[0:00] to be caught up with the noise of a solemn assembly. It is our business to hear your still, small voice, speak through your word to the very circumstances of our hearts and lives, to say the things that we need to hear as opposed to the things we may want to hear.
[0:30] And in that hearing to find the sufficiency of your grace that what we hear with our outward ears may be realized in our inward hearts.
[0:45] And we ask this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. And you're to turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 18, which is on page 18 of the New Testament section of the Blue Pew Bible.
[1:15] Chapter 18 of Matthew, page 18 of the New Testament section. If you notice, chapter 18 begins with, at that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
[1:37] So it is a meeting between Jesus, not with his opponents, but with his disciples. It's a very famous chapter in the whole of the New Testament because it contains what only one or two other verses in the whole of the New Testament contain, and that's the word church.
[2:00] And if you're distracted by the sermon, you can look for it. So that it's reckoned to be a kind of teaching by Jesus to the church.
[2:18] And here we are in this year of our Lord, 1987, on this height of land in Vancouver, called together and assembled because we believe ourselves to be in some ways.
[2:33] the disciples of Jesus Christ and to be the church. Not the ultimate expression of it, but one, as someone describes it, one freckle on the body of Christ.
[2:51] That we are, we're part of it. Now, it has some very important things to say to us. I am the minister of a church, and I suspect that I can serve effectively in the ministry of that church until I build around me so much bitterness, so much misunderstanding, so much jealousy, so much hatred, so much fear, so much of the residual effect of broken relationships, that I, as the minister, am no longer tolerable to the congregation, and the congregation is no longer tolerable to me, and so we part company.
[3:35] And that's, I see that happen over and over again in churches. It doesn't happen just between the church and the minister, the congregation and the minister. It often happens between any individual in the congregation.
[3:49] That hatred builds up, misunderstanding builds up, bitterness, jealousy, rivalry, hurt, offense, all those things build up, whereby it becomes impossible for you to any longer continue in the fellowship of a given church.
[4:06] That kind of failure is particularly noticeable in the church simply because it shouldn't happen there. That it happens in our businesses, that it happens in our communities, that it happens in the clubs we belong to, and things like that.
[4:19] That can be accepted, but that it should happen in the church, I hope, by God's grace, still somewhat offends our sensibilities. So, the difficulty is that your circle of those who tolerate you any longer becomes smaller and smaller, and there's nothing you can do about it.
[4:44] You're caught. That's the way the world works. But it's not to be the way the church works, because we're told in this passage that if your brother sins against you, you're to go and tell him his fault between you and him alone, and if he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
[5:10] So that instead of the gradual breakdown of relationships, this passage suggests that there might be the gradual building up of relationships. And that building up would happen when, instead of suffering the erosion of relationships, we took it upon ourselves as a clear command of Christ to his disciples to go to one another and tell one another the fault, and in that process, to find forgiveness, and in that way, to have gained a brother rather than to have suffered the consequences of the erosion of what the New Testament with the rather too clear an expression just called sin.
[6:03] So Jesus describes how the church is supposed to work, how this is supposed to happen, and he uses it, he builds the case, I think, throughout this chapter, and so I need to tell you about the whole chapter to tell you one thing that I want you to go home with, and that is the text for the sermon, and the text for the sermon I take to be the last verse of chapter 18, which says, you are to forgive your brother from your heart.
[6:42] That's to be the basis of our relationship, forgiveness to one another from the heart. That's the only peculiar commodity which the Christian church has, and that's the ability to forgive one another from the heart.
[7:02] And anything else is highly corrosive and highly destructive and inevitably breaks down relationships all the time, simply because we don't have the grace to find, to confront one another and to find forgiveness from one another.
[7:23] I hate even to suggest to you that that is a solution, because I, it's so, it's so contrary to us.
[7:35] As a congregation, as a Christian people, the usual pattern is to ask that it be recognized that we don't forgive because we don't associate with people who need to be forgiven.
[7:51] We don't expect to be forgiven because we haven't done anything that merits that kind of radical treatment. And so we get along without doing either, either forgiving or being forgiven.
[8:04] We are a collection and an assembly of nice people where that's not usually necessary. And if it is necessary, well, perhaps you should go and talk to the minister about it.
[8:18] But it isn't the kind of radical reality of what's happening between us. Now, the way Jesus deals with it is, I think, to take a child and set in the midst and say, except you become as little children, because when you get old this takes too much energy, I think.
[8:38] And the sincerity and simplicity of children is to be a model for us in knowing how to relate. Children can have a difference, can resolve it, and can carry on with their relationship without carrying in their gut the burden of continuing resentment and anger, which we so often do.
[9:00] So, Jesus says, you have to become as little children. Then he speaks of their sincerity in the most appalling terms. He says, if you offend the innocence of a little child, it would be far better for you that a millstone were tied around your neck and you were dropped in the depths of the sea.
[9:21] Jesus takes the offending of another person very seriously indeed and suggests an alternative which is more radical than we are even prepared to contemplate.
[9:36] But consider it in terms of how important it makes the business of not offending another person. Then he goes on from there and he tells you that in the world in which you and I live, this is in verse 7, that sin is going to be a perpetual reality.
[9:56] It's always going to be there. You're going to wake up in the morning to it. It's there with your morning coffee. And he describes it in a very interesting way.
[10:07] He says, it works like this. You have two hands. One of them is determined to... I'm left-handed. All for your benefit. One of them is determined to do good and the other has a tendency to wander off to do something evil.
[10:25] You decide which hand you're going to work with that day. You have two feet. One of them is prepared to walk in the path of Christian discipleship and the other is prepared to stumble a little bit off the way and lead you off into another direction.
[10:44] You have two eyes. One is set on the single goal which you have set or has been set for your life in Christ and the other eye wanders and contemplates other possibilities.
[10:59] Jesus says quite simply there's a radical solution to that. If your hand offends you cut it off. If your foot wants to wander cut it off.
[11:13] If your eye distracts you from what you're supposed to be doing pluck it out because the alternative is the Gehenna of fire the hell of fire or life.
[11:31] And if you allow this wayward hand and wayward foot and wayward eye to dominate you and all of us have that and we're particularly susceptible to that ambivalence in our lives you're better to go into life with no hand one foot and one eye gone.
[11:58] You may think you stumble that way but you'll get where you're going Jesus says. That's how serious it is. He then goes on from there to tell us that you're not to despise the significance of another person that the father you have in heaven would regard one person as being more important than 99 persons as we regard them and tells the story of the one lost sheep and how one person has tremendous significance and that we have to see that significance in one another and relate to one another knowing that each individual has that kind of significance in the sight of God.
[12:49] Well, you may think that we're taking things a little too far but it gets worse. The one commodity that we have is the basis of forgiveness and can we carry forgiveness that far?
[13:12] And Peter says, well, as an honorable and religious and well intentioned Du Bois Scope, I want to forgive because I think it's my duty as a citizen. And Jesus says, it's not your duty as a citizen.
[13:28] It's required of you, not seven times but an infinite number of times, 70 times seven, over and over and over again.
[13:41] And the business that we have being here this morning is that for all that circle of people with whom each of us is surrounded, where there is misunderstanding, where there is resentment, where there is irritability, where there is the inability to communicate, all those things as well as in our own relationship, we are to seek forgiveness over and over again.
[14:08] I don't want to live. This is what I tell you frankly I hate about the job I have and that is that people want to think well of me for always doing good and I don't want to be thought well of.
[14:26] I want to be forgiven in people's minds. Being thought well of is too hard and too high a goal. I would far rather know the reality of forgiveness in my relationship to people than that business of being thought well of by people because they've never caught you making a mistake.
[14:50] You've always been kind and thoughtful and there and I hate that because I can't maintain it. I need to be forgiven.
[15:01] You need to be forgiven. Your relationships are not dependent on you managing to balance on one foot on a high wire and always be thought well of.
[15:12] You need to know the reality of forgiveness. So the picture goes on and Jesus paints a powerful, powerful picture as to who you are and who I am.
[15:29] And you are a person who has been forgiven an enormous debt, a debt way beyond anything you have the capacity to pay.
[15:39] and the one to whom you owe that has decided not to demand of you payment but to offer to you forgiveness. Because you are a scallywag and I am a scallywag, we do what this person did in the story.
[15:59] Having been forgiven a huge debt, we turn to someone who owes us a trifle and we demand payment now. God, we are a scallywag.
[16:10] And it's to that that Jesus says that our father will deliver us up to the jailers.
[16:23] He's through with us. forgiveness. Because the only basis on which he can relate to us is that having been forgiven, we forgive our brother from our heart.
[16:36] That's why we come to the text which was read as the gospel this morning, which says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault. Now, I consider this to be an utterly impossible thing to do.
[16:53] First, because I'm not righteous enough to go and tell my brother that he's offended me. And that's a lot of pious nonsense, but it's what I think so much of the time. And I know that lots of people are prepared to forgive.
[17:08] And even though you have lots of people who are prepared to forgive, it's very hard to find someone who is prepared to be forgiven. All of us would like to go around with largesse like a kind of benevolent multimillionaire giving out large checks here and there and everywhere.
[17:30] But he doesn't do the people any good that he treats that way. Because somehow they have to be able to receive something even greater, and that is the reality of forgiveness.
[17:43] And so Jesus says quite plainly that in our relationship to one another, there is to be forgiveness of your brother from the heart.
[17:54] We have to work that out. And that's very hard work, I think, for us, because of our inability to accept forgiveness. The source of forgiveness is, of course, God's forgiveness of us through Jesus Christ on the cross.
[18:13] forgiveness. In this communion, we celebrate that forgiveness. We are reminded in the most forcible terms as we partake of bread and wine that we are forgiven.
[18:27] But then, because of the huge indebtedness that we are forgiven, we have to go to our brother. If he has sinned against us, we have to say, my brother, I have come here to offer you forgiveness.
[18:45] And if he can't hear you, then you take two or three friends and you say to them, we want you to accept this forgiveness. And if he still can't acknowledge the gift of forgiveness, then you get the whole church behind you.
[19:04] And they stand him up and scream at him, so to speak, you're forgiven. And if he can't accept that, there's nothing more you can do.
[19:16] There's nothing more the church can do. He no longer can be part because he hasn't accepted the only thing that he can be offered, and that is forgiveness.
[19:28] Deep, profound, God-centered, Christ-mediated, brother- transmitted forgiveness. forgiveness. He can't accept that.
[19:40] There's nothing left for him because forgiveness is the only commodity in which we deal. Forgiveness is the practical reality of the fact of love as the basis of our relationship to one another, that we forgive one another.
[19:57] from the heart.
[20:09] There's a strange part of that verse, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
[20:21] He is, in effect, twice your brother. Now, the fact is that we, as we are gathered together this morning, are brothers in Christ. But the reality of a deeper understanding is before us.
[20:38] As we can seek opportunity to share with one another the forgiveness of Christ's love in our hearts and from our hearts, others, then we become twice a brother.
[20:56] A brother because we are in Christ. A brother because we have found opportunity to forgive one another. And that makes a much, much deeper relationship between us.
[21:09] And it's that deeper relationship into which we, in the boldness of faith, must be willing to enter with one another. Not to be in the place where we can lord it over one another, but in a place where we can accept forgiveness from one another.
[21:31] That you forgive your brother or your sister from the heart. Amen.
[21:43] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[22:17] Let us just take a minute or so in silence to consider our relationships with both God and our brothers and sisters here in Christ.
[22:30] Blessed Holy Spirit, presence divine, dweller of our hearts, we worship you. We thank you that you have knocked and we have heard and let you in. May this indeed be your temple of the Holy Spirit.
[22:56] Please have your way with us. May we not grieve you anywhere at any time all this day.
[23:10] Turn your light this morning upon any unconsecrated corner of our hearts. Help us to know ourselves. Search our hearts and discover in us the hidden idols.
[23:27] Help us to tear them down. Oh, blessed Redeemer, break down every idol throne. Reign supreme and reign alone.
[23:40] Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. We are beginning next week.
[23:57] A series on stewardship. So, dear Lord, break to us this day the bread of life.
[24:09] our hearts are hungry. Save us from thinking even for a moment that we can feel our souls, feed our souls on things.
[24:24] Save us from the vain delusion that the piling up of wealth and comforts can satisfy. Help us to remember that the real quest for happiness is within.
[24:41] Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. And so next week we have designated Count Me In Sunday.
[24:53] And, oh Lord, our God, what is your will for us today and for the rest of our lives? what task have you for each of us?
[25:08] What opportunity have you placed in our way? Oh Lord, open our eyes that we may discover your will.
[25:21] Save us from wasting each new day and may we turn it to eternal profit. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
[25:38] We pray for the church universal. Lord God, the one God, make your people one.
[25:52] Whatever be our differences, even in matters essential, may we ever realize that we are all one in Christ Jesus. Let not Satan break the bond of union between brothers and sisters.
[26:13] But may it be increasingly strengthened in our own experience in this community and in all your people everywhere. for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
[26:38] So we pray for the opportunity to reach out to the people around us to share the forgiveness that we know in Jesus Christ.
[26:55] Heavenly Father, this world is very perplexing and yet we believe in your love. Our church is far from perfect, yet we have met you in your family.
[27:09] we feel so very small and yet we know that your Son became a man to save all of us. So Lord, send your Spirit to help us to understand what you want us to do in the fellowship of your church to bring the knowledge of your love to others in your world.
[27:35] Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Amen. And school begins this coming week for children and for teenagers, for adults, even for mature students.
[28:05] So eternal God, bless all schools, colleges, universities, that they may be lively centers for sound learning, new discovery, and the pursuit of wisdom.
[28:27] And grant that those who teach and those who learn may find you to be the source of all truth. through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
[28:39] Amen. Amen. And so together, let us give thanks to the Lord.
[28:57] Almighty God, Father of all mercies and fountain of all goodness, we praise you for all your gifts to us and to all people.
[29:07] we thank you for our life and for the blessings of health and strength. We thank you for all the affections and love we meet in our daily life, for the tasks and responsibilities which relate us to those around us.
[29:27] help us to extend our concern to those far off and to make us mindful that we have been given means of doing good.
[29:43] We give thanks for every measure by which you have taught us your truth and have brought our life into conformity to your will. So we ask that no ignorance or sin may turn our blessings into curses.
[30:00] Give us such a lively sense of your goodness that we may devote ourselves to your will and your service so that loving you we may find the way to an increasing love and fellowship with all your children.
[30:23] Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer. Now we sing together our offertory hymn number 81.
[30:46] Our prayer. So we cannot stand by our 가늄 to el CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS
[32:15] CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS
[33:43] CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS Great and holy God, accept our offering of labor and love.
[34:40] May we bring you true and spiritual worship and be one with you. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
[34:50] Amen. Now the service continues in the prayer book at the bottom of page 76 with this invitation to us all.
[35:07] You that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbors and intend to lead the new life, following the commandments of God and walking from henceforth in his holy ways.
[35:24] Draw near with faith and take this holy sacrament to your comfort and make your humble confession to Almighty God, meekly kneeling upon your knees.
[35:36] Amen. Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, and judge of all men, we acknowledge and confess our miracles as in his wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed.
[36:02] Thy thought, word, and deed against thy divine majesty. We do earnestly repent, and our heart be soaring in these own husbands. Have mercy upon us, most merciful God.
[36:16] For by the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us all of his past, and grant that we may never forget, which we serve and please be in new and smart.
[36:28] The honor and glory of thy name, who Jesus Christ is our hope. Amen. Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who of his great mercy hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them that with hearty repentance and true faith turn unto him, have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and bring you to everlasting life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
[37:03] Hear what comfortable words our Savior Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him. Come unto me, all that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.
[37:21] God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
[37:34] Hear also what St. Paul saith, and together, this is a true sin. With the word of the Lord, he received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to see the sinners.
[37:48] Hear also what St. John saith, if anyone sinned. We have an advocate with the Father. He received, and he received, the appreciation of our sins.
[38:02] The Lord be with you. And with the Spirit. Lift up your hearts.
[38:14] And with the Lord be with you. Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.
[38:25] It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee.
[38:42] O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, everlasting God, Creator and preserver of all things. Therefore, with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee and singing.
[39:08] sing and singing, that night. Holy지�urer The Lord has made us At that earth are full of glory Glory be to thee, O Lord, whose God Blessed is he that common In the name of the Lord O Son of God We continue on page 82 Blessing and glory and thanksgiving be unto thee, almighty God, our heavenly Father Who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son, Jesus Christ
[40:09] To take our nature upon him and to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption Who made there, by his one oblation of himself once offered A full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice Oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world And did institute and did his holy gospel command us to continue a perpetual memorial of that His precious death until his coming again Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee And grant that we, receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine According to thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ's holy institution In remembrance of his death and passion May be partakers of his most blessed body and blood Who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread And when he had given thanks
[41:11] He break it and gave it to his disciples saying Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you Do this for remembrance of me Likewise, after supper he took the cup And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying Drink ye all of this For this is my blood of the new covenant Which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins Do this as oft as ye shall drink it In remembrance of me Together Wherefore, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth We thy humble servants with all thy holy church Remembering the precious death of thy beloved Son His mighty resurrection and glorious ascension And looking for his coming again, Lord To make before thee in the sacrament of the holy bread eternal life
[42:15] And the cup of everlasting salvation The memorial which he had commanded And we entirely desire thy fatherly goodness Mercifully to accept this our sacrifice And praise and thanks to you Most humbly beseeching thee to grant That by the merits and death of thy Son, Jesus Christ And through faith in his blood We and all thy whole church may obtain remission of our sins And all the benefits of his passion And we pray that by the power of thy Holy Spirit All we who are partakers of this holy communion May be fulfilled with thy grace and heavenly benediction Through Jesus Christ our Lord By whom and with whom In the unity of the Holy Spirit All honor and glory be unto thee For Father, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord The peace of the Lord be always with you
[43:17] And with us, Lord We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord Trust in our righteousness But in thy manifold and your mercies We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table But thou art the same Lord Whose property is always to have us Grant us therefore, gracious Lord So do we reflect That the Son of Jesus Christ And may we be child Christ in the quality of the kingdom of the Father And our soul watch in the womb of the dead of us And may we be able to help him And may we be blessed Father, King God He of the Holy Spirit But not for l of a Öz And may we thank God And may we 늘 estimate God