violent man. This is an oppressive man. This is a man who's used to abusing people. And now that the king has forgiven him about the personal debt, into prison he goes, because of the legal debt.

36:50 And here's what people have always said to me over the years. They said to me, I don't want to forgive. I want justice. Never pit those two things against each other. Because I'll tell you something. If you don't first personally forgive, you'll never get justice. If you try to say, I'm going to confront that person, I'm going to tell them the truth, I'm going to go after them, and you haven't already forgiven, you're not going for justice. You say you're going for justice, you're not. You're going to hurt them. You're going to make them pay the emotional debt down. And I want you to know that if you haven't really deeply forgiven in your heart, if you haven't made yourself impervious to the anger, if you haven't gotten that forgiving spirit, you won't really be after justice. And I'll tell you another thing, you'll never really achieve it because that person is not going to listen to you if you're that mad at them. And if they can tell, you're filled with revenge. You see that?

37:41 In other words, this is so wonderful. The Bible is so, the gospel is so balanced. is selfish. You're not concerned with truth. It's all about you. But resignation is selfish. Say, oh, don't bother it. Don't talk about it. Don't leave. You know, just let sleeping dogs lie. Don't rock the boat. Just forget about it. Just forget about it. That's selfish. It's not loving. It's not loving to let a person go on sinning. It's not loving for other people. It's not loving for them.

38:07 And therefore, the last mark of a forgiving spirit, it doesn't like conflict and it doesn't avoid it. It doesn't do vengeance, but it doesn't avoid confrontation. And when you move out like that into the world, a world in which being mistreated and snubbed is going to happen to you constantly, you and you alone will be free. All right? So those are the three marks of a forgiving spirit. So I would just like you to all get out there and do it and good luck. and I wish you well. Oh, there's another point.

38:46 How are we going to do this? How are we ever going to do this? I was talking to a man very recently. who was, his wife has gotten extremely sick, and he has to do everything for her. They're both pretty old, and I mean, he has to do everything. And she's completely immobilized, and he just is there around the clock, and he's buoyant, and he's sparkling, and he's, what's interesting is every place they've been, every hospital, every home, every place, everybody's amazed by his buoyancy and his his supportiveness and his eagerness and willingness to help very interesting i mean you know everybody's sort of you know the the partner that hasn't been stricken is always there with a partner that has been but there's something unusual and i asked him recently why he was able to do it how can you be so long suffering what's the secret here how are you doing this

39:49 the same question could be asked of this king you know because fairly the readers look at this king and this king looks down at this servant who has just brought who has brought his very kingship into jeopardy and he has compassion on him and i think the average once you know the magnitude of the debt the average listener is listening looking at that and saying this is impossible there isn't anybody like that nobody can do anything like that that's ridiculous but Jesus is pointing beyond this king to somebody else of course it's incongruous because the word take pity the king took pity on him is the is the giveaway it's the greek word that is used of Jesus Christ more than any other word in describing his emotional life it's used more of Jesus Christ than with any other figure. It's his word in the New Testament. It's his word in the Gospels.

40:42 And here it is with this king. And you know what we're talking about here? It is incredibly incongruous for that servant to be acting like a king. That first servant comes out and he chokes the man and he gets him down on his knees and then he won't forgive him. What right does that servant have to be a king? To be putting himself in the place of a judge? He has no right to do that. Jesus Christ is showing us in a mirror stay angry with people. Every one of us is like that. We're all like a servant acting like a king. What's the solution? We have to behold the king who became a servant. The ultimate king, Jesus Christ, looked down on us, not just knowing that we might cost him his glory and power, but that we would cost him his glory and power. And he came to earth and he died on the cross. And the last thing he said before he died was, to tell us die in St. John's Gospel, which is always translated, it is finished.

41:42 But it really means literally in the Greek, it's paid. It's paid. You know what this old man said to me? This man said to me, you know, the reason I can do this like this is because you don't understand the whole story, the big story. You gotta realize for years and years and years, I was always the one that got sick. I was always the one that was overworked. I was always the one that was traveling. and she was the one who was suffering for me, and she was sacrificing for me, and she was doing so much for me over the years. It was just ridiculous. He says, I'm almost happy to finally have one little opportunity to show her what she means to me.

42:22 After all she's done for me, I'm almost happy about this. You know what he did? If you look at it right here, if he had taken it out of context, just as, oh my gosh, I don't have a life left, and he would have just sunk, but instead he put his little story in the big story. And in the big story, it had incredible significance. Now, why don't you do that? Look at what Jesus has done for you. He didn't make you pay a bit. There's a debt, there's a debt. I don't know what you think of crucifixion tonight. I don't know what you believe in atonement. Maybe you say, I don't even like the idea of a wrathful God, I don't even understand. Listen, everybody deep in their heart knows when someone has been wrong, there's a debt he's got to pay it. And Jesus Christ paid it. He did not take a penny from us. He paid it, he paid it, he paid it. And if you put that in this story, if you say, oh, look at all he's done, you'll never be long suffering unless you see him suffering, macro suffering for you, cosmic suffering for you. You'll never be able to pay what other people have done to you unless you see him paying the infinite debt. You'll never be able to pay the little debts off that other people have to you unless you see the infinite debt. Put it in the story. Say, me. After all he's done for me, I'm most glad for this opportunity, finally, to show him how much he means to me by forgiving this. That will change the heart. That deals with the fear. See, Colossians 3.12 puts it perfectly. This is it, in a nutshell. Colossians 3.12, therefore, as God's chosen people,

43:54 set apart and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with patience. As God's people, Dearly loved. Already loved. Don't be patient and God will love you. Dearly loved, so be patient. Not be patient in order to be loved, but because you're utterly loved, you can be patient. Put yourself in the story. See the great reversal. Stop being a servant acting like a king by looking at the beauty of the ultimate king who became a servant and paid everything for you. And then and you'll be free. And I don't know how else you're gonna be free in a world filled with abuse and filled with snubbing every day. Get this forgiving spirit. Let us pray. Jesus, we ask that as we go to the Lord's Supper, you would just help us with it. Help us get it. Help us understand it. We know that there are some people here who do not forgive because they don't feel forgiven.

44:52 And there's some people here who don't forgive because they're not forgiven, because they haven't asked for it, Jesus, and almost all of us who are here, don't forgive because we don't remember we've been forgiven. But now that's what the Lord's Supper is all about, remembering. So help us to remember. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.