Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Motives for Forgiveness Part 2. He will be reading out of Philemon 1:19-21.

That’s what Christ did on the cross. He took the pure wrath of God, the punishment of sin for you and for me so that God could receive you and you would be in the family of God and have a brand new start in Jesus Christ. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church, and we want to welcome you to Hope Worth Having Radio Broadcast.

Thank you for tuning in today. As you get your Bible, we want to turn to Philemon chapter one, and we’re going to continue our study on the motives for forgiveness. So let’s get right into our study today.

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 is 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 fellowship 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. 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 7 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, meaning Philemon, you have been a person who has been useful to the kingdom of God and you have been a benefit to the kingdom of God. You have brought great joy and encouragement to other, to the hearts of the saints.

You have been a Christian who refreshes others. Now jump back down to verse 20. Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord.

Refresh my heart in the Lord. Here’s what he’s saying. He’s saying, Onesimus, you’ve been a useful man for God.

You have been a benefit and a blessing to so many in the family of God. And he’s saying, Onesimus, let me experience that joy. Let me experience that refreshment just like you have done for others.

I need you to be a man who forgives so that you can benefit others. The apostle wants to experience that joy. It would mean so much to the apostle that Philemon would keep the unity at the church.

We’ve shared with you before that the church of Colossae was where Philemon worshiped. They met in Philemon’s house and the people knew Philemon. He was a man who was influential in the church.

He was a man who brought great joy and he was a man who refreshed. You know what I’m talking about. There are Christians like that, aren’t there? That every time you see them, they’re so filled with joy.

They’re so filled with the happiness of the Lord. They are not critical saints. They don’t drain you.

They don’t drag you down into negativity, but they fill your heart. And once you’re done talking to them, you feel refreshed. Paul is saying to Philemon, be that guy again, be that guy, Philemon.

And you see, church, when we come together as God’s people, we have to remember that choosing to unforgive will only create discord in the family of God and disunity. And this is true in your own family. This is true in all of your relationships.

Believers should be motivated to forgive one another by the knowledge that forgiveness brings joy and it brings blessings and it benefits the family of God, the kingdom of Christ, and it benefits not just others here, but it benefits the testimony of God among the community. When you talk to unbelievers, sometimes they’ll say to me, well, I don’t go to church because all they do is fuss and fight. All they do is attack each other.

And you know, it’s sad that that would be the testimony of a church family, isn’t it? Like I told you at the outset of this sermon, so many different preferences, personalities, things that we’d like to see done or not done. And it’s no wonder it seems inevitable that the church would collide and have so much conflict. Why didn’t God just make us all alike? Why didn’t God just make a bunch of Mike Sanders? Wouldn’t that be awesome? I’m just teasing.

I mean, the Lord knew you can only handle one, amen? But he created us all distinct. You have children or you have people in your family, they’re distinct in their personalities and preferences. It’s okay.

God loves creativity and he loves variety. But here’s the key that we have to choose that even when those personalities rub us wrong and those preferences we disagree with, that we have to choose for the sake of others and for the testimony of the Lord, for the benefit of others, we are going to forgive one another. So let’s say a husband and wife who have children decide they’re not going to forgive each other and that marriage can become a wreck and they can end up destroying one another, hating one another, and end up divorcing one another.

And they may think, well, it’s only me. It’s only my husband or spouse that was hurt. But the truth is it’s a ripple effect through the family.

It touches every life. The wound is deep in the children. The wound is deep in the life of the church.

Sometimes I think that because divorce is so common today that we think it’s not a big deal anymore, but it is, it is. And when you get down to that moment where you’re ready to leave your spouse, I guarantee you it’s because you did not choose to forgive. You did not choose to forgive.

Now, when we think about its benefit to me, meaning you personally or to others, you must remember that you have a responsibility to resolve the issues within your own heart. You have to resolve the issues. Philemon had to come to grips with his frustration, his anger, and his emotions about this guy taking property that was his.

So I wanna lead you through a series of questions that’ll help you because as a pastor, so many times I see it, unresolved issues in the heart, continually to stir up, continually to boil, and drinking that poison, hoping that somebody else dies. It’s only destroying you. How do we resolve this? How do we get to that place in my life that I am full of joy and I am refreshing to others and I am blessing and benefiting the church? How do I get there where I can, Pastor, forgive others? Well, first of all, answer this question, not out loud this morning, okay? But within your heart, am I truly seeking resolution? Now think of this in two angles.

Am I seeking resolution with those or the person that I am upset with? And am I seeking resolution within my own heart? Now, confrontation is difficult. Everything in my life that somebody has done to me, said to me, or neglected doesn’t always have to be confronted, or I honestly would be confronting 24-7. And I know that’s how some of you feel, but I wanna take you to a biblical proverb that says love covers a multitude of sins.

Don’t misunderstand that passage of Scripture. It doesn’t mean that you and I are to compromise, that we’re to overlook sin. It doesn’t mean that we’re to avoid dealing with sin in our own hearts or in the hearts of others.

It’s talking about those little things in life, those little interactions, those things that sometimes nip at us, at our hearts, and then they build up. You see, friends, Terry and I, today is our 34th anniversary. 34 years, amen.

Thank you. Now, thank you. You don’t have to give credit to me, but you give credit to my wife.

How could she endure and put up with Mike for 34 years? I hear you, because there’s times Mike can’t even put up with Mike. You understand that? That I’m frustrated with myself, but how is it? It’s because love overlooks a multitude of sin, that my failures, my weaknesses, my shortcomings, the things that are wrong with Mike. We’re not talking about big issues.

We’re talking about small issues, that we’re not willing to make those issues to be burning the bridge, or I’m done with you, or I’ll never have a conversation with you again. And so that’s the key, is that somebody says something, somebody forgets something, somebody neglects something, you’re hurt, you’re offended. What are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna seek resolution with that person? Maybe you don’t need to.

Maybe it’s something you say, well, I love them. I’m not gonna make a big deal about it. It doesn’t seem to be a big issue.

Or are you gonna seek resolution in your own heart? Has that become a brick in your heart, where you’re building this huge wall in your life? You know, I did a wedding back in Indiana many, many years ago, when I was pastoring there. And this couple had come in, and of course, they’re over the top about how much they love each other, and I was trying to teach them how to do conflict resolution in their marriage. And they said, don’t worry about that, pastor.

We never fight. And I said, well, once you get married, you’ll fight every day. Amen? Just get married.

That’s what solves that. But anyways, they didn’t wanna hear the lesson. They didn’t really care about it.

Two years later, they’re on my phone, and the wife is saying, I hate him. I can’t stand him. I can’t believe that I ever married him.

And so again, we begin the process of trying to help this couple. But how does that happen in two years? Because there were little things that she never, out of love, forgave, and out of love, moved forward and resolved. But she let them fester in her heart.

She let them become a brick in the wall that she was building towards her husband, to where she no longer had any emotions towards him except hate and anger. And that’s what I’m trying to tell you. And that’s what I’m encouraging you to do this morning, is seek resolution, if not with others, definitely with your own heart.

Am I observing the golden rule? That’s a second question. You see, I feel like sometimes we hold standards for people that we don’t even hold to ourselves. And we’re all offended about this person and that person when we have this standard that they have to live by, a perfection standard, and you’re not even living up to it yourself.

Are you treating people as you would want to be treated? I hope that you would treat other people. If you messed up, how would you like to be treated? Compassion, mercy, and love? Or would you like judgment to come quickly and swiftly upon your life? I hope that you would have the same standard. Maybe you don’t know everything.

Maybe you haven’t figured it out. That’s what Jesus meant in Matthew chapter seven. Judge not lest you be judged.

He’s not saying we can’t judge. He goes on to teach us how to have discernment and judgment. And that one of the things we need to remember is we don’t know everything.

And so let’s not be quick to judge. And let’s not come to conclusions because there may be more to the story than you realize. And are you allowing what you want to receive relating to your relationships with others? Here’s a newsflash.

People aren’t perfect. Did you know that? People aren’t perfect. And I know this is a shocker.

You’re not perfect. And there’s no perfect church out there. You’ll never find a perfect church.

And so we gotta remember this, that we live in a flawed world of imperfect people. And the question is, are we gonna let that ruin us, destroy us, and cause us to become bitter and angry and hateful people for the rest of our life? Or are we gonna continue to navigate this minefield and understand that there’s gonna be people who have shortcomings? But it’s okay because we’re going to extend grace to everybody. We’re gonna extend grace to people’s faults and we’re not gonna live our life angry and hateful.

The third point real quickly is my last point that I need to get across to you as far as our motivations. It is our obedience to God. Look at verse 21.

Why should I forgive? Well, because you’ve been commanded to. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say. You see, we are forgiven to forgive.

The Bible says in Matthew 6, 15, if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. There’s a lot at stake here. If I choose the path of unforgiveness, I am not only doing that in relation to my relationship with others, but I am bringing that into the relationship that I have with God Almighty.

An unforgiving Christian is a proud person who has forgotten how much they have been forgiven by God. Forgiveness is a choice. It is a choice to do what God tells you to do.

And you say, well, I’m waiting for that feeling. It never comes. I never have woken up and said, I feel like forgiven today.

I feel like that every person that cusses me out, I’m just gonna be forgiving to them. You never feel it, but you choose it in your life. And why do you choose it? Not because of your emotions, you choose it because God told you.

The church at its core is meant to be a community united in faith, purpose, and love. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of diverse personalities, preferences, and backgrounds, and achieving true unity can be an uphill battle. But the way that is accomplished is through God’s people being forgiving when they have disagreements.

And that’s what the apostle is trying to help Philemon do, is that yes, he’s been disappointed, hurt, let down, but God is calling him to a higher plane of living, and that is to be forgiving. And the motivation for his forgiveness is not that anybody’s worthy, but that Christ forgave him. And so because of what Christ did on the cross is what mobilizes us to show grace and forgiveness to others even when they let us down or hurt us.

So this book on Philemon is a very challenging book and one that requires us to reflect, study, and think about a lot. And I hope you’ll do that. And if you’d like to get the message in its entirety, I want you to go to our website, hopeworthhaving.com, hopeworthhaving.com. And there you can go to our archives and just look up the book of Philemon.

And as well, you can go to our YouTube channel and you can check out our playlist on Philemon, and you can listen to the full message on forgiveness. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having. Thank you.

The post The Motives for Forgiveness Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.