Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Motives for Forgiveness Part 1. He will be reading out of Philemon 1:19-21.

It is Jesus who took our place. We should have been on that cross and we should have endured that suffering and the wrath of God should have been poured out upon us, but Jesus took our place and he did it, why? Because he loves you, because he wants to reach you. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and we are broadcasting the gospel around the world and we are grateful that you are with us in sharing these wonderful truths.

Join us as we are in the Book of Philemon today and we are going to study the motives for forgiveness, a very powerful truth. Join me as we study together. Your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in the Book of Philemon.

Several weeks ago, our church began a study in this very small book, often referred to as a letter. And I know it’s sometimes hard to maybe find a certain book in the Bible, and so just to help you out, it’s in the New Testament and it’s right before the Book of Hebrews. If you go to the back of your Bible, kind of just track backwards and you’ll see Philemon right before Hebrews and you’ll be able to follow along with us today.

Philemon chapter one and verse 19 through 21. The Bible says, I, Paul, am writing with my own hand. I will repay, not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides.

Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say.

The church at its core is meant to be a community that is united in faith, purpose, and love. Yet amidst diverse preferences and personalities and backgrounds, achieving true unity in the church can feel like an uphill battle. Many times there are divisions, disagreements, and these things are sometimes inevitable, but they can threaten the very fabric of a church family.

So how do we navigate the complexities and cultivate a sense of unity within the church family? There is one key word and it is the theme of this book. It is the word forgiveness. I want you to remember that the book of Philemon is about forgiveness and we have been learning about forgiveness, what that is, what it’s not, why is it that some people forgive and others don’t, and why is it so difficult for us to forgive? Well, I wanna talk today about the motives for forgiveness.

As the apostle is writing this letter, it is one of the shortest letters or books in the Bible, and the letter is suggesting that the apostle is writing it from being in prison or in chains, and he is trying to help Onesimus to understand his responsibility to be able to seek forgiveness from Philemon. And not only is he appealing to Onesimus to be a person who would own up to his sin, but to be willing to have Philemon come to that moment where he is willing to forgive Onesimus. Onesimus is a slave.

In the Roman culture, as we have mentioned to you many times, slavery was pretty much a part of the culture. And I will address the issue of slavery and I will teach on that later, but I want you to just put that aside but understand the context of this letter, that as Onesimus was a slave, he had taken some money and property from Philemon and he ran away. Philemon is upset.

He is frustrated. Onesimus, the runaway slave who had stolen money and property, runs into the apostle. Most likely, he got in trouble himself and was thrown into jail right next to the apostle Paul.

Why was Paul in prison? Well, it was because he was preaching and teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so those who were hearing the apostle were upset that he was teaching the gospel, so they threw him into jail. Wherever the apostle went, it was either a great revival or there was a great riot.

And unfortunately, many times, people were upset at the apostle for teaching the truth of Jesus Christ. So Onesimus and the apostle have met together and what does the apostle do? Rather than whining, complaining, and crying about his circumstances under the sovereign hand of God, Onesimus is encountering the apostle who is bold, who is grateful, who is full of joy, and who is ready to share Christ with this individual named Onesimus. And so in the process of sharing Christ with him in perhaps a very difficult circumstance, Onesimus responds to the gospel.

He receives Jesus Christ as his savior. He repents of his sin and he turns away from the world and turns towards Christ and becomes a devoted follower. In this process, the apostle is discipling Onesimus and he learns about the fact that Onesimus had stolen property and money from Philemon.

And so the apostle is saying, hey, part of the evidence of your repentance, part of the fruit of your true salvation is that you need to make it right with Philemon. And of course, Onesimus is like, there’s no way. He will probably have me killed or I will have to endure so much suffering if I ever went back.

So the apostle begins to write under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, this letter, this book, if you will, to Philemon. And he begins to make the case to Philemon that he should forgive Onesimus. Onesimus is a believer now.

He is a follower of Christ. And what the apostle wants Philemon to do is to forgive Onesimus. In this, we learn some great principles about forgiveness.

We learn how you and I, in all of our relationships, need to practice forgiveness. Now, refusing to forgive in your life will only imprison you. And when you choose that you will not forgive, you will be stuck in your past.

And unforgiving people are always keeping their pain alive. And therefore, they are, as we have often heard, they are hurting people who are hurting people. And you sometimes wonder, what’s the matter with that person? What is it that makes them such a divisive person, a hateful person, a person who wants to hurt so many other people? What is it that causes them to throw nuclear bombs into our family and our relationships? I guarantee you it is because there are some unaddressed issues in their life, and they are holding on to some things in their heart that they have never got to the point where they have been able to forgive people in their life.

Choosing not to forgive is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. But the truth is, within you, you are slowly and surely dying. So as we’ve been learning about forgiveness, we talked about the steps of forgiveness.

Today, I wanna talk to you about the motivation for forgiveness. And I want you to follow along with me, take notes, because I know you don’t need it, but you have a friend that needs it, amen? And so make sure you tell your friend. And in the process of telling your friend, you may pick up a few things that will be a blessing to you.

But the first reason that we should be a forgiving people is because we have an unpayable debt. Now, I want you to jump back with me to verse 19. And I want you to see the apostle says, I’m writing with my own hand.

Now, why would the apostle say that? Many times, because of some of his physical challenges that he had, he had a lot of ailments with his eyes, and he talks about that in Galatians and the book of Colossians a little bit. But he would dictate his letters. And so there were those that would write that.

But how passionate is the apostle about this? He is letting Philemon know, I am writing this with my own hand. You can trust what I’m saying, Philemon. I will repay.

Not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides. The apostle is introducing something that Philemon already understands. And that is that the apostle was saying, I will cover all that Philemon owes you.

Onesimus was unable to repay Philemon. He could not pay him back. He did not have the means.

He did not have the ability to pay him back. And so when you jump back to verse 18, look at verse 18 again, he says, if he has wronged you or owes you anything, the apostle says, put that on my account. I will repay.

I’ll repay you. So he is, the apostle is taking responsibility for the debt that he owes, meaning not that the apostle owes, but what Onesimus owes to Philemon. Why would the apostle use these kind of terminologies? Because that’s what forgiveness is.

It is a debt that we owe, meaning this, we offend somebody, we hurt somebody, we disappoint somebody, and we are in a sense indebted to them. And that’s what the Bible teaches us when we learn the Lord’s Prayer. We are taught to ask the Lord to forgive us of our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us, reminding us always that you cannot give what you do not have.

If you are not consistently and constantly in prayer with the Lord under the fountain, receiving his forgiveness because of the debt that you owe to God, you will never be in a position to be able to be a forgiving person to others because you cannot give what you do not have. And if your forgiveness tank is low, then you need to get back to the Lord and recognize that you have an unpayable debt, just like Onesimus had an unpayable debt. He could never repay Philemon.

So the apostle Paul steps in in a huge way, and he says, charge that to my account. And he says, I want you to know that I will repay you, Philemon. And this is so true in each of our hearts.

And I want you to think a little bit deeper about forgiveness, because most of us, the reason that we do not forgive is because it’s based upon our emotions, it’s based upon our feelings. We’ve never engaged the mind in relating to learning how to forgive. We have this emotion, we have this feeling in our heart, and so we throw up the walls, and we begin to let that bitterness take root in our heart and to poison us, destroy us.

But here the apostle teaches us that we need to think about this deeper. And we need to understand that when it comes to our relationship with God Almighty, that we are separated from God because of our sin. And we have a sentence upon us because of our sin, and that there isn’t any person who is under the sound of my voice that is worthy of God forgiving them.

There is no person on this planet that can say, hey, I am such a great person, it’s no wonder that God would forgive me. Because the Bible teaches us very clearly that our righteousness is as filthy rags. That means simply this, that the best of Mike Sanders and the best of you is nothing more than a filthy rag in the presence of God.

Now, you say, there’s no way, I’m so much better. Here’s the thing, you’re trying to compare your righteousness, your goodness, your acts of benevolence to the other acts of benevolence or righteousness. You’re comparing people with people.

And you look around and you say, hey, I’m better than that person, and I know where they were, and I know what they do, and I know how they talk, and therefore you begin to pound your chest, and you’re like the man that Jesus talked about who went to the temple, and he was at the altar of God, and he looked up to heaven, and he looked across the altar, and he said, God, I’m glad I’m not like that person over there, and he began to brag about all that he did for God. He tithed, he helped the poor, he was engaged and active in the temple, but there was another guy across the altar who was on his knees, and he was so humbled and humiliated by his sins, he wouldn’t even look up to God. And he was praying for God to forgive him, and here’s what Jesus said, and this is what rocked the world of the Pharisees.

He said, the man on his knees was more justified than the man standing bragging about how good he is before God. And what I want you to recognize at the heart of your motivation of forgiving others is the forgiveness that you have received from Jesus Christ. You have a debt, all of us do, I’m not just pointing fingers, all of us have a debt of sin that could never be repaid by ourselves.

There isn’t enough goodness in your life, and there isn’t enough activity in your life that could ever forgive your sins before a holy and righteous God. It is Jesus who stood up for us. It is Jesus who stood in for us.

It is Jesus who took our place. We should have been on that cross, and we should have endured that suffering, and the wrath of God should have been poured out upon us, but Jesus took our place, and he did it, why? Because he loves you, because he wants to reach you. What kind of love, if people doubt that God loves them, I tell them, get to the cross, because when you get to the cross, you see not only the holiness of God, but you see the love of God that he has, and the passion that he would give his very Son for you and for me, so that our sins could be forgiven.

The Bible says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus took on the debt of sinners, and he paid it full on the cross. Think about that.

You see, that’s why I’m a big believer that once God forgives you of your sins, that he has taken care of the full debt. I don’t believe that I can come in and help God with the debt. I don’t believe that I can add and do anything better with the debt.

I believe that Christ’s payment for my sin was more than sufficient on the cross. And my motivation for holiness is not that I’m trying to pay back Jesus. My motivation for holiness is not that I’m trying to forever pay back God for my sins, but my motivation is an expression of gratitude to Jesus, and a gratitude to God that my sins have been washed away.

And the Bible says that my sins are cast as far as the east is from the west to be remembered no more. Psalm 103, verse 12, as far as the east is from the west. Can God’s people say amen? Amen.

So we are thankful today that Jesus triumphed over death, he triumphed over sin, he triumphed over Satan, and he reached out to me for salvation. And so my life is not a life of trying to pay back. That debt has been paid by Jesus Christ.

Now this is profound because we must realize how fully we have been freed from our sin. We must realize how much God has done for us to wipe away the guilt and to shake off the shame and to leave behind all the negativity and the sinfulness in our life. And now God has given us a brand new start in Christ.

And when you come to grips with that, that you have a debt that could never be paid apart from Jesus Christ, that becomes a motivation in your heart to forgive other people. Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer, and forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors. Now the motive for forgiving sin is in the heart of God for who he is.

And he forgives us not because any of us deserve it or that somehow we earned it, but he forgives us because he loves us. Now, here we are. And we are very much like the story that Jesus told.

And he told about a man who was indebted to a king and this king demanded that he pay his debts. And the man went before the king, pleaded for forgiveness, asked for grace and asked him that he would forgive him of his debt. And the king generously, kindly, compassionately forgave this man of his debt.

And then the man went out and he began to demand all the people that were indebted to him to pay up. And he was harsh, he was hateful, he was rude, and he refused to forgive anybody’s debt as people could not pay their debt to him. The word got to the king and the king was furious because this man had received so much, but gave so little.

This man had received so much forgiveness in that his debt, which was greater than all that people owed him. And he was forgiven of that debt and his slate was wiped clean. And now he had a new start with the king, but he refused to do it to others.

He refused to show forgiveness to others. Hear me, my friends, the king was angry and had this man thrown into prison because he would not show the kindness and the grace that the king had bestowed upon him. I need you to think deeper than your emotions about forgiveness.

I need you to understand that when a debt is incurred, that we must remember when we are offended, when we are hurt, when we are disappointed, that we have a responsibility because of what we have received. That for two reasons of what we have received, we have received this forgiveness and therefore we have a responsibility to forgive others. And that when we choose to withhold that forgiveness, we are reflecting something that is untrue of our God.

When you choose not to forgive, you are shaming the name of Jesus Christ who forgave you so much. You are now letting everybody know in your relationships and in your life that your God is not a forgiving God and that your God works on the basis of works and that you must earn your forgiveness with God. When you know in your heart that God has generously paid your debt, he has wiped it away, he has given you a brand new start, but yet what you’re projecting in all of your relationships, if you don’t live a perfect life, then I will have a bitter spirit towards you forever and ever.

So our motive for forgiving others, it goes deeper than our feelings. We recognize that we have an unpayable debt. We recognize that people have an unpayable debt to us.

There are times that people will hurt you, even in the family of God. There are times within the people of God that we are so deeply offended and hurt. Let me just give you a newsflash.

Sometimes the people that are closest to you will hurt you the most. And the reason that they hurt so much and it’s the most is because you trust so much. Your heart is so open to fellow believers.

And when that has been mishandled and when that has been hurt, the wound is deep. The psalmist talked about those who had betrayed him, that they even sat and ate bread with him. Those you’ve invited to your homes, those you’ve been to their homes, those you’ve opened your home to and you’ve sat down and you’ve fellowshiped with them and you have eaten with them, many times can hurt you the deepest because of your trust and because of your love and because of the openness of your heart.

But yet you still have this responsibility to recognize that even though they could never repay the debt of the hurt that they have placed upon you, that in comparison to what God has done for you, in comparison to how much God has loved you, who are you to be out there ranting and raving and claiming your unwillingness to forgive anybody? It really strikes at the heart of your theology. It strikes at the heart of what you believe about your relationship with God. Now, some of you may have grown up in a relationship where the only way you were appreciated or that you were praised or you were acknowledged or encouraged was based upon performance.

It was based upon what you did. But I want you to know that the Bible teaches us in the relationship because of Christ, in our relationship with God, because of Christ, we are accepted in the beloved. Even if we’ve made a mess of our life, even if we have made some bad choices in our life, we are accepted in the beloved.

And you say, how can that be, my friends? That’s what Christ did on the cross. He took the pure wrath of God, the punishment of sin for you and for me right there on that cross so that God could receive you, He could accept you, and you would be in the family of God and have a brand new start in Jesus Christ. My second motivation for forgiving others is to make sure that I understand that it’s benefiting me and it’s benefiting others.

Let’s look at verse 20. Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord.

The apostle is appealing to Philemon to be forgiving to Onesimus for the purpose of benefiting or blessing not only Paul, certainly Onesimus, but Philemon himself. We taught you at the beginning of this series on forgiveness from the book of Philemon that Onesimus is a word that means to benefit or to be useful. So when the apostle, again, uses this word here in verse 20 and he says, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord and refresh in my heart, he is saying to him, I want you to live up to your name.

I want you to live up to who you are and your character. How did the apostle know his character? Go back to verse seven of Philemon. Again, there it is.

We have great joy, consolation, or encouragement in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. The apostle Paul makes his appeal to Philemon on behalf of Onesimus and he is calling him to forgive Onesimus and the motive to forgive is not that Onesimus deserves it or that somehow there’ll be a special reward for Philemon, but rather our motivation to forgive others is rooted in that Christ has forgiven us. If we are unworthy of his forgiveness and yet God still forgave us, how much more should we forgive others? For we have offended God more than anyone has ever offended us.

Let us cry out to God that he would grant us hearts that are motivated to forgive and that we understand the true reason behind forgiveness and I pray that you’ll be blessed and excited as you are growing in your faith. We encourage you to reach out to us and let us know how God is working in your life. Go to hopeworthhaving.com, hit the contact button, let us know what station you’re listening and let us know how God is working in your life.

Let us know that God is doing something special. We are blessed and encouraged by these emails. So I hope you’ll reach out to us.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.

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