How Many Times Do I Have to Forgive Them?! | Jesus Said What?!

We cannot welcome the mercy of God while withholding it from others, but you don't know what this person did to me. I don't, what your Heavenly Father does, and these are his words. And this is like the millionth time, though, Pastor Brent, that he's done this or she's done this. That this has happened. And I still have to forgive, well, according to what Jesus is saying and what we're talking about this series, yes, Jesus said what? He said forgive. Seven times, but seventy times seven or some translations, seventy seven times. Welcome to the Infocus Church podcast. We're in the fifth week of our series, Jesus said what? And today, Pastor Brent takes us into Matthew chapter 18. Peter thought seven times was a generous limit on forgiveness. Jesus gave him a very different number. Here's the message. How many things do you like that are stagnant? Just think of that word stagnant with me for a moment. And if I'm honest, the word itself sounds like something that's just waiting to make you sick. Like something that's stagnant could just be me, but stagnant doesn't seem to be a word that I would want to describe anything healthy in my life. I certainly don't want it to be an adjective that describes my Christian life. Man, I am such a stagnant Christian. Wow, that's not something that you would be cheerful about or that you would brag about. Let me paint some pictures about stagnation. How about walking into a hotel room where it's obvious there has been no airflow for days? Stagnant, like I'm getting a cold, just thinking about it, or what about going into a basement and opening a door to a basement, it's been shut up for years, stagnant, dank, damp, whatever the case may be. It's not really good, the one analogy that I think is probably the best one would be like a stagnant body of water, like a stagnant pond or a stagnant pool that nobody's keeping up anymore. They don't usually invite you to gaze at them and look at their beauty or to take a refreshing swim. Man, look at that stagnant pond. Let's just go take a dip into that. Nobody says that, at least that I know. Things can still grow though, in stagnant water, it's just usually not the kind of things that we would consider healthy. So I want to make a connection this morning and maybe we'll call it a prophetic analogy, a prophetic connection, if you will. And I think we're safe to use water because water is used a lot in biblical imagery. So we can agree with Jesus' own words when he said that he is the living water. Remember when he's speaking to the woman at the well and he says, "Listen, I can give you water while you're never going to thirst again because I am the living water and the bread of life." So we can agree with his words that Jesus is the living water. Also, let's agree that his life is supposed to not just flow in us but flow through us. He said that as well, Jesus' own words in John 7, and then we can agree that there are things in this life that hinder or completely stop the flow of a Christian's life, where the Spirit of God is stopped, if you will, flowing in us and through us. Like a dam refusing to let water flow and holding it back. So the connecting question would be this, what is holding back the flow of Christ's life in me? What is holding back the life of Jesus flowing in and through me? And I propose today, in light of the text that we are about to read, that a dam that will always hold back the body of Christ that will hold back you as a Christian and that will hold back us as a church is the dam of unforgiveness. Now, if you have little children in here, could you please explain to them that Pastor Brent is saying D-A-M, not D-A-M-N, all right, or maybe you're an adult that needs that explain to you. That's just what's happening right now. Unforgiveness can begin to create things in us and it can create a stagnation in our lives that is where unhealthy attitudes and actions like unforgiveness and bitterness will begin to grow. However, as we're going to read this morning, there is good news and there is an answer as there always is in Jesus Christ because Jesus creates a flow of Christ through our lives. And how he does this, it is through his mercy and his forgiveness. See, those who have received mercy must be those who give mercy Jesus says. Those who have received forgiveness must be those who extend and give forgiveness. We are in the fifth week, I believe, of our series entitled Jesus said what? And we're talking through the difficult language or the difficult words and teachings of Jesus that lead us to some places that are just not easy to do. We might believe that they're true, but just believing something is true does not make you actually apply it to your life. I can believe that the speed limit is a healthy speed for me to drive. I often do not do it. Now, that's not an indictment on me, please, don't use any flock cameras on me or anything like that. I'm just saying, we can believe something is true and still not do it. So here's what Jesus is saying, Matthew chapter 18, then Peter came to him and asked, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me seven times?" No, not seven times, Jesus replied, but 70 times seven. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. Some translations will say just millions of days worth of wages. He couldn't pay, so his master ordered that he'd be sold along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned to pay the debt. But the man fell down before the master and begged him, "Please, be patient with me. And I will pay it all." And his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him, and he forgave his debt. But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time, "Be patient with me, and I will pay it." He pleaded, but his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and put into prison until the debt could be paid in full. But some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man that he had forgiven, and he said, "You evil servant. I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Should you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?" Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. And that's what my Heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart. Well, let's just let that hang there for a minute, because that is a epic. Jesus said, "What?" Jesus is, was, and always has been about forming a people, a community that takes both sin and mercy seriously. A New Testament scholar by the name of John Carol observes mercy and accountability run together throughout Matthew 18. So what I would encourage you to do if you have the time, maybe today or tomorrow's, read all of chapter 18 in the book of Matthew, because it all goes together. Even as we reach to this pinnacle, if you will, of mercy and forgiveness, there's a lot that proceeds. Like Jesus calls in the beginning of Matthew 18, he calls the community to pursue the wandering. Like the 99, like leave the 99 sheep and go after the one wandering sheep. So we're to pursue those who have wandered away in order to restore them. He also, then later on in Matthew 18, tells us how to confront wrongdoing. You go to this person, if they don't listen, you go and take somebody with you and you tell them again, confronting wrongdoing. And then he talks about extending forgiveness. Like, after you have confronted wrongdoing and then they don't respond to you confronting the wrongdoing. Now I'm going to close with, well, forgive them anyway. The chapter holds these responsibilities in tension together. In essence, loving someone includes seeking their restoration, taking their sin seriously and showing them mercy. All of the above. And one of the takeaways from this passage this morning, and what we have to be reminded of in this life, if Jesus is going to flow through us into others' lives, here's what we have to remember. And I'll say this again and again throughout the morning. We cannot welcome the mercy of God while we withhold it from others. We cannot welcome the mercy of God while withholding it from others. But you don't know what this person did to me. I don't. What your Heavenly Father does, and these are His words. And I still have to forgive, well, according to what Jesus is saying and what we're talking about this series, yes. Jesus said what? He said, forgive. Not seven times, but seventy times seven, or some translations, seventy seven times. So I'm going to give you a few actions this morning as we look at this text, and we look in the different things that Jesus is saying here, a few actions as it relates to forgiveness and how we are to forgive, how we're to demonstrate the forgiveness that we have received, how we're to demonstrate the mercy that we've received. First of all, you're going to have to forgive beyond the limits you have set. You're going to have to forgive beyond the limits you've set. In every one of us, if we're honest this morning, have limits. You've all said this before, look, I've done all I can do, but everybody's got a limit. Anybody ever said that before? All right, don't lie. You're in church. Like, I have done everything I know to do, but you know, everybody's got the tipping point. This is the limit for me. We probably quoted that at some point where we're just at the end of our ability to handle a situation and we explode, like, this is just too much. That's the situation that Peter brings to Jesus, really. And it seems logical what Peter's asking of Jesus. It really does. It's good, actually. He's coming up with a generous response to forgiving somebody that's wronged him multiple times. The reason this is a good response in Peter's eyes is traditionally rabbinic teaching would say you can forgive somebody up to three times and if they do it again, you're absolved. You don't have to forgive them anymore. So three times, traditionally, that's all you've got to do. So it's like, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me thrice. Now we're done. Like, that's not a saying, I'm just making that up right now, all right. But here's what Peter is doing and this is what he's trying to express that Jesus, I think I've got a good answer as to what I need to do. I think he felt pretty good about saying, okay, I'm going to more than double kind of the law a little bit. I'm going to double more than what's expected of me and I'm going to forgive this person. Let's say seven times, one more time than doubling. That's pretty good. Can I stop right there? Seven good, then Jesus answers, nah, 70 times seven or like I said, some translations will just say 77 times. It's all indicative of a limitless amount because you're not going to say, well, that doesn't mean 490 and that's the cap. That's indicative of how many times I've gotten wrong and I have to forgive. Once I get to 490, I'm done. Jesus said, what? Look, I don't blame Peter. And I think his seven times answer was an honest answer and maybe he was feeling a little self-righteous or like this was a righteous thing. I don't know. Considering kind of his personality and what we know about it, that's possible. I think we do that too, though, right? We do good things and I'm sure you've never tried to make yourself feel better about the righteous thing that you've done before, like pass yourself on the back a little bit. I was pretty holy of you. You're doing good. But here's the thing. No matter how righteous we think we are, God's standard is always more than we first expect an infinitely more than we are capable of on our own. Like there's a scripture right that says that our righteous, this is like filthy rags. And so as we go to God and say, hey, this is what I've done. As is the case with following Jesus, what we're going to find is that apart from his grace, we cannot live according to his perfect holy standard. It's impossible. But Jesus tells Peter that seven times it's not the threshold. Here's what Jesus is doing. He's confronting our desire to know when we've done enough forgiving. There's got to be a stopping point, right? I mean, everybody reaches their maximum point, right? The reality of our human existence is that every day you're going to have another opportunity to forgive somebody. And probably another opportunity to forgive somebody you've forgiven multiple times. That's not easy, and why in order to encourage us in following Jesus, we are to remember correctly that God did not set limitations and has not set limits on forgiving us. Aren't you glad that Jesus did not cap your forgiveness quota? Yeah, that was 490 times, buddy. You're done. Writing you off. Man, Jesus, God doesn't do that to us, and we're so grateful. Then, as a side note, I'll mention this because I think it's important as a body of Christ, as a church, that there needs to be some wisdom in what we think needs to be forgiven. Like, you know, there's like everybody, well, they better ask forgiveness for what? Like cutting you off in traffic? Like it's, let's not be so easily offended. Maybe that's the question or the statement today. I think within the body of Christ, as we mature, we're to become more resilient and we become less offendable. Every misstep or every misunderstanding that we encounter particularly in the body of Christ in a relationship is not cause for disassociating or withdrawing our fellowship. An easily offended church creates more dams than it needs to. Where the Spirit of God is not going to flow. We have to be more like Jesus. We have to move from a culture of offense and vengeance to a culture of love and forgiveness. Or as Jesus is saying here, and I'll come back to it, we cannot welcome the mercy of God while withholding it from others. Now, as Jesus often does in the New Testament, He reverses many of the things and the curses of all actually in the Old Testament, and there's things that happen in the Old Testament that we'll point to and we'll say, yeah, but Jesus came and He said, "Listen, I've fulfilled that, so you don't have to live that way." One of them, one of the connections, could be made to a story early on in humanity's history in Genesis 4, 24, and it's a story of Lamec. It's like one or two generations after Cain enabled. There's like their descendants, if you will, or Cain's descendants. And back in Genesis 4, Lamec boasts to his wives that he killed a young man who had wounded him. Two wives, I said, they're already going nuts. He's got two, like what we see is just the fast degradation of humanity after sin, and they're just doing what they want to do. And he's saying, listen, I killed somebody because they wounded me. And here's the thing, he's saying, somebody hurt me and I responded with vengeance and I took their life. He's declaring this. He says this, if Cain is avenged seven times, which is what God said, then he's going to outdo God. Lamec will be avenged 77 times. His attitude is essentially, you hurt me, I'm going to make you pay infinitely more. Now listen to Peter's question in the New Testament to Jesus. How many times should I forgive someone? Seven times? Jesus answers no, not seven times, but 77 times or 70 times seven. Do you hear the echo? The number associated with Lamec's vengeance as humanity just tumbled deeper into sin became the number that Jesus used to describe forgiveness. Lamec's attitude was, my vengeance has no bounds. How much can I make them pay? And Jesus calls us to keep forgiving beyond what we can count. Jesus deliberately reverses Lamec's escalating vengeance in humanity. Why? As we said a few weeks ago, vengeance feels right. We want a pound of flesh for the pound of flesh, if you will, something we want for other people who have hurt or offended us and it feels right to us. But that is not the life that God wants flowing in us. That's not the life of Christ, that God wants flowing through our church. That is a damn that will cause us to stagnate as God's people. We will be like a dank, dark hotel room that makes anybody sick who enters into our lives if that's what we're holding on to. Lamec multiplied revenge, Jesus comes and calls us to multiply mercy. He wants to multiply revenge. Jesus says to multiply mercy. So here's the tension, this text holds, because it holds a lot of tension. I just kind of feel it right now. We have a continuing obligation to love relinquish revenge, forgive, and have an accountable process toward restored fellowship, if possible. But we need to remember that mercy and forgiveness does not depend on the other person's response or repentance. Ooh, that's the hard part. Well, they didn't accept my apology and I asked them to forgive me and they said no. At the same time, forgiveness does not mean reconciliation. Reconciliation is a two way street, because you can have forgiveness in your heart while another person is continuing to withhold forgiveness or worse, continuing to harm or hurt you. Mercy is not exhausted by repetition, Jesus says, but reconciliation and renewed trust involve the response of the other person as well. I don't believe there's any command that Jesus is giving us to maintain or give unsafe access of your life to somebody else while giving mercy and forgiveness. So we have to forgive beyond our limits that we may have set on our own and now Jesus shows us something more, maybe even more deeply uncomfortable, that that same desire to make somebody else pay can live in the heart of someone whose unpayable debt has just been forgiven. If we go on and read in Matthew 18, therefore the kingdom of heaven can be compared to the king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants. I'm rereading this for effect. And the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars, as I said, a million days worth of wages. He couldn't pay so as master ordered that he be sold along with his wife, his children, everything he owned to pay the debt. But the man fell down before his master and begged him, "Please be patient with me, and I will pay it all." Did his master. was filled with pity for him and he released him and he forgave the debt. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded an instant payment. But his fellow servant fell on the ground and begged him for a little more time. Be patient with me and I will pay it he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. Then the king called in the man who had forgiven, he had forgiven and said, "You evil servant, I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?" You're listening to the Infocus Church podcast. So far, Pastor Brent has shown us that forgiveness goes beyond the limits we set. He wants to multiply revenge and Jesus says to multiply mercy. If this is speaking to you, send it to someone who needs it. Next, what it means to forgive out the mercy you have received. Which leads to the second point, that what has been put in us has to flow out of us. Forgive out the mercy you have received. If you have received mercy in, then you need to forgive it out. Give mercy out. This parable illustrates really the enormity of this debt. That's why I said whether you're a translation of 70 times or 77 times or 70 times 7, it's just an enormity of a debt that is owed that could never be paid back. That's why when this first servant says, "Just give me a little bit of time and I'll pay it back." Like us telling God, just let me do a few good things to earn your forgiveness. It is unpayable. It cannot be paid back. As one commentary states, Elizabeth Johnson says, "The second amount is substantial for an ordinary worker, but it is dwarfed by the first." That's why it makes his response when he goes and says, "You've got to pay it back." And he doesn't extend forgiveness. It makes his response so shocking. So do you ever promise God something like the first servant, "Listen, just give me some time, God, and I'll pay it back." Do you ever promise God something that you know you could never do? I'm sure none of us have said those, "Lord, if you just, I will forever do this." It's a promise that we just cannot keep in our own strength. This is a promise this guy to pay it back could never do because he's not going to live a million days. The amount of money spoken of here is an astronomical amount. It is meant to signify an unpayable debt. But the master's response is one of compassion because that's who our Father is. The Greek verb used for master's compassion in Matthew 18 is the same verb used by Jesus' compassion towards the shepherdless crowd in Matthew 9 when it says that he had pity or compassion on the crowd as like a sheep that had no shepherd. What we see here is a compassion that moves towards people in their need and acts on their behalf. God's love and mercy is always going after us to give us what we truly need, not just what we ask for. Listen, this man asked for more time. Jesus knew that more time would not do it. He could never pay back the debt. He asked for more time. What does God do? He gives this man what he needs. He gives him freedom. We ask God a lot of times for things, and God knows what we need, and he gives us what we need because he is merciful. That's what the King of Kings does. Moving on to verse 28, we see that the recently forgiven servant having the same opportunity to offer mercy and forgiveness to someone else doesn't choose to do so. In our text, the second servant kneels down to this one, and he has asked for patience in language that almost identically echoes the first servant's appeal a moment ago. Here's what we see. This one passage, one of the strongest details that could get overlooked is this man hears his own plea that he just gave a moment ago for mercy now coming from someone else. Yet instead of mercy and forgiveness, he responds with violence and imprisonment. Why do we want mercy for ourselves and punishment for others? I think some of it is we can become so focused on what we are owed that we lose sight of what we have received and been forgiven. Verse 33 asked this rhetorical question. It's like this whole story that Jesus is telling is leading up to this climactic moment, and this rhetorical question in verse 33 said, "Should it you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?" And the answer that everybody in their heart and their mind, even if you might be feeling right now, is yes, absolutely, unequivocally, yes! Which makes his response, as I said, all the more stunning. His response is not of a person who has been forgiven much, but of a person who has forgotten how much they have been forgiven. And listen, it's easy for us to start comparing wrongs and pain when it comes to whom we should offer forgiveness to and extend mercy to. But here's what I want to say, without overlooking real pain in this room, real hurt, real trauma, real wrong, without overlooking that, we still have to remember the debt that God has forgiven us in Jesus Christ. Luke chapter 7 verse 47 is a passage of Scripture that I think we often misunderstand, and we look at it through the lens of somebody who's lived a Christian life, most of their life versus somebody who lived a life apart from Christ and then got forgiven and now lives for Jesus. And we, that's how we kind of read this lens. And that's not how I think this Scripture is meant to be interpreted at all. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven. That's why she loved much. But the one who's forgiven little loves little. Here's what I think. I think this is saying that all of us have been forgiven much. There's not a single person that when we read this, we can go, "Well, I did a little bit better. I didn't do as much as this." No, that's comparison, something that cannot be compared because we all came from the same sinful place. We all see, received the immeasurable mercy and forgiveness of God to pay an unpayable debt through the blood of Jesus. We've all been forgiven. Therefore when we consider how much we have been forgiven, we must forgive out of the mercy which we have received and it is much. We must forgive out of the mercy that we have received because it is much. And then finally, the last point, and Jesus says this, as He closes out this parable, when He says, "Listen, you have to forgive from your heart." Yes, you have to forgive beyond your limitations. That is true. But you also have to forgive from your heart. I think we have to acknowledge the tension again of these last verses where there are some theological differences here, I understand, of what we think Jesus might be saying. But it's heavy. There's a revocation, if you will, of the debt that He had forgiven. That's heavy. But here's what we can't agree on, I think, is that if you repeatedly cannot or will not forgive, as you have been forgiven from your heart, then your heart must not truly have been forgiven. Verse 35 brings the parable directly to the disciples, like they're not going to be able to stand there and remain spectators just judging the servant. Now they have to think about who they need to forgive in their own hearts. The warning at the end of this parable deserves the full weight that I think God intended in his word. Jesus speaks about divine judgment, reaching beyond the emotional damage that bitterness can cause. Within the story, the king revokes the initial cancellation he gave. He holds the servant accountable. The clearest point again here is that receiving mercy and persistently refusing mercy to others are incompatible actions. I think the order of this forgiveness matters as well in this story. But the servants mercy toward another would never have purchased the king's forgiveness. That's why we see the king forgiving the first servant first because it's God that loved us first. It's God that came and chased after us first. We didn't find him. He found us in Christ. And as we read that, as we understand that, we understand that no matter how much that second servant would have forgiven that person, it would not have purchased his forgiveness from the king. That's why the king's forgiveness comes first. Jesus paid the debt first so that we can offer forgiveness to others next. Forgiveness can be sincere. We need to understand while grief remains. And as we've stated, often, trust requires rebuilding and can take some considerable time. So I want you to notice something else from this text that we could kind of read through or overlook. There is a valuable detail in verse 31 that I think applies to us as a body. That's the church. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. See the other servants report the mistreatment to the king. Other people saw what was wrong. going on. And what they saw distressed them, upset them, bothered them. Everybody else noticed what? How unforgiving the forgiven person was. This is not some isolated, private grudge that Jesus saying workout and secret. No, the lack of mercy and forgiveness was seen and felt by the community at large. As I often will tell my own kids and I've told many of you probably throughout the years of ministry here, sin never just affects you. One server was being mistreated and the lack of mercy and forgiveness was seen. But the pain of that mistreatment also reached the people around him that saw it. They belonged. Why? They all belonged to the same household. They all were serving the same king. Sound familiar? They were all called to care about what happened to one of their own. That helps us understand why Jesus says to forgive from our hearts because what we carry in our hearts shapes how we treat people around us with our actions. Forgiveness is an action of the heart, not just a statement from our lips. I'll say that again. Forgiveness is an action Jesus says from your heart, not just a declaration from your mouth. And any parent in here knows that's true because when you had your kids and they had a little fight and you said you need to tell your brother you forgive them. I'll forgive you. I came out your mouth. I don't know if that was actually in your heart. And so what do we do? Say it again and mean it. Maybe I'm the only one that never parented like that. I don't know. Now Jesus saying you can't just say it. You have to mean it from your heart. And we might say well I haven't said anything about it to anybody. But we can with whole mercy without making an announcement about it. We can speak politely while looking for opportunities to make somebody pay. We can listen to an apology while gathering all the information and all the reasons why we need to reject that apology. We can become quietly pleased when something goes wrong by someone who hurt us. So you may never announce your unforgiveness but others will still experience its effects. That's what the flowing water really indicates. Because sometimes the people experiencing these effects aren't even the people that hurt us in the first place. Our families might feel the tension. A conversation changes when somebody's name is brought up. People feel pressured to figure out what's going on and to take sides and make it a battle. But what if there was a community of people? What if there was a body of Christ, a believer, a church that when someone brings us into conflict? We listen with compassion and help them find the appropriate actions to come back to a place of restoration. We can be careful with what we repeat. We can refuse to turn someone else's pain into a campaign against another person. And when there is repentance and change we help make room for restoration to take place. We stop bringing up a person's failures for our own entertainment. We give change, behavior, time to be established. We support the person who's hurt as trust is rebuilt over time. And it'll take time. I want you to think again about the damn that I mentioned and I've mentioned a few times. We talked about what can grow in the stagnant water behind it. And it's usually not good stuff. It's usually unhealthy. But consider what happens downstream when there's no water flowing. Nothing. It's dry. It's dead. Holding back the flow of water also affects what reaches others downstream and really what reaches others downstream is what we're supposed to be doing as believers who are making disciples. There are people in your life. There are people in my life who need to encounter the patient's compassion and the mercy of God through us. Yet our determination to make one person pay can begin to shape how we treat many people and cause a damn to be built up where the Spirit of God is not flowing in us and not flowing through us. And that's the contradiction that Jesus is exposing in this servant. The King's mercy had reached him but it wasn't reaching his fellow servant through him. The mercy was never supposed to stop with you and me. The first person in the parable had received compassion. Then somebody knelt before him asking for patience and the same compassion and he refused. The other servants were distressed by what they saw and they brought the mistreatment to the attention of the King. Forgiveness does not ask a community to look away while someone is being harmed. A community shaped by mercy takes harm to the body seriously. So when Jesus says to forgive from your heart he's addressing something deeper rather than we can manage a peaceful polite conversation. He's addressing the place from which the treatment of others begins and flows out of where everything flows out of he says and that's our hearts. Lord, you may start a prayer, right? Lord, I'm going to bring this to you and you're honestly coming to God. You know what happened. You know what it cost me. Show me where I'm still trying to make somebody pay and let the mercy that you have shown me shape the way I treat them. That's a hard prayer to pray but by God's grace we can step out of faith and ask or there may still be some difficult conversations ahead even after that happens. Trust is going to need to be rebuilt because when it's broken it has to be rebuilt. We just don't offer it freely back. But we can begin to relinquish the determination to withhold mercy and punish somebody. And what I've said all morning is true. We cannot welcome the mercy of God while withholding it from others and the people around us should be able to encounter our King's mercy in the way we treat them. What I find incredibly interesting and also kind of beautiful of God to reveal this in his word is that it's Peter who's the one asking the question and if you know anything about the Bible you're like well Peter's the one always asking the questions like you know I know those kind of people. But it's powerful because the disciple asking how much forgiveness he must offer will himself need profound mercy and forgiveness from Jesus after he denies him three times. Peter's asking about the limits of the very limitless mercy he is soon going to desperately need and we can fall into that same line of questioning with God that Peter did. Every one of us stands here today listen every one of us is here today because of the mercy of God because God has been merciful to us. Whatever he is calling us to extend to someone else we have to begin by remembering that he has already extended that mercy and love to us. He's already forgiven us and he isn't capped it and you'll have to do it again. I want to come back to the picture the final time of the water and the dam because there's a reason that I've carried it throughout this message and I started off by saying I believe it was a prophetic picture. One of my sons Josiah who plays the drums is also now helping to lead our production and worship team and helps in youth and been leading the experience team for some time but I really feel like he has a gift that God's given him prophetically just to see some things and you would know about talking to him but he did come to me on Monday and he shared a picture with me that he felt like God had given him like a vision not like caught up in the third heaven but just like I feel like God gave me this vision of a body of water that was being held back a large amount of water that was being held back by a dam. And at that point in time I wasn't quite sure what I was going to be teaching on this morning outside of just some of the things that we had written down but I hadn't settled in on one of the things that Jesus had said and I was like you know what I think I'm supposed to speak about forgiveness so why don't you take that and kind of ask God maybe what he would show you with what you've already seen which you feel like God's showing you and then also have my tie into forgiveness because I think that's what it is and even as he began to explain it to me it was obvious he saw a dam holding back a large amount of water there was still movement in the water because there still can be there was still life there but it wasn't flowing out the way that it was meant to he connected that picture with unresolved conflict he connected that with the conversations that we avoid things we need to repent of amends we need to make and the forgiveness that we need to extend that's been extended to us by Christ and as he reflected on it he brought me back like an entire sermon and he's and I said man this is the whole sermon he's like well I ain't preaching it but like this is a whole sermon but here's something that I think is particularly helpful that God showed him and that was floodgates if you know anything about a dam they have floodgates that can be opened up enclosed gates that can open so that water can flow that gives us something to consider personally this morning because when we talk about what needs to change in our church it's easy to think about what somebody else needs to do and forget that our church is us it's you it's me our relationships our conversations our actions our mercy and forgiveness the way we respond when we are hurt and the way we respond when we hurt someone else it's us the response of this church begins with the response of each of us I cannot repent for you you cannot repent for me I cannot make somebody else offer an apology and I cannot determine whether they will accept mine But I can take responsibility for what Jesus is asking me this morning, so we bring it before him personally, and we open up the gate of our heart in life in such a way that the Spirit of God begins to flow in us and through us like it's supposed to. Lord, who do I need to forgive? Who have I hurt and what do I need to do to make it right? What conversation have I been putting off that you're leading me to have? Where have I been withholding mercy that you've so freely given to me? For some of us, opening that flood gate begins with an honest prayer, and here's maybe how that looks. We've talked about this a few weeks in a row. Lord, I'm still hurt. That's an honest prayer, and it's okay. I still want them to pay, but I am willing to surrender that to you. So help me, forgive. Help me, forgive. For some, it means asking somebody to meet, sitting down, maybe for a cup of coffee, or listening and carefully listening, and then being willing to hear how your actions might have affected them. For some, it means saying, "I was wrong. Will you forgive me?" And then doing the work of making amends and leading to a place of rebuilding trust and restoration. For others, it means giving mercy in the way that we speak about someone, refusing to recruit people to our side, or choosing to seek their good instead of quietly hoping for their failure. All of the situations are going to need the wisdom of God, and the care of his spirit in your life. Some trust will take time to rebuild. You may not be able to resolve a conflict this week. You probably won't, you might. But whatever you do, you can take the next faithful step and say, "What? Would opening up the gate of my life and starting what God's showing me? What would that look like for me? And how would it not only affect our church, because it will, but how would it affect those who are downstream that God wants to reach through me?" I want you to identify that step as we pray in just a moment, a person, a conversation, an apology, a decision to extend to mercy, and wherever action is needed, that you would step out in faith and make a plan to follow through. In Focus Church, imagine what it would mean for the people walking through our doors, whether it's an invitation Sunday or any Sunday, to encounter a church where we take the responsibility when we hurt each other seriously, where we listen to one another carefully, where we make amends and where we work towards forgiveness, and it's something that we practice together as a spiritual community. This is a community in which the mercy of our King not only works in our lives, but it becomes visible to others' lives, and it flows freely into those who desperately need the love and the forgiveness that we've received. We cannot welcome the mercy of God, while withholding it from others. Josiah described the opening of the gates as one conversation at a time in each of our lives as God directs. This week that conversation may be yours, that apology may be mine, but each of us has a response to make. In Church, God's mercy has reached us. I'll say that again, God's mercy has reached us, so let's open the gates and let it reach others through us. I believe that God wants to do something phenomenal in this church, and I listen when I feel like somebody that I trust and that I love comes and says, "I feel like God gave me this picture," and then God begins to tie that into Matthew 18 and says, "Listen, there's some gates that need to be opened up, and it's just going to flow into the lives of those around you, and God's going to do His work, because His living water is flowing in and through us." I want to see what that means for you, for me, and for us as a church in our community. Amen. Look, there is no better time than right now to be those who are extending mercy and forgiveness to a world that just wants to cause us to exact vengeance. Let's extend the mercy and the forgiveness of God that we've so freely received. Just pray, Heavenly Father, I thank You so much for who You are with every head, bowed and every eye closed. We've got a few more minutes together, and as we sing a song here at the end about Jesus being King, that's the decision, really, that we all come to in this moment. Who is King in Lord of our lives? Is it King Jesus or is it King Me? And as we say, all hail King Jesus, what we're saying is, "Lord, we surrender to Your will, and we're surrendering the areas God where we've held on to unforgiveness. We're surrendering the areas where we've been hurt and wronged, and it's not right. And Lord, we're not by offering forgiveness saying that it was. We're not even believing necessarily that what we've given God is anywhere close to what you have forgiven us. But what we do believe God is that you can work through us as we obey Your Word. You can change lives around us as we obey Your Word. So King Jesus, have your way in us. Thank You that You've forgiven us and extended mercy. Help us to be those who do the same." Thanks for listening to the Infocus Church podcast. Here's the line to carry into your week. If this message helped you, send it to someone who needs it. Find us at infocus.church and on Instagram at InfocusChurch. We'd love to see you on a Sunday in Augusta.