← ArchiveSunday, October 11, 2015DateOctober 11, 2015Speaker—TextMatthew 18Passages in this sermonMatthew 186:57Matthew 18:217:19Luke 1514:12Psalms 10317:35Matthew 522:37Matthew 6:1222:47Matthew 12:1422:54Luke 6:3723:30James 2:1323:58TranscriptMachine transcribed. Click any line to jump there.0:00a little bit she could get some more lessons and maybe she could learn how to sing my goodness what a great song that's uh almost want to just give the invitation and go home but i don't think so i think i'll go ahead and preach how about that if you brought your bible hope you0:27did turn with me to matthew's gospel chapter 5 we are in this complete series on the beatitudes and we've been dissecting a verse a week and we're moving into the mercy section this week last week we kind of transitioned in verse 6 where it said blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied and so today we will be talking about mercy and for they shall receive mercy but let's pick it back up in verse 1 and read the entire0:56text today as we have thus far throughout the series seeing the crowds he went up on on the mountain and he sat down and his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them saying blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth blessed are those who1:22hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy blessed are the poor in heart for they shall see god blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of god blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who when you when others revel against you and persecute you and utter all1:47all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were who who were before you verse 13 you are the salt of the earth but if salt has lost its taste how shall its saltiness be restored it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown2:14out and trampled under people's feet you are the light of the world a city set on a hill cannot be hidden nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket or but put it on a stand and it gives light to all in the house in the house in the same way let your light shine before others so that they may see your2:40good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven let's pray father let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight today lord we love you we praise you and we thank you for all what you're doing in the life of this church god i pray for those that are here today i pray that you speak precisely to each and every one of us through the musical worship that we've had3:09through the preaching and teaching of your word that we're about to have lord i pray that you speak precisely through your word today that we leave this place completely completely different than when we came and father we understand forgiveness more than ever before god do your work in this place bless the pastor search team bless the all the ministry teams that are operating in the ministry here at bethel father3:35bless the deacon body as they serve as diogenesis lord bless them as they serve their families that they're touching and god i pray your richest blessing on this staff god use them to the fullest and lord we give you all the praise and all the glory and all the honor in jesus name we pray and the church said3:59amen verse 7 blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy if i had a message truth here it is i evaluate all my relationships offer forgiveness to those who have hurt me and make amends for the harm that i have done to others now if we took a survey in this place today of all the hurts all the people you have4:25been hurt by all the hurts you have caused on someone else every relationship that we've caused hurt to every broken relationship every person that has been hurt by you or are you've been betrayed by them throughout your entire life we would be here forever i mean that list is long if we if we put together a4:51list in our hearts so today i want us to kind of mentally put together a short list a short list not catalog catalog every hurt every person that you've been hurt by or every person that you've hurt but i want us to start with the most recent ones the most recent in the last few days or weeks there are5:15that's still a long list is it not i began to think about why is that list long why do we hurt or why do we receive pain from others why do we have all of these broken relationships well the big fact of the matter is is that we the reason is is that we love poorly we love poorly when you get5:38right down to it we don't love very well do we we say that word hey i love you man love you we throw those three or two little words out just like it's just any words out there love you love you so much type it text it facebook it we tweet it we do all kinds of ways to get that information out we use that6:02phrase hey love you man we constantly throw that stuff out and sometimes we even say it to people that we really don't love it's the reason reason that we have so many broken relationships reason why we are hurt so many times and we're uh we're dispensing hurt is because when we get right down to it we don't love very well do we because we don't love well we continue to hurt those that are around us we need6:29desperately to understand what forgiveness is all about we need desperately to understand what mercy is all about we need desperately to all of those walls torn completely down so with that said i want us to look at another passage of scripture to launch from what we're talking about today i want you to turn with me to matthew's gospel chapter 18 matthew 18 now i want us to read several verses of scripture6:57together and i want you to just notice this beautiful passage of scripture but i want you to notice this passage of scripture when it deals with hurting and being how uncomfortable it is it's the parable of the unforgiving servant pick it up in verse 21 matthew chapter 18 verse 21 we're going to read down to7:19the 35 so buckle up then peter came up and said to him lord how often will my brother sin against me and i forgive him now peter was very astute he wanted to know he was really searching it wasn't that he was being sarcastic in any way so he really wanted to know if somebody you know hurts him how7:43do i how many times do i forgive him so do i do i seven times he said with a question mark is it seven times and jesus said to him i always jesus had the right answer obviously because he's right about everything right he's omniscient he's omnipresent he's all-knowing he's right about everything because he's perfect right he said no i do not say to you seven times but seventy seven times verse 23 therefore8:08the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wishes who wished to settle accounts with his servants verse 24 when he began to settle one was brought to him who owed him 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 and8:34payment to be made so the servant fell on his knees imploring him have patience with me and i will pay you everything and out of pity for him the master of the servant released him and forgave him his the debt when that same servant went out and he found one of his fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii now9:02stop put your finger right back back up back up how much did he owe his servant his master 10 000 talents and this servant fellow servant only owed him 100 denarii or about 60 bucks in today's money and seized him and began to choke him saying pay what you owe choking him not just saying hey man pay me what you owe he9:30reached around his neck brad and started to strangle him choking him and say pay what you owe so the fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him and and pleaded with him have patience with me and i'll pay you he refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt when when his fellow servants saw what he had taken what had taken place they were greatly distressed and they went and reported to their9:59master all that had taken place then his master summoned him and said to him you wicked servant i forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me and should you not have mercy on your fellow servant as i've had mercy on you in anger and in anger his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay10:26all his debt now verse 35 here's the summation verse 35 so also is my heavenly father who do not who will do to you to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart now let me just clarify something here this is not to say that we should not pay our debts it's not saying that we should not pay10:54those that we are indebted to we should always honor our commitments and pay our debts no matter how long no matter how stressful it might be pay the debt you should always pay the debt but in in this regard the summation is verse 35 so my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive11:20your brother from your heart forgiving from your heart now i'll be honest with you this is one of those passages brad i wish was left out i wish this one was removed this one was not recorded i wish this is one of those that wasn't recorded in scripture but i started thinking about it this week as i prepared my heart in my comments for you today jesus recorded this particular passage for us in the 21st century11:49we need it more today than probably they did then why is that well i got two principles for you to consider today number one why is that because i've been forgiven i can forgive now i want you to circle your mind around that one statement let that just baptize over you a little bit would you because i've been forgiven12:15i can forgive if i expounded on that statement because i've been forgiven i have the ability to forgive those who have come against me because i've been forgiven when you go back up to verse 18 the master forgave the debt of the servant the servant was did not realize how he had been forgiven12:41and he did not pass the forgiven on or as we would say today pay it forward so to speak he didn't do the same thing jesus said i will forgive you but you've got to forgive your brother in your own heart and this is a passage i wish it wasn't in there but because i've been forgiven i have the ability and13:07i can forgive now why did the king forgive this man why does god forgive me when i start thinking about why does the king forgive this man i even go to the point where why does god forgive me i am a wretched sinner i am saved by his grace i am wicked to the core every one of us in this room are the same way amen and why would god forgive us i'm not worthy of that forgiveness i'm not worthy of that mercy13:34yet he forgives us and the mercy that he shows to us is absolutely breathtaking when you think about the god of the universe reaching down from the halls of heaven and forgiving our wretched soul and paying the penalty for our debt at his cross it's breathtaking it's staggering it reminds me of the parable of the14:00prodigal son in luke chapter 15 you know the story the lost coin the lost sheep the lost coin and the lost son you know the parable of the loving father is what that should be called amen because the loving father is what shows the portrait of this beautiful picture that we're looking at today yes he asked for all14:27what he had inheritance and he took that and you know the story so i paraphrase it for you but those of you forgotten that he takes all of his inheritance and he goes out and he lives the way he wants to live and just spins it frivolously on wild things and ends up with absolutely no resources whatsoever and finds himself in the hog pen of life and as he's in the hog pen of life he's running out of resources and he's14:55running out of food and he starts eating what the swine ate he's eating the pods right off the ground he's eating the nasty food that is there for the hogs to eat now why did he kill one of the hogs and eat the hog i don't know but he he's eating the pods that the swine did eat and so he finds himself in a mess he finds himself completely in desperation and he begins to think in his mind i know that my father's15:22servants are eating better than i am maybe if i confess my sin to my earthly father that my father will forgive me and maybe he will give me what he's feeding to the servants and so the story continues on in that prodigal son he comes to his senses he gathers himself up and he starts making his way back to his homeland and once he gets there i picture in my infinite finite little brain that the father15:51stood there with one foot on the rail of the fence looking out there gazing waiting on his son to return and as his son returned what we would want to do is to put some kind of penalty on his life right we would want to say okay you're forgiven but you've got to do this this and this we do that don't we we put people in those torture chambers we put them in those prison walls around their lives16:20but the prodigal son's father reaches down and said come son and he grabs him and what does he do he kisses him he'd been in a hog pen he probably didn't smell very good but the father kissed him he says yes put a robe on his back put sandals on his feet put a ring on his hand kill the fatted cat let's have a party my son who was lost is now found praise jesus you see when i think about being forgiven16:48i think about that father that loving father reaching down from the halls of heaven and saying that boy over in trustful alabama he is not worthy of it but my son jesus died on the cross for his sins and i forgive him period because we've been forgiven i can forgive why does it say he love his son and forgive17:14his son it is the same way that the father forgives us he is passionately affectionately passionately deeply in love with us he's crazy about us amen he loves us that much psalms 103 says blessed of the17:35bless the lord oh my soul and all that my innermost being bless his holy name we have a simple equation sometimes we say a plus b equals c god forgives me i forgive you we're done sorry it doesn't work that way i'm sorry i wish it was that simplistic but it's not that simplistic the easy part is god forgives me18:02yes i get that but some of us in this room some of us in this room have a hard time forgiving someone that has sinned against you some of us are having a hard time forgiving that person who's come against you we love to hold grudges don't we more we want to put them in that prison cell and we we smile on the outside but in public appearance we smiling at them but on the inside we are just holding a grudge18:31against them and we're eating up with anger friend of mine is a elementary school first grade school teacher and she told me this story she had a little little child in her class that was um i related because really to this child because he was a little bit hard to deal with and and he was kind of a little18:54strong-willed you know they've written books about kids strong-willed kids i've raised one i know what that's like i could have written volumes on that and strong-willed children are wonderful kids you know why because if you can harness that strong will to the direction that's benefit them and and everybody's at peace it's wonderful because they get things done amen but it's when you get them off track a19:20little bit well this little boy's name was johnny and johnny kind of had his own little attitude and so she kept saying uh okay class sit down and johnny would just stand there by his desk and she said johnny you need to sit down and he said no ma'am and he said no johnny you need to sit down she said no so she went by him he said johnny you need to sit down she kind of gently put his hand her hand on his shoulder said johnny you need to sit down and finally he wouldn't do it so she just said okay and she kind of just pushed him down into his seat a little bit and his little honey hit that19:49chair a little hard you know and johnny was just teared up and i know you school teachers are freaking out don't you wish you had the board in your hand not the board in another building somewhere telling you what to do amen i know you want that i would just beat the fire out of it but little johnny needed a little encouragement amen and she said i just sat him down and you can just hear his little hiney hit20:13the wood seat there you know it kind of thumped him a little bit and tears kind of puddled up in his eyes like that and she said are you okay johnny he said yes she said are you sitting you gonna stay seated she said he looked at her he said oh yes i'm gonna stay seated on the outside i'm sitting down but on the inside i'm standing up you see that's the way we are publicly we look good publicly we're smiling at those that have come20:40against us publicly we are smiling and we're doing the right thing we don't want to start a public war on the outside we look good and we forgive on the outside by our appearance but on the inside we've never forgiven them and we're being eaten away that cancer is just gnawing at us c.s lewis said it best to be a christian means to forgive the inexcusable because god has forgiven the21:10inexcusable in you because i am forgiven i can forgive the second principle and we move quickly now this one is a bit more chilling this one causes a little bit more heartburn you need more nexium i'm sure after this one it says the unforgiving become the unforgiving i don't know about you but i find21:37myself in the role of the ungrateful servant sometimes in matthew 18 i find myself needing mercy but i find myself to be an ungrateful i haven't been forgiven and i turned out turn on those who need forgiving when it comes to being wounded i'm not interested in mercy i want justice22:01i want justice i want to hold you captive the person that wants i want the person to pay when we refuse to forgive and forget we place ourselves in that torture chamber not them we have that begrudged heart we build walls around our hearts and we become bitter towards that person and others22:30we become the unforgiven matthew 5 verse 7 says blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy matthew chapter 6 verse 12 says and forgive us of our sins as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us matthew chapter 12 verse 14 and 15 says if you forgive those who sin against you your22:54heavenly father will forgive you but if you refuse to forgive others your father will not forgive your sins folks it is right there in scripture we are commanded to be forgivers of those who come against us now i don't like that i'm just going to be bone honest transparent with you it bugs me i want to hold23:17some of you in grudges i want to hold grudges against some of you maybe not some of y'all but maybe some people at my home church right we want to hold people captive look what luke chapter 6 verse 37 says stop judging others and you'll not be judged stop criticizing others or it will come back on you if you forgive others you underline this will be forgiven you will be forgiven james is so pointed23:46isn't james chapter 2 verse 13 gives it to us straight in the mouth does it not look what it says for there will be no mercy for you if you have not been merciful to others but if you have been merciful then god's mercy towards you will win out over his judgment i ran across this just recently as long as we are24:12unable to forgive we keep ourselves chained to the unforgiving we give them rent free space in our mind emotional shackles to our hearts and the right to torment us in the small hours of the night we give them rent free space in our mind john perkins said it best this way the saddest people i know24:42are those who are unable to forgive have you ever been around that person that just has a hard time forgiving somebody they just have that nasty snarled look on their face all the time don't look like they've been weaned on a pickle i mean they got that drawed up look and they're just mean looking all the time now don't look at your husbands you know what i'm talking about so that brings me to this point and25:11we're done how can i be the forgiver two thoughts nail it to the cross now i know that that's kind of coining but when i was a back in the day wednesday night i was in fort worth x right side of fort worth texas at weatherford baptist church25:38north side baptist church in weatherford texas launching a honduras team and he the the youth pastor is a good friend of mine and he had me up to speak and for a few minutes they were talking on mission and had me up to speak a few minutes in front of their students they had about 150 high schoolers in his youth room and and middle schoolers were in another area of the church in their own room they have their own venue there too and church is really exploding and god's doing some neat things out26:05there and jim had me up to speak at uh at his students and won't you speak five minutes he said now dan i really i've heard you i know i served with you at peachtree city i really want you only five minutes not 15 minutes i need five minutes because i got other things we got to do and you got five minutes and we're going to talk about honduras and talk about missions and that stuff so i got up to speak and i i said man i sure am glad he gave me five minutes because i i'm thrilled to death that i'm not a youth speaker anymore i just just don't feel like i'm connecting with teenagers26:33much anymore i i don't i don't think i'm as cool as i once was and then i started thinking about on the plane back home my son used to say dad you've never been cool in your life what made you think back in the day you were i got up and spoke to these students and i started thinking about back in the day when i did a lot of youth camps and retreats and conferences and those kinds of things and we did this thing at the beach one time at one of these camps at deb and i were at camp and we had this youth pastor who's kind of creative guy and this was one of the creative moments27:02in the 80s and 90s of youth ministry he he took this big huge cross and and he dug a hole in the sand and he drove that that cross down there on the beach at laguna beach he drove it down and then he had all these candles in a bag and he had his youth workers uh that they lit all those candles kind of as a run-up to that cross like a little walkway you know and it was pretty cool looking when you were27:27standing back away you could see it all is really pretty it's all illumination and then he had uh those little post notes and his youth workers were handing out post notes to every student then every person that came is a camp and they so we had it right and they had a little pencil and a little post note and brad when they got there they they got these little post notes and they would um he started talking and the youth pastor did some of the talking and i was going to lead in a portion27:52of it he said we want you to all the sins that you feel like that you've been committing and all the things you're ready to commit to the lord today we want you to write them on this post note and then they had a a sack of nails and had a bunch of hammers laying out there on the sand he said well once you get them all nailed down there all you got we want you to take that post note and we want you to go up to the cross and find you a spot and we want you to take that nail and that hand and i'm saying28:21my goodness we're gonna have blood everywhere because i know some of these boys i mean they've never driven a nail in their life and they're fixing to knock a thumb off you know and so they they bam knocked that and all you could see was all those post notes up there with all those people who had nailed their sin to the cross and then the youth pastor walked over and started pulling every one of them28:45off tearing every one of them off taking the nails and the holes were still in the cross where they'd nailed it to the cross he says exactly what jesus is asking us to do today will you in your mind will you take the sin that you have and the hurt that you have and the unforgiving29:12heart that you have and will you nail it to the cross and would you start today not tomorrow not tonight not next week but nail it to the cross start right now and start today regardless of where you are start right now regardless of where you are in29:38this journey called christianity start today blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy if you don't think you're receiving the mercy30:00maybe just maybe you need to present mercy by asking forgiveness of those who have hurt you or those you have hurt blessed are the merciful for30:19they shall receive mercy let's prayMore sermons on Matthew →
