June 17, 2001

Forgiveness

Eph. 4:32

This last week while we were working on putting the siding up on the building, Mark told me that he liked last weeks sermon, and then he asked me what I use for sermon resources, and also why I decided to speak from Philippians 4. I told him that I have different resources, last week I used a rough outline I got from an old Baptist preacher that I respect, and I chose it because I felt that was what the Lord would have me do for the congregation. When I set out to choose a sermon topic, I pray first, ask God what He wants, and then I normally look at different Bible verses, different resources, look in several different directions, and see if the Holy Spirit takes anything particular and make it really jump out at me, really get my attention and indicate to me if that is the direction that God is leading. That is what happened last week, and that is what happened again this week. A definite leading from the Lord in a specific direction. And that's the way I want it to be.

A little while ago we did a section on spiritual warfare, today we are going to do a follow up on one very important part of it that we skipped over back then. If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, turn to Ephesians 4:26. "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
Eph 4:27 Neither give place to the devil."

One of the things that we emphasized, was that sin in our lives, especially anger toward someone else, has the effect in us of giving the devil a place, a beach head, a base camp to invade our lives from. That's what it means when we are told not to give place to the devil. Don't give him a place to start on us.
Reading through the rest of Ephesians 4 here, it is obvious that not just anger, but also a lot of other things that we do or think can allow the devil a place to set up camp, and harass us from.

God gives us a whole list of things here that empower the enemy against us, verse 28: "Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
29: Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
30: And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
31: Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:"

When we speak bitter words, wrathful words, angry clamourous words, when we speak evil, malicious words against someone else, we grieve the Holy Spirit, and we give the devil a place to set up a beach head inside us.

God gives us this list of negatives, things to abstain from, and then He gives us some positives, something that we need to do instead of these negative things, verse 32: "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

Being kind "one to another;" this is addressed to those within the body of Christ. Christians dealing with other Christians. We have to start somewhere, we need to start right here. If we can't manage to be kind and forgiving to our brothers and sisters in the Lord, how will we ever manage to show God's grace to the heathen?

How forgiving are we? Most of us think of ourselves as pretty nice people, we think we are kind and forgiving, but how are we doing, really? Are we really kind and forgiving, as God measures it? Or are we just better than the world, and because of that, we think we are doing really great? Are you really a kind and forgiving person, or do you just think you are? Are you the real deal, or are you just kidding yourself?
So what I want us to consider today is God's instructions to us about forgiveness. What does God say to us about forgiveness in this verse?

First of all, we are required to forgive one another. It is not optional. It is something that we have to do, and we need to be good at it. We need to do it well, because the verse says; "Even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you." Wow! A very high standard. We are to forgive even as God forgives us. This little word "even," it means in the same way, to the same extent, in the same fashion. That puts a different light on things, doesn't it? How has God forgiven you? A little? For a few things? Or for everything? Jesus puts the matter in perspective over in Matthew 18:21: "Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
Mat 18:22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven." Or 490 times.
Verse 23: "Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.
Mat 18:24 And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents."
Just in case you didn't bring your pocket calculator to church with you, that's $9,600,000.
Verse 25: "But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.
Mat 18:26 The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
Mat 18:27 Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.
Mat 18:28 But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence:" -that's about $16- "and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.
Mat 18:29 And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
Mat 18:30 And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt."

How many of us have had God forgive us nine and a half million dollars worth of sin, and then we turn around and get mad at a relative, a family member, someone in the church for sixteen dollars worth of offense, and there is no forgiveness in our heart? Do we forgive others even as God has forgiven us? Or has God forgiven us for a fortune, and then we won't forgive someone else for what amounts to nickel and dime stuff?

Obviously God forgives bountifully, out of all proportion to how sinful we are, what are some of the other ways that God forgives? God forgives readily. Quickly. Immediately. Normally I would tell you to turn to 1 John 1:9, but don't do it, because you need to have this one memorized: "If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." As soon as we confess, He forgives. Immediately. At once. How do we forgive? Slowly? Reluctantly? Grudgingly? That won't get it. We are to forgive others even as God forgives us. Immediately.

Not only does God forgive readily, He also forgives continually. If Jesus told Peter to forgive others seventy times seven, how often do you suppose God will forgive us? A whole lot more. All the time. Every day. God never comes to the end of His mercy and His willingness to pardon us and forgive us. The only time that there is no forgiveness is when there are those that refuse to ask forgiveness. If you are a Christian and you sin and then refuse to ask for God's forgiveness, that will get you taken to the woodshed. God will chastise and discipline you just as a parent will discipline a rebellious and misbehaving child. He won't disown you, but you will get spanked.

If you are not a Christian, and you refuse to ask God's forgiveness for your sin, that will get you sent to hell. If your sins have never been forgiven and put away through faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God will not discipline you as a child, because you are not His child. You are one of the devil's kids, and you will spend eternity with your father the devil. If you have never asked God to forgive you for your sin, based on what Jesus did on the cross, then you need to make that your greatest priority in life, and you need to come and talk to me after the sermon is over. Because God is willing to forgive you, whether you are already a believer, or if you are someone who has not yet come to Christ. God forgives easily, because the penalty for sin has been paid. Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe; sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

If all the debt has been paid, then you cannot pay it, it is finished, all you need to do is claim what Christ has credited to your account. And God is not slow to balance His books. He is willing for you to obtain mercy quickly. How about us? Are we slow to forgive? Perhaps you are thinking that someone has aggravated you for a long time, and shows no signs of getting any better, will you forgive them anyway?
Maybe this aggravating person is not asking for forgiveness, maybe they are totally clueless. Maybe they are so clueless that they think they are justified in thinking the way they do about the situation?
When Jesus was hanging on the cross, what did He say? "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)

The people that were crucifying Jesus did not ask for His forgiveness, did they? They were not repentant or contrite, were they? They thought they were doing the right thing, didn't they? They did not ask for Jesus' forgiveness, but He gave it anyway. And what does Ephesians 4:32 say? "Forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you." Maybe this other person has nailed you to some cross, and is mocking you, reviling you, giving you a world of grief, and there is not the least bit of repentance or remorse in them; - then they are just like the crowd standing by Jesus when He hung on the cross. And He forgave them, and asked the Father to forgive them too, mean and clueless and sorry as they were. That's what Godly forgiveness is, and that's how we are to forgive others.

Earlier we read the passage from Matthew where the Lord told Peter how often to forgive someone, there is a parallel passage in Luke's gospel, turn to Luke 17:3. "Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
Luke 17:4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.
Luke 17:5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith."
In Matthew's gospel, when the Lord instructs Peter, nothing is mentioned about your brother repenting, you are to forgive him anyway. That's a tough one. That's the kind of forgiveness that Jesus had from the cross. Here in Luke, Jesus deals with the idea of your brother repenting and asking forgiveness, and then you forgive him. Notice that even under these circumstances, the disciples realize that this is not going to be easy. Look at what they say: "Lord, increase our faith." Lord, humanly speaking, what you ask is impossible. Lord, unless you do a real work of grace in me, it ain't gonna happen. Lord, unless you do something radical in my heart, there is no way. Yep. That's right. Forgiveness on this level is a work of grace, God's grace in our hearts. But what God requires, God will provide for. What God demands, God will enable. If God tells us to forgive one another even as Christ forgives us, -to the same extent, to the same degree- then you need to ask Him for the grace to make it work, because you can't do it in your own strength. Not you, not me, not now, not ever. We are a needy people, and God has made things so that we need to depend on Him to meet all our needs. Including this one.

There is another aspect to God's forgiveness that we need to imitate, and that is that God forgives forgetfully. When God forgives us, it's over, it's forgotten history, God never thinks of it again. Does this mean that God is getting senile? Does God have a bad memory? Of course not. God knows everything, and God forgets nothing. But God is all powerful, He has perfect control over Himself, and in His power, He can choose not to think about those things any more.

How about us? We forgive, but we fail to forget. We forgive, and then we file that offense away in some handy little mental file cabinet, and then when we need it, we pull it out and beat the offender over the head with it, right? That is not how God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us. Forgive, and then ask God to take that memory from your mind. Exercise your will not to think of it again, and also ask God to erase it from your data banks. We don't need any flashbacks. They are no good to us, or to anybody else.

Another attribute of God's forgiveness, is that He forgives eagerly. In the parable of the prodigal son, when the son was returning home, when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion on him and ran to him. That is God's attitude toward us. He is eager to forgive us.

How eager are we to forgive others? Does the Holy Spirit ever nudge you in your spirit to forgive someone, and your response is; "Yeah right! When pigs fly!" That's not good. To be Christlike, is to be eager to forgive. We think we are doing pretty good if we forgive somebody else after they have done enough penance. Have they been humbled enough yet? Have they suffered enough yet for their misdeeds and their bad attitude? Did they get what was coming to them? Has God, and the devil, and the government beat them up enough yet? OK, then I can forgive them now. That's not the way God does it. God forgives for Christ's sake. We forgive others because that's how Jesus does it, and He is our role model.

We especially forgive our brothers and sisters in Christ because He has already forgiven them, and if He has paid their debt on the cross, where do we get off wanting them to cough up something more on top of that? If there is some offense that another believer has done against you, whether they are a member of this church, or your family, or whatever; if they are a believer, then Jesus has already paid all their debt. If you think they still owe you something because of their sin, then you don't understand the atonement. Or else the atonement is merely head knowledge, and you need to apply it to your situation, and start living it out.

Another aspect of God's forgiveness is that it is self sacrificing. God has suffered a personal loss because of us. God did not forgive us because it was easy, because it was no big deal, God forgave us when it cost Him the most precious thing He had; His Son.

How do we compare to that? Do we forgive if it is no big deal, but we hang on to our anger and bitterness if the stakes are pretty high? Do we forgive if it is just some rinky-dink little thing, but if it a big deal, then we want to see the score settled first? God gave His best, His most beloved, and His dearest to take away our sin, even while we were still His enemies. We are to forgive one another, even as He has forgiven us. We need to quit counting the cost.

God also forgives aggressively. Before the foundation of the world, before God had even created anything, He had it all planned out in His mind how He would forgive us. From eternity past, He knew that we would need forgiveness, and He went ahead with His plans anyway. From the creation of the world, thousands of years before you were born, He already knew how your forgiveness would be accomplished. And now here you are, somebody has offended you, are you planning how to forgive them, or are you still planning how to get even? If you spent as much time thinking about how to forgive someone that has hurt you as you spent planning how to get even, how much better would your life be? And the lives of everybody around you?

God forgives knowingly. God knows just how sinful you are, and He has chosen to forgive you anyway, for Christ's sake. God knows that the same mean, dirty little sin that you pet, and protect, and cultivated last week will still be on your agenda next week, and He forgave you anyway, for Christ's sake. He knows that your gossipy mouth, your bragging, your arrogance, your meanness, your what-ever-it-is that you beat on somebody with else last week will still be busy next week, and He forgave you anyway, for Christ's sake. And then we think about somebody that offends us, and they are still as proud, or arrogant, or mean spirited, or gossipy, or whatever today as they were last week, and we think that prevents us from forgiving them. We justify our unforgiving spirit because they haven't changed. Like maybe we have? Yeah, right. Their habitual obnoxious sins didn't keep God from forgiving them, and our habitual obnoxious sins didn't keep God from forgiving us. That's why we can forgive them, even as God, for Christ's sake, forgives us.

One other aspect of God's forgiveness, is that He forgives freely, and harbors no resentment. After He forgives, then He delights in the one that He has forgiven. In the story of the prodigal son, after the father forgives the wayward son and welcomes him back, he makes a feast, they sit down to eat together, the father enjoys the son's company, he is just glad to have him around and talk to him. There is nothing in the scripture to indicate that the father was putting on a nice face, and meanwhile, inside, he was thinking, "This stupid kid has wasted my money, screwed up the family name, probably brought home some social disease, and who knows what else?" No. The father was happy, he was glad to see the son, and there was no resentment. How do we do in a similar situation? Put a good face on the situation, and meanwhile we are actually thinking that this person is still a class A jerk, and we are resentful toward them? That's not good. That won't get it. Ask God to give you the grace and peace of an undivided heart and spirit, to forgive that person even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us.

I'm almost done, so let's summarize some basic principles from Scripture: we tend to only give forgiveness when some one seeks it from us. We need to learn to forgive from the heart regardless. Whether someone repents or not, whether someone asks forgiveness or not, forgive anyway. It is to your personal advantage to forgive others from the heart, whether they ask for it or not, whether they have a clue or not, even if perhaps they might still be offending you. Your goal is not to balance the scales of justice, your goal is to become more like Jesus.

God tells us: "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." If there is a score that needs to be settled, God will settle it. If you don't think He can do it the way it needs doing, then you need to rethink your concept of God.
If you practice forgiving those who are not repentant, then you will find it much easier to forgive those who ask forgiveness.

God says that He will forgive us as we forgive others. Are you having trouble with your prayer life? Are you milling around in a spiritual fog? If you have trusted Christ for salvation, but you still have an unforgiving spirit towards another brother or sister in Christ, it is messing up your spiritual life and growth, you need to deal with it, or you will stay hung up right where you are until it gets dealt with. Having an unforgiving spirit is deceptive. It is easy to think that you have a forgiving spirit, and you don't. We all deceive ourselves so very easily. All of us in here, we still think that we're 19 years old, we've still got what it takes, we are doing great in our spiritual walk, and we are certainly forgiving of those that offend us. Yeah? We deceive ourselves.

It we compare ourselves to other people, maybe we aren't too bad, but that's not what God tells us. He tells us to forgive one another even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us.

Do we forgive readily? Do we forgive continually? Do we forgive forgetfully? Do we forgive eagerly? Do we forgive when it costs us?
Do we forgive aggressively? Do we forgive knowingly? Do we forgive freely? Because that's the way God had forgiven us.
Is there something that you are hung up on that you need to let go of? Why not let go of it right now? Why not ask God to deal with you, and get rid of it right now?