People are carrying a heavy load of anger, bitterness, and resentment. It’s a lot to carry, and it makes life a pretty miserable slog. Forgive for your sake. Forgive so you can be forgiven.

Transcript

–May 25-26, 2019

Pastor Joe Wittwer

Let it Go!

#4—Forgive everyone always…again

Introduction and offering:

ILL: Laina and I recently listened to Michelle Obama’s best-selling memoir, Becoming. It was a fascinating look at her life: born and raised on the Southside of Chicago, educated at Princeton and Harvard, a lawyer, and of course our First Lady. It’s a great story.

She talked about Donald Trump in 2011 propagating the “birther conspiracy”—the falsehood that Barak was not born in the US and was therefore not a US citizen. She said, “I can never forgive him for this.”

I winced when she said it. I understood the feeling. Some things can be very hurtful, and very hard to forgive. Have you ever felt this way? “I can never forgive that.” Most of us have. So what should we do when we feel like we can’t forgive? We’re talking about that this weekend and next.

Let’s start here:

How many of you have ever asked God for forgiveness? Me too. Every day. Self-reflection, self-examination and confession are a regular part of my time with God. I reflect on my day and confess my failures and short-comings to God and ask for His forgiveness. And I receive it.

I want to emphasize that I not only ask for forgiveness; I receive it! Jesus died to pay for all my sins. They are paid in full. I am fully forgiven because of Jesus. When I confess, I know I’m forgiven. I never wonder—I know. (Read this aloud together.)

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

When you confess your sin, what happens? God will forgive and purify you. Why? Because He is faithful and just. I never wonder—I know I’m forgiven.

As we’ll see in a moment, Jesus actually taught us to pray this way—to ask for forgiveness. One of the petitions in the Lord’s prayer is, “Forgive us our debts/sins.” Forgive me, Lord.

We’re going to read two familiar passages from the gospels where Jesus teaches about prayer and forgiveness. What He says is so radical, so scandalous that many Christians simply choose to ignore it. We live and act like Jesus didn’t say it, or at least like He really didn’t mean it. But He did say it, and He does mean it—and it can radically change your life! Here’s the first passage:

Mark 11:24–26 (p. 870). (Keep your tab finder here.)

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.

A little context. Jesus has just cursed a fig tree and it withered—a symbolic and prophetic act of judgment on fruitless Israel. But it was also an opportunity for Jesus to teach on faith and prayer and forgiveness. Verse 24 says we are to pray with faith, to believe that God hears and answers our prayers. And then Jesus adds one more Big Idea to our understanding of prayer. Look again at verse 25. When you pray, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father may forgive your sins. When you pray, forgive. We’re going to unpack that verse in just a moment.

Look back at your Bible. You see verse 26 is numbered, but not there. This is because it is not in the oldest and most reliable Greek manuscripts, so most scholars believe it was not in Mark’s original text, but was added later by a copyist. Here is what it says.

Mark 11:26 But if you do not forgive, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins.

Why would a copyist feel free to add this to verse 25? Because it sounds like what Jesus said in another very famous passage.

Matthew 6:6–15 (p. 831)

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in sec