Pastor Rich's sermon, Sunday, September 15, 2002

How do you want to be treat by God?

Stephen Watts is a Republican candidate running for governor of Wyoming. He has declared that his 1st act of business, if elected, will be to release from prison an attempted murderer. I don’t know about you but that certainly doesn’t sound like a good campaign strategy. What made Stephen Watts’ declaration even more astonishing is that the prisoner attempted to murder Stephen Watts. You heard me right. Stephen Watts wants to release a prisoner who attempted to kill him in 1982 when Mr. Watts was a Wyoming State Trooper.

Since the conviction Stephen has regularly visited the convict, Mark offering his forgiveness and making Mark his friend.

Why would Mr. Watts offer his assailant amnesty?

Proverbs 19:11 “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to
overlook an offense.”

How do you want to be treat by God? Well, how do you treat God and other people? It may sound like I am trying to avoid the question, but the answer to the first question is found in your answer to the latter.

How God will treat you is related to how you treat others. Forgiveness is dependent upon two things.

First, your sins and mine are forgiven only by the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

Second, your sins and mine are forgiven in accordance to your willingness to forgive. Look at the parable of the unforgiving debtor. His master to whom he was in debt for 1,000 talents forgave him. Yet he, who was owed 100 denari by a fellow servant refused to forgive him. When the master found out he questioned the debtor saying,

“You wicked servant I cancelled all the debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant
just as I had on you?”

"Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?”

Society in general has a real serious problem when it comes to forgiveness. We have regressed into the Old Testament, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. If you don’t believe me then you explain the hundreds of thousands of law suits each year. We are not seeking reconciliation when someone sins against us. We are seeking profit.

Have we forgotten what the Bible says,

“We have all fallen short of the glory of God.” “No one is without sin.”

We expect to be forgiven for our sin while at the same time we want revenge when someone sins against us.

What happened to, “forgive us our debts, AS we forgive our debtors?”

Perhaps our problem is that we fail to realize how complete God has forgiven us?

“I will not remember your sins, says the Lord,
though they were as red as crimson,
are now whiter than snow.”

If we are not downplaying our sins we are too often justifying our sins. We had good reason to do what I did after all… In comparison to… I have not broken any of the 10 commandments… Our ‘goodness’ has become a stumbling block. I am not saying we should all leave here feeling bad about ourselves; that we should leave here feeling guilty. Absolutely not, we should all leave absolutely grateful that we are God’s forgiven people. Our hearts should be lifted up, that once again we entered into God's gracious presence. Our minds should be determined to share that grace of God, particular God’s forgiving grace with others.

As the sign outside our church says, an unforgiving Christian is an oxymoron. When we don’t forgive others, we are wrongfully setting ourselves above God’s law of love. As we come to the Lord's Table, this table of grace and mercy. We come not because we have earned a place at this table. We come as Jesus’ invited guests. We come to remember He died on the cross for our sin. It was our lies, our lust, our dishonesty, our lack of patience, our thoughts of revenge, our hatred, our gossip, our sin that He washed away with His blood.

May we leave the table knowing the forgiving grace of God. May we leave the table an instrument of His amazing grace.