#141- Seeking Forgiveness

When was the last time you paused to consider not who has hurt you, but who YOU might have hurt? This week's message challenges us to flip the script on forgiveness.

Jesus teaches us in Matthew 5:23-24 that if someone has something against us, we shouldn't wait—we need to leave our worship at the altar and go be reconciled FIRST. It's not about justifying ourselves or making excuses. It's about taking responsibility with humility and seeking forgiveness from those we've wounded with our words, actions, or even our thoughts.

True forgiveness isn't just receiving it—it's actively pursuing reconciliation when we've been the offender. This is the way of the cross. This is what transforms us into the beautiful bride of Christ that draws others to Jesus. Are you ready to embrace the humility that reflects Christ's heart?

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Transcript

Transcript: Seeking Forgiveness

We're in week two in our series on forgiveness. We are working through three movements in forgiveness. The one is God forgives us.

The second is we seek forgiveness from others.

And the third, which we'll talk about next week, is the idea that we need to actually forgive those.

In fact, this is the truth that we need to embrace to forgive those that have hurt us.

 A statement that kind of carries through for us in the series is, "'Forgiveness is God's way of bringing healing and wholeness to our lives and our world.

It's the way of the cross and the heart of our relationship with God and one another.'"

 The truth is, we either have to live perfectly in this world and ensure that nobody ever gets hurt or is offended and no injury happens and that our interpersonal relationships are perfect, 100% perfect, which we know they're not,

 Or the alternative, which I would like to suggest, is that we understand that we live in an imperfect world with imperfect people around us, and that God's tools, the thing that God has given us, the empowerment that He's given us to deal with imperfections around us, is this thing called forgiveness.

 Another way of talking about forgiveness is sin breaks relationships, but forgiveness heals broken relationships.

So on week two, we are talking about seeking forgiveness.

And that's kind of one of two aspects of forgiveness that are essential to creating communities that rightly reflect the love and the grace of God.

 I continue to say and believe that forgiveness is an essential part of building and maintaining healthy faith communities that rightly reflect the love and the grace of Jesus Christ.

Our text today takes us to Matthew 5, verse 21 to 26.

This is what the text tells us.

You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times,

 you shall not murder.

Whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.

But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.

And if you insult a brother or sister, you'll be liable to the council.

And if you say you fool, you'll be liable to the hell of fire.

 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go.

First, be reconciled to your brother or sister and then come and offer your gift.

 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you're on the way to the court with him.

For your accuser may hand you over to the judge, the judge to the guard, and you'll be thrown into prison.

Truly, I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

 Key concept there is where Jesus says, come to terms quickly with your accuser.

Something that I've experienced throughout my life, I saw this in youth ministry in particular, is that there all seem to be speakers or people who talk about this concept of forgiveness and how we are hurt by others.

 And somehow it will end up in a time where the speaker, whoever's leading the meeting, would say, if somebody has hurt you, you need to go to them and tell them that they have offended you or hurt you and seek to reconcile.

 Now, on the surface, that seems like a great, great thought, and I believe we do need to reconcile one another.

But what ended up happening is that there were people, these long rows of people, sharing how they'd been deeply wounded and hurt, and the person listening to them had no idea it ever happened.

 I'm not sure that's what this passage is telling us to do.

We also have that concept when in times of communion, we're asked to examine ourselves and to ensure that we are right before God.

And often people have interpreted that as, have you been hurt?

Maybe you need to tell somebody that they hurt you unless you drink unworthily or eat and drink unworthily.

 Well, you know, it's interesting because somehow we're saying if you've been hurt, you need to show somebody that they've hurt you.

And so we spend a lot of time thinking about those who have injured us and harmed us, but we don't really spend enough time thinking about those women.

 And I believe that's what this passage is doing.

It's turning around and saying, you know, there are those that accuse you, those that look at you and say, you have done me wrong.

And we know in our hearts that we have people that we may well have injured or hurt or wounded with a thought, with a word, with a deed, and we need to make amends.

 your accuser, go to your accuser, be reconciled.

And so that's something we need to pursue.

If we have a look at this passage, there is something very interesting.

Jesus reframes our understanding of sin, taking it beyond the idea of just sin being what we do, but he's saying our transgressions can and do include our thoughts,

 our words, and we can argue it also includes our motivation.

The passage in verse 21 to 22, speaking about hate and murder and insulting your brother, says, if you've heard that it was said to those of ancient times, you shall not murder.

That's an

 action.

Whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.

I say to you, and here he builds on this concept of sin, if you are angry, there's a motivation there with a brother or sister.

Something else is picking up there.

There might even be a thought of anger, a motivation of anger.

You will be liable to judgment.

 If you insult a brother or sister, those are words you will be liable to the council.

And if you say, once again, words, you will be liable to the hell of fire.

And so Jesus is saying, when we think about the way we sin against those around us, and look what's being said, if you, in other words, when you have injured somebody by fire,

 You shall not murder, but it could be your thoughts.

It could be your attitude.

It could be your words.

He's saying you are the offender, not the one who has been wounded, not the one who has been sinned against.

You are the sinner.

You are the perpetrator in this situation.

So how does Jesus tell us to deal with this sin, these transgressions, this behavior that we have that is not what God wants and injures those around us?

 Verse 24, 25, briefly summarized, be reconciled to your brother or sister.

There it is.

You have a responsibility to reconciliation and you need to come to terms quickly with your accuser.

Well, that sounds easy, but I don't think it's always that easy.

 Let me kind of tell you what I believe this looks like and taking this to a bit of a deeper level.

I think the first thing we need to have in our lives is we need to live with a healthy sense of self-awareness.

Matthew 5, 21, 22, we've spoken about the fact that sin and transgressions and the way we hurt those around us, the way we injure those around us can be in our actions and

 It can be in our thoughts, it can be in our motivations, and it can, and often is, with our words.

We're likely to notice if we injure people with our actions.

We may be less likely to notice when we injure people with our words.

We may be aware of it if we have a level of self-awareness, but may be less likely than in our actions, but we are least likely to notice our thoughts and our motivations.

 Luke 6.45 says, the good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of the evil treasure produces evil.

And then listen how he sums this up.

For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.

 Well, here's the question.

What's in your heart?

If you're living with a healthy sense of self-awareness, you need to stop and ask yourself, what's in my heart?

We meditate on the things of our heart, then we speak about these things with our mouths, and then we do hurtful and harmful things.

Out of the abundance of a heart,

 if you're saying hurtful things, evil things, if your mouth produces certain types of evil, bad fruit, well, then that's a sign that the heart is in the wrong place.

 Fortunately, we do spend a lot of time meditating on the negative, meditating on things that are bad, filling our hearts and our minds with evil thoughts and things that are unrighteous, things that really do not please God.

And then they come out in our words, maybe in gossip or slander or hatred.

And then we wonder, where did that come from?

 Because that's where our heart is.

That's what we're meditating on.

And sometimes we do things that hurt others.

And then we think, surely I didn't do that.

 Where does it come from?

It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.

And I would argue that that is also where we act on things that we have, in fact, internalized.

So we need to live with a healthy sense of self-awareness, a healthy sense of self-awareness.

Do you know what's in your heart?

 Psalm 139 verse 23 to 24 says this, search me, oh God, what a beautiful passage, and know my heart, lest attest me and know my thoughts.

See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

 You know, we have to take time to self-reflect, to allow God into the sacred places of our heart.

And this is why I continually say and promote spiritual practices.

Prayer brings God into your heart.

Meditation, reading Scripture, meditating on Scripture.

 Not just hearing it once a week in church, but meditating upon it.

Things like having a habit of deep meditation, like Lectio Divina, or even silence and solitude.

These are times that we allow the Word to permeate into our heart and into our spirit.

And we create a space for God to enter into our lives.

And you know what happens when God enters into that temple?

The evil, the carnal thoughts are changed.

 challenged because God comes into contact with things that are unpleasing.

He does not like certain things, and so the Word can challenge us.

The Spirit of God can challenge the things in our heart and transform us from the inside out, wash us clean, washing us in a beautiful, beautiful way.

 The more room we give Jesus in our hearts and minds, the more we become aware of thoughts, words, and motivations that are misaligned with his heart.

Interesting.

If you look at that passage in Matthew 5, 23, the image is of somebody coming to the altar to offer a sacrifice.

In other words, it's an act of worship.

I'm coming to God to worship.

When you are offering the gift at the altar, worship.

 Suddenly it says, if you remember, because when we come to God, we're inclined to remember.

When we bring God into our hearts and into our lives, we're inclined to remember that maybe there's a brother or a sister has something against you.

Maybe you've hurt them and they're carrying bitterness towards you.

Can you be reconciled?

 I don't think it's coincidental that we become aware of what's in our heart when we come before Jesus.

Well, the second thing I think that helps us in seeking forgiveness is to take responsibility for our shortcomings.

We need to take responsibility for our shortcomings.

It's one thing to know that we've transgressed.

It's another to take responsibility for our transgressions.

 And we've spoken about it here at Trinity Church.

We know the idea of the blame game.

We've been taught to play the blame game.

We have taught how to avoid taking responsibility.

How do we do that?

Instead of taking responsibility for the wrong we've done, we point fingers, we deflect, we push the attention, the focus onto someone else or something else.

And what we do is we present ourselves as responsible.

 Not responsible, guiltless.

Why?

Because somebody else or something else is responsible.

That victim type mentality pointing to somebody else.

Key strategy in avoiding blame is not to admit our faults, but what people tend to do, and this happens all the time, is to highlight the faults of others and ensure their guilt is seen as far more grievous than your own.

 Kindly marriage counseling.

You did this, but you did that.

I wouldn't have done that if you didn't do that.

Same thing often when you find people who have addiction or they've got habits that they're trying to deal with.

They might say, well, I wouldn't be in this place if it wasn't for.

 the economy.

It wasn't for politics.

It wasn't for my work situation.

It wasn't for my friends.

And so there tends to be a deflection pushing it on to other people.

We're inclined to blame any and everything before taking responsibility for our part in the problem.

 I love John Ortberg writes a beautiful book called Steps.

And in this book, he talks about these 12 steps and he draws off the AA steps and he presents them into a discipleship model.

And in that, he speaks about step nine, which is reparation, making amends.

He says to apologize is not to give reasons why.

 Why we did wrong.

That's always what we want to say.

This is why I did wrong.

To apologize is not to give reasons why we did wrong.

We simply own the wrong.

And he goes on to say, which I thought is such a helpful discussion, we tend to like to do the apology light thing.

 In other words, we kind of apologize, don't really apologize.

We use this and we see this a lot in corporate statements.

Mistakes were made, as if to say they were made, but not by me.

Mistakes were made and I'm so sorry mistakes were made.

Or we have the if apologies, which he talks about, which is the kind of a if apology.

 I happen to hurt you.

Well, you know you hurt somebody.

If you know that somebody is hurt and somebody has something against you, there is an accuser.

You need to step into that space and deal with it.

If I hurt somebody.

In other words, I don't know.

Maybe.

I don't take responsibility.

And then, of course, something that we've mentioned as well is the excuse apology.

Well, I know I made mistakes, but...

 And then we justify our mistakes.

Matthew 5.23, look at what he says.

When you're offering your gift, you remember your brother or sister has something against you.

You leave your gift before the altar and go.

 And then he says, first be reconciled to your brother or sister, then come offer your gift.

Jesus instructs them to be reconciled, not to be justified.

We need to learn how to take responsibility for our shortcomings.

 Easier said than done?

Absolutely.

We might be asking, what's it going to take for us to step out and take responsibility for the wrongs that we've committed?

What's it going to take to be reconciled to our brothers and sisters whom we've injured?

 I'd like to say we have to embrace the importance, embrace humility as central and important in kingdom building.

What's it going to take?

Very simply put, it's going to take humility.

And you know, in our culture, humility is frowned upon.

 In our culture, we celebrate the human spirit and all that it can achieve.

In fact, we almost admire a sense of arrogance, a sense of confidence, self-confidence, the strength, the power, the success.

We don't celebrate humility.

We don't celebrate apology.

That's perceived as weak.

We need to be strong.

 But Philippians 2, 3 to 5 tells us that humility is the way of Christ.

Humility is what we are called to do.

We are called to humbly emulate Jesus who died on the cross.

Paul writes to Philippians, he says, Philippians 2, 3 to 5, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.

 But in humility, regard those as better than yourself.

Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

And then he says, let the same mind be in you that was in Christ.

 And then we have that beautiful, they call the Christ hymn, who did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but humbled himself in the form of servant, taking on death, dying on the cross for us.

And he paints a picture of the suffering servants, saying this is what humility looks like.

You know, I'd like to say this.

I think one of the most visible ways

 For us to be like Christ is to emulate his humility.

It runs counter to contemporary culture, but it clearly reflects the heart of Christ and the way of the cross.

 Let's bring things to a close.

What is it going to take for us to seek forgiveness, to leave our offering at the altar and to be reconciled, to quickly be reconciled with our accuser?

Well, we need to live with a healthy sense of awareness.

We need to take responsibility for our shortcomings.

And we need to embrace the importance of humility in kingdom building.

 You know, I asked that question about humility.

I said, what's it take for us to step out and take responsibility for our wrongs?

 And I said, humility, you know, we might look at seeking forgiveness and say, well, what does it take to seek forgiveness?

We need to know what it's going to take.

But how about another question?

What's it going to look like when we take responsibility, when we exercise self-awareness, when we embrace humility?

What's going to happen if we embrace the way of the cross and seek to make amends for the wrongs that we have done?

 And I'd like to suggest to you that the church will become the church of Jesus Christ, the beautiful, beautiful bride of Christ that is promised, that washed clean by the word, Ephesians chapter 5, bride of Christ, the beautiful bride of Christ that shines so beautifully in the world today that Jesus, people will be drawn to Jesus by his bride.

 Let us seek the way of forgiveness.

Let us seek forgiveness when we have hurt those around us.

Amen.