3/02/1998

Let's bow our heads in prayer, please. Father, thank You so much that You are worthy of our praise. You are holy Father, You are a Holy Spirit, You are a Holy Jesus, our Lord. Father thank You so much that You are those things. You are the three in one God, the trinity and we praise You in every aspect of Your being. We praise You this morning because You are worthy of our praise not because we are worthy of praising You, but because You are worthy of our praise. Thank You Father that You are so trustworthy and so true and so honorable. Father, I pray that You might bless us as we have honored You this morning. Bless us with Your word, speak to us through Your word and give us truths that are important for our lives that we might serve You better. In Jesus' Name, Amen

Today I have a pocket full of pitch, a pocket full of pitch. That is what I would like you to carry around with you is a pocket full of pitch. It is only pitch today for visual reasons but also for definition purposes. We have been talking the last four weeks about forgiveness and what it means and all the kinds of things that have to do with it. But there is one more thing that I think is very important for God's perspective, at least for you to be aware of, is that God wants you to develop a lifestyle of forgiveness, of forgiving and being forgiven. It should be such a part of your life that it becomes just like your habits of life. You get up in the morning, you brush your teeth and comb your hair, or if you are really sleepy you comb your teeth and brush your hair. If you are wise you use toothpaste on your toothbrush and not hair creme.

Have you ever done that before? Neither have I. I just read about it in books. But I did one time put on some aftershave and it didn't smell quite right and I figured out I put on the wrong stuff, I put on the stuff that Kate has that goes on her hair. But my face was in much better control all day. 

The habit, the lifestyle of forgiveness, is something that I don't think we really understand, it is as important as it is for us sometimes. We know that when we haven't forgiven somebody else it can really weigh on us. We know sometimes that if somebody else hasn't forgiven us it can weigh on them and us. We know that if there are sins between us and God, we need to also have those fixed by repenting of those sins and asking God's forgiveness. We talked about that last week. 

But there is also the requirement of God that we develop a lifestyle of forgiveness, that it just becomes a part of our life. That of forgiving and being forgiven. Probably one of the most important reasons is the same reason that a lot of things are true in Christianity. Almost all of our life we are to be the pictures drawn by God to show a truth. Yesterday I had a wedding here, and during that wedding I explained that the picture that we are drawing at a wedding is the picture of two people becoming one flesh. The New Testament tells us that is what the church is. The church is the body of Christ, and when He returns He is going to come and take His bride home and it is going to be the marriage supper of the lamb and all the things that we do on earth having to do with weddings and that sort of thing, especially the middle eastern weddings in Jesus' day, were to picture exactly what was going to happen with Jesus Christ and His church, His bride. 

Jesus used parables to explain truths. He said a farmer goes out to sow the seed and throws the seed and it lands on four different kinds of soil. Each one of these soils had meaning to it, but we understand the truth because of something in creation, something that we can see. 

The world needs to see the truths of God in us. It says in Ephesians 5, that husbands should love our wives as Christ loved the church, and wives should submit to their husbands and to the church, as to Christ. He says at the end of that, I am speaking in regards to Christ and His church. The picture of the relationship on earth is to give the truth of God to the world. So when we talk about forgiveness and being forgiven, we are talking about the picture of reconciliation. God has made it possible for us to be reconciled to Him, for our differences to be forgiven by Him, and for us to come and ask forgiveness in Christ, He has given us reconciliation through Christ. 

In 2 Corinthians Chapter 5 he says, We are now the ambassadors of that. He says in Verse 18, 'Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry to reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.' So as we are reconciled to God that draws a picture for everybody else to see Him. As you reconcile to each other that draws and completes the story of reconciliation because it is not just, remember Jesus said love God with all our heart, mind, soul and Christ and love your neighbor as yourself. There needs to be reconciliation between us and God, reconciliation between us and our neighbor. Tells us in Ephesians 4 it says, we are to maintain, be diligent to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. It is our responsibility to be at peace with each other.

Romans Chapter 12 says, we are to be at peace with all men, as much as lies with us. In Ephesians 4:29 it says, we are not to let the sun go down on our anger, but we should not let Satan have a foothold. That means allow bitterness to become a part of our life. In Hebrews Chapter 12 a very interesting passage, I will read it for you, if you want to turn there you can. Hebrews Chapter 12 :14 says,

Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.

Says be careful that you maintain peace because what happens if you don't forgive, bitterness can become the result. And bitterness can send down roots and grow into trees that you can't take care of anymore. Just like Esau, if you know the Old Testament story of Esau, he had a twin brother named Jacob. Jacob was the younger, Esau was the older. Jacob was the trickster, he tricked Esau out of his birthright and Esau was forever mad at him, refused to forgive him for years and years and years. Then when it came time for him to desire to forgive and repent before God there was no room for it in a sense. In fact the Edomites, which are the descendants of Esau, always hated the descendants of Jacob, Israel, until the Edomites nation was gone. The root got down and grew into a huge tree of bitterness that lasted for centuries. So, he said don't do that. Pursue peace, pursue means to chase it for all it's worth, for all your worth until you catch it. So pursue peace with all men. It is to be a present part of our life. Ephesians 4:32 says, 

Be ye kind one to another, loving, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

Forgiving as God in Christ has forgiven us. How did he do that? He gave us a free gift, forgiveness. He gave it to us. By the way, the word gift is from the word, in Greek, called Charize which is also the same word for grace. It is the gift of grace in a sense. A person doesn't deserve it truly, when we forgive another person it is not because they didn't do the wrong it is because they did do the wrong, but we are offering the gift of forgiveness. If someone forgives us, we are asking for a gift that is only theirs to give. And it is by their grace that they give us forgiveness. It is by God's grace that he offers us forgiveness. So, if we are going to forgive as Christ has forgiven us we recognize that there is nothing they can do to earn it. It is a gift of our grace. And it is a result of God's grace. So this is a lifestyle to be practiced, to be lived, to be a part of you. Jesus said you are to forgive even if it is seventy times seven. In Luke he says, if a man comes to you, seven times a day and asks you to forgive him, then you forgive him. Because it is your lifestyle. It is the way you do things, you just forgive, you are a forgiving person. God wants no roots of bitterness to spring up and he wants us to be at peace. Says, as far as we can do it be at peace with all men, be at peace with God, be at peace with each other, because we are drawing a picture of reconciliation to the world. 

So, what if a person doesn't deserve it? Do we still forgive? Of course we do, because they don't deserve it. That is why it is called a gift. It is a gift of forgiveness. In fact the word, remember we looked at it a couple of times, charizomai, it means to treat graciously. To forgive and then treat as forgiven because it is given out of our character. Not because they deserve it, but because we offer it because it is good for us, in fact, to give it. 

So how do we live with forgiveness? Suppose I'm the one who has been forgiven, suppose I am the one who has been forgiven by another person. How do we now relate to that person? Suppose you ask somebody in your life that you offended and you have gained their forgiveness, how do you live around that person now? Suppose you have been forgiven by God, how do you live around God now? Suppose you are the one who was forgiving another person, how do you relate to that person now? Let's address those three questions, all right? So what if I am the one who has been forgiven by God? How do we live around God when he has forgiven us? Well, let's remember the definition's of the word forgive in the Old Testament. One of the definitions is to cover over with pitch. Pitch was, of course, if you ever seen pitch it is black, ugly, sticky, messy, stuff and once it is put on it doesn't get taken off, does it? I mentioned when we talked about this before, about a month and a half ago we were in California, my brother and two other fellows and I went to the LaBria Tar Pits and the tar sticks to everything. If you don't watch out you'll get it on our feet and when you are walking along you will be leave little tar marks no matter where you walk. You get in the tar, you pick your foot up and it picks up hard, and you walk like this and everywhere you to go there is a little bit of tar, stuck. It does not come up easily. If you have ever pitched a roof, taken a little can of black tar, roof tar, and had to patch were there has been a leak or something and you get some on your hand, it is there for a week, isn't it? So, when you cover it with pitch, it doesn't get taken back up again. That is the way God forgives. When he forgives, the Bible says, it is as far as the east is from the west, so far away. They are gone, He covers them with pitch and pitch doesn't come up again. So, he doesn't bring it up again. Remember the Spear's, the Spear family, they sang for years. They were a gospel singing group and they sang one a few years ago, that was quite popular called, What Sins Are You Talking About? Ever hear that one? I tried like crazy this week to find the words to that, but I couldn't find them anywhere because I wanted to read some of the words to you. But the chorus begins, what sins are you talking about, I don't remember them anymore. I don't remember them anymore. Because God has covered them with pitch and pitch doesn't come off. So what is forgiven, is forgiven. It is not brought up anymore, so God doesn't bring it up against you anymore. He says your sins are no longer remembered against you. So the punishment of those sins is no longer, because he has forgiven them. 

Another word for forgiveness in the Old Testament was to pardon, no longer hold responsible for the sin. So, God covers it with pitch, He no longer holds you responsible for it. So it is gone. So how do we live in that forgiveness? We thank Him for it, don't we? We thank Him for it. The Bible tells us in Chapter 7 of Luke he says, the one who has been forgiven much, loves much. If you don't love God a lot, it is because you don't know how great a sinner you are. Because the one who has been forgiven much, loves much. If you have a little love for people, it is because you view yourself, probably, as a little bit less sinful than they and God wouldn't agree. We are just about as sinful as each other, so, if we have been forgiven much we have a great deal of love in our heart for people and especially for God, the forgiver. 

We, also, don't want to live in remorse. Remorse is a dead-end street, in fact, it holds us back, it is worse than a dead-end street. It weighs us down so we that we can't go forward where God would like us to go forward, because very commonly a person who has offended God deeply by his sin will regularly say, I don't know that God can use me anymore. Can God still use me to witness to people? Can God still use my life to honor Him? Well, the answer is "Yes". The favorite people that He has to use are people who recognize their great sins and have been forgiven. Look at King David a man after God's own heart. Look at Saul who became Paul in the New Testament. Paul says, I was a worse sinner than all of you. But God gave grace to me and now He is using me. So, God can use sinners, but if we say we can't be used then we are making God out of be a liar, aren't we? In fact if you look at 2 Corinthians Chapter 7, remorse does have a purpose, it brings us to repentance. Remorse is sorrow for sin, means it is something that makes us really feel bad for what we have done. But remorse is to bring us to repentance, not to carry on after repentance. Remorse leads us to repentance, to the place where we are ready to admit it before God, once we have there is forgiveness, so remorse is gone. We don't need to think in the past, we don't have to live in the past. In 2 Corinthians Chapter 7: 10,

For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you.
So what it has said is remorse brings you to the place of repentance, then there is forgiveness, and no longer regret. We can be sorry for what we have done because it causes harm, it causes pain, it causes problems, but once forgiveness is there we need to learn to live beyond it. And if it is covered in pitch in God's mind, we have to cover it with pitch in our own mind and go the direction that God wants us to go. We may not be able to go certain directions or maybe certain people are affected by us in different ways now depending on reputation and that sort of thing, but God still can use you. God still plans to use you, still wants to use you. So, it is gone from Him, it is covered with pitch and should not be filling us with remorse once it has been truly repented and forgiven. Because repentance is a result of remorse, not following it.

I will read just a short piece of the Psalms. Psalm 32, this is King David after he had committed adultery and murder and all kinds of awful things. He said, 

When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away. Through my groaning all day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to Thee, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord; And Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin.

So, the remorse, the guilt, all those things came up to the point of repentance. After that he says, now I will instruct others and teach them in Psalm 51 he says, return to me the joy of my salvation, there is joy in forgiveness. So, now we don't live in remorse we live in gratitude and in love for what God has done for us. So, when you have been forgiven by God, let him forgive it, let him forgive it. 

What if I am the forgiver? What if there is somebody who has offended me deeply in life and I am the one who forgave them? How do we treat them now? How do we live around them, since we have forgiven them? Obviously for someone to hurt you deeply, usually it is somebody who is pretty close to you, and very often it is somebody in your own family, a husband or wife possibly or a very close friend. So, how do you live with somebody you have forgiven? Well, sometimes relationships can be rebuilt, sometimes they can't be, but at least forgiveness clears the rubble and we'll see what happens after that. But if I am the forgiver and I have put it down, by the way a New Testament definition of forgiveness remember we took the booth the other day and put it way over there, we put it down, we ignored it, we cover it with pitch, and we don't look at it anymore. That is what forgiveness is. If I have forgiven you, I don't tell you about it anymore, I don't talk to you about it anymore, I don't bring it up to you anymore, I don't use it as a way to win arguments, I don't use it as a way to shame you, I don't have the ace up my sleeve all the time now because if I need to I can bring out what you did to me. No, if I have forgiven it I don't bring it up anymore. Cause you don't put pitch on something and pull pitch right back off all the time do you? If it is covered with pitch, you don't take the pitch off there, it is down there. And in New Testament terms we put it down and ignore and walk away from it, you never look at it again. So, if you are forgiving somebody, the issue doesn't come up again. You don't bring it up at least, you don't require payment, you don't say I'll forgive you if you do enough of these things or in time I will finally forgive you. No, forgiveness means I put it away and I don't bring it up anymore. The club that I could us on you I don't use anymore, because it doesn't work anymore and so there is no use carrying it around anymore. So, you put the club down and leave it there and let it go because forgiveness is truly a gift. If I have given a gift I don't keep taking it back. Probably not very politically correct now days, but what is an Indian giver? Indian giver is somebody who gives you a gift and takes it back. Ok, don't be one. If you are forgiving, forgive it, put down, cover it with pitch, and leave it along, and walk away from it, ignore it, never look at it again, and don't bring it up again. 

What if I am the one forgiven by somebody else, how do I live around them? Well, that is kind of a tough one, if it is in the same household, you have to live near them and so you have to learn how to live with them as a forgiven person. So, how do you deal with being forgiven? Well, if it is put away, put aside, covered over, and can't be seen again that means I don't bring it up anymore either. Once I have truly confessed and ask forgiveness, and repented of sin against another person, I don't bring it up again either. If it is put aside and covered over, I don't need to talk about it anymore, do I? Why would I want to? And if you have forgiven it, why would you want to talk about it anymore? It just means you have to keep on remembering being forgiven. You don't have to re-forgive it, you just have to remember again that it was forgiven. It is not a new forgiveness, it is just a practice of the same forgiveness.

There is an interesting verse in Proverbs Chapter 16, remember we don't want to make up for sin, we also don't want to require somebody else to try and make it up to us because that becomes a reminder of sin. According to Hebrews 10 it says, the Old Testament sacrifices didn't atone for sin they just reminded the people of their sin and that they needed God's forgiveness. And so a continual trying to make up for sin is just a continual reminder of the sin. But if I try to make up for my sin to you, if I say I'll do this twenty times now because I hurt you, well every time out of those twenty it just reminds you that I hurt you, doesn't it? No, forgiveness takes care of that, forgiveness allows for forgetting, doesn't cause for forgetting, it allows for it. So, to make up for it or to cause somebody else to try and make up for their sin doesn't work. So, how do we live if we are the forgiven person, around a person who has forgiven us? According to Proverbs Chapter 16:6 it says this, 

By loving kindness and truth iniquity is atoned for, And by the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil.

By loving kindness and truth iniquity is atoned for, means while I am around you, around anybody actually, I should be the most loving and kind person and the most truthful. Because truth helps to begin to rebuild the trust, doesn't it? That is what we require from trust, is truth. Loving kindness is the aspect of my life, is how we relate to you as a person. So, I show myself as a person of integrity and I show myself as a person of love. Pretty soon I become known as a person of truth and love rather than a person of sin. By the way that is one thing that deals with the reputation. If you have a reputation from sin, if you have done something big and bad, everybody knows about it, you have to become known now as a person of love and truth, that rebuilds that trust, that rebuilds that life. Pretty soon no one sees you as the sinner, they see you as the forgiven, they see you as somebody who is loving and truthful. They don't see you as a person who had sinned, but that takes time. So, how do you live around a person who has forgiven you? Love them, Jesus said, the one who has been forgiven much, loves much. Use some of that love around the person who has forgiven you, appreciate them, love them, not bringing up the sin as a reminder, but just loving them because you are now a person who has deep love in you because of forgiveness of deep sin. Then truthfulness helps to rebuild the trust that was lost. 

Now, I have a pocket full of pitch here, it doesn't look like pitch to you, but it works like pitch. And if I could I would give you a pocket full of it for yourself. Can you see what is written under that one, can you see what is under there? Ok, good. Cause I covered it with pitch, ok. I tried covering it with something else and it didn't work. So it only works with pitch. And it has to be green pitch by the way, actually any color pitch will work, white pitch will work on overhead anyway. Ok, suppose you lied? And you ask God's forgiveness for lying. What does he do? He forgives you and says don't worry about it, I don't see if anymore, so why don't you not see it anymore either. Cover it with pitch, it is gone, do you see it there? No, neither do I. 

How about slander? Suppose your neighbor has been telling some really neat stories about you? Stories you wish nobody ever knew about you and you need to forgive them. How? Take the pitch and do the same thing. Pretty soon you don't see it anymore do you? How about rumors? Some of those slanderous things aren't true, some of them are made up? Well, that is good old rumors and gossip is very similar to that, and of course once you cover it with pitch you don't see them anymore do you? In fact, if I were to cover all of these up and turn this off, how many of them would you see? None, that is what God does. That is what God does, He covers them with pitch and He turns the light off. He doesn't remember them anymore against us. Now, what He is asking of us, is that we learn how to practice, as a practice of life, being forgiven the same way, and forgiving the same way. So that we don't remember anymore what people have done against us. We don't remember it against them. With time we can forget about things and we have to begin by the act of our will of forgiving them. We put them aside, we cover them with green pitch, and we don't lift it up again, ever again. 

I think that is why God uses a picture of pitch, it is so sticky and black and yucky that nobody wants to try and pull it back up anymore. If you are going to pull it back up again there is something wrong with the person who has to try to do that isn't it? I mean there are kids who play in the mud, but at least most of them are smart enough not to play in the pitch. So lets not get into pitch, trying to pull it back up, reminding ourselves and the other person of the sin that they committed against us. Let's also not go to the person and keep reminding them of our sin, it has been forgiven let's let it go. If God has forgiven it, He doesn't remember it against us. It is gone, as far as the east is from the west, it is far away, it is gone. It is out of sight, it is out His sight, it should be out of our sight. 

I entitled the sermon today 'Are We Having Peace Yet', are we having peace yet? Are you at peace with God because you confessed the sins He had brought to your heart, to your mind? Are you at peace with your neighbor because you have ask their forgiveness for things where you have offended them? Are you at peace with yourself because you have forgiven those you need to forgive? Well, if those are true, if you are having peace, let's maintain that peace for the long run.

Let's bow in prayer: Father, thank You so much that You are a God who has brought us peace. You said that God in Christ was reconciling us to Himself, it means You initiated the giving of us peace. We are the ones who are at war with You because of our sin. And You have provided for reconciliation, You have provided for us a way to be forgiven. Father, Your requirement now is that we now are the ambassadors of reconciliation. We are now Your ambassadors, You are through us now teaching the world how to be reconciled. Father, that is why You are so discussed with disunity among churches, among people within the church because we are to show the world how to be united, we are the show the world how to be at peace, we are the show the world how to be forgiving, and how to be forgiven. How to love each other and to live in loving kindness and truth. So Father, I would pray that You would help us in this congregation to begin from this day forward to make forgiveness, being forgiven, and forgiving such a part of our life that we are known by our love for each other, thy way. You said be diligent to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and peace that is forgiving and receiving of forgiveness. Father, thank You that You started it, we thank You for the assignment You have given to us, to be forgivers for You. We ask this in Your precious name, Amen.

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