1. "Our vision at Smyth Street Church is and continue will will continue to be we exist to inspire people to what? Follow Jesus. That's what we're we're gonna be about." [01:00:23] (16 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "As believers in Christ, Christian forgiveness is very different from secular forgiveness. Those are two different concepts. Secular forgiveness is based on human and merit or goodness it is moralist whereas christian forgiveness hear me clearly christian forgiveness is exclusively based on a response to the gospel to grace we forgive as he forgave us through the willing sacrifice of christ jesus." [01:13:59] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Your path to a healthy future must cross a bridge called forgiveness. And by the way, you will have to cross it many times. Many times. Peter asked Jesus a really interesting question. Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? How often do I need to cross the bridge called forgiveness?" [01:17:16] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "To forgive is to make a choice to suffer the cost of the offense. Can you say it with me out loud? To forgive is to make a choice to suffer the cost of the offense. In Desmond Tutu's book, you see the pain and the difficulty that they went through in reconciliation and healing as a nation. It was not easy. And he said, true reconciliation is not cheap. It cost God the death of his only begotten son." [01:24:33] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Forgiveness is not always instantaneous. Wham! I forgive you. Woo! I'm great. Wait, sometimes we have to forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive and what? And forgive." [01:31:32] (20 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "The moment you refuse to forgive someone you become a victim and a prisoner of that person in that situation. Can I say it again? The moment you refuse to forgive someone you become a victim of that person in that situation. They have a hold on you." [01:35:50] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "Our lack of mercy and forgiveness our lack of love for others affects the people around us. It affects our marriages. It affects our kids. It affects your kids. And your unforgiveness affects my kids. It affects all of us. It affects your friends. It affects the people you work with. It affects the people you study with. They look at that and they say What? That is not reflective. That does not inspire people to follow Jesus." [01:36:35] (37 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "The main point that we've tapped today is that we are to forgive because the Lord forgave us. And then it goes on to say read with me and over all these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity let the peace of Christ ruling in your hearts since you were called to peace and be thankful." [01:39:00] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

**Friendly and Open Environment**

Why not try it out?

All right, that's uh, Alpha's coming up. How many have ever taken Alpha before? Isn't it a great opportunity? So be taking those little cards on the way out. Yeah, clap away. Yeah, take those little cards. I already have some names that I'm praying about, and put your watch at 11:02. Every time, just take that moment and pray and invite to Alpha coming up.

All right, great.

As you know, for the past year and a half, the elders of our church and our church family have been prayerfully considering the selection of our next lead pastor. If you're officially a member of Smyth Street, in the past June, you would have or should have received a letter letting you know that the elders came to a decision to present Pastor Chad and Pastor Heidi Billington as our next co-lead pastors at Smyth Street Church. I will be stepping down in November.

Don't clap. That's just not an appropriate thing. Just no, no, no. I'll be stepping down as lead pastor, and they will be taking over at that time.

September 22nd at 6 p.m., we have a special information meeting. If you want to know a little bit about how we arrived at this, it's a special opportunity for you to kind of know the story and the progress and what it's going to look like. So you can come. All of you are invited to come, September 22nd at 6 p.m. I promise you I won't be long-winded. It'll be quite fast and unpainful.

What's the laugh about?

All right. Our vision at Smyth Street Church is and will continue to be: we exist to inspire people to what? Follow Jesus. That's what we're going to be about.

By the way, it's nice to have Pastor Chad and Heidi back. They were on some vacation. You know, welcome back. Stand up, guys.

Let me start with two stories, and then we'll jump into our subject a little bit today.

On February 9th, 2007, Chris Williams was on his way for ice cream with his wife, Michelle, who was pregnant, and their children who were in the back seat. It was evening, and it was just getting dark. Suddenly, he saw these lights coming at them at high speed. Chris tried to maneuver and get out of the way, but it was too late, and they were hit. They were T-boned very badly by another car. Chris was knocked out for a brief moment. Then he quickly came to, and he thought, "Well, I gotta check on my family." He leaned over to Michelle, his wife, felt her pulse, and realized immediately that she had passed away. She was hit on that side.

Then he turned back to the back seat and examined his two kids in the back, and both of them had passed away in the car: Anna and Benjamin. As he sat in the car, he felt immediately hopeless, totally helpless. What just happened to our family? But at that moment, he made a conscious decision to forgive whoever it was that was driving the other vehicle that hit their car.

After he was taken to the hospital that evening, he was told that the driver in the other car was 17-year-old Cameron White. Cameron was driving fast under the influence of alcohol and he smashed their car and ruined completely their family. Cameron was sentenced to a juvenile detention center until the age of 21. But not only did Chris forgive Cameron, but he went to the juvenile detention center and met with him. And they started a relationship, and they became friends. Cameron now tells this story. He's out, and he tells this story. He goes around telling this story about the perils of drinking and driving, especially to young people.

This incredible story of forgiveness is recorded in a book called *Let It Go*. Great book, a lot of people. I haven't completely read the book; I've just read portions of it. A few years later, it became known as a movie as well called *Just Let It Go*.

In 2006, a sexual assault survivor, Tanera Burke, coined the term "Me Too" to help women who had been similarly abused to speak out. A few years later, at first, it was pretty unknown. It was not known as a movement. But later, in 2017, the movement became viral, ignited by the revelations of Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual abuse of women.

During the first few months of the movement, many women came forward and felt free to announce and tell their stories about sexual harassment, abuse, and assault. Many have pointed out that this movement has had some positive effects and changes in the workplace and rules and how things are functioning, and increased support for abuse victims.

Inevitably, though, in the middle of this movement, the topic of forgiveness has come to the top. In December 22, 2017, Danielle Barron wrote an op-ed in the New York Times. The title of the article was "Should We Forgive Men Who Assault Us?" In her article, she concluded that she was not ready to forgive her assailant, but held on to the position that restitution made publicly as well as privately might move her to forgive.

In her article, there were all kinds of comments. As you can understand, people can write their comments in the article. Many of the comments were very, way less forgiving than her extending the possibility of forgiveness. One commenter in the article said to suggest that she forgive plays in the sickness of patriarchal, misogynistic, male supremacist, religious movements that blame women. That's quite a mouthful. And that forgiveness heals neither the body nor the mind.

"Let the criminal ask his gods, if there be any, for forgiveness. Instead of talking about victims who must forget, we should be talking about tattooing the words 'rapist' and 'sexual predator' on the foreheads of criminals. This would end the law and actually help make women and children safer."

Along the same lines and times, there's a strong resistance to the topic of forgiveness, and along that comes the whole what's known as cancel culture. Some people interested in the cancel culture just cut you; you're done, you're nobody, you're nothing. If you're on Facebook, they block you; that's it.

Recently, I read a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Bishop Desmond Tutu's book. I don't know if you've ever read it; it's *No Future Without Forgiveness*. It tells the story of how South Africa was healed after apartheid through truth and reconciliation, through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and an explicit Christian model of forgiveness and reconciliation.

By the way, it's a very hard book to read. It was very graphic. I actually had to skip some of it because it was so graphic, describing the brutal pain, the violence, the suffering, the incredible suffering caused by the South African conflict. Some of us know some of these stories; some of us have lived some of these stories. There are people present that have lived atrocities.

To forgive someone who scraped your car or to forgive the little boy that broke your front window with a baseball, that's fairly easy. But to forgive someone who has caused brutal pain to your village or to forgive somebody who sexually assaulted you or killed your family, that is a very different story.

Why should the injured bear the burden of forgiveness? How necessary is forgiveness? Is it becoming an antiquated, irrelevant concept of past religious thought, or is it a get-out-of-jail-free card for criminals?

So much to say about forgiveness that in one service you can do it.

Contradictions: the little two-year-old girl dies of cancer? Those are harsh questions, right? Hard things to deal with, and many people are angry at God.

We've been talking about growing a healthy spiritual garden. Our focus has been Colossians, and particularly Colossians chapter 3. It says in verse 12, which is the verse that we focused on last week, and this week we're going to focus a bit on these verses.

It says, here it is: "Therefore," and if you've been in the series with us, you know that Paul is talking about that we are called to a different standard, that we are called to a different level, that we are to live our life from a different perspective, from a different way of seeing the world.

He says, "Therefore, as God's chosen people," turn to someone and say, "You're chosen."

But the best one is the next one: "dearly loved." Now turn to them and say, "You're also dearly loved."

See, there's the whole thing. The hardest one is to look at somebody and say, "You're holy." Yeah, which is another word for saint, right? Saint John Bosco.

He says, "Therefore, because you are God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion."

Read it with me: "Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience."

And here it is, our topic for today: "Bear with each other, and if any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you."

And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts."

See, since as members of one body, we are one body, we are one body, we are one body, you are called to peace and be thankful.

As God's chosen people, forgive as the Lord forgave you.

See, here's the thing that we need to establish right away. As believers in Christ, Christian forgiveness is very different from secular forgiveness. Those are two different concepts.

Secular forgiveness is based on human merit or goodness; it is moralist. Whereas Christian forgiveness, hear me clearly, Christian forgiveness is exclusively based on a response to the gospel, to grace. We forgive as He forgave us through the willing sacrifice of Christ Jesus. We sang about it. That's the basis of our understanding as Christians of forgiveness.

You cannot argue the point that we're going to present this morning to people who do not accept that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. It is a concept you can talk about forgiveness in secular world discussions, but you cannot talk about the Christian concept of forgiveness because it's entirely based on the fact that God forgave you.

This is the message of the gospel. In Him, it says in Ephesians 1:7, "We have redemption through His blood and forgiveness of sins according to the richness of His grace."

Christ's destiny was the cross. His destiny was to die on the cross for your and my forgiveness. And the words on His lips, the last words on His lips before He said, "It is finished," those words were, "Father, forgive them."

Not great? I mean, He was being beat up and bruised, and in the middle of His anguish, hanging on a cross, hanging from nails, He says, "Father, forgive them."

Then Jesus, in His ministry, taught us to pray. You know the prayer. Say it with me: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." And what? "And forgive us our trespasses as..."

See, here's the interesting thing. There's only one condition. Only one condition to that prayer. And Jesus says it in the next verse, Matthew 6:15: "If you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses."

You can't be a follower of Jesus without forgiveness. You can't cultivate a healthy spiritual heart unless you have forgiveness.

Or as Desmond Tutu said, "There is no future without forgiveness."

Take this real serious. Here's what I want to say: Your path to a healthy future must cross a bridge called forgiveness. And by the way, you will have to cross it many times.

Peter asked Jesus a really interesting question: "Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? How often do I need to cross the bridge called forgiveness?"

And then he suggests, "As many as seven times?"

Now, gee, Peter's being really generous because he was raised with the instructions of the rabbis in the Talmud, which is the instructional documents of the rabbis. The rabbis taught that you had to forgive three times the same person.

Three times. And Peter, I'm going to go high: seven times. He's thinking, like, he's going to impress Jesus. "Wow, you're great."

And Jesus said, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times."

Now, Jesus is not giving a mathematical formula. You don't go, "Well, seventy..." Some translations, a different version says seventy times seven, and you do the multiplication: four hundred and ninety times in one day.

You try it sometime. I mean, you really have to have a bad dude beside you that you have to forgive him four hundred and ninety times in one day. You think after a while, you say, "I don't want to talk to you anymore."

Jesus is expressing an exaggeration, a hyperbole to show the extent. What He's saying is, "No, no, no. Your forgiveness has to surpass the possible."

If you're counting, you're missing the point. Jesus uses exaggeration, hyperbole quite often to demonstrate the extreme of something.

Then He tells this parable, this incredible parable that talks to us about forgiveness.

And here's what it says: "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wishes to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents."

So we know who the king is. The king, in the context of our faith, is Jesus. And the servants are all of us who call ourselves servants of Jesus Christ.

Ten thousand talents is an unrealistic hyperbole sum of money. In fact, the word here, "maria," is a Greek word for the word ten thousand, and it was the top number that the Greek language had.

Top number they had. There was no other number higher at the time of Jesus. Now, an average salary was a talent a year. So imagine ten thousand talents. What kind of a debt would that be? It would be completely, to the hearers, it would be like, "Whoa! That is an exorbitant amount. That is an infinite amount of debt."

And so He's telling them that the debt owed was great. How many know He's talking about, you're in my debt?

And then it goes on and says, "And since he could not pay," wow! That's not surprising. The master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had in payment be made. That was the custom of the day. Jesus is using the custom of the day.

If somebody owed something, they were sold, and the whole them and their family became slaves. Jesus is telling the story in the context of their culture.

And He goes on to say, "So the servant fell on his knees and implored him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.'"

Oh yeah, sure you will. You can't pay that. But out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave his massive debt.

So every serious student of scripture would know that this is talking about the infinite grace and forgiveness of Almighty God.

We used to often sing, we don't sing it as much now, but "He paid a debt he did not owe. I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away." How many remember that song?

And now I sing a brand new song, "Amazing Grace."

The master of the servant, it says, released him and forgave him of the debt.

So here's my question: Who bears the cost of the debt? Talk to me. I mean, who's out the money? Who bore the cost of our sins? Jesus.

Who bore our sins on the cross?

Forgiveness, guys, here, listen to me carefully. Forgiveness is not easy. It is not cheap. Always remember that.

To say to someone, "I forgive you," don't be surprised if it hurts. It's not cheap. Forgiveness is hard.

Oh, well, you know, you scraped my car. Maybe that's not too hard. But you did something very bad to me. That becomes hard. Hard to receive.

Notice the servant said, "I'll pay you." Hard to receive forgiveness and hard to give.

Hear me very carefully. To forgive is to make a choice to suffer the cost of the offense.

Can you say it with me out loud? "To forgive is to make a choice to suffer the cost of the offense."

In Desmond Tutu's book, you see the pain and the difficulty that they went through in reconciliation and healing as a nation. It was not easy. And he said, true reconciliation is not cheap. It cost God the death of His only begotten Son.

To retaliate, on the other hand, is to demand payments, to seek retribution, to seek consequences, payback, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

Gandhi said, "If we do eye for eye, tooth for tooth, we'll end up being all blind and all toothless."

You want retribution, and if you can't get it, you find ways. You're getting... you tell somebody, "You're not getting off scot-free. I want to tell everybody about you. I'll block you on Facebook. I'll never speak to you again. I hope she rots in hell. You will never get a job in Canada as long as I'm alive. I will chase you and I will tell everybody about you."

It's revenge. It's retaliation. Sometimes it comes in the form of a demand for an apology.

You know, I want you to understand I'm not against apology. But I just want you to know the word "apology" does not exist in the Bible. There is no such word in the Bible.

Johnny's at school, and he calls Susie a nasty, nasty thing. And she bawls and cries and she goes to the teacher, and the teacher says, "What did he say?" And she calls her parents. Johnny's parents, and says, "You know that Johnny called Susie the same?"

And the parents, when they get home, they say, "You're going to go and you are going to do what? Apologize."

So she drags Johnny, and Johnny's going, "Do it." And Johnny goes, "I'm sorry."

What is that? That's punishment. That's punitive.

Now, I'm not against apologies. It looks like you're taking a hard fall. My wife said, "It's a good thing they didn't call 911. They would have traced my phone."

It's all good.

The goal of punishment in scripture is shalom peace.

I'm sorry, I said that wrong. I got distracted. The goal of forgiveness in the Bible is shalom peace. It is harmony. It is pursuing community relationship.

It requires confession of wrong. It's not just, "I'm sorry." It's not that. It's, "I was wrong in what I did." And repent for what you were doing. And state it.

The Bible says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all what?"

So you got to call it what it is. Any form of retaliation is contrary to Christ in the gospel.

We often have wrong concepts of forgiveness. Let me just run through these real quick. I see my time is going. Can you give me a few more minutes?

Forgiveness is not the same as forgetting. How many discovered that? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to press delete from my brain and it just goes? There's no such button in your brain. Only God can forget.

Sometimes offenses affect us very deeply, and it takes time to heal the memory and the pain. Chris Williams, I read some of his stuff, and he said many times over the pain of losing his wife and kids kept coming up, and he had to again decide to forgive.

Forgiveness is not reconciliation. It should lead us to reconciliation. It takes two people to reconcile, and sometimes there is no reconciliation without all the factors in place.

Chris Williams was able to reconcile with Cameron White because in that case, there was a willingness on both sides.

Forgiveness is not condoning. To forgive someone does not mean that we are excusing the inappropriate and hurtful behavior. Drinking and driving and hitting your car is not something that you're going, "That's okay."

No, it isn't. We minimize sometimes offenses. And sometimes we say things that, "God, no big deal."

It is a big deal. How many know sometimes it is a big deal, and then it's hurtful, but we choose to forgive, suffer the cost of the offense.

In the parable, the offense was not minimized. In fact, Jesus exaggerates to show the great offense.

Forgiveness is not the same as pardoning. To pardon is to release the offender from the consequences of his or her actions. Only the appropriate authorities can do that: God or a judge.

Cameron White had to pay for his crime.

Forgiveness is not always instantaneous. Wham! I forgive you. Woo! I'm great.

Wait, sometimes we have to forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive and what? And forgive.

So I close with this: Why is forgiveness so important to us?

Back to the story. So when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. You know what that is? That's 1% of what you owe.

And seized him, and he began to choke him. I better not get animated; it'll call the...

Began to choke him. "Pay what you owe."

Can you imagine? "Pay what you owe."

So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, "Have mercy on me."

How much? Does that remind you of someone? Him.

"Have mercy on me, and I will pay you."

He refused and went and put him in prison. He put him where? In prison. Until he should pay the debt.

When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were groaning. They were greatly distressed. And they went and reported to their master all that had taken place.

Then the master summoned him and said, "Come here."

And he said this: "You wicked..." In the Bible, "You wicked servant. I forgave you all the debt because you pleaded with me. And should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had had mercy on you?"

That, again, is the crux of the Christian mentality. That is the message of forgiveness.

Christ's forgiveness is based on God's merciful forgiveness to us. The main point of the whole parable is God giving His grace towards us.

Is God giving His bountiful, sacrificial forgiveness that inspires us to come back and forgive others who do us harm? That is the core of what forgiveness for a Christian is. That is the core of what it means to be a Christian.

So listen to what happens. And in anger, who is the master? In anger. Isn't that pretty awesome? And I'm using the word awesome as amazing or huge.

That Jesus gets angry. He says He does. He delivered him to the jailers.

Notice He put his buddy in jail, and now Jesus delivers him to the jailers. You get what you sow.

Until he should pay his debt.

"So also my Heavenly Father..." Read this last line with you: "So also my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."

That's very serious, guys. Many would agree that's pretty serious stuff.

Here are some of the consequences, and I'm landing the plane.

The father is angry. "You wicked servant." The wickedness does not escape unpunished. It's not a get-out-of-jail-free. There's an accountability.

If you had repented and you had forgiven, then there would have been forgiveness for you. But now there are consequences.

Number two, you become a prisoner. Your unforgiveness imprisons you emotionally, spiritually, and even physically.

The moment you refuse to forgive someone, you become a victim and a prisoner of that person in that situation.

Can I say it again? The moment you refuse to forgive someone, you become a victim of that person in that situation. They have a hold on you.

And here's the last point that I think is very important: Your testimony as a Christian will be tarnished.

Not only does it seriously affect you, but it affects others. Jesus tells us that the others were greatly distressed.

What? Did you see that? Our lack of mercy and forgiveness, our lack of love for others affects the people around us.

It affects our marriages. It affects our kids. It affects your kids. And your unforgiveness affects my kids. It affects all of us.

It affects your friends. It affects the people you work with. It affects the people you study with. They look at that and they say, "What? That is not reflective. That does not inspire people to follow Jesus."

They don't see Jesus. They only see you doing what everybody else does.

How many have ever been hurt? I've been hurt. You think pastors don't get hurt? I've had a lot of hurts over 34 years of being a pastor in this church. And I've had to forgive many times.

And every so often, it comes back up again. I've caught myself in tears, privately in tears, wanting... and God says, "Hello. Let's talk."

Let's close and read it together.

Colossians 3:12: "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other."

Stop right there. See who bore the debt? You remember who bore the debt?

And he's telling us that forgiveness, you bear the debt.

"Bear with one another."

And read with me: "And forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

There's the key.

The subject of forgiveness, it's a big subject. And we've only tapped the subject.

The main point that we've tapped today is that we are to forgive because the Lord forgave us.

And then it goes on to say, read with me: "And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts since you were called to peace and be thankful."

Stand with me. Can we sing "I'm Forgiven"?

Sing with us: "Amazing Love."

I know for some of you it's tough. It's tough to even face this subject.

We're going to sing it again: "I'm Forgiven because you were forsaken. I'm alive in amazing love."

Can we sing it again?

"I'm Forgiven, accepted. You were condemned. I'm alive and well because..."

Here it is: "Amazing Love."

You, who are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who loved us so much that you gave your only Son to bear our burden, to bear our shame, to bear our sin, and you rose from the dead to give us new life.

Teach us to live like you taught us to live. Teach us to love like you taught us to love. Teach us to have compassion like you had compassion. Teach us to forgive the way you gave us a model to forgive.

May we be people who inspire people to look to Jesus and follow Him.

In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

God bless you.