Relationships Are Everything
Forgiveness is Key
Mark 12:31
When Narvaez, the Spanish patriot, lay dying, his father-confessor asked him whether he had forgiven all his enemies. Narvaez looked astonished and said, “Father, I have no enemies. I have shot them all.”
If I were to ask you this morning the same question, I hope that you would not give the same answer as Narvaez. In fact, I would hope that you would be able to say that you have no enemies, hold no grudges against anyone, and you get along with everyone you come across. I doubt this is the case. After all, people let us down. People look out for themselves and trample others under their feet at times. And, people love to hold grudges.
While watching ESPN this week, I came across an interesting story. At a baseball game in Los Angeles over the weekend, twenty-three year old Mark Grugerson was arrested for trying to hit Barry Bonds in the head with a tube of Ben Gay. He threw it as hard as he could, and the object missed Bonds by a few feet. After the game, the man was asked why he did this by police. It turns out that he had approached Bonds as an 8 year old kid and asked the slugger for an autograph. Apparently, Bond refused to sign one for him. So, for the last 15 years, the man held on to this grudge and sought to get even by inflicting pain on the one who had hurt his feelings so many years ago.
Two weeks ago, we began talking about the fact that relationships are everything. We went on describe our relationship with God and how we were created to be in constant fellowship with God and fall in love with Him. After all, the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Today, we begin to look at the second greatest commandment as listed in Mark 12:31. Let’s take a look at it.
The second one is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.
In order to love our neighbor as ourselves, we have to turn a key corner. We cannot begin to love others until we begin to show forgiveness to those who have wronged us. We cannot begin to love God without forgiving others. This morning, we are going to take a look at what the Bible has to say about this topic. Let’s look to the Lord in prayer.
Forgiveness Becomes Possible When We Treat Others Like Ourselves
I recently came across a reading entitled, “Why Your Problem is My Situation.” It goes something like this:
When you get angry, it’s because you are ill-tempered…it just so happens that my nerves are bothering me.
When you don’t like someone it’s because you are prejudice…I just happen to be a good judge of character.
When you compliment people, it’s because you use flattery to get ahead…I only encourage people.
When you take a long time to do a job, it’s because you are unbearably slow and pokey…I take a long time because I believe in quality workmanship.
When you spend your paycheck in 24 hours, it’s because you’re a spendthrift…When I do, it’s because I am generous.
When you stay in bed until 11AM, it’s because you are a lazy good-for-nothing…When I stay in bed a little longer, it’s because I am totally exhausted.
Did you ever notice how we sometimes hold other people to higher standards than we hold ourselves to? After all, we have issues and problems in our lives while everyone else has smooth sailing in their lives. If we think about this even for just a few seconds, we can begin to see how faulty and non-Biblical this kind of thinking is. In fourth grade, I can remember something we did every morning. We got together and said two things. We recited the Pledge of Allegiance and we recited the Golden Rule. Do you remember it? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Many people still try and live by this rule, but too many times we are quick to point to how others treat us and not how we are actually treating them.
I love how Jesus puts this in Matthew 7. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you treat others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Folks, this message is very straight forward. If you hold others to high standards, God is going to hold you for high standards. And, we all have our problems and things we need forgiven for. So, before we point to the specks in the eyes of others, we have some work to do on ourselves.
I think it is clear to see that we should not hold others to higher standards than we hold ourselves. We are all going through things in this life that is causing us to act and react in different ways. So, when someone reacts in a way that we may not understand, what should we do? We should love them as we love ourselves. In order to do that, we have to turn the other cheek a few times and seek to forgive those who have hurt us. It is time that we let go of the bitterness, anger, and hurt feelings and break the bars that they have created to imprison us. Forgiveness is the key to unlock those bars to set us free.
Everyone Deserves to Be Forgiven
Samuel Colgate, the founder of the Colgate business empire, was a devout Christian, and he told of an incident that took place in the church he attended. During an evangelistic service, an invitation was given at the close of the sermon for all those who wished to turn their lives over to Jesus Christ and be forgiven. One of the first persons to walk down the aisle and kneel at the altar was a well-known prostitute. She knelt in very real repentance, she wept, and asked God to forgive her, and meanwhile the congregation looked on approvingly at what she was doing. Then she stood and testified that she believed God had forgiven her for her past life, and she now wanted to become a member of the church. For the next few moments, the silence was deafening. Finally, Samuel Colgate arose and said, “I guess we blundered when we prayed that the Lord would save sinners. We forgot to specify what kind of sinners. We’d better ask Him to forgive us for this oversight. The Holy Spirit has touched this woman and made her truly repentant, but the Lord apparently doesn’t understand that she’s not the type we want Him to rescue. We’d better spell it out for Him just which sinners we had in mind.” At that, Mr. Colgate sat down, and immediately, a motion was made and unanimously approved that this woman be accepted into membership in the congregation.
Do you believe that God accepts us as we are? There’s not a sin too black, a deed too horrible, or a thought too awful for Him to forgive. In fact, He gave up His Son in order to do this. After all, how many of you were perfect when you came to the Lord? None of us were. Romans 5:8 tells us the following. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” What does this mean? It means that He forgave us before we even asked to be forgiven. It means that He forgave us no matter how great or how many our sins were. It means that He forgave everyone who would accept Him as their personal Savior. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. God forgives everyone who comes to Him. Period. And, if we say we are Christians, we must do the same. People may have wronged or hurt you in a truly deep manner, but no one is beyond forgiveness. No matter what others may have done to you, we must seek to forgive in all circumstances because everyone deserves the chance to be forgiven as modeled to us by the actions of Christ for us all.
Forgiveness Benefits Every Relationship
According to the latest medical and psychological research, forgiveness is good for our soul and our bodies. People who forgive:
• Benefit from better immune functioning and lower blood pressure
• Have better mental health than people who do not forgive
• Feel better physically
• Have lower amounts of anger and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression
• Maintain more satisfying and long-lasting relationships
Apparently, the human body was not created to withstand unforgiveness. Michael McCullough, director of research for the National Institute of Healthcare Research, goes on to explain this further. “When we allow ourselves to feel like victims or sit around dreaming up how to retaliate against people who have hurt us, these thought patterns take a toll on our mind and bodies.” Not forgiving others has many negative effects even in our relationship to our bodies! It turns out that holding onto grudges has very little effect on the person who has offended you, but it has tremendous effects on the person who holds it. If you do not forgive, you will feel lousy.
Secondly, not forgiving others affects every relationship you have. Unforgiveness leads to bitterness, anger, trust issues, insecurity, and the like in the life of the person who does not forgive. The longer the person does not forgive, the more these traits grow in their lives. Then, these kind of things start to spill over into other relationships until walls are built up between them and every person they come into contact with. How do I know this? I have seen it happen in my own life. At one point in my life, I refused to forgive a person who had deeply wounded me and broke my heart. Do you know what happened? I quickly went from a loving, trusting, kind and caring person into one that didn’t care much about others. I became bitter, mean and sarcastic in my dealings with others. I didn’t notice it at the time, but when a year had gone by, I looked at who I was and who I used to be, and I was brought to tears. I had allowed these feelings to completely change my attitude. Do you know what I did? I made a concerted effort to try and be nicer, but it did not work. I tried harder, and still there was little change. Finally, I got up the nerve to call this person out of the blue, and I intended on telling them I forgave them. However, the Lord seemed to say this. “Apologize for your actions to this person.” By doing this, I was saying that I forgave this person, and I was going even further. In order to do this, I had to forgive them enough to put aside what they had done to me and focus on my wrongful actions. This was the toughest phone call to make in my life – in fact; it took 7 months for me to make it. But, when I did, I immediately felt a change inside of me, and it was like a ton of weight was lifted off of my soul. And, I began having deeper and more meaningful relationships with other people again.
Finally, when we harbor unforgiveness, it affects our relationship with God. 1 John 4:20-21 says this. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” We have already talked about the fact that a major part of love is the ability to forgive others. Therefore, if we do not forgive our brother, we cannot love God. If we wish to have a flourishing and intimate relationship with God, we must forgive others.
There is a story that tells of two friends who were walking through the desert. During some point of their journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: “Today, my best friend slapped me in the face.” They kept on walking on walking until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone: “Today, my best friend saved my life.” The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone. Why? The other friend replied, “When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where the winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.” I tell you this: Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your benefits in stone.
This morning, I want to help some of you to unlock the prison bars that have kept you locked up. I want to help you improve your relationship with others. I want to help you to have a healthier life. I want to help you improve your relationship with God. Some of you here are harboring unforgiveness, and today is the day to let it go. Today is the day of freedom for you. I want everyone to close your eyes. I want you to search long and hard through your life. Is there someone you need to forgive? If so, raise up a hand right now. Then, I want you to ask God to give you the strength to forgive this person. Then, I want you to go this week to someone you are at odds with and be the first to say you are sorry and that you forgive this person. I cannot even begin to tell you how much relief you will feel. Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
