Forgiveness Should Be Shared Series

Forgiveness is a “letting go” of all hurts, claims, and injury. This Sunday the message is about a lot more than moving on as a church. It’s about you and the need to forgive the people in your life who have hurt you. It’s about how forgiveness is for you and how it is meant to be shared.

One of the most powerful moments of forgiveness I have witnessed was in ther RCA dome in Indianapolis during a Promise-Keepers meeting. 65,000 men were called upon by the speaker to forgiven one another.

Literally hundreds of guys bowed their heads together and then wept openly as they hugged each other - fathers with sons; pastors with laymen; and brother with brother. It was amazing to see it happening in the same stands that a day before had been filled with tough fanatical spectators of a football team.

It is important that you and I learn to forgive those who hurt us because forgiveness releases both the debtor and the damaged

We’ve all played Monopoly

We play until we win or go bankrupt. You roll the dice and you move your shoe or car around the board till you land on a property or an open space and then you start the struggle. Counting your money, calculate your chances of getting by Boardwalk and Park Place without landing and deciding whether you should buy a house. Sometimes you even get the point where you hope to go to jail so that you can get away from the pressures of the rent on those spaces you don’t own. And then, you go bankrupt when you owe more money in rent than you have in your hand or by mortgaging your properties.

That bankruptcy is painful but there is a release… You are done. It is finished and you don’t have to carry the burden of trying to make a hopeless situation work.

Now you can play again. That’s how bankruptcy works. It’s also how forgiveness works.

You may be financially ok but you are a relational debtor. You and I are bankrupt.

I am a debtor to my world; my country; my state; and my community. I am a greater debtor to my church; my family; my children and my wife. The more important the relationship – the greater is my debt. In fact, my debt to my God is so great that I am completely bankrupt when I come into His presence.

God has forgiven me and I am released from the struggle to repay a debt that is far beyond my ability. It is not a matter of reorganizing the debt for later repayment – it is release.

Forgiveness is the only option

The debt is too great.

It cannot be repaid. It gets that way financially sometimes but it gets that way with people much more often. There is not one person in this room who has not experienced the devastation of betrayal from someone that you love or have loved.

There are husbands who have broken their vows – physically and emotionally. There are wives who have broken their vows in the same way. There are couples here who have simply and quietly grown cold over the years. There are fathers who have abandoned their children – Oh they live with them – but they are not there for them. There are mothers who have made it clear to their children that they are an interruption in their careers and live. There are kids who have lied to their parents and who are so self centered that they have abandoned their responsibilities in the family.