Forgiveness And The Enemy Who Becomes Brother

Forgiveness and the Enemy Who Becomes Brother

Today we are continuing in our September series on the topic of forgiveness.

We decided to do this series because as we spoke with individuals over the last while, we heard a very common theme of many of us struggling with forgiveness. What is it? Why does it matter? What is the point of forgiveness?

If today’s theme stirs pain, you’re not alone. If you need a quiet space, we have one available, just down the hall near reception; and our pastors are ready to sit with you. Just fold your arms over your chest and we will come to you as best we can.

Forgiveness is not pretending, excusing, or returning to unsafe situations. Reconciliation requires safety, repentance, and wisdom; forgiveness is the Spirit’s work in our hearts that releases revenge into God’s hands.

Some of us hear “forgiveness” and think, “So…a spiritual lobotomy?” No. Forgiveness isn’t amnesia; it’s entrusting the debt to the only Judge who never misreads a case.

And as you might have picked up from the Scripture readings we're going to talk about Stephen, and we're going to talk about Paul. The Church Universal has long referred to both of them by their saintly titles: St Stephen, and St Paul.

So we're going to walk through snapshots of the experiences of both of these men and see if we can come to an understanding of what forgiveness is, how we can do it, how it can change us and how it can potentially have a large impact on the world around us.

Stephen - A Wronged Man

Stephen was a good man. The book of Acts says that: They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.

He was a man of profound faith in Jesus. He was a man who demonstrated by his life, by his conversation and by his actions that he was full of the Holy Spirit.

That suggests that he was mature in the faith. Very often the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience etc... takes significant time to develop in new believers, as the sanctification process unfolds in our lives.

That’s completely normal. He was known as a good man.

He took on a role as a deacon, to ensure that no one was overlooked in the distribution of food among those who were widows.

The widows could have included those who had husbands who were killed for following Christ.

Steven is also described as a man who performed great wonders and signs among the people. He was also highly articulate and effective at conveying the gospel.

Luke records that Stephen was opposed by members of the synagogue who stirred up false charges against him (Acts 6:8–14).

When he stood before the Sanhedrin, Stephen boldly traced Israel’s history of resisting God’s messengers and concluded with these cutting words:

“You stiff-necked people … you always resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51).

Enraged, the leaders dragged him out and stoned him, while “the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58).

So Stephen was a man who spoke the truth about God and about people, but it was not something that any of the leaders wanted to hear. Not at all.

What happened to him has happened all too commonly to those who have spoken with prophetic power—he was killed, stoned to death for his truthfulness and honesty. Stephen was a man who was wronged.

Stephen – A Forgiving Man

Luke tells us: “While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep.” (Acts 7:59–60)

Even in the very moment of his execution, Stephen exuded the grace of God. What he did was not normal. It was not humanly explainable.

The natural instinct when wronged— let alone being murdered—is to lash out, to curse, to harden. But Stephen prayed for blessing and forgiveness on his enemies.

At one level, it’s a very strange thing to have done.

It makes no sense to the secular or atheist mind. I know—it would not have made any sense to me when I was an atheist.

Yet this is precisely the strange and beautiful power of the gospel: the Spirit of Christ within us makes possible what our natural selves cannot.

Stephen embodied in his dying breath what Tertullian, one of the early fathers of the church, once observed: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” His death was not wasted; it was a witness.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”