00:00:00.000 - 00:00:50.000

[Music] [Singing] Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,

00:00:50.000 - 00:01:24.000

In earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.

00:01:24.000 - 00:01:43.000

The Prayer Some Dare Not Pray. A message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. Let us give reverent attention to the reading of God's word as it is recorded in the first letter of John, the fourth chapter,

00:01:43.000 - 00:02:05.000

beginning at the verse numbered seven. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.

00:02:05.000 - 00:02:24.000

In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us,

00:02:24.000 - 00:02:45.000

and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us,

00:02:45.000 - 00:03:03.000

and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son

00:03:03.000 - 00:03:22.000

to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God. And we have known and believe the love that God hath to us.

00:03:22.000 - 00:03:38.000

God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment,

00:03:38.000 - 00:03:57.000

because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

00:03:57.000 - 00:04:18.000

We love him because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,

00:04:18.000 - 00:04:43.000

how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. And may God bless to us and to our understanding

00:04:43.000 - 00:05:06.000

this reading from his holy word. Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

00:05:06.000 - 00:05:27.000

Amen. We are living in a world that desperately needs to be changed. I know that's a truism. I'm aware that you've heard that from many men in many different places

00:05:27.000 - 00:05:45.000

under many different circumstances, but that makes it nonetheless true. We live in a world that desperately needs to be changed. And of course there are many people in the world

00:05:45.000 - 00:06:02.000

who propose to us that they have the program which is necessary to successfully change the world. There are many people who are ready to submit to us or to suggest to us that if we will but follow their scheme,

00:06:02.000 - 00:06:23.000

their plan, their theory, their program, their social construct, whatever it happens to be, this world will be changed. Regrettably, all of these people are making a serious mistake.

00:06:23.000 - 00:06:52.000

For their plans, their constructs, their systems, their proposals are strategies to repair or to remake or to reform the world. And the world does not need to be repaired or remade or reformed. The world needs to be reborn.

00:06:52.000 - 00:07:04.000

About a hundred years ago a man named Edward Bellamy wrote a book called "Looking Backwards." And in that book he seriously suggested that the answer to the world's difficulties was to be found in music.

00:07:04.000 - 00:07:18.000

If we could only find a way to bring music into every home, if we could only discover a way to bring music with all of its beauty and all of its power to soothe the savage breath into the heart of every home, into every hearthside,

00:07:18.000 - 00:07:31.000

if we could bring music when men wanted it and turn it off when men didn't want it, we would quickly solve all of the world's difficulties. Of course, now we can do that.

00:07:31.000 - 00:07:48.000

With a flip of a switch our homes are filled with music. And to my ears at least it sounds very good. And with a flip of a switch we can cause silence to be with us again. But I am not aware that the presence of music

00:07:48.000 - 00:08:03.000

has done anything to change the world. A few years ago I stood in Hyde Park in London. Hyde Park is that place where individuals go to stand upon soapboxes to abuse other men's minds with what is already abusing theirs.

00:08:03.000 - 00:08:14.000

And one man stood and said that he believed the answer to the world's problem was bread. If you could simply put enough bread into the hands, into the mouths, into the bellies of men,

00:08:14.000 - 00:08:28.000

then you would be able to transform the world. Then society would be renewed. Then problems would vanish and difficulties would disappear. And I'm sure all of us will readily admit and recognize

00:08:28.000 - 00:08:41.000

that we must give bread to all those who are hungry. That it is our Christian responsibility and duty to minister to all those who are in need and to put bread into the hand and into the mouth

00:08:41.000 - 00:09:02.000

and into the belly of every man. But are we really so naive as to think that giving a man a full belly will take away his hatred, his prejudices, his bigotries, his selfishnesses, his evils?

00:09:02.000 - 00:09:20.000

Are we really so unsophisticated as to imagine for even the smallest fraction of a moment that full bellies will eliminate all of the vicissitudes of life as we know it on this trampled world of ours?

00:09:20.000 - 00:09:40.000

No, you see, all of these things are seeking to remake, to reform, to repair, and what the world needs is to be reborn. And you can sum what being reborn means in a single sentence, in a single phrase, in a single word.

00:09:40.000 - 00:09:59.000

What the world needs is forgiveness, to accept the forgiveness of God and to demonstrate forgiveness to one another. What does the word forgiveness mean?

00:09:59.000 - 00:10:09.000

Well, I suppose it has as many different definitions as there are letters in the word, and the one I proposed for our consideration this morning is too simple. I'll admit and confess that,

00:10:09.000 - 00:10:23.000

but for our purposes of discussion, let's decide that this is what forgiveness means. It means to allow no barrier to be built up between you and God or between you and another man.

00:10:23.000 - 00:10:39.000

It means to deny the right of anything or anyone to open a chasm, a gulf, a crevasse, something that will separate you from God or will separate you from other men.

00:10:39.000 - 00:10:51.000

Now, this is not to say that we won't have points of difference. This is not overlooking difficulty. This is not denying the reality of hardship. This is not pretending that hatred doesn't exist,

00:10:51.000 - 00:11:05.000

that violence doesn't exist, that difference doesn't exist. This does not suggest for one moment that these things are not realities which we must confront, but this does say that forgiveness is determination

00:11:05.000 - 00:11:19.000

that these things will not be permitted to create between us and God a wall of bitterness. That these things will not be permitted to create between us and any other man

00:11:19.000 - 00:11:39.000

a gulf of separation, a chasm of hatred. Walter Luty, the famous Swiss pastor, tells of an experience which occurred during the Second World War which illustrates the point I'm trying to make.

00:11:39.000 - 00:11:56.000

A certain Swiss church was meeting in a hotel. And as the worship service was about to begin, it was noticed that in the crowd assembled for worship there was one man who was notorious for being a Nazi collaborator.

00:11:56.000 - 00:12:10.000

And so one man in the room stood up and said, "We can't begin this worship service until a certain individual in our midst who is regularly violating Swiss neutrality and assisting those who would destroy decency in the world

00:12:10.000 - 00:12:23.000

absent himself from our group." And this Nazi collaborator gave no indication of having heard a word that was said. He did not move. He did not reply.

00:12:23.000 - 00:12:37.000

Whereupon another jumped up and was even more specific. He called the man by name and said that that man must leave because his presence made impure this fellowship of believers. And quite a controversy began to surge within the group

00:12:37.000 - 00:12:51.000

until one man, one of the oldest saints in that fellowship, got up and said, "Although we are meeting in a hotel, we are still a church.

00:12:51.000 - 00:13:07.000

We are still the body of Christ. And Christ teaches us to forgive. And that means that if this man gets up and leaves, then we will not be the church,

00:13:07.000 - 00:13:22.000

for then we will not be forgiving." That's what it means to forgive. Oh, I know that's hard. I know that's difficult to wrap your mind, let alone your heart, around.

00:13:22.000 - 00:13:33.000

During the Second World War, C.S. Lewis quite frequently said to the English people that they should be forgiving of the Nazis. And he was severely criticized for this. And someone wrote to him on one occasion,

00:13:33.000 - 00:13:50.000

"I wonder how you feel about that if you were a Pole or if you were a Jew." And Lewis replied by writing these words, "So do I. I wonder very much how I'd feel. I'm not trying to tell you what I would do.

00:13:50.000 - 00:14:01.000

I can do precious little. I'm just trying to say what Christianity is. I didn't invent it. And there, right in the middle of it,

00:14:01.000 - 00:14:22.000

I find these words. 'Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.'" And that's the truth of the matter, isn't it? That at the very heart of our faith is forgiveness.

00:14:22.000 - 00:14:36.000

Clarence Edward McCartney has said that "Forgiveness is the most beautiful word in the English language." I'm not so sure that that's true. I can think of some other words which are certainly as beautiful.

00:14:36.000 - 00:14:51.000

Salvation. Love. Jesus. How sweet the name of Jesus sounds on a believer's ear. No, forgiveness is not the most beautiful word in the language.

00:14:51.000 - 00:15:08.000

But I submit to you that it is the most costly. Think of what forgiveness costs God. It costs laying aside infinity and taking up finitude. It costs laying aside peace and taking up pain.

00:15:08.000 - 00:15:31.000

It costs a cross which was no stereoptican illusion, but rough wood and blood and sweat and tears and flies. That's what forgiveness costs God. And that is what forgiveness costs us.

00:15:31.000 - 00:15:50.000

Think, for example, of how much it costs to ask to be forgiven. Jesus says, "Pray, forgive us our debts." That implies that we are indebted. That implies at the very outset that we have sinned.

00:15:50.000 - 00:16:04.000

And we're not, most of us, quite ready to admit that, or at least admit it all the way to a cross. Now there was a time in the history of church when men admitted that. One thinks back, for example, to Martin Luther,

00:16:04.000 - 00:16:23.000

who had such a consciousness of sin that he devoted all of his life to seeking to be repentant and to gain the forgiveness of God, separated himself from all secular pursuits to what was called the religious life. Entering into this life, he gave himself to vows of poverty and chastity and obedience,

00:16:23.000 - 00:16:40.000

prayed to three different saints every day, beat his flesh with a nine-tailed whip until he literally rendered himself unconscious, so aware of his own sin, so aware of his own need for forgiveness, that he beat himself into a stone floor.

00:16:40.000 - 00:16:59.000

There was a time in the history of the church where men were so overwhelmingly conscious of their sin that they poured themselves out in one agonizing plea to be forgiven. Is that so today? We casually rattle off the deck of logs,

00:16:59.000 - 00:17:18.000

remind ourselves that we've not committed adultery, that we've not murdered anyone, that we've not built any idols out of silver or gold or stone, forgetting, of course, that you can kill a man with your tongue or that you can make an idol out of your wife

00:17:18.000 - 00:17:34.000

or that you can rape a man or woman just by the way you look at them. But if that doesn't make us sufficiently conscious of our sin, then think of the word which Jesus uses in the prayer. Jesus uses the Greek word "ophilema,"

00:17:34.000 - 00:17:56.000

and the word means not so much acts of commission as acts of omission. What Jesus is saying to us is, "Pray for forgiveness not only for those things which you have done which you ought not to have done, but more particularly for those things which you ought to have done and you have not done."

00:17:56.000 - 00:18:18.000

Now by this standard, can we bring ourselves to cry out for forgiveness? Look at our stewardship. Scripture teaches that we are to offer at least one-tenth of that which we have to the work of the Lord. The average person in this congregation offers something less than three and one-half percent.

00:18:18.000 - 00:18:36.000

Think of us as we come together as a congregation of worshiping believers. We come into this place, and be very honest here for a moment. Isn't it true that most of you come and sit there and look upon yourselves as somehow or other spectators on what is transpiring here?

00:18:36.000 - 00:18:50.000

You're the audience, and I and the fellows assisting me and the choir behind me, they're the actors. And somewhere off in the distance is God, and He's the prompter and holding up divine cue cards that the show might go on.

00:18:50.000 - 00:19:07.000

Isn't that the way we look at it? But you see, the truth is just the opposite of that. God is the audience in worship. The minister, the choir, we're the ones giving the cues, the prompting,

00:19:07.000 - 00:19:21.000

and you're the actors. You're the ones who are to be responding to God's Word. You are the ones who are to be praising Him and adoring Him and lifting up His name and lifting up your prayers to His name.

00:19:21.000 - 00:19:38.000

What does this say about our sin? And what about our service? You know, the Roman Catholics are one up on us. They go into a confessional booth to confess their sins.

00:19:38.000 - 00:19:55.000

Of course, we don't agree with them. It's not necessary to have some human intermediary between you and God. No, it does at least cost something to go into a booth and to confess to another man what you failed to do.

00:19:55.000 - 00:20:08.000

And we don't even pay that price. Oh no. We open this book and we read of a man like Peter. Peter, who did not consider himself to be worthy and dying as His Christ had died,

00:20:08.000 - 00:20:23.000

so he has himself crucified upside down. We read of this Peter with his dedication. And we hear him say these words, "Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man."

00:20:23.000 - 00:20:48.000

Peter, a man who insists upon being crucified upside down, says, "Lord, don't come near me. I'm a sinful man." And we pray, "Walk with me and talk with me and tell me that I am your own." And when have we been crucified right side up, let alone upside down?

00:20:48.000 - 00:21:14.000

We read of David, a man of whom Scripture says that he was after God's own heart, who brought to God everything that was good in him and everything that was bad in him, and who fashioned a life that was noble and testified to God's power in the life of a man. And yet this David cries out, "Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me."

00:21:14.000 - 00:21:49.000

And when have we so gone to God with everything that is good in us or everything that is not good in us, and cried out, "Create, remake, let me be made again from the ground up, and give me a new spirit, for I'm not worthy to come into your presence." And we read of Paul, stoned, beaten, shipwrecked, jailed, ridiculed, and in the end beheaded.

00:21:49.000 - 00:22:16.000

And this Paul cries out, "I am the chief of sinners, and we have not been stoned, and we have not been persecuted, and we have not been beaten, and we have not been jailed, and we have not been belittled or ridiculed, let alone beheaded." And we mouth this phrase, "the chief of sinners," as some kind of pious platitude.

00:22:16.000 - 00:23:08.000

He says, "I bear on my body the mark of my discipleship. Show me our mark. Let me see the scars of our service, the blotches on our flesh because of the burdens we've carried that we didn't have to care. Show me the heart's bruise from the agony of serving men as he served men." Why did Jesus die? Why did this pure and lovely and holy and good and perfect and gentle man die?

00:23:08.000 - 00:24:03.000

I shall tell you why he died. He died because of my sin and yours. And it costs to confess that, to plead and beg for forgiveness, and most of us won't pay that cost. And not only does it cost to ask for forgiveness, it costs also to give forgiveness. Oh, I'm not talking about these little disturbances that arise in life and for a little while disturb the pond of our peace.

00:24:03.000 - 00:24:24.000

A couple of weeks and they'll be forgotten. A few kind words and it'll all be over. Calmness and stillness will be ours again. But what about when somebody tramps right on your heart? What about when a person hurts someone you very much love?

00:24:24.000 - 00:24:39.000

What about when somebody kicks to death what you've been trying to lift to life? What about when somebody strangles what you call holy? What about when someone destroys your dreams? What about then?

00:24:39.000 - 00:25:10.000

Oh, I've been reading commentators all this week speaking about what Jesus has said and they say we must forgive and we must forget. Is it so easy to forgive? And is it so easy to forget? Oh, we mouth clever little phrases. We say, for example, "I shall love the sinner, but I shall hate the sin." That's stupid. In the first place you cannot separate a sin from a sinner.

00:25:10.000 - 00:25:38.000

Sin is not some tangible inanimate thing that you can sit over here and stand back and look out. Sin is the fruit of a will and a will is a part of a personality and the personality is the essence of a person. Sin is the person. The person is the sin. You cannot demarcate the two. And what is more, can we be so casual in the face of another sin that we can say we love them?

00:25:38.000 - 00:26:05.000

Is there no room for our anger? Is there no room for our disagreement? Is there no room for the expression of our frustration? Do we bottle this up inside till we're tied into knots and become so much less than we're intended to be? Or really, is it so easy just to forgive and to forget?

00:26:05.000 - 00:26:32.000

A husband profanes his marital vows by committing adultery. And let us suppose that his wife still loves him. And let us suppose that she holds him just as close as she always held him. Let us suppose that she forgives him and allows no barrier to grow between the two of them, in spite of the sin.

00:26:32.000 - 00:26:59.000

Let us suppose that he accepts her forgiveness. Let us even suppose that this marriage becomes a healthier and holier thing because of this sin and its forgiveness than it was before. Let us suppose all of these things are so. Still I say to you that there will be times, years hence,

00:26:59.000 - 00:27:33.000

when crowding out of the corner of her consciousness will come the reality of what he did. She will not be able to totally forget it. And in the moment of her being reminded, her heart will chill. It's not easy to forgive. And it's impossible to forget.

00:27:33.000 - 00:27:56.000

There's a legend which says that when the prodigal son got home, it was in the evening. His father met him after the sun had gone down. And in the swirl and excitement of the party and greeting friends and those whom he'd loved and lost a while, he didn't really see his father.

00:27:56.000 - 00:28:13.000

It wasn't until the next morning, after he'd slept late. Slept late because it was the first night back in his own bed, the first night with a full stomach, the first night with a heart and a mind at peace.

00:28:13.000 - 00:28:41.000

So he slept late and he comes out and meets his father on the porch. And it's noontime and the sun is bright. And he looks at his father and discovers for the very first time that every hair on his father's head is now snow white.

00:28:41.000 - 00:28:56.000

Well, that's what forgiveness costs. You know the most perfect definition of forgiveness I've ever encountered? It was written by a deaf mute. This is what he wrote.

00:28:56.000 - 00:29:29.000

"Forgiveness is the lovely scent the violet leaves on the heel that crushes it." "Forgiveness is the lovely scent the violet leaves on the heel that crushes it." And that's not easy. So where do we learn how to be so forgiving?

00:29:29.000 - 00:29:53.000

Where do we learn how to cry out for forgiveness and then to express that forgiveness to others? Well, we learn it in this prayer. For Jesus teaches us to pray, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." The way that's said in English leads us to believe that we're engaged in some kind of works theology here.

00:29:53.000 - 00:30:08.000

That is, that if we forgive a little, we'll be forgiven a little. If we forgive a lot, we will be forgiven a lot. That's not what the suggestion, the sense of the sentence is at all. It does not imply or suggest that God will bless us only in proportion to how we bless others.

00:30:08.000 - 00:30:30.000

That is not what is being said. What Jesus is saying is this. [Bell rings] "You cannot separate God and man. What hurts God hurts man. What hurts man hurts God.

00:30:30.000 - 00:30:56.000

Hit the father, you wound the child. Wound the child, you've hit the father." So Jesus says, "Remembering this, ask that God will forgive you. And in asking that God will forgive you, you will find that you will become forgiving toward the expression of God which you know in your life as other men."

00:30:56.000 - 00:31:05.000

Let me put that in other terms. Jesus reminds us that we're all debtors. "Forgive us our debts." We are indebted to God.

00:31:05.000 - 00:31:18.000

But Jesus also reminds us that we're all creditors. That there are individuals who are indebted to us. That there are people who have done things against us. Now how do we act with those who are indebted to us?

00:31:18.000 - 00:31:35.000

Well, is it not true that we feel a little bit superior? I mean, after all, they wouldn't be where they were if it wasn't for us. There is some subtle or perhaps open and direct sense in which they've received something from us and they wouldn't be what they are if we weren't behind them.

00:31:35.000 - 00:31:46.000

Now, suppose it comes time for the indebtedness to be paid. And we remind them of this and they don't pay it. And we remind them of this again and they don't pay it. And we remind them of this with a little more firmness and they don't pay it.

00:31:46.000 - 00:31:57.000

And we begin to show impatience. And then we begin to show anger. And after we show anger, we assert superiority. And after we assert superiority, we conduct a trial.

00:31:57.000 - 00:32:08.000

And in that trial, we set ourselves up as prosecuting attorney, as judge, and as jury. We decide the person is guilty. The sentence has been pronounced. And now the sentence must be executed.

00:32:08.000 - 00:32:21.000

And so we hit. We sue. We take them to court. We cut them down to size.

00:32:21.000 - 00:32:39.000

A man called me the other day, filled with bitterness against another man, and said in the height of his anger, "If I had my way, I'd blast him from the face of the earth." So we blast him from the face of the earth. What is that?

00:32:39.000 - 00:32:56.000

That's setting yourself up as a little god, isn't it? As a very little god. So Jesus says, "All right, you want to play god? Play god." "But play god fair."

00:32:56.000 - 00:33:09.000

"You want to play god? All right, play god. But play god fair." And god doesn't sentence. And god doesn't blast from the face of the earth. What does god do with those who are indebted?

00:33:09.000 - 00:33:19.000

He climbs up on a cross and he dies. That's what god does. So if you're going to play god, die. Die loving.

00:33:19.000 - 00:33:38.000

Die forgiving. Play god! But that means crucified. That's the sense of this sentence.

00:33:38.000 - 00:34:13.000

"O God, so show me what it is to be forgiven, that I might crucify myself to forgive." One of my favorite biblical scenes is that one in the house of the Pharisee where the prostitute comes in. And you remember how she washes his feet with her tears, kisses his feet and anoints them with precious oil. And the Pharisee stands aside and he thinks to himself,

00:34:13.000 - 00:34:38.000

"If he were really a prophet, he'd know what kind of a woman she is and he wouldn't have anything to do with her." And Jesus looks at him and he says, "It is customary in our land that when one comes to a home, he is given the kiss of welcome." You did not give me the kiss of welcome, but she has kissed my feet. It is customary in this land when one comes to a home to wash his feet.

00:34:38.000 - 00:34:55.000

You did not wash my feet, but she's washed my feet with her tears. It is customary in this land to anoint the visitor with oil. You offered me no oil. She has poured out for me the most precious oil she has.

00:34:55.000 - 00:35:04.000

She is forgiven. Why? Because she cried? Because she kissed?

00:35:04.000 - 00:35:23.000

Because she poured out oil? No. It was because she loved. She loved him so much that he could extend his love into her life.

00:35:23.000 - 00:35:44.000

Because she loved, she could receive his love. That, you see, is the law of echo. We see it in the world. I'm hit, so I hit.

00:35:44.000 - 00:36:03.000

I'm lied about, so I lie. I'm bruised, I bruise. I'm wounded, I wound. But there are some people who don't try to echo men.

00:36:03.000 - 00:36:19.000

They seek to echo God. As God listens, they listen. As God loves, they love. As God shows mercy, they show mercy.

00:36:19.000 - 00:36:53.000

As God forgives, they forgive. As God dies, they die. And these people, these people are called Christians. So a friend of mine wrote to me from New York City

00:36:53.000 - 00:37:13.000

and said that he'd come across the most beautiful epitaph he'd ever seen. A little stone in a little cemetery. No name, no dates, no particulars. Just one word.

00:37:13.000 - 00:37:30.000

Forgiven. He said it was the most beautiful epitaph he'd ever seen. It is beautiful. But I can give you one that is more beautiful.

00:37:30.000 - 00:38:08.000

The most beautiful of epitaph of all. The only epitaph that will save the world is the epitaph which reads "Forgiven. He forgave."

00:38:08.000 - 00:38:30.000

It's very, very hard. Oh, but when we tell you that, Father, you know it already. My, how you know how hard it was. None of the ransomed ever knew

00:38:30.000 - 00:38:53.000

how deep the waters crossed. Teach us how much it costs. And having forgiven us, help us to echo the--

00:38:53.000 - 00:39:18.000

that we too might forgive as we have been forgiven. And the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.

00:39:18.000 - 00:39:28.000

The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you his peace.