Microsoft has formally launched the final revision of its Windows operating system for PCs. It’s called Windows "ME"—short for Windows Millennial Edition.

        Now, I must tell you that I’ve found myself too cheap to stampede out to the store to replace Win98. So there’s no personal experience at work here. But folks tell me that "one feature of Windows ME that has caused a stir is its new "system restore" feature.
        How does it work? Suppose you suffer a system crash on your computer this Thursday. You're not a computer expert, and you don't know how to recover the last two weeks of financial information you entered Wednesday, your daughter's history report she started writing Monday, or your favorite game. All you have to do is select "system restore" and specify the date to which you want your machine reset. Voila! Problem solved. All the things you somehow messed up are put back in their configuration as of that earlier day.
        Wouldn't you like to market that feature for human lives? Do you think you could supply it fast enough to keep up with the demand? Bob would "system restore" to the day before he began the affair. Sue would go back to the day before she tampered with payroll data. Ivan would choose the day before the big fight that caused his son to run away from home.

        Maybe you can remember the day when things crashed for you—and you'd give anything you own to restore things to the way they were.

        God won't erase all the consequences of our actions, but he promises things far better: to forgive us, to work for the highest good even through what is bad, and one day to make all things new.
        What Windows ME calls system restore God calls redemption."
                Rubel Shelly, Nashville, TN; source: various news services

And redemption is one of the sharpest tools to work at carving and shaping our characters into the image of God.
Which is what we’ve been talking about the last two Sunday evenings:
        Christian character formation.

We began with an awareness that it is the awareness of God’s holiness that drives this whole project. Greater, set apart, many cuts above any other being in the Cosmos – the holiness of God,
        striving towards that
        desiring that the world around may see that reflected in us
                and experience that flowing through us in grace-shaped ways.

Last week was spent discussing the two poles of privacy and accountability:
        - the need for growing believers to cut the legs out from under any temptation to be a spiritual hot-dogger, a religious show-off. Which is done by deliberately keeping one’s devotion and service private.
                and
        - the need to get other believers, mature and trustworthy people involved in our lives; people who can hold us accountable, challenge and support us towards new heights of maturity.

Today we’ll consider how we can be unleashed from one of the biggest chains that can hold us down and prevent forward movement in the shaping of a Christ-like character;
        how we can pull clear from one of the greatest mud-pits that can suck us in, and have our proverbial wheels spinning.

The chain is huge and heavy. It has links forged from regret and resentment. It is coloured with bitterness and tempered with revenge.
        This chain can be shattered only when redemption works its way into the pit of soul; into the very core of our being. Which it does through the action known as forgiveness.
        Forgiveness
                of ourselves
                of others.

Chained down - regret, resentment, bitterness, revenge flavoring our hearts.
        How quickly it happens in our lives when disappointments, failures, assaults and betrayals show up.
        Which they do - for all of us
                and
        By all of us!!

Tell me, when did you disappoint God last?
When did you last fail in a challenge that God presented you?
When have you betrayed the holy name of Jesus which you carry by virtue of your profession to be a Christian - a Christ-follower?

None of us have to look too far back, do we?
And aiding us, calling us to look back, trying to continually remind us of the toxic waste our sin produces...... is the Great Accuser, the Deceiver, Satan.
        Trying to fill us with regret over those actions,
        With resentment at how we could be so off-colour,
        With bitterness at our lack of spiritual success.
                Dragging us down,
                Deflating our hope,
                Destroying our desire.

The Bible presents a graphic picture, a prophetic vision, of this very thing happening in the book of Zechariah. Please join me in reading it:

There’s no denying his sinfulness. And Satan seeks to work that angle.
But the holy rebuke sets him to the side.
        Joshua’s sinfulness is removed.
        Holy garments are placed on him.

Reminding me of the visions from Revelation 6 & 7 where believers in the New Testament Joshua, J’shua, Jesus are dressed into royal white robes as they worship in the very presence of the Lord.

The rags are gone.
The accuser is silenced.
The Greatest of all High Priests, Jesus, has seen to that.

Romans 8:1 "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus....."; Jesus, Son of the Living God, the God who "forgives all your sins...." (Psalm 103).

The cross here in front, before which we gather each week, stands as silent, powerful testimony to that.
        Redemption - a force more powerful than any reset button or any feature some computer programmer could design.

That said, we need to recognize also the truth that redemption is not simply a gift that we absorb into our lives. The forgiveness and renewal that is ours in Jesus Christ only functions fully when it is passed along.
        Dam it up, or be miserly in how you spread it to others
                and it’s effectiveness is immediately curtailed.

Hear the words of the Great High Priest:

Do you believe the words of v.14-15?
Believe in a biblical sense....... meaning that it affects what you do?
        Do you believe that any lack of forgiveness on our part is a kink in the pipe of heavenly grace that would otherwise flow from God into our lives?
                that we can get in the way of His renewal and healing and peace?
        Sad though we may find it to be, there are no qualifiers on this passage. It is as blunt and powerful a truth as it first seems.

Forgiveness. Please understand:
        It doesn’t mean becoming a social doormat with no boundaries.
        It doesn’t mean that justice is rendered impotent.
        It doesn’t mean all consequences are erased.

Forgiveness - At its most basic level it is letting go and letting God.
        Letting go of our desire for revenge, for getting even and letting God handle the future of the one who has wronged us.
        Letting go of our grudges and letting God shape new feelings within.
        Letting go of the past and turning towards the future.

And that is an incredibly challenging project.
        At the best of times, with even the simplest of hurts & offenses.

Our natural human tendency is to try and limit, to box in, forgiveness:
        Perhaps we’ll do it, once. But beyond that? We instinctively lean more towards Andrew Carnegie’s version of forgiveness:
        "If a man strikes you on the cheek, turn unto him the other also, but if he strikes you on that, go for him."

        We tend to resonate with James, a young lad who was playing with his brother, Harry, before bedtime. Somehow Harry hit James with a stick. Tears and bitter words followed and they were still angry as their mother prepared them for bed. Mother said, "Now James, before you go to bed you’re going to have to forgive your brother." James thought for a moment and then replied, "Well OK, I’ll forgive him tonight, but if I don’t die in the night, he’d better look out in the morning."

Forgiveness: not easy, and yet essential:
        As we speak of character development, my mind goes to a dull hill on the edge of a city - a man hung and dying, gasping, saying:
        "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Luke 23:34

In this sermon series we’re exploring what it is to live Christ-like.
How can it NOT include forgiveness?
        After hearing a sermon on forgiveness by John Wesley, the governor of Georgia, General Oglethorpe, came up to him and said,
        "Mr Wesley, I never forgive."
        "Then, Sir," Wesley replied, "I hope you never sin."

Mark 11: 25-26

"And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions."

As grace and forgiveness flow through us to others, we discover the greatest of Godly miracles — more, even, than the one we forgive,
        it is WE who are healed,
        it is WE who are restored,
        it is We who are revitalized.

"Give and it will be given unto you." (Luke 6:38)
"He who loses his life for my sake shall find it." (Luke 9:24)
        Give forgiveness; lay down your demand for revenge.
        Grace will be given to you; Christ will be found living in your character.

Theresa of Avila said:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours, no feet but yours;
yours are the eyes through which he is to look with compassion on the world;
yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
and yours the hands with which he is to bless us now.

One of the most powerful witnesses you can give of the reality and power of the Cross is through extending the powerful act of forgiveness.
        Rosie O'Donnell, in a McCall's interview, responded to the question "What do you teach your kids?" with these words:

        Love, kindness, compassion. I think of Columbine. The father of Rachel Scott, one of the victims, said he had no hatred in his heart for the boys who did it. That just brought me to my knees, because imagine that kind of grace in the face of such darkness. The fact that light came through in this horrible situation was just devastating to me. It devastated me spiritually, more than any event that I can recall happening recently in my life. It was hard to get through it.… I think the tragedy at Columbine gave me a spirituality I had never been faced with before. I think I needed God's help to get over it.
                Excerpted from McCall's, October 1999, 26

Ah, it may well take time. It usually does.
We begin with the first step by committing the injustice done against us to God.
We build on that by naming the offender and saying the hard words, "I forgive that person."
We repeat those words over time.
We renounce thoughts of revenge and feelings of bitterness when they well up, as they most certainly will.
We work towards the point where we can pray, naming the offender.... moving towards the day when we can pray God’s grace and well-being into their lives.
And when we reach that point, we’ll know that we’re well along the path of forgiveness.

Miracle of miracles, the Image of God will have become a little more deeply etched into our character.

And God will be glorified.