Matthew eighteen, verses twenty one and twenty two Peter came to Jesus said to him, Lord, how many times will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times. Jesus said to him, I don't say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. Somebody asked me last week what I'm preaching on at Emmanuel, somebody who's not from this church. And I said, I'm preaching on Matthew eighteen and they said, the church discipline part or the forgiveness part? Isn't that a good question? I don't know, how would you answer it? Don't actually answer it right now, but. it's impossible to divide in this chapter. This chapter is so wound around both. They're united. At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus was asked to the greatest in heaven was. And he called for himself, a two year old, and put him in the middle of the room and said, this is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Now, if you have ever met a two year old before, you would know that you would not use the word humble to describe a two year old. But this is what Jesus uses. And of course, we recognize that two year olds, while they may not be humble in all the the range of what humble means, they are humble in this way. When a two year old is called, he knows he's not called by a grown up to do something or to bring something. He's likely being called to receive something. Two year olds don't do chores they just receive. What a picture of what it means to come to faith in Christ. We receive the gospel. We don't earn it. Jesus then transitions from that to his warning. If you cause a young believer, an immature believer to sin, it is better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck and thrown into the sea. God strictly judges people who cause believers to sin. You want to help believers grow in their faith, not hinder them. And then Jesus switches the analogy from a child to a sheep. There's a shepherd with a hundred sheep and one of them is missing, stuck somewhere. Now you misunderstand the story. If you think the sheep just took a wrong turn, got lost. No, this sheep was lured away. This sheep got stuck in sin in the mud of this world. In sin, the shepherd counts his sheep at the end of the day, probably several times, and realizes one is missing and goes to get him. And of course he goes to get him. Nobody reads that story and says, no, Shepherd, stay. Everybody reads it. He's like, go, go get the sheep. How do you rescue a sheep that is stuck in sin? Well, you ask them to repent. You show them the greatness of Christ, and you say, come home to the chief Shepherd. That's hard to do when the sheep who is stuck in sin is sinning against you. It's easy when it's some random fictional fluffy sheep. What about when it's a biting sheep? What about when it's a gossiping sheep and it's biting and gossiping about you. First you see, can love cover this and love can't cover it. It's straining the fabric of your relationship with them. The family imagery is so helpful here. It's likely this kind of person is likely part of your family. Broad sense the family of God, your local church. More likely even your own personal family. They're sinning against you. What do you do in such a situation? Will you go get em? You could tell the person, hey, come back, repent from your sin. And they don't listen to you. You go and you bring two witnesses, and the three of you are pleading with them, and they don't listen to them. You go and get the church, and the church is now pleading with the person. This is going over a long period of time. I mean, last week I talked about confronting somebody in the coffee line, and then next week bringing two witnesses to the coffee line. Now the whole church ambushing the guy. The third week in the coffee line, you recognize it doesn't work that way. Even the witnesses for the confrontation. That's not one conversation. This is something that stretches out over months. Pleading with the person hey, stop gossiping, stop slandering, stop biting. Don't leave your family. Come back to your family. Keep the vows you made begging. And maybe. They listen. Maybe they don't. Do you recognize church discipline here is tied to forgiveness. You're playing with live ammo, so to speak. You look at verse eighteen. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. This is serious conversations. If the witnesses, the two or three who are gathered in my name, that's not two or three random people, that's the witnesses to the confrontation, those who were there. If the witnesses are united in what's happening here, there's a true expression of the person's faith and their status before God. It's not arbitrary. They're not making things up. They're expressing the reality of the person's spiritual condition. We understand this at the front door of the church, so much better than the back door of the church. The front door of the church. Listen, I'm telling you, anybody comes off the street today, walks in. This church has never been to church before. Knows nothing about Jesus, nothing about the Bible. They went to McDonald's and turned wrong. And they walk in here. Any one of you, any one of you could look them in the eye and sincerely say, listen, if you turn from your sin and receive Christ and believe the gospel today, Your sins are forgiven. They're taken from you. You don't have to go to hell when you die. Jesus offers you forgiveness of your sins. You can have that today by placing your faith in him. And if you do, it's real from the perspective of heaven. Their sins are gone and they're forgiven. You can say that to anybody who walks off the street today. And the flip side of that is also true. If you reject Christ, if you reject the gospel and you leave from here and you die in your sins, you will be judged by God. That's John eight twenty four. I told you you would die in your sins unless you believe. And I believe that almost any one of you could say that to anybody who walks in the front door of the church with conviction, and it would be true. The back door of the church. Now somebody is digging their feet into sin. There. Set their course on leaving their family and he plead with them. He said, please don't. And they say, I am not interested in what you have to say. And you bring witnesses and you plead with them, and the witnesses are united. This is not biblical. You're walking in sin. Maybe the person is slandering you and you're begging them to stop, and others come alongside and they're begging the person and they say, no. And you show him the Word of God. And they say, it doesn't matter to me. I'm living. I'm doing what's best for me right now. I have to look out for me. I know what the Word of God says, but I'm not doing that. I'm doing this. And you can beg that person. And it's the same thing you can say here. Listen, if you turn from your sin, you can be forgiven right now. We'll receive you back with open arms right now. And what's loosed on earth is truly loosed in heaven. But if you dig your feet in and you say, I'm living for myself, I don't care what the word says. I'm making what's right for me. I'm setting my own way in this world. What is bound on earth is truly bound in heaven. So is it discipline or forgiveness? It's the same thing. And now where this goes this morning. This is such an intricate chapter. Each paragraph so closely fits the one before. Lord, we go this morning is what happens if that person does repent. Then they're forgiven. That's so easy to say, isn't it? When it's something trivial, like they cut you off in the parking lot. They called you ugly. Whatever. It's something trivial like that. So easy to forgive them. They say I'm sorry. You say I forgive you. Let's move on. Easier to move on than to dwell on this. But that's likely not the kind of situation that Matthew eighteen is describing, is it? I mean, we're describing a situation here where there is conflict that involves witnesses and harm and division that has gone on for weeks or months. I mean, just think about the kind of examples you have. You've been a Christian long enough. You have some of these examples. Think of the kinds of examples of somebody who is so dug in on the sin that there are witnesses involved, that the church is getting involved. This is not something small. This is the kind of gossip the person's been lying about you and lying about your family and lying lying about you to your kids. And at first you tell your kids, just ignore that. Let's let love cover this. But no, it goes on and it starts to tearing your family. And so you're like, okay, that person needs to be confronted. And you go and you confront him and they say, you deserve it. I'm not repenting. I can say what I want to say, and you bring witnesses and you're getting more and more people involved. And this is a conflict. The witnesses come in, they're starting all over again. This is talking weeks and months or in the marriage, a spouse is undercutting and belittling and gossiping and slandering and just making the house practically unlivable. And you confront him and they don't repent, and you bring witnesses. And now the witnesses are pleading, saying, don't live like that. Treat your spouse with love and affection, not like that. And he won't do it or she won't do it. Eventually they leave their family. And you plead with the person the person. The whole church pleads with the person. Come back. Come back. And then one day they do. Their heart is softened. Three months later, they repent from their sin. And they say I was wrong. I'm sorry. Now what? Do you receive that person back? Do you welcome them back? I'll tell you what. The angels in heaven rejoice. What about you? Heaven celebrates. Certainly. The witnesses celebrate. Certainly the church celebrates. What about the person who was lied to? What about the spouse who was left behind? They might not celebrate, they might say last three months have been the first time I've enjoyed life in years. And now they repent. How many times? How many times am I supposed to receive that person back? To understand that question. You need to go back to the Old Testament. Let me invite you to flip to Leviticus chapter sixteen. Turn all the way back to Leviticus. If you're visiting or you're not familiar with the the Bible, Leviticus is the third book of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus chapter sixteen. We'll be here for a few minutes, so it's probably worth flipping there. If you're having a hard time finding it, ask the person next to you. Leviticus sixteen. There's two goats in Leviticus, and I'm going to call these the goats of forgiveness. So if you're looking for an outline, there you go. The goats of forgiveness. The two goats. The first we find in verse fifteen, the priest, the high priest, Aaron, we're talking about. But by extension, any of the priests is going to kill the goat of the sin offering, and that's for the people, and bring its blood inside the veil. Do the same thing. The blood of the goat that he did with the blood of the bull. We didn't read the blood of the bull here, but the scenario here is there's a sin offering. The priest kills the bull, drains his blood. This is making atonement. So this first goat, the first goat of forgiveness. Here is the goat of Atonement. The goat of Atonement is brought in. The sins of the people are transferred to the Goat of Atonement. It's a symbolic transfer. The priest lays his hands on the head of the goat. And this happened with the bull earlier. The goat is more for unintentional sins. It's a broad category. It's basically all the sins go on the goat and the goat is put to death. I've seen people do this. They straddle the goat. They cut the neck of the goat. They hold its head back. The blood comes out. The goat falls sideways. The blood comes out into a basin. The blood's collected. Now, the priest who's wearing his priestly robe goes into the tabernacle. This is Leviticus is written when they're in the wilderness, for temple goes into the tabernacles and tents, and with the bull filled with blood, and sprinkles it on the mercy seat. The mercy seat is the it's a seat in there that's meant to symbolize or indicate remind you of God's very throne in heaven, where God reigns in heaven and God dispenses mercy from above. The priest approaches, asking for mercy with blood. And that's because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. The wages of sin is death. And so in order for there to be forgiveness, there has to be atonement. Sin has to be paid for. And so it's always been this way. It doesn't start with the first goat here. This was in the Garden of Eden. Adam. Adam and Eve sinned. They tried to cover their sin with fig leaves. Which is funny if you're thinking. If you're being honest. That's funny. They cover their nakedness like they cover their sin with fig leaves. I believe the fig leaves in the Garden of Eden were epic. Mammoth awesome fig trees in the garden. Sinless fig trees. Incredible. But it's still pretty funny to try to cover yourself with them. And then God comes and kills an animal. And makes a better covering with blood. At able understood this. Able knew for his sins to be forgiven, he had to offer a sacrifice. Cain won't do that. And so Cain's sins stood without forgiveness, and God pled with Cain. God told Cain, there's a sin offering crouching at your door. Go get it and offer it. Cain refused. For there to be forgiveness, there has to be atonement, bloodshed, a death. And that's because the wages of sin is death. Forgiveness is not some mere emotional change. It's not some attitude or disposition or outlook on life that's positive. I've heard people say that, oh, forgiving people are so positive. If you're positive, you're forgiving. There's a sense in which that might be true. That's not what true biblical forgiveness is. True biblical forgiveness is rooted in the fact that there was death for the sin. Forgiveness is never free. It always is costly. Sin always comes with a punishment. for forgiveness to take place, the punishment is poured out on a substitute. So hear me very carefully. This first goat is so important with forgiveness. Because when you forgive someone, you are not saying your sin doesn't matter. You're not saying your sin didn't hurt me. You're not saying your sin wasn't offensive to God. You're not saying that your sin didn't harm me, hurt me, matter and devastate my life in a thousand ways. That is, you're not saying that. Telling someone to forgive someone is not telling them. Just get over it and move on. Forgiveness is rooted in the idea that the sin was paid for by the death of someone. Far from forgiveness saying your sin doesn't matter. Forgiveness says your sin matters so much it had to be atoned for in blood. That's the first goat. It's sprinkled on the mercy seat. It's sprinkled on the horns of the altar. He's sprinkling it all over the place. If you look down in verse sixteen, he's making atonement in the holy place of the uncleanliness of the people. Verse seventeen, no one can come into the tent while this is happening. You want to bring more sin in with you. Verse eighteen, he's going to go before the altar and make atonement for it. He's going to take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar. The altar has this basin in it, with two ox heads pointing outwards, the basin coming behind the the ox and the priest is walking around the altar, sprinkling blood on the horns. The whole thing is covered in blood. This priest is going to come out of the tabernacle soaked in blood. Look, verse nineteen, he's going to be sprinkling blood with his finger seven times, then cleansing it in the the basin by the oxen, their blood and water. And then verse twenty, we get the second goat, and the first was the goat of atonement. The second is the goat of Abandonment. Goat one. Atonement. Goat two abandonment. Verse twenty. Get this live goat here. Remember the started with two goats. One is dead now, blood sprinkled everywhere. The priest comes out drenched in blood. Verse twenty one. He's going to take his hands on top and put him on the head of the live goat. What do you think the live goat is thinking? Priests hands are on the live goat's head, and the priest is confessing all the sins of the people, all their transgressions, all their sins. It says twice they're putting them on the head of that goat and then sending that goat away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. That's an odd Hebrew phrase. Every translation renders it differently. But the idea behind it is that someone who's ready to take that goat far away. That goat is going to drug out and get drug out to a remote part of the wilderness and abandon there. Verse twenty two, that goat is left in a remote area. He'll let the goat free in the wilderness. That phrase let the goat go free. Another odd Hebrew word. It's translated differently all over the place. In fact, when Tyndale translated the first English translation of the Bible ever, Tyndale wrestled with this phrase. And he invented an English phrase for it. Scapegoat. That's what Tyndale came up with. Scapegoat. That's where the word comes from, ESV goes. Send it away into the wilderness. A wilderness goat scapegoat just has a better ring than wilderness goat, though, doesn't it? That goat goes away. That goats never coming back. He's abandoned off in the middle of the wilderness. That goat is not finding his way home. The idea here, a one goat dead. Your sin is atoned for. The second goat lost. Your sin is gone. I've read some sources that say when the Jews are practicing this in the wilderness, they might send somebody, uncle or something out to find that second goat and kill it. That way it doesn't accidentally wander back into camp one day, like our sins are gone. The Goat of Wilderness took it away. And then Thursday. So now you get. Get rid of that other goat. I don't know if that actually happens, but the idea here is that second goat is gone. He's not coming back. That's the second part of forgiveness here. When you forgive someone, you're forgiving them because atonement was made and the sins are gone. You're not keeping a record of their wrongs. You don't have a notebook of all the times your spouse wronged you. You don't have a note app password protected. A little note on your notes app times my wife's sins. Exclamation mark. No. It's gone. You don't bring it up again. Not because it doesn't matter. Not because it didn't hurt you, but because the goat went away. It's gone. I used to coach this high school kid back in California. A very good soccer player. His freshman year, he so badly wanted to win state, and we lost. Off of some handball. And this kid was a freshman. He wrote down the offending player's name. Who got away, who cheated him out of his championship, wrote it down on a piece of paper, and he kept it with him his whole high school career. It took on kind of a joke with the players and the team. They called it his revenge list. Galen was the kid's name. Galen called it his revenge list. And as the seasons won, I coached this kid for years. Sometimes new names would get added to the list, like somebody who did a dirty tackle and got away with it, or who was just like kind of a punk to him. Get their name on the list. And if Caleb or Galen ridiculed the guy like megged him on the field or scored an amazing goal or beat them in an important game, the name would come off the list. And so through the four years, it was a very fluid list. But that kid who cheated that name stayed on it the whole time. Galen never got his revenge. He ended up going to the University of Maryland playing soccer there. That other kid on his revenge list went to Tufts. I think he played against each other a few times, but I don't know what happened. But I do know that their junior year they transferred and they were on the same team. Maryland. The name was still on the revenge list. Now what? Like now? Do you understand? Now, if you're have a revenge list and the dude's your teammate, you're rooting against your own team for the sake of some grievance from seven years earlier. Real as though it was. That is such a picture of every Christian who refuses to forgive. You're rooting against your own team. Easy to say that the goat took the sins away. So easy to say. The goat went away. Harder to believe when you were the one sinned against. So like I said, the person lies about you, slanders you, hounds you, tries, just dedicate themselves to ruining your reputation for years or leaves. The family walks away from the marriage, leaves the family, leaves you at home. And months later says, I repent. How many times are you supposed to say, okay. The Jews had an answer for this. You can go back to Matthew eighteen. The Jews had an answer. The rabbis taught that the answer to that question is three times. Several sources say this the spouse leaves the marriage, won't forgive, his divisive won't forgive, and they decide to come back. You have to receive them back, the rabbi said. You have to receive them back once, twice and three times. They pull that stunt a fourth time and you can divorce. That was a standard rabbinical teaching. The fourth time you are free to divorce the person and move on with your life. They don't deserve forgiveness any longer. So do you notice here when Peter says, how many times are we supposed to forgive? He's taking the Jewish answer, doubling it and adding one. Like in Peter's mind, this is so over the top. Are you kidding me? I asked the rabbi down the street. He said, three times. Jesus, obviously you're more magnanimous than that, rabbi. More than twice as magnanimous. You're so forgiving, Lord. Seven times probably, huh? Well, this is a. I'm going to refer to this as the goat of self. The self goat. Not a real goat. Not a Leviticus sixteen goat. This is rooting forgiveness in your own sense of right and wrong, in your own sense of hurt, in your own sense of self. This is forgiveness rooted in self. Where you're saying I'm keeping the track one check. Mark two check. Mark three check. Mark four check. Mark five. Check marks. Six check marks. No way. We're getting to seven. That's forgiveness. Rooted in yourself. Not a real goat. That's a wolf dressed like a goat. Forgiveness is not rooted in you. Even though you were the one who has sinned against. Angels rejoice in heaven when the person repents. Again, the spouse is left behind. Might think, oh, actually enjoyed life. Certainly I can't deal with this again. Jesus tells Peter, I do not tell you seven times, But seventy times seven. Some versions say seventy seven. In Greek you would write seventy seven and seventy times seven. Like almost like parentheses in our mouth would read the same. Seventy times seven, I think is probably the best way to understand it. But the idea is that Peter is not just quantitatively wrong, he's categorically wrong. It's not just that his number is too low, it's that he's not even in the right schema. It's not seventy or seven and add a zero to it. It's Peter. You're counting the wrong way. You're counting from your perspective. But it's not, in a sense about you, Peter. Next week we'll see why it's not about Peter, but the point from next week I'm going to draft a little bit of it right here. The point for next week is because God is the one who's been sinned against more than you, even when it is so personal, when the person is lying about you and slandering you and hunting you and dividing you, or abandoning you, or ruining your family and your house. It is still ultimately about the Lord. And that is again, easy to say, so hard to believe it's ultimately about the Lord. Think of the person who has sinned against you more than anybody else. Do you understand? They've sinned against God more than you. And so if God extends forgiveness to them, where does that leave you? There's a sense in which the true goal of forgiveness is Jesus. And I don't mean that in the cheesy, corny way, although I kind of do, but I mean it in a better way that Jesus fulfills both goats, he provides atonement, and he removes sin. When Jesus goes to the cross, he bears the sins of everybody who would ever believe. That person who sinned against you so often and for months or years. If they have placed their faith in Christ, that sin against you is written down, figuratively written down, and nailed to the cross of Christ. And God pours out his wrath on Jesus. He sheds his blood, the crown of thorns, his head is pierced, his arms and his feet are shedding blood. He's carrying the cross. He's beaten and whipped in his back. He's lifted up on the cross. His blood is coming out of him on the cross. And it is the wrath of God that is coming down on him to pay the penalty of that sin. The person did against you. And Jesus takes it. For the entirety of the punishment of that sin, an eternal punishment of that one sin is poured out on him, and he lifts up his voice, the last word he says in his life to Telestai it is finished. Atonement has been made. The debt has been cancelled. And then he goes into the grave, and he goes all the way to Sheol, all the way to the realm of the dead. And he carries our sins far away and leaves them there. When he resurrects from the grave, he doesn't come out with a notebook. He doesn't come out with a list of all of the sins he died for. He's going to keep them just in case he needs to access them later. No. He leaves them in the grave, never to be seen or heard from again. There's true distance. He provides atonement on the cross and Separation through death. And when he resurrects, he can offer forgiveness, a clean conscience. Hebrews nine says, we come to faith in Christ. Our conscience is cleansed by the sprinkling of his blood. It's not the mercy seat. His blood is spread on. It's our own minds, our own hearts, our own consciences are purified from our sin through the death and resurrection of Christ. Oh, how far away our sins are! This is why I love bears all things. First Corinthians thirteen. First of all, first Corinthians thirteen. Love is not resentful or literally love keeps no record of wrongs. It's not resentful. How can it be? God was sinned against so many more times than you were. And he didn't keep a record. Love bears all things. Bridges have weight limits. Trucks have weight limits. But love does not. You can keep piling sin on top of love. It does not break because Jesus bore all of the sins of all. Who would ever believe is an own body in his own body on that cross, and he did not break. Love bears all things. This is why Ephesians four thirty two can be true for Christians. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another in God as Christ forgave you. I heard that ICS makes a kindergartners memorize that verse. What a great verse for kindergartners, six year olds hitting each other with their trains, arguing over who had the train first, and the teacher can't referee that. The teacher can't come in and say who had the train first? Let's look at the security footage. No, the teacher says you two love each other. Consider one another more important than yourselves and forgive each other. Of course, the six year olds cry and hug each other a little six year old style. I'm sorry. They'll go back to hitting each other with trains in five minutes, of course. Harder with grown ups. Isn't it harder with grown ups? Love keeps a record of wrongs because love doesn't go looking for the loss of goat, but looking for the lost sheep. So God can extend forgiveness to us. You can extend it to others. What happens when the person repents? And the spouse is left behind, so to speak. The one who is left behind, the one who is wronged but the person repents. What happens when that spouse does not want to extend forgiveness? That's for next week. That's next week's parable. But I want to leave you with this a little Bible trivia. What is the first use of forgiveness in the Bible? Don't answer out loud. The first use of forgiveness in the Bible. The first forgiveness in the Bible. I said earlier, Adam and Eve having their sin covered the first time the word is used. It is in Genesis. At the end of the book, Genesis fifty, Israel is dead and the eleven brothers show up to Joseph, who's prime minister, and say, Joseph, dad had a deathbed request. Don't know if it's true or not, but that's what they say, and it probably is true. It seems like a deathbed request, but I just think it's cagey how it's presented in Genesis. Dad, dad, promise on his deathbed asked us to come to you. Will you forgive us? And Joseph responds with, am I in the place of God? And at that moment you don't know what's going to come next? Am I in the place of God that I can forgive? He could say that. But he says, am I in the place of God that I could punish you? I cannot. Then he says what God meant or what man meant for evil. God meant for good. That's that verse. That's where it is. His brother say sorry about the whole selling you into slavery and trying to murder you thing are bad. Will you forgive us? He forgives them, restores them, elevates them, provides for them. Is that going to be hard to not bring up again? Thanksgiving five years later? Hey, remember that time you sold me into slavery? No. It's gone, it's gone. We forgive endlessly. Not because other people deserve it, but because God sent our sins away and put his son to death in our place. Lord, we're so thankful for forgiveness you've given us in Christ. It reaches to the heavens deeper than the sea, as far as the east is from the west, so our sins have been removed from us. Make us into forgiving people. So hard, so hard. We pray for your grace. For those who've been sinned against. We pray for forgiveness. We pray for repentance. For those that are digging in in their sins and leaving their families, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. We pray their hearts would be softened and broken and repentance would grow. For those that are slandering and gossiping and dividing, we pray their hearts would be broken in repentance and forgiveness would grow. And we pray for the wayward son who returns, the sinner who wished for death on his parents, who comes home. We know the angels rejoice. We pray that we would be like the father who receives as well. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to TMZ.com. Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C. area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now, may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly. Serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel boldly.