[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear saints, we’ve heard the voice of the prophets, especially today the prophet Habakkuk. We’ve heard the voice of the apostles, especially today the voice of Saint Paul writing to Timothy. We’ve heard the voice of Jesus in the gospel commanding us to forgive, and even after we’ve forgiven, to not think it’s something special; it’s just what we’re commanded to do.
We’ve heard the voice of the ancient fathers of the church, those who teach us to confess the truth, and we’ve in fact joined our voices to them in the confession of the Creed. We’ve heard and joined in the great confession of Christ in the poets of the church, through the hymns that we’ve sung, the psalms from King David, and the hymns that we’ve sung so far. So we’ve heard from the prophets, the apostles, Jesus himself, the church fathers, and the poets, and now you have to hear from me.
Now what I preach better match up with what you’ve heard already. But it’s not enough for us to come to church and hear all these things and to not have a sermon. The Word of God, according to the Lord’s will, is to be preached. Paul says this—this is astonishing—it’s from 1 Corinthians, chapter 1. Paul says, “‘Since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of the word preached to save those who believe.'” Or to say it, I think the cleaner translation is this, “‘Through the foolishness of the Word preached to save those who believe.’
So the Word of God is read, and then you get a fool preacher to stand up and say plainly what it means. And the Lord God, the Holy Spirit, uses the preaching of the Word to press it into our ears and into our hearts so that we believe it and confess it and are saved. It’s an amazing thing.
Now what does the preaching do? The preaching brings out the context of the Scripture so that we can understand it. The preaching makes connections, especially connecting the Scriptures to one another and then connecting the Scriptures to what’s going on in our own world and even in our own hearts. The preaching brings forth the Lord’s Word of law and gospel, recognizing that the Lord speaks to us in commands and in promises, in threats and in gifts. He tells us what to do, and then He gives us things to believe.
I’ve been thinking about the law and gospel in terms of wisdom and comfort. So the Lord gives us wisdom, and the Lord also gives us comfort. And most especially, the preaching brings forth for the Lord’s people the name, the gift of Jesus Christ crucified. Paul says when he writes to the Corinthians, he says, “When I was coming to visit you, I determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
There is on this lamp right here—you should come and see it sometimes—there is a little plaque right here, and it says this; it’s the words of John 12, verse 21: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” So in the sermon the Lord brings Himself to us to bless us. For that today, we’ll consider just very briefly the Gospel lesson from Luke 17, and especially this part where Jesus says that if your brother sins against you, you’re to rebuke him, and if he repents, you’re to forgive him, and then again, and then again, and then again, and then again, and then again.
If your brother sins against you seven times in a day and he comes back to you and repents and asks for forgiveness, you are to forgive him seven times. I would be lucky to get one, and I think the Apostles are like you and I, where they hear this command of Jesus, and they say, “Lord, how is it possible? If you want us to forgive, you’re going to have to increase our faith because we do not have that kind of faith.”
It’s hard to forgive. And we know that. I remember when I learned it. So when I was a kid, there’s one time I got in trouble—just one time. In fact, it would go like this: it’s normally when—this is where I realize it—say my brother did something to me, and my mom would tell us, “Hey, go and apologize to your brother.” So my brother would come and apologize, I mean half the time I’d be apologizing to them, or we were always apologizing to each other. There was a big confession of absolution at our house all the time.
But when they apologized to me, I realized that I did not want to say, “I forgive you.” My brother would apologize to me, “Brian, I’m sorry,” and I would say, “That’s fine. Don’t worry about it. No big deal, whatever. I didn’t even notice.” It’s hard to say, “I forgive you.” And why is it so hard? It’s an amazing thing to think about. It doesn’t seem like it would be so hard, but it is. To say it is to say, “I forgive,” and the reason why is because if I were to say to my brother, “I forgive you,” I’m admitting that whatever he did hurt me, and I don’t want to admit that.
There’s a cost, and this is not just psychological; this is just how the world is structured. There’s a cost to forgiveness. There’s a pain to forgiveness. There’s suffering involved in forgiveness. If you’re forgiving someone, it’s because they have hurt you, and that forgiveness is, in fact, admitting to them that they hurt you. That’s why we’re so slow to do it, and we say, “Oh, don’t worry, forget about it; water under the bridge,” or whatever. We don’t want to say, “I forgive you,” because we don’t want to admit that we’re, in fact, vulnerable to that kind of pain.
But forgiveness costs. This is one of the fundamental errors of Islam; it teaches forgiveness apart from suffering. Forgiveness apart from cost or sacrifice. Islam says that Allah can simply decide to forgive someone, and He doesn’t pay any price for it. There’s no sacrifice that needs to be offered. That’s simply false and true, and it doesn’t work that way. If there’s going to be forgiveness, there’s going to be suffering. There’s going to be a cost paid, which is why Christ suffered. It’s the cost that He pays so that He can forgive your sins.
That is why He bleeds; it is why He is whipped and has His beard torn out, and why He is spit upon and why the crown of thorns is pressed into His head, and why He is nailed to the cross and why He is there in agony under the wrath of God: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He is suffering all of that so that He can say to you, like He did a few minutes ago, “I forgive you all your sins.” He suffered all of this so that He can say to you, like He will in a few minutes, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all of your sins.”
It’s from this sacrifice that Jesus sends us out to forgive. It would be impossible to forgive any sins if the Lord had not suffered all of this for us; but because He has suffered, He says to you that your sins are forgiven, that He is not mad at you, that you will stand before Him in joy, that you are covered in His righteousness, that He delights in you.
And so we are forgiven forgivers. Seven times a day? Oh, the Lord is merciful for us much more than that. And as we rejoice in His mercy, we start to be merciful even to one another. May God grant us comfort, in the name of Jesus, Amen.
The sermon concludes with a blessing, pressing the joy of the Lord’s Word into your ears, and then after that, we stand and pray the offertory. It comes from different places in the Scripture, most often from Psalm 51, David’s great prayer of repentance, and we’re praying that God would send His Holy Spirit so that all the things that we’ve heard read from the Scriptures, all the things that we’ve heard preached from the pulpit, that all of those things would bear fruit in our own lives.
And so hear the blessing: the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, amen.
