Forgive To Be Forgiven – Forgiveness Series Part 4 of 4

Hello and welcome to Social Media Ministries, my name is Spencer Coffman. Thank you for tuning in this week. This is the sermon series finale on forgiveness. We are talking today about forgive to be forgiven.

If you have not been with us for the last three weeks, I encourage you to please check out the playlist on our YouTube channel. You can see it in a card here if you are watching on YouTube. Otherwise, navigate to the YouTube channel, find the playlist on forgiveness.

In addition, share it with your friends and family by using those share icons below. I hope you are also subscribed to the channel and that you have liked the videos on YouTube as well. Please do that, show your support for us in that way. That would be tremendous.

Today, like I mentioned, we are talking about forgive to be forgiven. We have spent a lot of time on forgiveness and what it means, what it looks like, different things that you need to do in your life, ways to apply what you have learned. Hopefully, that is going well for you.

If not, if you are struggling in some area, then comment below and we can pray for you. We can pray with you. Also if it is going well, comment too, that would be great. We would love to hear those stories and praise God for that as well.

In our first week, we spoke about how God has the ability to forgive sins. You can forgive other people, God forgives their sins. In the same way when you have a sin, when something happens in your life, then you need to take that to God and ask Him to forgive you for that sin. You also need to go to the person and confess to them, saying that you have wronged them and ask for them to forgive you.

Then you need to go to your brothers and sisters in Christ and speak to them and get them to pray with you and for you, about whatever it is you are struggling with. That was what we talked about in the second week, confessing your sins.

Last week we spoke about how it is so important for you to forgive because God forgave. He already forgave you. In the same way, when you are wronged, you should just instantly already be like, all right that is okay, I forgive them. Then later when they mature enough to come and ask you for your forgiveness, you say yeah I forgive you, it is fine, do not worry about it.

Learn from it so you do not go into it again and again and again, but forgive them. Why, why is this so important? Well, it is important, because if you do not, if you hold those grudges in, it is a sickness. It is a spiritual sickness that can harm your body physically, harm you mentally, and also harm those around you.

We had the analogy of it is like a knife and every time you remember that grudge or the way they wronged you, it is twisting that knife. Pull the knife out, let it go, but when you pull it out you say alright I have forgiven them, it is okay.

Sometimes you still hold on to it. You are holding on to that knife and you are like, yeah I have let it go, they are forgiven. Meanwhile, you are harming all those around you because you refuse to let it go. Whether it is complaining to them about it, oh I am just venting, it is not complaining.

We talked about how you are not supposed to complain at all. No arguing, no grumbling, you can check all that out in a card up here. Watch the sermon. You could be harming them. You could be harming them with your bitterness unintentionally, not even knowing. But you are always cranky all the time or you are bitter.

But you pulled out the knife, your body is healing, the spiritual wound is healing but it is still here. Let it go, let it go, forgive them, let it go, and begin healing. In the same way, if you have sinned against someone else and you have not confessed that to them or confessed it to God or confessed it to your brothers and sisters in Christ, you are holding that in. That is another spiritual sickness.

You could be holding that in. You are carrying that burden alone. Confess it. Let it go, get it out. Get your brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for you, seek forgiveness from whoever you have wronged, get forgiveness from God for your sin. Let it go.

Those spiritual sicknesses that you are harboring, that you are holding in, could manifest themselves in your body in other physical ailments. In addition to weighing down your soul and spirit. Let it go, get it out.

As if all that is not hard enough, we are adding to it this week when we talk about how you must forgive others, not only for your own little benefit like we just talked about but in order for God to forgive you, you have to forgive others.

You say wait a minute, there is a condition? There is a catch? Matthew 6:14-15, dig out your Bible, turn with me. Matthew chapter 6, I love that chapter, verses 14 and 15, ‘For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others of their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.’

Now of course you cannot forgive their sins directly. You forgive them for their sin against you, but then they also need to go to God and get forgiveness for their sins. Remember, who can forgive sins but God alone? If you could forgive sins then they would not need Jesus, they would need you. They need Jesus.

So yes you can forgive them, but then they also need to go to God to seek forgiveness from Him for whatever they have done wrong. If you refuse to forgive others, if you are holding on to that sickness, God is not forgiving you. That is pretty heavy considering God has already forgiven you. He sent Jesus to die.

But if you are holding on to something, you are holding on to evil. You are holding on to the refusal to forgive others which is something God wants you to do. That in and of itself is a sin. Well if you are constantly harboring sin, how could God forgive you? Because every time you get forgiveness you are just sinning, right?

Again forgive. Sin just happens so much that unless you truly let it go and stop that sin, you cannot be forgiven because you are still living in sin. You need to break away from that way of life. Remember whoever is born into Christ, the old is gone, the new has come. They are a new creation. Their old way of life should be dead when they became a follower of Christ. You should give up those old ways.

Yes, we still struggle with sin, but we do not live in sin. If you are holding onto a grudge, refusing to forgive someone, you are willingly living in sin. You are living in your old way of life. You gotta let it go. You got to forgive them so you can also receive forgiveness. In that way, if you forgive other people, God will forgive you. If you fail to forgive others and hold a grudge, God will not forgive you. It is pretty heavy.

There might be a lot of talking amongst yourselves saying, this is not true, I am done listening to him. No, it is true. God wants you to go to Him with a clean heart. If you are holding a grudge or grasping tightly on some kind of pent-up anger towards someone, then you are only hurting yourself. You are hurting yourself.

You are choosing to live in a sinful nature. You are supposed to give that up when you come to Christ. Let it go. We have talked about the book, The Great Divorce. It is an awesome analogy I have used many times and I feel like it is a great time to use it.

There is a part in there where the spirit made it on the bus. He is going and he is trying to get into heaven, but he has got this pet lizard on his shoulder or it does not matter where he has got a pet lizard. The angel or the other spirit or whatever you choose to call him, the ghost is like, yeah you can come into heaven but you have to get rid of that.

Oh, I do not want to get rid of it, it is my friend. Nope, he cannot come in. You got to get rid of it. They go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Finally, all right, all right, I will get rid of it. He is like, here, yeah, we can get rid of it. Okay, yep, but now let me have it. Ah, no, I do not want you to have it. I will just let it go. No, no, no.

Back and forth, back and forth. Okay fine, here you can have it. All right, let me kill it. No, do not kill it. Then again back and forth, back and forth. Finally, he said, all right you can kill it and he kills it. It lets out a scream, all this stuff.

What does that mean? Is this some animal cruelty thing that I am going on? No, that was his sin that he was holding on to. He was living with a sinful nature and he said, all right I will let it go and he said, all right I will give it to you and then he said, fine you can kill it.

In the same way, you could be holding on to that sinful nature, you gotta let it go. Not only do you have to let it go, you got to give it to God and then you need to let God kill it and abolish it. It says that when we confess our sins to God and seek forgiveness, He keeps no record of those wrongs. They are blotted out.

He is not going to hold them against us. He is not going to use it for future ammunition. Love keeps no record of wrongs, it is done, it is gone, it has been erased. Yes, someday when you go up there, God is going to call to account all the stuff you did in your life and you better have an answer for it and your answer better be, Jesus paid for that for me and you better truly believe that.

But if you are holding on to something, some refusal to forgive, you are holding on to that sinful nature, you gotta let it go. You gotta give it to God. He has got to kill it. The old is gone, the new has come. You need to be a new creation, born again. If you are holding on to it, you are only hurting yourself, believe that.

Ephesians 4:31, ‘Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.’ Bitterness, rage, anger, get rid of all that. You do not need it. All that anger is not hurting the person you are angry with, it is hurting you. That spiritual sickness, that bitterness is probably hurting your friends and family around you because you are just bitter every time they are with you.

You are complaining about them. You are complaining about something you had. You are holding on to that grudge. You are refusing to let it go. They are like, man I do not like hanging out with them anymore. All they do is talk about the way they lost their money or the way they got cheated on. Let it go. Let it go, forgive them as Christ forgave you.

Colossians 3:13. I think we have read this verse every week. That means you should memorize it, because it is very very important. ‘Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.’

God forgave you. In order to receive that forgiveness, you gotta ask for it and you also need to let your sinful nature go. You gotta let go. You gotta forgive others. If you refuse to forgive other people, even if it is only one person, you are putting yourself under a curse.

It is your own curse. You are separating yourself from God. You are choosing to willfully live in sin and you are hurting yourself. You are holding on to this black dark sickness inside of you and it is going to eat away your soul. Let it go.

You might be saying, yeah well I was abused as a child or I was abused as an adult or I was in an abusive relationship and that just is not easy to let go. Of course, it is not easy. Think it was easy for God to have His son die for the person who abused you? No way.

You think it was easy for Jesus to go through that crucifixion knowing that He was dying for that person or knowing that He was dying period or knowing that He was going through that for everyone? Of course, it was not easy. It was not easy for God, it was not easy for Jesus. It is not going to be easy for you, but guess what, their love made it worth it. You need to have that.

Maybe you obviously are not going to love the person who wronged you, but you should. I know that might be hard to grasp, but it is a different kind of love. It is a love, like let it go out of love, not because you love them and you want to serve them and please them, etc.

If you cannot go there, then do it out of love for God and out of love for those around you that you do love, your friends, your family. Because holding on to that is hurting yourself and you got to love yourself. If you do not love yourself, other people might not either.

God will. You say, yeah your parents will, they have to. Your siblings will, they have to, they do not have to. I mean if you went through abuse, maybe your parents did not love you. This world is complicated, there is one thing that is simple, you gotta love God.

Do everything you do out of love for Him. Forgive others because you love Jesus, because that is what He would want you to do. Then receive forgiveness yourself. If you are holding on to that, you are not allowing Him to forgive you.

You are saying, yes I want to accept that gift, I believe in you Jesus but I am not willing to let go of everything. God is like, well if you do not completely let go of everything, you cannot completely enter.

You are like, I got one foot in the pool but I am not willing to get the other foot off the dock or one foot on the boat and one foot on the dock. Guess what, the boat starts to leave, you better make a commitment. You are either going to stay in sin or you are going to get on and go with God. Otherwise, you are falling into the abyss. You are gonna get wet.

What are you gonna do? Let it go. Why would you want to be right there on the dock all the time? Let go, get on, go with God. Let Him forgive you. He sent His son to die for you. He wants to forgive you. Jesus wants to forgive you. He says I died for you. What do we say all the time in real life, in this worldly life or in movies when someone dies or gives their life? Someone always says, do not let their death be in vain. Do not let their death be meaningless or what did they die for?

If we give up now, Jesus died for a reason. He died for you, so you could be forgiven and if you hold on to your bitterness and anger and refuse to forgive others, then you are kind of negating the reason Jesus died.

Do not let that happen. He died for you, make sure He really did accept it. Do not squander that gift by refusing to forgive. Forgive others and then ask God to forgive you. Now you might say, yeah well, I have forgiven other people so many times. Is enough enough? Enough is never enough when it comes to forgiveness.

Matthew 18 verses 21 and 22, ‘Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Seven times?’ Thinking seven is a lot. I mean seven times someone wrongs me. There is a saying, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The point is if you are fooled once, all right, fine. If you are fooled again, you better learn. Fooled a third time, now you are in big trouble.

So Peter says, hey seven times? Well if you have not learned by the seventh time that this person is not where you should be hanging around, then that is a problem. Now maybe you cannot get out of that situation, like a child or if you are in an abusive relationship sure or whatever the circumstance is, but the point is if it keeps happening you gotta get away. You gotta get away. It is not healthy.

Peter says up to seven times? Jesus says, ‘I tell you not seven.’ and Peter is thinking, all right, good, maybe only like two, and then I can be done with them. Jesus says, ‘But 70 times 7.’ That is a lot of times. Jesus is meaning hey there is no limit to forgiveness. You keep forgiving all the time no matter what happens. Always forgive. Always let it go.

Luke 17:3 and 4, ‘So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times comes back to you and says I repent, forgive him.’ Always forgive.

Now you say it might be really hard to do that. Yes, it is. We have talked about that, it might be really hard. One thing that might help you make it easier is if you look at them and remember, hey it might not be them that is sinning, it could be that little lizard on their shoulder.

Now I am not saying you are going to blame it on something else, but there is a reason that when we come to Christ, the old is gone and the new has come. We are a new creation. It is because then we become dead to the world. As we are living in this world, we are children of the devil. We might not have control over what we are doing. We might not know right from wrong and so if someone is continually sinning they may not know any better.

You say yeah, they have been taught right from wrong and they are choosing to do wrong. Yes, but they could be under the control of this world or the devil. They have not been set free yet and so it might make it easier for you to forgive them when they cannot help it. Forgive them and then make sure they can help it and bring them to Christ. Change their life and allow them to live for God as a new creation.

Now you say, well this is all crazy, how do we know? Well Romans chapter 7 verses 14 to 17, it is a pretty good series of verses. We will start in 14, ‘We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.’ That is us humans. ‘I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. If I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good as it is. It is no longer myself who does it, it is the sin living in me.’

This is the apostle Paul telling us this. Basically what he is saying is, even after he came to Christ, he knows what he should be doing but sometimes he still slips up and sins. He knows that is not what he should do, but it is the sin that is still in him that is doing it.

Think if someone does not have that, they do not know the sin that is living in them is fully living in them. There is no battle because the sin has taken over. It might make it easier for you to forgive if you grasp that.

Then even if someone does know the difference, they are a follower of Christ, you can still forgive them because it is the sin in them that does it. Now that does not mean we should not be taking responsibility for our actions. We definitely should. This is on a forgiveness side, forgive because God forgave you and forgive so you can be forgiven.

Let’s pray. Lord Jesus thank you so much for this message, this great sermon series about forgiveness. I ask that it would reach more people. That it would touch them and change their lives and that we could go through life in this world forgiving others and really trying hard to not do wrong.

That we would confess our sins. That we would let things go. That we would all live with this freedom about us. This weight off of us with no knives in our hands, without the sickness ruining our bodies and our souls.

Lord, that we would continue to pray for each other. That we would confess with each other. That we would not be ashamed, because guess what, we have all sinned. Lord that they would forgive as you forgave out of love. That they would seek you each and every day and seek your forgiveness. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Thanks again for being with us. Please if you have not, hit the subscribe button and follow us on social media. God bless.