To Be Forgiven You Must Forgive

Think about this. Does the Bible teach that Christians should forgive those who have
wronged them or sinned against them? Or does the Bible teach that Christians must
forgive those who have wronged them and sinned against them?
Here's the distinction. Should we do it or must we do it? Which is the teaching of
the Bible? This morning we're going to be looking at a statement that Jesus makes
in the Sermon on the Mount where he seems to be saying that if we fail to forgive
others, God won't forgive us. It sounds like Jesus is saying your salvation is
conditional on your performance of forgiveness with others. But that of course would
conflict with other things the Bible teaches and other things Jesus says. So how are
we to understand this statement that if you fail to forgive, you won't be forgiven,
and if you forgive, you will be forgiven. It sounds like failing to forgive is
somehow the unpardonable sin. Is that what Jesus is saying?
A New Year's morning in 1996, a college professor who works at the University of
Richmond in Virginia, was awake early on New Year's Day. He'd gotten up,
it was before seven o 'clock. He'd poured himself a cup of coffee and was just, he
was the only one awake in the house. And his phone rang at seven in the morning.
And to get a phone call at seven in the morning on any morning kind of causes
your spider senses to tingle a little bit and you wonder what's going on. He picked
up the phone and it was his brother, Mike, on the other end, And he heard his
brothers say, "I've heard I've got bad news. Mom was murdered."
76 -year -old Francis Worthington, who was living alone in her home in Knoxville,
Tennessee, had gone to bed early on New Year's night, so the house was dark.
She didn't have a car, so there was no car in the driveway. And so the burglars
saw a dark house with no car in the driveway on New Year's Eve and they thought
this is the perfect house to rob. So they broke into her house,
she heard them, she was startled, got up, they confronted her and they killed her.
They beat her with a crowbar.
Her son Mike came the next morning to check on Mama and found her in the hallway,
the hallway with blood all over it and he called Everett to report what had
happened and of course called the police as well. Everett was in Richmond, he drove
from his home there to Knoxville and a few hours later he was in his childhood
home seeing this horrific sight and he said later he said I was so angry I sat in
the back room and I pointed to a baseball bat and I told my brother and sister I
would beat that man's brains out if he was here and you can understand that emotion
inside of him.
Eventually there were two teens who were apprehended and they confessed that they had
been burglarizing the house they owned up to that but they said they did not commit
the murder it went to a grand jury there was a lack of physical evidence and so
no charges were brought against those brothers or those those teenagers other than
the burglary charges and today Everett's mom's murder is a cold case it's an
unsolved homicide even though Everett thinks he knows who the perpetrators were.
Less than a month before Everett's mom was murdered, Everett had turned into his
publisher, a manuscript for a book he had just co -written. The title of the book
was To Forgive Is Human.
How to put your past in the past. On the back of the book it says, forgiving can
be one of the hardest things you ever have to do. Perhaps you sense deep down that
it'll be good for you and others to put it in the past, but sometimes no matter
what you do, you can't seem to forgive and get on with your life. You feel hurt
and bitter and angry. How do you break that cycle?
Ever at Worthington's a believer and the question he had to wrestle with was, does
God want him to forgive the man or the men who murdered his mom? "Is Jesus calling
his followers in the Sermon on the Mount "to forgive, and is he saying, if Everett
refuses "to forgive those who murdered his mom, "God will not forgive Everett's
sins?" Is that what the Bible's teaching? Well, let's see. Let's look at Matthew 6,
and I want us to set this in its context, because the statement Jesus makes comes
after his teaching on prayer, and I think that's important. So we're gonna start at
verse nine of chapter six and read the Lord's prayer and then what follows again
Let me pray because father. We need you this morning to be our teacher We need the
clarity that your spirit provides and Lord we need to hear these things not just to
consider them in our heads But also in our hearts. We need your spirit to help us
be doers of the word and not hearers only. So we ask for that today in Jesus'
name. Amen.
In the Sermon on the Mount in verse 9, Jesus says, "Pray then like this,
our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For if you forgive others their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive
you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses neither will your Father
forgive Your trespasses Amen. May God bless this reading of his word the grass
withers and the flower fades the word of our God Will stand forever So here's what
we're gonna do as we look at this passage this morning I want us to see first the
clear decree that Jesus makes in Matthew 6 about forgiveness Then I want us to see
the reason why he calls us to forgive others? What's behind that?
Then I want to examine some of the questions that we have about forgiveness. I want
us to look first at what forgiveness isn't, and then I want us to see what
forgiveness is, then I want us to deal with the obstacles that exist around
forgiveness, and then I want to answer the question must we forgive those who refuse
to repent?
And finally, we're going to talk about the process of real forgiveness. So that's
the outline, that's where we're headed this morning. So let's start with this
passage. Back in Matthew 6, verses 14 and 15, when Jesus talks about the link
between God forgiving us and us forgiving others, this is actually a footnote on
what Jesus has just taught about prayer. This is just not something he's throwing in
as an abstraction, this is, he's been teaching on prayer. And let me just give you
the overall structure of what we call the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6. It's familiar,
but it's good for us to pull back because this should shape our prayer life, not
just for those times when we are devoting ourselves to prayer, but this ought to be
the regular petition of our lives. This should be what's on our soul throughout our
lives. It begins the prayer with an acknowledgement that God is our father.
So it sets the prayer in a very relational context.
Jesus could have said, "Pray this way. Pray Almighty God. Pray God who created the
heavens and the earth." Many prayers start like that. It's not wrong to start that,
but Jesus wanted his followers here to recognize the need to set this prayer in a
relational context, understand that God is your father, you are his child. That's not
true for everybody, it's true for those who belong to him, it's those who have been
adopted into his family. If you've surrendered your life to him, you've been brought
into the family, you are an adopted child of God. You begin your prayer by
acknowledging that that's your relationship with God. And then you express what should
be the central longing of all of our hearts, That God's name would be hallowed That
it would be glorified and magnified and lifted up that Through everything that's
happening on the earth that through our lives that God would be exalted and
magnified and his name would be hallowed that ought to be the starting point for
every desire we have and and Following on to that not only that his name is
hallowed, but that his kingdom Would advance that it would come and that his will
would be done in our lives and Throughout the world in the same way that his will
is done in heaven. We want his will to be done on earth We want to see God bring
his kingdom and his name to be glorified. That's the starting point for the prayer
before you ever get to Here's what's on my heart. Here's my need. Here's my burden.
Here's my sorrow. We start by saying Lord Father
I want your name to be glorified and magnified and I want your kingdom to be
exalted and I want it to come.
And then we get to the four petitions in this prayer. The first is give us what
we need to sustain ourselves today, provide for our needs, be our provider, give us
our daily bread, forgive us from our sins,
keep us from falling into temptation and deliver us from evil. Those are the four
petitions that we find in the prayer. Lord, here's what I need from you today. I
need you to provide for my needs. I need my sins forgiven. I need you to steer me
away from temptation and protect me from evil. Those are the petitions in this
prayer. And Jesus, interestingly in the prayer, he connects even there the forgiveness
of God for our sins with our forgiving others. It's really the only thing that
we're talking about us doing in that prayer. Everything else is us receiving, but
there's one statement in the prayer where we say God forgive us in the same way
that we forgive others.
Jesus wants us to be recognizing that there's a link between God's forgiveness of us
and our forgiving others. Now think with me for a minute, when you became a
Christian, when you surrendered your life to Christ, when you handed over control of
your life to him, in that moment, God forgave all your past sins,
all your present sins, and all your future sins. I'm going to say that again and I
want to hallelujah. In that moment, God forgive all your past sins, your present
sins, and your future sins. Okay, that's right. That's a glorious truth.
Your slate is wiped clean, things you haven't even thought of yet, God has forgiven.
That's the amazing nature of God's grace. So if that's the case, why does Jesus
teach us every day to ask God to forgive us our sins? Isn't it already done are
we asking him to do something that I mean if if I were your daddy and you kept
asking me every day to do something that I had already done for you at some point
I'd go would you leave me I've already done that it's
because I believe there are two elements to forgiveness there is a judicial aspect
to forgiveness, and there's a relational aspect to forgiveness. When you came to
faith, God judicially, he didn't pardon your sins, your sins had been paid for.
So he forgave your sins judicially. But every time we sin,
there's a little chink in the relationship between us and God. We know this because
in 1 Peter 3, Peter tells husbands that you're to live with your wives in an
understanding way, and if you don't, your prayers will be hindered.
It's God saying, "Look, if you're not living with your wife the way you should,
don't come to me and start asking me for things. Fix that, and then we'll talk."
There's a relational aspect to the dynamic of forgiveness that we need to be
remembering throughout the day. So when Jesus is saying, pray this way, forgive us
our debts as we forgive our debtors, he's saying, you need to make sure that
relationally you are clearing the way for our relationship by turning from sin,
not harboring known sin. You can't keep a little reservoir of sin here that you
like to play with and then come to God and say, "Oh, Lord bless me." God says,
"Take care of that, then we'll talk." That's the relational dynamic. It's not that
God kicks you out of his family, God can't unregenerate you, he won't unregenerate
you, God's not gonna unjustify you, that's settled. But relationally,
we ask for forgiveness so that our relationship with God is not hindered in any
way. When we pray every day, forgive us our sins, when we can.
impedes my relationship with you, would you cleanse me from that so that the joy of
my salvation can be restored? That's what David did when he prayed in Psalm 51 and
he said, "Lord, cast me not away, "restore to me the joy of thy salvation.
"Renew a right spirit in me." That's the kind of confession you're praying when you
say, "Lord, forgive me my sins." You're reestablishing the relationship. And Jesus is
saying you need to remember that connected to God restoring that relationship with
you, there's a need for you to be forgiving others. That if you're harboring
forgiveness and asking God to cleanse the relationship with him, there's a disconnect.
In essence, when you say God, I know I'm in a state of sin because I'm still
harboring this bitterness toward my brother, but is it okay if we have fellowship
even though I am knowingly sinning? And God says no, that's not okay.
For your fellowship with God is broken by your sin. You can't hang on to that sin
and be in fellowship with Him at the same time that you're harboring that sin.
That's why Jesus teaches His disciples and you and me to pray that God would
forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others." He wants us to be reminded
of our responsibility, our obligation to be forgiving people.
So verses 14 and 15 are the footnote to this petition. Again, we're talking about
restoring the relational forgiveness here. And when he says, "If you do not forgive
others their trespasses, neither will God forgive you your trespasses." It's not
judicial forgiveness. That's accomplished, it's relational forgiveness. God is not going
to cleanse you until you are taking care of known sin in your life.
I think it's safe to say if somebody is stubbornly, hardheartedly, persistently
refusing to give another person, that person needs to examine himself and ask
himself, "Am I really in the faith? Am I really a believer?" Because there is no
better indicator of God's work in your life than your willingness to extend grace to
other people.
I'm gonna say that again. We're gonna put it on the screen. I think this is at
the heart of what Jesus is saying here. There is no better indicator of your
understanding of God's grace in your life than your willingness to extend grace to
other people.
Jesus makes this clear in the parable that he tells in Matthew you 18 about a man
who was thrown into prison. He owed, he owed his master billions of dollars and he
got thrown into prison and he went to his master and he pled and he said please
forgive me I'll pay every penny of it back and the master had mercy on him and
forgave him the billion dollar debt and the guy gets out of prison what's the first
thing he does he goes and finds somebody he owes him a hundred bucks and he says
pay me right now Or I'm gonna throw you in jail The master comes back to him and
says what is going on here? Well, actually when the master comes back here's what
it says the master summoned him and said you wicked servant I forgave you all that
debt because you pleaded with me and should not you have had mercy on your fellow
servant as I've had Mercy on you and in anger the master delivered him to the
jailers that he should until he should pay all his debt. So my heavenly Father will
do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. You're
gonna be in prison unless you're a forgiver.
In both cases, both in the Sermon on the Mount and here in Matthew 18,
the point that Jesus is making is not that our salvation is conditional on us
forgiving others, it is that when we really understand the grace of God, the grace
he has shown us, one of the primary evidences of that understanding of the
transforming work of God in our lives is our willingness to extend grace to others
and forgive them when they sin against us. And the flip side of that is true as
well. When we're hanging on to an offense, when we're keeping a record of wrongs,
when we are refusing to give other people? If we're harboring bitterness or
resentment against someone in our hearts, then we are ignoring the grace of God that
he's shown to us and we're acting the opposite of how Jesus would want us to act
in response. We're giving evidence that we may really have never been a believer at
all. We've not if you've experienced God's grace, you are motivated to extend His
grace. If you're not motivated to extend His grace, you need to go back and say,
"Have I really experienced His grace?" It's a key difference. We're not saying that
your salvation is conditional upon your forgiveness. We're saying that when you are
saved, the right response, the appropriate, the response that is stirred in you by
the Spirit is a response to show mercy to others because you're overwhelmed by the
mercy God has shown to you. And that leads us from our first point of Jesus' clear
declaration to an understanding. We are called to forgive others because God is a
forgiving God. Why do we forgive? God is a forgiving God, and we are His children
being conformed into His image. Now, I could give you tons of passages from the
Bible that talk about God as a forgiving God. I'm going to give you three from the
Old Testament. Numbers 14, the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast
love, forgiving iniquity and transgression.
Nehemiah seven, or excuse nine, verse 17. But you are a God ready to forgive,
gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and did not forsake
them talking about Israel. Psalm 130 verses 3 and 4, "If you Lord should mark our
iniquities, O Lord who could stand, but with you there's forgiveness that you may be
feared." There are passages, I mean I could give you a whole ton of these passages.
I read Nehemiah 9 this week and it's fascinating, This is in my regular Bible
reading in the morning. Nehemiah nine is, they've just rebuilt the walls to
Jerusalem, it's after the Babylonian captivity. Everybody's gathered back up, they're
celebrating. And Nehemiah takes them through kind of a history of God's mercy toward
them. And he goes through it and he says, "God, you delivered us and rescued us
from Egypt." And then we went in the wilderness and we went off the deep end and
you had mercy on us. And and we turned around we repented and then we got in the
promised land and then we went the wrong direction and you forgave us and had mercy
on us and we repented and then it's just this this one chorus of you forgave We
received it then we went wrong again, then you forgave Is that sound familiar?
It's not like the rhythm of your life It's my story It's a story of the nation of
Israel. God is a forgiving God, praise the Lord. We love,
because he first loved us, first John says, we forgive because we are forgiven
people. C .S. Lewis says, to be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable,
because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.
Ann Graham Lotz, Billy Graham's daughter said, if Jesus forgave those who nailed him
to the cross, and if God forgives you and me, how can you withhold your forgiveness
from somebody else?
And J .C. Reil 150 years ago said, "An unforgiving and quarrelsome spirit "is the
surest mark of an unregenerate heart. "The man who has not learned to bear and
forbear "to put up with much and to look over much "is not born of the spirit."
Forgiven people, forgive people, that's what we do. So let's address some of the
questions that come up when we hear this. Questions about the issue of forgiveness
and how we are to apply this truth to the very real hurts,
the very real damage that's been done, the ways we've been sinned against. What do
we do with that? How do we obey what Jesus is calling us to? First I want to
talk about what forgiveness isn't. Forgiveness isn't something you feel.
It's independent of how you feel. It is not something you extend to others because
you feel like doing it. It's not something we withhold from others because we don't
feel like forgiving them. How you feel about a person or how you feel about what
they've done to you is secondary. It has very little to do with your choice to
forgive that person or not. It's not a feeling.
Also, forgiveness is not pretending that something bad didn't happen or that it
didn't hurt.
You are not in forgiving someone, somehow minimizing the reality of the pain or the
offense that was done against you. We often think if I forgive you that somehow
downplays the injury. No, the injury can be very real and we can hang on to that
and we can still forgive. Forgiveness is not pretending it wasn't bad or that it
didn't happen at all. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, and he said,
"Father, forgive them. "They don't know what they're doing." He was not saying, "This
doesn't hurt." Or, "This isn't happening."
And we should say there's a difference between somebody saying, this'll happen
sometimes, somebody will say, "Would you please forgive me?" And another person will
say, "Oh, oh, that's okay." There's a difference between saying, "Oh, that's okay,"
and saying, "I of you.
When somebody apologizes and you say, "Oh, that's okay." You're not extending them
forgiveness.
If there's been an offense or if there's been a hurt, don't just wave it off and
say, "Oh, that's okay. That's denial. That's not
forgiveness." It's saying, "I really don't want to deal with this right now. It's
too hard to go there. I don't want to get near that pain again."
Forgiveness is also not conditional.
If you say to somebody, I will forgive you if you or when you, that's not
forgiveness. That's a transaction. You're saying I will give you this, but here's the
payment required. So that's not forgiveness. That's you buying your pardon from me
with your performance, with your work. You're assigning a value to the hurt or the
injury and you're coming up with a repayment price. Now listen, there may be
consequences necessary to restore trust in a relationship but as we'll see in a
minute that's different than forgiving somebody. So you don't say I will forgive you
if you do this. Finally forgiveness does not mean you forget what happened.
Some people say, "I can't forgive because I can't forget." I've talked to plenty of
couples where there's been marital infidelity.
And I've never met a couple, no matter how long ago the infidelity was, I've never
met a couple who said, "Oh, I forgot that ever happened."
That's something you don't forget. That kind of a betrayal, but you can forgive.
Forgiving and forgetting are two different things.
There's a helpful quote here from Dr. Robert Enright, who is a co -founder of
something called the International Forgiveness Institute. He's a researcher,
psychological researcher on forgiveness. He says, "Forgiving does not mean excusing,
forgetting, denying, condoning, condemning,
seeking justice, or blindly reconciling at all costs." This is not what forgiveness
is. It's none of those things. Here's what forgiveness is Forgiveness is a decision
you make. It's a choice. It's an act of the will I
Like a definition of forgiveness that I learned from my friend Dennis Rainey working
with him for many years He said this he said when we forgive someone we give up
the the perceived right Or the the real right to punish them for how they wronged
us. You give up the right to punish another person for how they wronged you.
We have an expression we use when we talk about forgiving another person. We talk
about burying what? Yeah, let's bury the hatchet. Okay, here's a question. What were
you doing with a hatchet in your hand in the first place? Right? You got a weapon
in your hand, and you're hanging on to that hatchet because you want to do somebody
else. So burying the hatchet is saying, let's put this away. The right to punish
you, I'm burying that. I'm putting it underground. Dennis liked to say, some people
bury the hatchet, but they leave the handle sticking out so they can go get it if
they need it. That's not how you bury the hatchet. You put it away for good. You
are extending to other people the same grace that you received from God,
you've received it from God, you say, "God has forgiven me, I am able to extend
"that same grace to you." Forgiveness is not only a decision we make,
but follow me here, it's also a decision we make to cultivate a new attitude about
the transgression and the other person. We begin to re -
That is, we should be seeking unity with one another, being at peace with one
another. Have sympathy, sympathy means that you, that word sympathy,
sim means together, pathy, pathos means feeling. You feel together with somebody.
You can relate to their feelings, you have sympathy. Brotherly love, that's a fond
affection for another person. A tender heart and a humble mind. These are godly
virtues that we should be seeking to possess and manifest and demonstrate in our
lives and it's hard to be unforgiving To another person if you have if you're
pursuing unity of mind if you have sympathy brotherly love Tender heart and a humble
mind. There are not many tenderhearted humble minded sympathetic people who are
hanging on to bitterness and unforgiveness.
So to be a forgiving person, this is the kind of person you need to be becoming.
These are character qualities. These are fruit of the spirit in your life that need
to be manifesting themselves. And then, with that as the foundation, Peter goes on
to say, "We should cultivate a new attitude toward others." Look at the first he
says do not repay evil for evil or
reviling for reviling but on the contrary bless now some of you hear that and you
go okay I can maybe try not to repay evil for evil but you want me to bless
bless the person who did evil to me Who reviled me,
you want me to bless that person? To this you were called that you may obtain a
blessing.
This is God's pattern, that we bless those who revile and persecute us. Jesus has
said this other places, bless those who persecute you, pray for those who
despitefully use you. Not just don't get into the mud pit with them,
But find ways that you can bless them.
You're heaping coals on their head when you do that.
You want to know if you've really forgiven another person, are you looking for ways
to proactively bless the person that you say you've forgiven? That's kind of the
litmus test.
Ken Sandy, who was the founder of a ministry called or ministries says, "When we
forgive others, "we make four promises to them. "The first promise is,
"I promise I will think good thoughts about you "and do good for you. "It's not
just I forgive you, "I promise I will think good thoughts about you "and do good
things I will bless you. "Second promise, "I will not bring up this situation again
"or use it against you. "It's It's buried, no handle out of the ground. Doesn't
mean in a fight a year later you say, well, you remember that time? No, that's
buried, it's over. You can never bring it up again. You promise that. I promise I
will not talk to others about what you did.
Again, there may be a need for counseling or therapy and you may need, but you do
that with permission. This is, I'm not gonna gossip. I'm not gonna be telling other
people about your sin. And I promise I will be friends with you again. You're gonna
seek to heal the relationship.
These promises, he says, can be summarized in a poem that is easy for a four -year
-old to memorize. Good thought hurt you not, gossip never,
friends forever. Just a real simple way to remember forgiveness. I'm gonna think good
thoughts. I'm not gonna use this against you. I'm not gonna gossip and we're gonna
be friends. That's what forgiveness looks like. Remember we talked about how we
forgive others because God has forgiven us. Well we should forgive others in the
same way that God forgives us and here's what the Bible says about how God has
forgiven us. What has God done with your sins? God has put your sins as far as
the east is from the west. He's removed them that far. He has put your sins behind
his back, which means he can't see them. He has put your sins at the bottom of
the sea where you can't just go get them. And then the omniscient God has said,
"I will remember them no more." That's what God has done with our sins.
What should we do with the sins of others? Bury it at the bottom of the sea put
it behind your back remember it no more and God welcomes us back into fellowship
with him and he blesses us in spite of our sin and our Transgression,
okay, this is the place to pause and ask the question Have has somebody come to
mind while we've been talking about this.
Has God brought anyone to mind? Are you harboring bitterness, resentment, or ill will
toward another person?
If nobody comes to mind, ask God today, this morning, is there somebody that I've
just forgotten about where there's still a root of bitterness hanging around in my
heart that needs to be dealt with? Is or anyone you need to be extending
forgiveness toward.
And maybe somebody has come to mind and as you've thought about it and your heart's
beating a little faster and you're going, I wish I hadn't come this morning, I wish
he was talking about something else. Talk about tithing, I'd rather hear about
tithing than hear about this, you know?
If God's brought somebody to mind and you're thinking to yourself, I know I should
forgive them, But, and you've got that but hanging out there, there's actually a
book I can recommend to you. It's written by a guy named Chuck Lynch, who's a
counselor in Kansas City. It's titled, "I Should Forgive But," okay? And in it, he
lists some of the obstacles that we have when it comes to this issue of
forgiveness. It is not your nature to be a forgiving person.
That's not the impulse of your heart.
And there are obstacles here, and I'm going to just talk about three that are, I
think, some of the most common ones that he addresses in the book. We've already
talked about it. A lot of people say, "I can't forgive because I can't forget." So
here's what happens in our lives. We forgive somebody, but then later the memory
gets triggered. Something happens that brings it to mind, and when that trigger
happens, the pain is right there again. And we feel it again, and the anger is
right there, and it wells up inside of us. The emotions are still there and we
think to ourselves, if I'm still feeling pain and emotion toward what happened, then
I haven't forgiven that person. But remember, forgiveness is not an emotion. It's a
choice. You can forgive and still have to process the emotions in your own heart.
When you forgive, you've given up the right to punish. You've made those four
promises of forgiveness, but now you've got to process. What do I do with those
emotions when they come back up. Here's what you do with them. You take those
emotions, you take that pain, you take it straight to Jesus.
You don't go back to the other person and relitigate and say, "I can't let go of
it." You take it to Jesus, say, "Jesus, I'm still in pain, I'm hurting. Father,
I need the comforter. I need you to be the balm. I need you to be the healer of
my soul. I need you to pour your grace on this and help me heal from this and
over time God will by his love and grace begin to soften the pain that's there in
your heart. Just because you can't forget doesn't mean that you can't forgive.
Here's another obstacle. A lot of people have a hard time forgiving somebody because
they fear that if you forgive that person, if you give up the right to punish
them, then you're making it easier for them to come back and do it again.
You're afraid that if you give them grace, it'll be easier for them to sin against
you the next time. Well, let me ask you, when God extends grace to you, does that
make it easier for you to sin against him? Paul says, may it never be. That grace
abounds, so sin should about know. How can we, who understand what God's grace has
done, how can we continue to want to sin against Him? So extending forgiveness and
offering that to another person is not letting them off the hook or making it
easier for them to sin against you. Now listen, this is important. Like I said,
there's a difference between forgiving another person and having a restored
relationship with that person. Forgiveness and a restored relationship are two
different things. You can forgive in a moment complete and total and still say we're
gonna have to work on safety in the relationship boundaries in the relationship What
we're gonna have to there's gonna have to be some protection built in here So when
you're forgiving somebody that doesn't necessarily mean that everything goes back to
the way it was, because the way it was, was what invited the problem in the first
place. You may have to do some things differently this time. I have a formula I've
used for years on how to rebuild trust. When trust has been broken in a
relationship, I thought I could trust you, you hurt me and you harmed me, now I
don't feel like I can trust you again. The other person says, I wanna rebuild that
trust, here's how you do it, here's the formula. T, that's trust, equals CB over T.
That's your formula. T equals CB over T. Trust equals -- I forgot the formula.
Trust equals -- I've done this for years. What is it?
What is it? Thank you very much. I was saying It's consistent, it's consistent
behavior over time. Thank you, now you'll never forget it. (audience laughs) 'Cause
at that time Bob messed it up in the sermon. Trust equals consistent behavior over
time. I can learn to trust you when I start to see that the pattern that was used
for harm for me has been broken in your life. And that may take some time for
that to prove itself, to manifest itself. And some people will say to me, how long
will that take? I don't know, how deep was the hurt? How long did it go on?
There's gonna have to be a time here where I learned that it's safe again.
And you're gonna have to show me that it's trustworthy. I will say, there are some
people who hang onto their fear for so long that they won't, that there's been
consistent behavior for a year, but they're still afraid. And I would say, well,
let's deal with the fear in your heart, because the other person is demonstrating to
you. And there's no guarantee, by the way, when you trust somebody again, that they
won't violate that trust.
But if you're concerned about someone hurting you again, yeah, it's right to put
boundaries around it. It's appropriate to put boundaries around it. Refusing to
forgive them? No, you can't refuse to forgive them.
Last obstacle for forgiveness that is the one that I think is common for many of
us is we have this sense of justice And if someone has done something wrong against
us, there's something in us that says this person has to pay for what they've done
That's just right. You hurt somebody. You should have to pay a price for that and
that's true When you sin, there's a price that has to be paid.
The Bible says that. If someone has wronged you, sinned against you, harmed you,
abused you, you can be sure of two things. One of two things. Either that person
will one day pay for the sin that they've committed against you because God has
said vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.
Or that person will be convicted by the Holy Spirit will turn from their sin,
confess it to God, and become your brother and sister in Christ, and Jesus will pay
the price that had to be paid for the sin against you. It's gonna be paid for
either by that person or by Jesus. But every sin that we commit,
every wrong against another person, a payment has to be made. Either their payment,
as they stand before God, or the payment Jesus has already paid.
And we should, by the way, earnestly desire that whoever has wronged you will own
up to what they've done, and will receive God's grace, and be transformed by his
grace, and come into the kingdom. If you're sitting hoping that the person who has
wronged you will spend eternity and hell for what they've done, there's a hardness
in your own heart that needs to be dealt with here.
All right, here's the last question in this category of questions that I want to
cover this morning. "Am I obligated to forgive somebody who does not repent?" This
comes up because in Luke chapter 17, Jesus says this.
He says to his disciples, "Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke
him. If he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the day
and turns to you seven times saying, "I repent, you must forgive him." Now listen,
that sounds hard enough to me. Somebody's sinning against me seven times in a day
and always coming back saying, "Oh, I repent." I mean the seventh time I'm going to
go, "Really?" I don't know that you understand what repent means, right? But here's
Jesus saying somebody comes and seeks forgiveness from you and they repent.
You see that in the verse anywhere? It's not there. It says if they do repent, you
have to forgive. And you go, well, what if they don't repent? Well, now we're
getting to a deeper issue about what forgiveness is.
And forgiveness requires-- some people believe forgiveness requires a two -way
transaction. It's got to be extended and received. It can't be something one person
does to other, two people have to be involved in the transaction of forgiveness. And
there's something to that. There are others who say, "No, forgiveness can be
something I grant to you. Even if you're dead, I can forgive you." Now,
I'm not going to get into the theological fine points of all of this, but let me
just say this. If somebody does sin against you and that person does not repent,
here's what the Bible says you must do. Love that person proactively.
You must let go of bitterness and anger toward the person who has wronged you.
You must not return evil for evil, but give a blessing instead.
We already saw that. You must not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
You must seek peace and pursue it. You must be gracious and humble. So we may say,
well, that's not what, forgiveness is a part of it, but there's more to forgiveness
than that. That could be. Again, we won't go there. I'll just say, do all of that
stuff, whether you want to call it forgiveness or not. If somebody has sinned
against you, you need to make sure that you have done what you need to do. John
MacArthur says this. He says, "Forgiveness involves a deliberate decision to cover the
other person's offense, it's a choice made by the offended party to set aside the
other person's transgressions and not permit the offense to cause a breach in the
relationship or fester in bitterness. 1 Peter 4 -8 says love covers how many sins?
A multitude of sins. A multitude, that's a big number. And in Proverbs 1911,
it says that it's a man's, It's a good thing to overlook an offense.
Now, there's overlooking and covering, these are connected in some way to what
forgiveness looks like. So whether you call it forgiveness or not, when you're sinned
against and a person is sinned against you, doesn't repent, you still have to love
and bless and seek the other person's good and seek to be at peace and not return
evil for evil and don't be overcome by evil, and be humble and be gracious.
Manifest the fruit of the Spirit toward the person who has sinned against you. The
fruit of the Spirit is not exclusively for those who are nice to me. In fact,
you're probably not manifesting the fruit of the Spirit if you're being loving to
people who are nice to you. If you're being patient with those who are easy to get
along with. It's not the fruit of the Spirit. Anyone can do that. It's the fruit
of the spirit when it's tested.
I'm gonna wrap up this morning with some specific steps that we can take if we're
struggling in this area of forgiveness. If somebody's hurt you or sinned against you,
if you've got somebody's name in mind, maybe a few people, maybe, again you wish
you hadn't come to church this morning, you can, you do this in your own time, in
your work with God, maybe you do it on your own, maybe you need the help of
someone else to help you through a process like this a mentor or a counselor one
of the elders here Carlos can get with you and help with this but here's the
process I would follow if you've got somebody and there's a root of bitterness
there's anger in your heart toward this person first thing to do is you name the
offense okay so let's be real clear about what it was that that person did against
you Let's give it a name. Let's give it a description. Go ahead and write it out.
Here's how I was wronged and Make it as complete as you want to make it
Second thing you do I want you to grade the offense Here's what I mean by that I
want you to look back at what you're hanging on to bitterness about and say is
that really a big deal Because sometimes we're holding on to bitterness over
something that does not, I mean, it was just a small thing. And we need to pull
back and go, am I making too much of this thing? Am I making this a bigger deal
than it really is?
And that may be all you need to do is recognize, yeah, I am, and just be done
with it. Just put it away, just overlook it and move on.
But here's the third thing you ought to do, examine yourself.
Ask yourself, what did I do that might have provoked or contributed to this, the
way I was sinned against? Sometimes we were sinned against because we provoked it.
Did you do something? Is there something you need to own and confess?
Any time I've done marital counseling and there's a dispute between couples, I've
never had a situation where it was all one side. Only one person wronged,
the other person was a pure saint. I may be a 90 /10, but there's always a little
bit on both sides. Let's own the part that's yours. Let's acknowledge it.
You may need to go to that person you've been hanging on to bitterness about, and
you may need to say, "You know, I've gone back and thought about "what happened
here, and there's some stuff "I need to ask you to forgive me for." Hmm. You say
that even though they wronged you in some way and they haven't asked for it? Yes.
Get things clean with them. Here's the fourth thing you do. Consider the cross.
Spend a long time thinking about this. Ask God to give you a desire to forgive
whoever has wronged you in the same way that God has forgiven you through the death
of his Son.
Just think about that. I'm holding on to this anger and this bitterness toward this
person It's back to the parable of the guy who owed a billion dollars
God's forgiven you a billion dollars worth of debt and you're hanging on to what?
number five Decide to forgive
Choose to forgive and listen. Here's here's what you need to know when you decide
to forgive You are choosing to suffer Because they're suffering associated with this
you say I will bear the pain of what happened here
To extend love to you
So you choose to overlook or cover you choose to suffer and bear it instead of
retaliating.
Number six, we've still got a ways to go. Ask God to heal the remaining hurt in
your heart. He is the comforter. When you still have that pain, take it to God.
Don't expect the other person to be your healer. The one who's sinned against you,
it's not their job to heal you from the pain. That's God's job, take it to him.
Number seven, Find ways that you can proactively bless that other person, that you
can show love for that person. Start doing that. Number eight, pray regularly for
the person who you have forgiven. And I'm not talking about imprecatory psalms,
okay?
You pray regularly for God to do a work in that person's life.
Number nine, rinse and repeat, okay? You go through all of that and you go, that
didn't work, do it again, and again, and again.
And number 10 is get help if you need it. Sometimes you go through all of this,
you need a guide, you need a mentor, you need somebody who can help walk you
through it. Tim Keller asked this question. He says, what is it that enables us to
forgive others so radically by giving us the inner resources of supernatural humility,
confidence, love, and joy, it's the atoning death of Christ on the cross. The only
reason you have the capacity to forgive is because of the grace you've received.
Remember Everett Worthington, the man whose mother was murdered? Looking back on that
event that happened almost 30 years ago now, he says He remembers the moment when
he forgave his mother's killer. He said, "I saw myself looking at that baseball
bat." You remember the baseball bat? The one he wanted to pick up and go bash the
guy's head in with? He said, "I thought to myself, whose heart is darker?
"Mine or his?" He acted on impulse In a moment,
I am premeditatedly wanting to go murder him. Whose heart is darker? He said,
"That's the moment I forgave him." "It changed my whole life," is what he said. He
says, "When people ask me, "how could you forgive somebody who did that to your
mother?" He said, "It's what my mama taught me to do.
"I would be dishonoring her to go against her teaching and not forgive him.
And I would say to you, it's what Jesus taught us to do and it would be
dishonoring to him to fail to forgive the one who has wronged you.
Let's pray.
Father, these are hard things. We admit that because there's a lot of pain. I have
been probing and your word has stirred up in us things that are hard for us to
face and address. For some people, hearing this is just very difficult and so we
come saying we need you. This is beyond us and yet we want to contemplate again
today what you've done for us. The price you paid That the depth of our
transgression and the depth of your grace and Lord as we rejoice in that and as we
receive that and as we
As we embrace that help us to extend that to others
And Lord for anyone here today who has not been a recipient of your grace
Who has maybe tasted it, but who's never received it who has has never truly
surrendered their life to you Who's not living their life for you and they hear
these things Lord I pray that they would Have a fresh understanding today of what
it is you've done for us how your son came gave his life for us While we were
still rebels While we were sinning against you, and Lord,
I pray today would be the day of transition in their life, when they would move
from death to life.
We ask all these things in your name, amen.