It’s the third sermon in our series on forgiveness, and on these last two Sundays, we’ve laid out two basic ideas. Number one, that God forgives, God forgives. And then number two, building on that, that forgiven people should forgive.

As a necessary consequence of being forgiven, God’s forgiven people should forgive others’ sins. Jesus was very clear on this in that parable that packed such a punch. The servant who owed 10,000 bags of gold, a debt almost incalculable, practically unrepayable, and yet his master, representing God, cancels the debt and absorbs it himself.

God forgives like this. He cancels the debt of billions of sins and asks for no repayment in return. But what did the servant in the parable do? How did the servant respond to this generosity? He found a fellow servant who owed him a much smaller debt, and he threw him in prison until he had paid the final penny.

By way of negative example, Jesus is saying forcibly that forgiving is not an option for the forgiven. Because if we don’t forgive, we have forgotten our own forgiveness. To not forgive as a Christian is to live with a kind of gospel amnesia.

(2:01 – 3:54)

So we seek a different path, a life of memory, forgiveness, and grace. And what I want us to see tonight is that this does not begin with the big-ticket sins. This does not begin with the huge things in your life, the handful of really big things that are tough to forgive.

But it starts with everyday tolerance, with a gracious attitude of spirit that lovingly overlooks the small offences of others. So let’s learn about this from the Bible. This is a biblical theme.

And we’re going to turn to three places this evening, three verses really. First of all, to Proverbs 10, Proverbs chapter 10, and to wisdom that Solomon shared with his son, and to any wise person who will heed it. Proverbs 10 and verse 12.

Proverbs 10, verse 12. Solomon says, hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs. The heart, says Solomon, drives everything.

The heart drives everything. The hating heart stirs up conflict. When hatred is in the mix, small offences are magnified and made into a great drama.

(3:56 – 4:32)

You see this, don’t you, in workplaces, families, and even in churches. That very often the blow-ups can be over very little things, very little matters actually. But under the surface, there is animosity.

Under the surface, there is a hatred of heart between people. And so a conflict is stirred up where it needn’t have been. On the other hand, the heart of love covers over wrong, says Solomon by contrast.

(4:33 – 5:02)

This is the attitude of the loving mother who knows fine well that her child misbehaves, but don’t expect her not to love her son. Don’t expect her not to forgive her little boy a hundred times every day, because the heart drives the response. And if there is love in the heart, then there is a leaning towards grace.

(5:04 – 5:21)

We touched on this somewhat last week. We need to forgive one another from the heart. If we just focus on the action and the conflict resolution stuff, and we ignore the heart, then we’re missing really the iceberg hiding under the surface.

(5:23 – 6:25)

So the heart drives everything, and in the case of love, the heart of love covers all wrongs. So this is what love does. Love covers over sin in a vast and limitless sort of way, time and time and time again.

It’s the same vastness that Jesus spoke of and echoes in his 70 times seven comment in Matthew 18. When Peter came with that question, we thought of it last week, how many times? And he thought he was giving a generous answer when he suggested seven times a day. I discovered just this week that the rabbis round about the time of Jesus, certainly by a few hundred years after, they thought that three times a day was the maximum number you should forgive someone.

(6:26 – 7:08)

Forgive them for three times, and on the fourth, don’t forgive. So Peter probably thought in that thinking environment that he was being generous. He was going all out.

What about seven times, says Peter? But Jesus doesn’t say three or even seven. He says, keep going. He says what Solomon said, which is to not count the number of times which you’ve been sinned against, but to live with a no cap limit on your forgiveness.

(7:11 – 7:50)

Now, that might raise a whole number of questions, I do realise, when I state it that way without any caveats at all. But I want you to hold on to your questions just for a little while longer, at least till near the end of the sermon tonight. And until the end of this series, because we’re going to deal with a number of other topics that will help answer some of these questions.

Let’s just take this as it is for the time being. Let’s move forward to Proverbs 19. Proverbs 19, where Solomon returns to the theme of tolerant love.

(7:51 – 8:57)

Proverbs 19 verse 11. He says, a person’s wisdom yields patience. Let me just stop here for a second.

This means there’s a correlation between being wise and being patient. And there’s a correlation between being a fool and being impatient. Interesting, isn’t it? So, a person’s wisdom yields patience.

And this is the bit I want us to focus on. It is to one’s glory to overlook an offence. In chapter 10, the image was covering over sin.

And here the image is overlooking sin. The idea of passing over an offence or looking beyond an offence. You could focus on it, but you choose to look beyond it.

(8:59 – 10:24)

And who would do such a thing? Who would pass over sin and look beyond sin? Well, God Himself does such a thing. This is the very same word that is used on that famous night in Israel’s history, when the angel of death, God’s angel, passed over the homes of the Israelites. God passed over.

He looked beyond their homes, not because they weren’t guilty, but because He was gracious. And what God did so stunningly, we by imitation need to do reflectively in imitation of Him. In the human realm, it is gracious and wise and Godlike to overlook the offences of others.

Now, let me give you just an example of this. We see this from very early in the Bible. Some of you might be reading through Genesis in your Bible reading plans, and you might be going through that story of Jacob and Laban.

Quite a frustrating little story to read because Laban always seems to be mistreating Jacob. But Jacob in chapter 31 has a clear the air chat with Laban. They sort of have it out.

(10:25 – 11:04)

And one of the points that Jacob makes is that over the years of their relationship, Jacob had exercised the muscle of overlooking. Jacob speaks there of bearing the losses himself, accounting language we thought of this last week, bearing the losses himself that he could have brought to Laban and demanded of him. It wasn’t that Jacob looked past everything, but he had the wisdom and the graciousness to overlook much.

(11:05 – 13:15)

And Solomon says that when we do this, it is to our glory that we do this. And how counter-cultural is this thought? How against the values of our age, where people are encouraged to overlook nothing and to get even about absolutely everything, where my honour must always be protected, and where two pistols at dawn is the only response. No, says Solomon, there is a certain glory when you and I are gracious.

Yes, there is a glory in justice. Yes, there is a glory when justice is served and the bad guy gets his comeuppance at the end of the movie. But there is also a glory when grace is shown.

There is glory in the patient person. There is glory in the patient mother. There is glory in the patient spouse.

It’s not pathetic. It’s not weak to be patient. There’s glory in the friendship where it becomes a little too demanding when we stick with the friendship.

There’s a glory in that. There’s a glory in the patient church leader who doesn’t respond abrasively when frustrations come their way. It’s easy for us to wrongly think that all the glory is found in calling out every sin and never overlooking anything.

But the Bible says it is loving and wise to be tolerant. God, whose justice rises like the mighty mountains, is the same God who passes over a multitude of sins. How much wisdom we can mine from these verses.

(13:16 – 14:57)

And it’s not surprising, I guess then, that the New Testament builds upon this wisdom. I’d like us to turn finally, as we look at three passages, to 1 Peter chapter 4. 1 Peter chapter 4, where I almost certainly Peter has Proverbs at the front of his mind. See what you think.

I’m pretty sure Peter has been reading Proverbs when he says this. Chapter 4 of 1 Peter and verse 8. Verse 8 of chapter 4. Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins. Does that remind you of anything? It seems to me that this is a restatement of Proverbs 10 verse 12.

Love covers over all wrongs. Peter says here, above all, top priority, love deeply because such love covers over a multitude of sins. Again, the heart drives everything.

Love deeply or literally love at full stretch is the literal translation of the Greek. Love at full stretch. Because such a love is needed to frequently cover over sins.

(14:59 – 15:17)

Forgiveness is prolific in a church where love is present. And forgiveness is a rarity in a church where love is absent. And so, what this is saying, when you put it all together, is that there is a culture among the wise.

(15:19 – 20:32)

And therefore, there is a culture within the church that should generally be one of gracious tolerance. Like our merciful father, we should be slow to anger and abounding in love. I like how one writer puts it.

He says, believers should have a sort of mutual immunity to petty offences. That’s good, isn’t it? Believers should have a mutual immunity to petty offences. I also think Tim Keller is right when he deduces from these verses about love covering over sins.

He says, it’s clear that there are plenty of times when we should not correct and not seek an apology, even when we are owed one. Plenty of times when we should not correct and not seek an apology, because we’re living out the wisdom and showing forth the glory of our gracious God. And think of this with me for just a moment, just very practically.

Think of how impractically intense life would be if we prosecuted every individual sin in one another. It would be a full-time job. You would be doing overtime with all of the confrontational meetings that you would be having every single day.

If it is true that we commit a multitude of sins, and I take it that that is true because that’s what Peter tells us, then it would be a full-time job, wouldn’t it? I dare say there are churches and workplaces and homes that have become increasingly intolerable to be in because every small sin is always prosecuted at great length and with enormous emotion. Every small thing needs an apology. Everything needs repentance.

Everything demands confrontation. Now, there is another extreme, a neglect of confrontation, which we will think about in a fortnight. That is also a problem.

That creates its own difficulties, but we’ll come to that in a fortnight. But what we’re speaking about here is an environment where we become a kind of what one writer calls a sin sleuth, a sin sleuth. We’re the Poirot police when it comes to sin, always pointing it out to our kids, always pointing it out to our spouse, always pointing it out to our fellow church member.

And the impact is exhausting and crippling in that sort of environment. Now, I don’t think this is necessarily true in Greenview, but there is a danger in every church if we choose the wrong path of having a kind of unhelpful prosecution of one another that completely disrails our mission. And you will see this in churches that are fracturing and dividing and where there are serious issues of relationship.

Those churches are not engaging in mission because they don’t have the energy for it. This is what, listen to what Fred Craddock says, not every emotional or psychic bruise can be given attention. Otherwise all the church’s energy for mission and witness would be burned up in damage control.

A church that is constantly fighting inwardly will never be taking the gospel outwardly. And so this is the wisdom and the glory of learning to overlook much of the time. So there we go, folks.

Let’s just be like this, or wait a minute, are there maybe a few questions that we’re asking? If you’re anything like me, you probably have at least one genuine question at this point, because yes, you get it that Christians should be like this, but you have a few what about questions as you try and square this with other things the Bible teaches. So yes, we cover over sins, but what about the idea of confronting sin? Proverbs itself speaks about this. Better is open rebuke than hidden love, it says.

(20:33 – 21:43)

Wounds from a friend can be trusted. Yes, love covers over a multitude of sins, but are there some sins that we shouldn’t cover over? The writer Tim Challey says this very thing. This is what he says, love covers over a multitude of sins, but love doesn’t always cover over a multitude of sins.

Yes, we should be patient and tolerant, but what about when there is serious sin and serious harm? Am I just meant to ignore it or be run over like a steamroller back and forth again and again? Is this what this means? I want to say very clearly that we are right to ask these questions. The Bible itself encourages us to balance covering over sins where possible and confronting sins where necessary. It encourages us to be slow to anger, but it doesn’t say never be angry.

(21:44 – 22:12)

It encourages a culture where sin is graciously overlooked, but it also tells us in some places that there needs to be rebuke and even church discipline. It’s not that 1 Peter 4, 8 is incorrect, it’s just that it’s not the only thing the Bible teaches. And I’m afraid that I can’t give you an easy formula when it comes to this, because this is about discernment and wisdom.

(22:12 – 24:50)

It’s about timing and harm and impact on the community. It’s about something we grow in as we grow in discernment. In the next sermon in a fortnight, we’ll talk about the steps of confrontation.

Without stealing the thunder of that sermon, I want to just throw out a few questions that you might want to ask when you’re thinking, should I cover over this sin or is this something a bit more serious? Here’s a few questions I think we should be asking. Number one, has the person actually sinned? Have they actually sinned? Or am I just disappointed because someone hasn’t done something the way that I would prefer? Secondly, how serious is the sin? How serious is it? Thirdly, how great is the harm of the sin to themselves, to other people, to the church’s reputation, to the gospel advance? Fourthly, does the person seem to be trapped in the sin? Are they caught in it, as Galatians 6.1 speaks about? Is it a pattern that they need help in escaping from a loving fellow Christian? And then fifthly, and maybe in one sense, the clearest one of all or the easiest one to analyse is, has the sin caused a breach in our relationship? Because whether the sin seems big or whether it seems little, if it is causing you to stop building a relationship with that person, if there’s now going to be an awkwardness or even an avoidance, then that sin is big enough for you to have to address it. So these are some of the questions I think we need to ask.

And it’s important that we ask them because I don’t want this sermon to be misunderstood or misheard. The general tolerance of Christians doesn’t mean that we sweep all sin under the rug. Indeed, if you have been on the receiving end of very harmful and serious sin and it hasn’t yet been addressed, then you should address it or seek help in addressing it if you feel you don’t have the courage to do so.

(24:52 – 25:13)

Maybe you’ve received the sin or the harm of another individual who’s not a Christian. Maybe it’s the sin of a fellow Christian, maybe a fellow Christian even in the church. And we can also distinguish between being hurt in the church and being hurt by the church.

(25:14 – 30:27)

Very sadly, but in another sense, thankfully, in recent years, there’s been more of a recognition of this, that the whole culture of a church, the whole leadership culture or a ministry culture within a particular segment of the church can become systematically ungodly in a way that isn’t easy to challenge. And I want to say that such serious sins should never be overlooked in God’s church in the name of covering over as someone cites Proverbs 10 or Proverbs 19 to you. And yet with that being said, we come back to the thrust of the sermon.

We come back to this mutual immunity to the petty, the small offences of others. And I want to finish on just a few practicalities before we come to communion. A few things that came to my mind, I hope these are biblical.

I hope they’re at least helpful. And I hope it’s just something for you to take away and reflect on. The first thing that just occurred to me was that overlooking sin actually means forgiving the little things in a kind of conscious way.

Sometimes people think they are covering over sin, but really what they are doing is building up a growing pile of grievances. They’re just getting more and more resentful as the small little pile of things builds up into a big mountainous pile. And even in these small things that we overlook, there needs to be that conscious and deliberate forgiving of the other person and not just putting it to the side in anger and frustration.

That’s not overlooking, because to overlook is to forgive even these seemingly smaller sins. So bear that in mind. Overlooking is an action of forgiveness, even if it’s over a seemingly small thing.

A second practical point is that if I am overlooking sin, I will not be talking to other people about that sin. There’s a kind of perverse way that people can sometimes feel like they’re keeping the peace, because they don’t confront the person, the perpetrator over the sin, and therefore they think, well, I’m not causing a conflict in the home or in the church or wherever it is, the workplace. But then they go and they chat to other people about it.

And they talk to other people, not the person who knows nothing about it, but to other people about how rubbish person so-and-so is. That is not overlooking sin. That is gossip.

We are encouraging one-to-one partners in the church. And I don’t know who it was that I heard or I read, but it just kind of struck me, because someone said, do not have a one-to-one gossip partner. Do not develop a one-to-one nursing bitterness partner.

And people can do that. Now, there is an appropriate way to support our friends when they’re struggling in relationships. I understand that.

Of course, there’s a place for that. Mainly that will be to direct them to go and speak to the person that they have the issue with and to pray for them that they will be gracious and gentle in the way that they confront. But be very wary of that.

That kind of, I’m not confronting lots of people, but I’m talking about them all over the place. I think this is a real issue in many, many churches today, where actually confrontation isn’t happening at the expense of discussion of people around churches. Thirdly, I think that confessing our own sins regularly and asking God to show us how much we have been forgiven is a very practical way to keep our hearts soft and tolerant to the wrongs of other people.

Because here’s the thing, if I’m looking in the mirror regularly and I’m seeing in my reflection, not the physical image, but the spiritual reality that, hey, it’s another day where there’s a huge big log in my eye. Because look at the size of all the sin that’s going on in my life that actually God forgives me of all the time. When I see that that log is in my own eye, then I will never be so quick to go around picking all the specks out of everyone else’s eye.

(30:28 – 30:45)

Now, if you read that statement of Jesus very carefully, He actually doesn’t say you shouldn’t go around helping other people pick the specks out. He doesn’t say you shouldn’t do it. But what He is saying is, do it as people who are dealing with your own sin.

(30:46 – 33:03)

Do it as someone who is not a hypocrite and who is not coming with a sense of moral superiority. Because the greatest sinner you know is the guy looking back at you in the mirror. So this is something I think really important.

I think, and I’ve been very challenged in this recently by a number of others who have been speaking on this too, that if I confess my sin more than I do, I think I would be way softer towards other people than I am. Number four, final thing, and we’re saying this really every week, but let’s remember the gospel. Let’s remember the gospel.

And this is another way the gospel is described, isn’t it? The covering thing that we do each day is a small earthly picture of what Christ has done for us decisively. Because when we sinned against Him times without number, He did not retaliate in kind. In incredible selfless love, Christ gave His own life and He shed His own blood to cover over my sin and to provide the way by which the judgement of God passes over my door and does not come through my door.

That’s the wonder of the cross, isn’t it? That’s the wonder of the cross. There is a pass over for us because of the blood of Jesus, the Lamb. Every single sin that you are able to look past is a pointer to the billions of sins that Christ has covered over and overlooked in your life.

And so a Christian should not only be thankful for this, but be a peculiar mix of tolerance and intolerance. Intolerant about our own sin and yet tolerant with the sins of others. Lovingly patient with others and yet lovingly confrontational where that is required.

(33:04 – 33:37)

We see the glory of justice and accountability, but surely in light of the cross, we also see the glory of tolerance and overlooking. Let us pray and ask for God’s help to grasp these things. Father, thank you this evening for your amazing, staggering, daily patience with us.

(33:38 – 33:57)

You are so long-suffering with us in our many, many sins. Sins of thought and attitude and action and words. We have a debt that we could not pay, but Christ paid it in full.

(33:58 – 34:22)

And we pray that something of the savour of that would come into our hearts afresh, that it would come then into our relationships. You know our hearts and you know our lives and you know that we find this so very hard to do, but we pray that you would increasingly change us more into the likeness of your Son. And it’s in Jesus’ name we pray.

Amen.

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