How to Forgive - Student of the Word 1486

(upbeat music) - Hi, this is Pastor Bob Yandian. Has anybody ever sinned against you and then asked you immediately, "why haven't you forgiven me?" Well, there comes a time of repentance. I can forgive a person toward God that releases me, but I can't forgive a person until they come and ask for it. We're gonna take this up from the word of God, the importance of two aspects of forgiveness. Let's go to the word of God together. - [Announcer] For more than 40 years, Bob Yandian has been an exposi

tory of the Bible making seemingly complicated doctrine, easy to understand. Grab your Bible and study the word of God with Pastor Bob Yandian. (upbeat music) - Hello and welcome again to "Student of the Word With Pastor Bob Yandian." I want you to turn with me if you would, to 2 Corinthians 5. We're gonna go there in just a moment and take a look at that verse scripture. And I'm gonna talk to you today about how to forgive people, the proper biblical area of forgiveness towards those who sin ar

ound us. I've got a CD that I'm offering called Forgiveness. In fact, you might say, well, I don't know if I have time to listen to things like that. I've got, you know, books and things, but I've also got other things around me that I do during the day. I have said this before, I'm gonna repeat it again. The most unproductive time you have is when you drive. You usually just blank out. I mean, you look for things that are just totally, you know, just things that are just there to make noise. So

you have classic rock music going or country music or you know, just maybe talk radio, just things to where you don't have to think, all right? That's unthinking things. Because you just consider driving to work and back as unproductive time. Take the unproductive time and put in a teaching CD or a flash driver, or something like that and listen to it. There's... I've got one right now. I'm listening to a book and a Bonhoeffer book in fact, and I hear it going to the office coming back and my m

ind just goes nuts while I'm listening to that, I'm driving through the middle of traffic going, wow, that was really great. Well, yeah, I gotta remember that. And oftentimes I have a little notepad with me when I get to a red light, I'll write that note down about that and later on use it in a sermon. You can use that for changing your life and that's what this CD can do. So this area on forgiveness, again, at halftime, they'll come and tell you how you can have a copy of this for yourself and

you'll be blessed by it. You know, I've got many examples of unrepentant attitudes and ministers. I was on one board of a minister, two others were friends of mine here in Tulsa and one of the pastors committed adultery with a babysitter. And I mean this was terrible. I mean the news got out everywhere and the church knew about it. But the church asked me would I help this one? Because they asked him, during the time of your resettlement, when we deal with you and we send you for counseling, we

don't want you to attend the church. We don't even want you to be there. And they asked me if I would accept him in our church. I said yes. And then they asked me would I talked to him from time to time. Of course I said yes. And what I found out there was just this attitude that permeated this young man. And so, but what happened later was he didn't listen to what I had to say and he went off and so I, when I was with him, I would correct him, tell him what the word of God has to say and yet he

wouldn't receive correction. But many corrected me for trying to correct him. The same thing is true with two other ministers. I was on the board with one young man and I sat on the board with the minister and I found out he was having affairs around the country. He'd go speak in a church and fly in prostitutes while he was there. And the church found out about it 'cause they dug into his computer one day. They got a little leery of what was going on, dug into his computer and found all these p

laces he would go to, to try to find prostitutes. And so anyway, they wanted to keep him with in their church. They wanted to give him an opportunity to repent. But whenever I told him he needed to repent, he got mad at me and his wife got mad at me. His wife was not for what he was doing. What she wanted do was still have her position in the church and if he lost his position, she would lose her position. So she tried to defend him in what he was doing and then people would come to me and say W

ell you should forgive him and not correct him. And so they say, if you forgive him, it'll all be under the blood. That is not true. It's under the blood because of what Jesus did on the cross. But unless a person shows repentance, you have to correct them and listen, you forgive those who know and admit they have sinned and want forgiveness. It seems to me in all three cases that I know of that I was helping a minister and their church board asked me to or else the board I was on asked me to he

lp them none of them wanted real help. They simply wanted to simply go, just forgive us, leave us in the pulpit, we'll be okay. And that's not the point. The word of God is not for that. We know in David's case, even though he remained in as king, he went through a lot of things that were wrong, correction by the prophet who came to see him. Nathan, the prophet who corrected him, told him what God has to say. And great repentance came on David and he said, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nat

han, the prophet said, your sins are now forgiven. You won't die. He actually came close to dying because of what he had done. And so again, it comes back to, is it wrong to correct those who sin? Not if you correct in love to bring them to a place of repentance. Galatians 6:1 says this, "If a man is overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual, restore the one." How can you restore them if you agree with what they've done or don't wanna correct what they have done? It's much like raising a child

who gets into trouble but you never correct them. You have to correct a child. And in this particular case it's Christians who are spiritual, those who are in fellowship with God, restoring one who is outside of fellowship with God. But the verses even go on to say, while you're correcting them, look at yourself, understand that what they're going through, you have probably gone through at times. You can have compassion on them, but it doesn't stop you from correcting them. Why? You have to res

et a dislocated bone, You have to reset a broken bone. It's painful while you do it. But to actually say, Oh you don't need to do it, just leave it alone, that bone will never heal correctly. You have to help reset it. And that's what we do in the body of Christ with others who are around us. In other words, you judge the sin but don't judge the person. You correct the person for the decision they made. But in essence you correct them thinking of yourself, I've had to be corrected too, but thank

God someone took some time with me and helped to correct me. So you judge the sin, you don't judge the person. 1 Corinthians 2:15 says this. What a great verse. "He who is spiritual judges all things." Notice it doesn't say we judge the person, we judge what they have done, but we love them in the meantime. You love your children when they've done something wrong, but you want them to quit doing the wrong thing. So you judge the thing they have done without trying to judge them and so they can

make better decisions next time. Basically 2 Corinthians 5, what I've told you there, we need to be twice forgiven. We're forgiven once from the Father himself, but then there's a time we come and we receive that forgiveness for ourselves. 2 Corinthians 5 says this in verse 17 through 20, "If any man is in Christ, he's a new creation." (indistinct) in Christ. Once if you're outside with Christ, you're not a new creation, but provision has been made for you to now be in Christ. If any man is in C

hrist, he's a new creation, all things are passed away and behold all things are become new. All things are from God who has past tense, reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and is given to us the ministry of reconciliation. We'll stop at that point because there's a minister I know who actually said, notice we've all been reconciled to God. Well yes, God sees us as reconciled unto himself, but we have to receive that reconciliation. God's done his part. We need to do our part. Verse 19

goes on to say, "that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them and has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. Now we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's place, in Christ's absence, be reconciled to God. What did Jesus come to say and teach you this earth? That when I go to the cross, the world will be reconciled to God, but you have to come and receive it for yourself. We pray

now that you will be reconciled to God. God has been reconciled to you. You need to be reconciled to him. God's done his part and sees you as reconciled, but you have to receive it. You know here in Oklahoma, and I'm sure many states have it also, we have a state lottery. My wife and I were driving by one day we saw this gigantic site and the lottery in Oklahoma was worth $180 million. My wife and I looked at each other and I said to her, "Wow, what will we do with $180 million?" She said, "well

the government will get half of it to begin with." I said, "Oh yeah, what would we do with $90 million?" And we begin to think about that. Think of the things we could give to the church. We could do this, we could do that, we could do this, we could do that. But you know, the odds of that thing are so incredible. Let's just suppose though that you went to the nearest convenience store and you bought yourself a lottery ticket. You're there and you're checking out, you got your Coke, you got you

r, you know, a donut or something like that and you're standing there and you're paying for some gasoline but, and you notice are there though, and you say, I'm gonna buy one of those tickets. You know it's a joke. I'm gonna buy, what's my chance? One chance in a few million that I would get it. And you sit home one night and you're watching the TV screen as they're now announcing the winner. All the little ping pong balls are flying up and down the air. The first one lands, you got your little

ticket in front of you. You say, Oh, that's my first number. And you look at it and you say, that's my second number and that's my third number and that's my fourth number. And all of a sudden you're begin to get a little excited and then the fifth one comes along and you start screaming and yelling, call your family and say, we just won $180 million. The numbers all lined up and you sit back in your seat and all the kids are shouting. The wife is automatically pulling her list out of things tha

t she wants. We're all thinking about the $180 million coming to us. And then the wife says, "well honey, let's go down and claim." We go, "Oh no, no, no, no honey," I'm just gonna sit here in the seat because the moment they announced by name, all that money's being transferred into our checking account." She says, "no, you have to go claim it." You understand what Jesus did at the cross. He announced when he arose from the dead, the whole world has won. But you have to come and claim it. It's

not automatically put into your heart, it's not automatically put into your spirit. The new birth is not automatically there. God's done everything and announced your name from the cross who for the joy that was set before him, endure the cross. You are the joy that was set before him. But now that's why the verse is in with this, though you've been reconciled to God, now you be reconciled to him. You need to go and accept it as, and that's what our message is. God's done everything he can now y

ou need to be reconciled to God. What am I simply saying? Whenever a person has sinned, just because you say, well didn't Jesus cover this on the cross? That's true. But that person needs to accept the forgiveness for that sin they have committed. As an unbeliever you need to accept Jesus as your savior to be reconciled to God. But as a Christian, whenever you do a sin, it separates you temporarily from fellowship with God, not from your relationship but with your fellowship with God. And you ne

ed to receive it. He's already accomplished it on the cross. But you need to take that forgiveness and apply it to your situation right now. And this is what often happens with us as Christians. Someone sins the first thing we say, well, well Jesus died on the cross, it's already covered. No, you need to come and claim it just like you came and claimed your total salvation and knew birth and acceptance into heaven for this individual sin as a believer, you need to confess at 1 John 9. "If we con

fess our sins." Our sins means we as Christians, "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and then cleanses from all unrighteousness." Anything around it we don't even know about will be covered. In chapter two verse one, it says, "these things we write to you that you sin not, but if you do sin, you have an advocate with the Father in Jesus Christ, the righteous." So it's saying they're in that verse Scripture, even though you sin, you still need to come and confess it. 'Cause now Jesus

has switched from the savior role to an advocate role. But in both cases we need to take it to the Lord. We can't just wallow in our sin and say, "Well it's okay if I've done this. It's all covered at the cross and Jesus covered it." Oh yes he did. But we need to accept it into our life. So it simply comes down to this, God corporately judged all the sins of all mankind, reconciling the world to him at the cross. He forgave from his heart on his side the war was over. But as individuals, persona

l things, we need to repent to God face to face and accept Jesus as our savior. When I repent, I receive the forgiveness of God that God gave me at the cross, for me now the war is over. It's over on God's side. I need to end it on my side. If I don't repent, damnation is my choice, God is free of my blood. We'll talk about the two types of forgiveness when we come back right after the break. We'll see you right after the break. - [Announcer] Unforgiveness can hinder your life in Christ far more

than many other things that most believers would think. You can walk free from unforgiveness in your life if you will just do it. In this practical series, Bob Yandian discusses how to identify offense, defines the three most common types of offense and explains how to walk free from unforgiveness. He also identifies the root of bitterness, how it enters the heart, and how to prevent it from springing up again once it has been dealt with. You can learn to avoid the most stupid sin and become an

expert at escaping bitterness. This series is available on CDs or as MP3 downloads. To order Forgiveness, just do it, visit our website at Bobyandian.com. Theology Simplified is a practical guide to foundational biblical truth. Basic doctrines are not difficult but easy to understand. They often become disguised as complicated or deep sounding words, but the definitions are simple. Pastor Bob makes complex theological concepts, clear and practical. Eight crucial doctrines of the Christian faith

are demystified, redemption, justification, sanctification, reconciliation, predestination, election, propitiation and glorification. These eight precepts essential for all believers to understand come to light as you read and arrive at a deeper understanding of the finished work of Jesus Christ. To order Theology Simplified, visit our website at Bobyandian.com. Bob Yandian Ministries is training up a new generation in the word of God. Because of your generosity, this teaching ministry is able

to change countless lives. You will never know until you get to heaven how many people receive Jesus, were filled with the Holy Spirit, healed or found God's will for their life through your support and prayers. If you would like to become a partner with Bob Yandian, visit BobYandian.com and click on partnership. - Coming back to it, there's two types of forgiveness that we need to give. First of all, there's toward God about the person then toward the one who sinned. And again, one comes before

the other. From my own heart, let's just, let me just go back and give you an example. Okay? There was a young man that sinned and and he talked bad about me. Really, really talked bad about me and two of the congregation spreading stuff around about me I went to him, he was mad at me and he just got in . So he would not repent of it, even though I told... He told me basically he had the right to do that. That you know, as a member of the congregation, he didn't have to run around saying all ni

ce things about me. And I said, Well, if you've got something bad to say why don't you bring it to my own face? No, I have the right to tell everybody. 'Cause I think it's important that they know from me. Well again, he was totally unrepentant. But the first thing I did was I went to God and I forgave him from my own heart toward God. I said, God, I don't like what he's done. But you know what? I ask for forgiveness for him. I release him. The moment I come to God and I say, God, I ask for forg

iveness toward this guy and to your face I ask that then it releases me from him. I'm okay from that point on, but I don't have to go to that person and forgive them until they repent. And so again, later, this young man did, he came to me and repented and I forgave him to his face and said, you know what, it's over. And he said, well, you know, I just, I said, listen, it's not only forgiven, it's forgotten, it's over. Let's just drop it right here. And so we did that. But you know what? I could

n't forgive him to his face until he repented, but from my own heart, because the bitterness and anger I had toward him, I had to go to God and say, Father, I won't be released from this thing. I forgive him for what he has done. And at that point right there, that's why the word of God says, be kind to each other. Ephesians 4:32, "be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you." I forgive them toward God first and once they come and t

hen they ask for forgiveness, I can forgive them. So we are to forgive those who sin against us and God is our example of how we are to forgive. What do you do about your enemies? Turn to Matthew chapter five in verse 44, How do we forgive our enemies? Matthew 5:44 says this, "Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you and pray for those that despitefully use you and persecute you." Where do we go to ask for forgiveness for those? How do we do good to those who h

ate us? It's not necessarily running around trying to appease them. No, it's going to God and asking for forgiveness. And then whenever I run across them, as far as I'm concerned, if I have taken them to God and God has forgiven me for the anger that i held towards you, then I don't have any anger towards you. I'm gonna treat you like. And you may not understand it. You may think, Well, look what I did to him and look how he's acting right now. And then they think, well maybe he's just trying to

act superior to me. I mean, there's all kinds of thoughts that come to people's mind, but I know where I stand. I took that person to God and I forgave them for what they did. But I can't forgive them until they finally admit that they have done wrong. Neither can God. Although God forgave them at the cross. He can't make them a Christian until they receive him as savior. As a believer, although God forgave them at the cross, He can't forgive them till they come and confess that sin. But as far

as God is concerned, it's a done deal as far as he's concerned of what the cross did toward them. But now they need to come back to God through the cross and ask for forgiveness. Four things we ought to do for our enemies. Number one is we are to love them. Number two, we are to bless them. Number three, we are to do good toward them and we are to pray for them. But it doesn't say that we have to forgive them at that moment. Why? You can forgive them in front of God and if they repent, you can

forgive them to their face, but you don't do it in the meantime. That's again where people often come and say, Well you didn't really forgive him. If you forgave him, you wouldn't be coming and talking about what he has done. We have to talk about what they have done because if we don't, it's gonna cause division within a church, within the body of Christ. We don't need further division, but we need for people to know we see what they have done. Jesus didn't just wipe off the things his disciple

s did, He faced them. And when Peter came and you know asked, and Jesus, I'm gonna wash your feet and says, no Lord, wash me all over, Jesus rebuked him and said, I don't need to wash you all over. I don't need to give you a bath. I just need to wash your feet. And boy, Peter had a hard time understanding that. And so we find it with the other disciples at times they said things and Jesus had to point out to them what they did wrong and they needed to receive that rebuke. There's times I've had

to rebuke people, but we even rebuke them in love. There's times I've had to correct people in the church, not in front of everybody but to them personally. But if they did something in front of everybody, one guy stood up one time and gave the weirdest word in the church and I had to stop him right there. And there were some Christians that came later and said, that was a terrible thing to do. No, it was the correct thing to do. I was trying to help the entire congregation from the evils this m

an was speaking out of his mouth, toward our church, toward other churches in our city. That is totally wrong and I cannot overlook it, but I did it in love for the sake of everybody else that was around there. John chapter one in verse 17 says this, "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." We are often so grace minded, we ignore the truth. Grace and truth. Grace looks at everyone in grace. But truth says, you don't overlook the truth. The truth of course is God's word. But there's also truth in

a situation where a person honestly did say this, they honestly did do this. They honestly did steal from somebody. They did talk about bad about somebody. They actually did commit a sin. They actually did commit adultery. They actually did lie about somebody. And we wanna just cover it up. Say, well, the blood of Jesus covers that. No, the blood of Jesus Christ is God's grace. But we still have to face the truth about that situation. Again, I come back to the prophet Nathan who came to see Davi

d and laid out what David had done and said, you're the one that's done this. You're the one who took Bathsheba. You're the one that brought her in. You're the one that slept with her. You're the one that got her pregnant and you're the one who murdered her husband. In other words, God will bring the truth right to our face waiting for one thing, repentance. And the moment that David said, I have sinned against the Lord, Nathan said, your sins are forgiven, you will not die. Again we're often so

grace minded. We ignore the truth of a situation. Without the truth, grace and freedom have no boundaries. Laws are the boundaries of our freedom. Are we to forgive our enemies? Of course we are. Yes we are. Although forgiveness is available, is it only given at certain times? The answer is yes. It is only given at certain times when the person is able to receive that word and then receive forgiveness from God, understand the fact that they have done wrong to openly admit that they needed forgi

veness. Should we openly forgive everyone who wrongs us? The answer is of course, no. Does scripture teach us in every circumstance we must always forgive? No. Does God individually forgive all sinners? No, it's offered, but the sinner must repent. That whole concept of Jesus going to the cross and dying for us and God reconciling the world unto himself. But now those in the world need to come. God forgave everybody at the cross. God reconciled everybody to himself at the cross, but the person n

eeds to come and personally receive that reconciliation by receiving the forgiveness that God offered it becomes an individual thing. And I can tell you that the Christian world out there is filled with people who have sinned against God, against people, sinned against their pastors, sinned against a class they are in, sinned against their family, but they're still holding it back, justifying themselves and then mad at people who wanna correct them and saying, it's your problem for wanting to co

rrect me. No, you're the one that needs correction. And even God would do this. Jesus did this. And listen, even though God is reconciled the world to himself, if you will not receive that reconciliation, you have chosen to turn against God and there's nothing left for you except hell. And eventually the lake of fire. People who go there are not sent there by God, they're sent there by themselves and God offered everything that was needed. And the same thing is true with a Christian who sins, if

they will not understand what they have done wrong, we are in no position to go to them and to their face, forgive them nor we can't to God's face which releases us. But there comes a time when finally they are released, when they come and face the situation as the prodigal did. The Father waited in the front yard, but the Father didn't go out and join him out there. No, we often think that somehow we need to go join them out there and show them the world and sometimes even fallen Christians ab

out how we join. No, we are to stay right where we are. We operate in the kingdom of God waiting for them to come and understand the fact you know, there came a day when the prodigal came to himself. And that's always my prayer for ministers who sin, for Christians who sin. And the prodigal was a son. He was not called the prodigal, you know friend. He was the prodigal son, part of the family. And even though he was out there that came to a day, one day in the pig pin when the Bible says, he cam

e to himself and said, I'm gonna go to my father. And when he did, he repented, Father, I have sinned against you. I've sinned against heaven. And he went and then went on to say, I don't deserve to be your son, so why don't you make me a servant? He hardly got that outta his mouth when his father interrupted him and said, no, bring to him a coat. Bring the shoes place on his feet, bring out the the banquet, let's feed him. Let's make a party outta this. Because my son who was lost is now found.

He didn't mean lost as far as the sinner is concerned. He was lost from the fellowship of the family. Gone from that situation, ran off on his own, but came to himself and came back. That's when there's open confrontation and forgiveness between that. Notice the Father didn't run out looking for him. The father stayed where he is because the son knew exactly where the father was. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with the other. I know where Jesus is. He's al

ways in the light. I'm the one that runs off into darkness. I'm the one that needs to come back into the light of fellowship of the Lord. And that comes through one thing. If I'll confess my sin, He's faithful and just to forgive me of my sin. And the same thing is true with believers, toward believers. There comes a time when we see the fact they have repented come back to the Lord and the moment they've come back to the Lord. Now it's time for me to forgive them and help a process of restorati

on. Just because they've come back doesn't mean we automatically put them back in their place. No. There needs to come a time when we restore them back over a period of time. Luke 17:3 and 4 says this, "If your brother trespass against you, rebuke him." I didn't write this. Jesus said this. If your brother trespass against you, rebuke him. It didn't say forgive him immediately. You need to take the word of God and rebuke him. But even rebuke comes in love. It goes on to say, "if he repents, forg

ive him." How much clearer can you get than this? "And if he trespass against you seven times a day and in seven times he turns again to you saying, I repent, then forgive him." Every time the guy repents, forgive him. But you don't forgive until he repents. The one who has wronged you, must first repent. He must judge himself for his wrong. He must give evidence of sorrow over it. And if the offender does not repent, then I openly do not have to forgive him. To openly forgive without his repent

ance gives the appearance of condoning the sin which he has committed. So what should my attitude be toward him if he doesn't repent? Matthew chapter 18 and verse 35 says this, "You must from your heart forgive every man, his brother, his trespass." So if he does not repent, do I then forgive him? The answer is not to his face, toward God yes. In my heart, yes, I'm released from him. But there comes a time one day when he's finally released, when he finally confesses that before the Lord. And ag

ain, and from me. I must forgive him toward God in my heart. I must not hold evil feelings against him. There must not be any hatred or malice. Yet I must treat the offender as if he had done no wrong. This would condone the offense. And again, what I'm saying here is wait until that time to forgive him to his face that he actually repents. In the meantime, forgive him toward God that releases you to where you can go on in peace and serve the Lord every single day. What a blessing. See you next

time. - [Announcer] You can order resources, become a partner or browse free articles and podcasts. You can also join our mailing list and receive weekly devotions and the latest ministry updates. Visit Bobyandian.com. To contact us by mail, use the address on your screen. Thank you for watching today's broadcast. We'll see you next time on "Student of the Word With Bob Yandian." (upbeat music)