The Schemes of the Devil Part 5: Un-forgiveness Part 2
Scriptures: Luke 17:3-4; Matthew 5:43-48
Introduction:
In my message last week, I shared with you the fact that we are required to forgive if we want God to forgive us. Jesus taught that God will only forgive our sins (and forget about them) when we are willing to do the same for our brothers and sisters. When Jesus taught this, He did not teach this as a “possibility or a maybe” situation, He taught this as an absolute. So it is not enough to just say we forgive and “act” like it, we must do it and our subsequent actions towards the person who offended us must be genuine. This morning I want to focus on answering the question that many have asked, “Do I have to forgive someone who does not ask me to or who is not at all sorry they offended me?” I think you already know the answer to this question, but I want to make sure.
I. Ultimate Responsibility
If I offend you on purpose, whose responsibility is it to forgive? What if I offend you and never ask for forgiveness or say that I am sorry because I am not, whose responsibility is it to forgive? Of course, it is your responsibility. Likewise if you offend me, it is my responsibility to forgive you. So here is the real issue, many people believe that the only time you have to forgive someone is when they ask for it and are really sorry for whatever it was that they did. Is this scripturally correct? If someone offends you and never says they are sorry, must you really forgive them? Some base this belief on Luke 17:3-4 which says “Be on guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I repent’, forgive him.” Jesus does say that we are to forgive when asked, but He does not say that this is the only time that we must forgive. We must be willing to forgive regardless of the action of the one who offended us. When we have been offended it ceases to be about the one who offended us and becomes about you and I who was offended.
Consider the following Scripture found in Matthew 5:43-48: “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
These verses of Scripture give us insight into the issue pertaining to forgiving someone who does not ask for it. Consider what happens when someone offends us willingly and without remorse. What is our response? We generally write them off and they become someone we no longer associate with. They become an enemy. Now according to the verse we just read, there is a response that we are supposed to have with our enemies, we are to love them. You need to understand that when Christ made this statement the prevailing thought was it was okay to hate your enemies. Verse 44 says “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...” Jesus tells us that we are to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Who are those who persecute us? It is not our family or friends who occasionally offend us. It is not the spouse that is getting on your last nerve (although in some cases it could be). It is not that stranger who is pulling out in front of you or is rude to you while you’re standing in line at the grocery story. The one who persecutes you according to this verse is someone who knows you, possibly understands you and is going out of their way to make your life miserable, every day. This individual has it in for you and you know it. Yet with this person, Jesus says that we are to love them and pray for them. Now here is something you must recognize. When Jesus says that we should pray for them, He was not talking about us praying that God would strike them down or that something bad would happen to them. His desire is that we should pray for their benefit, pray God’s blessings upon them and be sincere when we do it. God knows if you are praying because you are supposed to versus praying because you really want your enemy to be blessed. Look at verse 45.
“…that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” I want you to read this verse closely. Jesus said when we sincerely love those who are our enemies and pray for the good of those who are persecuting us; at that point we become son and daughters of God. This is not an easy task to do, but to be complete and whole in God through Jesus Christ requires it. Jesus gave an example when He said that God allows the sun to rise on the good as well as on the evil person. God also sends the rain and it falls on the good as well as the evil person. What Jesus is saying is that God allows His blessings to fall on and benefit both the just and the unjust. If God is able to bless the evil person, then we also should be looking beyond the person to see God. Can you imagine what life would be like if God treated the unjust, evil person the way they deserved? All of us would have been witnesses to God’s wrath because at some point in our lives it would have been focused on us. But because of grace, we were spared and that is the same grace that is asking to be shared with those who are persecuting us (our enemies). Consider what your thoughts would be of God if there was a drought and He only allowed the rain to fall on the soil of those that served Him while millions of others died? Or if a tornado came through your city and God only allowed the Christian homes to be spared? God does not operate like we do; He wants us to operate like Him. Look at verse 46.
“If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?” In order for you to understand this verse you must understand the reference to the tax collectors. The tax collectors were the most despised individuals in the Jewish community. There was no one of Jewish descent that was more despised than the tax collector. The tax collectors were Jewish people who worked for the Roman government (the oppressors of the Jewish nation) collecting taxes from their own brethren for the Romans. Oftentimes they would collect more than what was due and keep the difference for themselves. Not only were they despised because they were working for the Romans, but also because they were stealing from their brethren in their role as tax collectors. Because they were so despised, many felt that these individuals were good for nothing and would not do anything to help anyone, even their own family member. Ever heard someone say “They’d sell off their own mother for a dollar?” This is the view that many had of tax collectors. Jesus said that if we love those who love us, what is the reward in that? He said even the tax collectors are able to do this. What Jesus is saying is that because of our relationship with God through Him, more is required of us. Anyone can return love from someone who is showing them love, but it takes a much stronger individual to love someone who shows them hate in return.
Jesus carries this through to verse 47 when He speaks of our greeting only our brethren (neighbors, family, friend, those of the same race, etc.) Jesus said that even those who are pagans are able to do this. The point He is making is that we expect to be rewarded for doing something that anyone can do and it is not going to happen. I do not care how bad my blood brothers may treat me, sooner or later I will get to the point of forgiving them because of the love I have for them. I could not write them off. This forgiveness is really no big sacrifice on my part because I am dealing with family. I know that there are many families out there who are divided and are not speaking to one another and this is a shame, but it is also very scary. If I can walk away from a family member because I am offended, imagine how easy it would be to walk away from a friend or someone I barely know. If I am able to not speak to a family member for years, imagine how easy it would be for me to not speak to you. This is not how we are to live our lives. Jesus set the expectation that if we are expecting to be rewarded for how we live here, there is a standard that must be met. If we expect to be forgiven for our sins here, there is a standard that must be met – we must forgive.
II. Be Perfect Like Your Heavenly Father
In verse 48 of Matthew chapter 5, Jesus makes a statement that causes many of us to call Him a liar. Yes, that is what I said. Many of us on a daily basis call Jesus a liar pertaining to this one statement. In verse 48, Jesus says “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” So that there is no misunderstanding of what Jesus said (in case some of you are thinking, my bible does not say that) I am going to review this one verse from different translations.
New American Standard: “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
New International Version: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
New King James Bible: “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
New Living Translation: “But you are to be perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect.”
Contemporary English Version: “But you must always act like your Father in heaven.”
Amplified Bible: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect (that is, grow into complete maturity of godliness in mind and character, having reached the proper height of virtue and integrity.”
No matter which translation you read, the emphasis is the same, we are called to be perfect and we can be perfect. The problem is that it is hard to do and many do not want to put forth the effort. It is very easy to claim that it cannot be done. We should strive for perfection, yet we generally strive for what can be achieved in our minds, regardless of what God says. Do you not understand that victory starts in your mind and once you can visualize victory, victory happens. If you fail in your mind you will fail when you start the task. If you think you cannot overcome the sin in your life, then you will not be able to no matter what God says in His word. You have rejected His words because you cannot see how God will perfect us.
I looked a little deeper into the word “perfect”. The Greek word for perfect as used in Matthew 5:48 is “teleios”. It means “complete; brought to an end, finished, wanting nothing necessary to completeness; perfect.” I know that this may be hard for all of us to get our arms around, but when Jesus said that we should be perfect as God is perfect then that is what he meant. And, if that is what He meant then it means that it can be done. The Greek word signifies that something has come to its completion, whether it is a job, a task or growth. When an individual grows into adulthood physically, they are complete. No more growing is taking place (from the standpoint of the body developing) so from that standpoint, the body has been perfected. When a sports team has an undefeated season and wins the championship, we say they had a perfect season. There are some things that we perfect, but it requires a lot of work. We all agree that God is perfect and there is nothing lacking within Him. We also agree that Jesus walked this earth as a perfect man, not sinning, and fulfilled what God had called Him to do. We say all the time that Jesus is our Savior as well as our example. Well, if Jesus is our example, then if He walked perfectly on this earth and we can too. Our problem is that we do not desire to be perfect because we truly believe that it cannot be achieved. I have heard many famous preachers say that we cannot achieve perfection here on earth, that we are sinners who are saved by grace. Yes we were saved by grace and that fact alone means that we do not have to continue in sin, but I will leave that for another message. Jesus said we should be perfect as God is perfect.
There are many things that help us develop through out our lives. When we have success, it gives us the desire to experience that feeling again so we work harder to be successful. When we experience failures, likewise we do not like that feeling and work harder not to have those experiences again. When we go through trials, they make us stronger, only if we come through them learning what got us there and leaning on God for direction. All of this ties into our need to forgive. When things happen to us and we must decide how to respond, the lasting impact is what is driven by our ability to forgive. That lasting impact can be minimal or it can be so life changing that everything we do after that situation can be tracked back to what we went through. When we forgive, every new situation is just that, a new situation. When we do not forgive, every new situation is a continuation of something we have gone through in the past that was painful, like building a brick wall. It all starts with our willingness to forgive.
I am reminded of a story that a friend sent me through an email. It was titled “Apache Seasons”. Here is what the story said.
“There was an Indian Chief who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at
a pear tree that was a great distance away. The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall.
When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe
what they had seen.
The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise. The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen. The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment. The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree’s life. He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that
come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. If you give up when it’s winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the
beauty of your summer, and the fulfillment of your fall.
The moral to the story was “Don’t let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest; Don’t judge life by one difficult season; and Persevere through the difficult patches and better times are sure to come some time.”
Now let me share with you why I chose to share that particular story. When we are faced with a situation where we are offended and must choose to forgive, we are actually experiencing one specific point in life. If we allow this particular point in our lives to be the basis for the rest of our life it will cast a shadow over everything else that we do. Just like the four brothers who saw the same tree during different seasons believed that what they saw during that particular season was all that there was to the tree, we have experiences that can influence us to think that that is all there is to our lives. This is why our forgiving anyone who offends us is so crucial. When we forgive, the next offense is not built on top of the previous one, it becomes a new offense. A brick wall can only be built if you stack the bricks (secured by the cement) on top of each other. If you never do the stacking, the wall will never be built. We have walls that have been built around us due to our being unable to forgive. It is time those walls came down and more important, it is time we stop adding new bricks to it.
If you have been blessed at any point in your life, you have a reason to forgive. If God has ever forgiven you of a sin, you have a reason to forgive. Satan wants you walking around hurt, angry, scared and most of all bitter. All four of these are outputs of our not being able to forgive and I will address them next week in my final message on un-forgiveness.
May God truly bless and keep you.
