More on Forgiveness
1993, a teen was shot by another teen he didn't know. The mother of the victim reached out and forgave her son's killer and after he got out of prison, they now choose to live next door to each other.
2006, a school shooting at an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, 10 young girls died. During the preparations for the funeral, the family watched and listened as their grandfather told them not to hate the gunman who did this. "Forgive, as God forgives us."
2014, a woman who lost her husband in a horrific car accident embraced the driver who was responsible, in court, and forgave her.
2014, a man lost his wife and unborn child when another driver fell asleep at the wheel and slammed into their minivan. The man reached out to the driver, forgave him and they now attend Church together.
2015, a 21 year old man shot 9 people dead in a Church Bible Study. Relatives of the nine people confronted him during his hearing. They described their pain and anger. But then they offered forgiveness to the man who had killed their loved ones and even asked him to accept Jesus.
I'd like to think that, if I ever found myself in a similar situation, that I would be able to offer forgiveness to someone like that. But, honestly, I don't know. And I don't particularly want to find out. But what I do know - no one can demonstrate that kind of grace without honestly wrestling with what it takes to forgive. This morning, I want us to look at a passage of scripture that has always challenged me...
Matthew 18:21-35 (NIV)
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" (22) Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. (23) Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. (24) As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.
(25) Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. (26) The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' (27) The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. (28) But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.
He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. (29) His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' (30) But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. (31) When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
(32) Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. (33) Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' (34) In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. (35) This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
The text doesn't say what Peter's response was, but I can just imagine what he might have been thinking - seventy times seven is certainly...
I. A lot of forgiveness
Seventy times seven is 490 times. Imagine being wronged by the same person 490 times and Jesus still expected Peter to forgive them? Peter may have had the number seven in his head from hearing Jesus' teaching recorded in Luke 17:3-4 (NIV)...
So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. (4) If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him.
And that was just one day. Peter had evidently been 'sinned against', he'd been hurt and he was looking for how much he had to take. What was the limit of his suffering at the hand of someone else's ignorance or cruelty? Peter was looking for a limit to forgiveness - how much is enough?
Jesus probably disappointed Peter with His answer when He essentially removed all limits. Peter thought he was being charitable by forgiving someone seven times, but Jesus basically said "Peter, you're not even close yet." Jesus was teaching something that could only be accomplished by a person who relied on God's power and not their own. Following our own nature doesn't lead to peace.
Now the text we looked at could have stopped at vs. 27 with the man forgiving the servant's debt and we would have been left with a great picture of God's amazing forgiveness. But Jesus' story doesn't end there. He goes on to the uncomfortable part when He points out that...
A. Forgiveness is conditional*
And notice the asterisk there... I'm not talking about our forgiving of one another as conditional, but rather of God's forgiveness of us. You see, this is where I wrestle... I know that we live in a state of 'grace' when we are baptized into Jesus - but Jesus does have some hard words for us about our extending forgiveness to others.
Years ago a German poet (Heinriche Heine) laying on his death bed was asked whether he was ready to meet God. His reply was, "Of course, God will forgive me; that's his job."
Many tend to think of God as a parent who doesn't have the heart to discipline his child. But there are conditions of the heart that must be met before forgiveness is granted. If this wasn't true, it would mean that God didn't really take His own laws and commandments seriously. It would mean that the rules He made aren't really important at all.
We can't skip over the part where Jesus very clearly points out that God's forgiveness of our sins is directly related to our forgiving others. Jesus was even more direct than the parable we just read when he spoke in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:9-15 (NIV)...
This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, (10) your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (11) Give us today our daily bread. (12) Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (13) And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'
(14) For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. (15) But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
We all love the first part - the Lord's prayer - but then Jesus again had to go and add vs. 14 and 15! There's no real way to deny that Jesus meant what He said in these verses. It's somewhat easy to forgive someone who is repentant and genuinely sincere and we feel deserves our forgiveness - but do we have to forgive the really bad things done to us? "Yes, they asked for forgiveness, but do you know what they did? And this isn't the first time they did it, and I'd bet that they'll do it again, too!"
The scripture says "if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." I would love to be able to add "unless they were really mean to you" or "unless they said they were sorry, but you didn't think they really meant it". - But I don't have the authority to do that. Jesus is serious about us forgiving others in order to have a right relationship with God. You see, God desires that we learn to be...
B. Generous with forgiveness
Sometimes, however, we get in the way. When we are called to 'forgive someone' it doesn't mean we pretend it didn't happen. It did. And there are consequences to the offense. But the goal is a restoration of that relationship. Justice demands that there are consequences, and repentance needs to happen to rebuild trust in that relationship again. But it's a fact - there will never be reconciliation without forgiveness.
'But I want them to pay for what they did! I don't want reconciliation!' - God does...
God hates sin and it separates us from Him. He provided a way for our sin to be wiped out by the sacrifice of Jesus; and Jesus taught that we have to forgive others in order for God to forgive us. God desires to forgive us, He has given us a pardon - but sometimes we fail to accept it by stubbornly refusing to forgive others.
We often think of generosity in terms of physical needs, being generous with those who are hungry, those who need shelter, etc. That is important - giving food to a hungry person is a huge blessing to them. But being generous with forgiveness not only gives a much needed blessing to the person who is forgiven, but it also clears the way for God to forgive us.
Often times, we tend to be a bit stingy with our forgiveness. We may not always grant forgiveness or we may grant it, but with strings attached. We say, "I'll forgive them, but I'll always remember what they did. They won't get me again."
What if God said to me - "I'll forgive your sin for now, but I'm writing it down for later just in case you pull this again." Is that really forgiveness? Yes, forgiving may put us in the position to be sinned against again - by the very person we don't feel deserves our forgiveness... But isn't that sort of the relationship that God has with us? He forgives our sin, but still gives us the freedom to choose to sin against Him over and over until we finally surrender to His will.
I have learned, that then it comes to forgiveness, I still have...
II. Much to learn
How many times has God forgiven us over and over for the same stupid sin? I'm glad that God's forgiveness has no limits. I'd be hurting if God decided He'd only forgive me for my first seven sins and then after that, I'm on my own.... I am so glad that God is more generous than we are, but we are to become like Christ in our attitudes.
Corrie Ten Boom wrote, "Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart."
Mark Twain wrote, "Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."
Forgiveness is not really about forgetting, but maybe more about you letting go of your resentment and hurt and learning to focus your concern - not on yourself, but on the one who wronged you. You both know that you've been hurt, but you're releasing that person from your judgment. You can still speak the truth about the situation - but forgiving allows you to genuinely, selflessly pray for the other person's needs. Forgiving allows you to sincerely pray for that person to be blessed by God.
Do I always think about the other person's needs when they have wronged me? What are some things that we can take with us from Jesus' teaching about forgiveness? We need to fully embrace the understanding that...
A. God's grace is huge
We need to understand the holiness of God's character and the amazing love that allows us to even have a relationship with Him in the first place. God is perfect. Everything about God is perfect and holy and righteous. If left to our own desires, we are a mess. Every single one of us has committed hundreds, thousands of sins against God. Just one sin is so repulsive to God that even if I only had that one sin in my life, God couldn't stand to have me in His perfect presence.
But because His love for us is so great and His hatred of sin is so great - only His amazing power could provide a way for my sin to be cleansed, so that He now wants to have me in His presence. Jesus gave His life to take away every one of my sins so that I could be forgiven and spend eternity with God. That's huge! That is the scope of God's love and forgiveness of us and that is the kind of forgiveness we are to have for one another, However - there's a problem we need to acknowledge in order to get there...
B. Our double standards
We want to have God forgive us, even though we are amazingly undeserving, but often times stand in judgment of others and refuse them the same grace which we have been shown.
- Those stories I mentioned at the beginning, a mother forgiving her son's killer, a grandfather urging forgiveness for his granddaughter's killer, a woman forgiving the driver who killed her husband, a man who forgave the killer of his wife and unborn child... I can only imagine the pain and supernatural grace it would take to forgive something like that.
But what IF in those stories - the unthinkable happened again. The person who was forgiven once - again betrayed you and took another child from you? Among even the most spiritual of us - as flawed humans - we place limits on what we can forgive. God does not.
Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV)
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. (15) But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Forgiveness of others is not a trivial matter. Forgiveness is not optional and will only fully happen when we submit ourselves completely to Jesus.
So What?
- Back to the story of the gunman in the Bible study where a man forgave his wife's killer and then asked him to accept Jesus. Did he realize that if the gunman did that, the killer might go to Heaven? Did he realize that would mean that he would be sharing Heaven for eternity with his wife's killer?
Yes. That man understood that he had been forgiven by God, too and that he had no right to withhold God's grace from anyone. My responsibility towards people who 'sin' against me is forgiveness. I can't control the sincerity of their hearts, I can't control whether they will 'sin' against me again - I can't control anything but me. I am not anyone's ultimate judge - they answer to God for their attitude and actions, and so do I.
- Is God really asking us to forgive people who intentionally hurt us? - Is God asking me to forgive people who, perhaps, don't have a spiritual bone in their body? - Is God asking me to forgive people who want to hurt me? - Is God asking me to forgive people who lie about me and start rumors about me? Yes.
We don't get to choose the ones that we forgive. We can't just forgive some of the people some of the time. That's not what Jesus did and that's not what He expects of us.
On the cross, Jesus asked for forgiveness of those who were in the midst of crucifying Him. If we dare to carry the name of 'Christian' we had better learn to humble ourselves and forgive those around us who have done much less. I know that as I spoke today, somebody's name may have popped into your head; someone you may not want to forgive. If you are serious about following Jesus, take the time today to forgive them and make things right. And may God help us to show His grace!