“Jesus Said”
What Jesus to His Followers
“About Forgiveness”
Michael Wiley
Matthew 6:9-15
John 8:7-12
Matthew 18:23-35
March 22, 2009
Introduction:
In our 11 teaching in our series—last week we spoke about our message and the world we have been called to take it to. The world needs our message because (as the Bible refers to it) it is a lost and dying world. Our message is one of hope and life—eternal life.
The world needs the message because it battles and defeats our greatest problem.
Listen, You can look at all our serious issues—all the things that ale us, lying, murder, selfishness, thievery, adultery, fornication, children’s disrespect of their parents etc. and find the root to be sin. The most popular Greek word in the NT translated sin is Hamartia, which literally means “to miss the mark.” It is stepping out of the bounds of God’s will. Our greatest problem is sin.
Transition:
Because our greatest problem is sin, our greatest need is forgiveness. In fact because of sin we have two great needs that I dare not label 1 and 2 or A and B because they go hand-in-hand.
Let’s begin with our need for forgiveness.
When Adam and eve first sinned in the garden in the East of Eden, the perfect relationship they had with the Father was ripped in two.
Sin alienated us from God. The relationship we could have we cannot have because of sin.
Before sin entered the world the Bible says that God walked in the garden with man, but once sin came between us, man was barred from the garden and separated from God.
Sin separates us from God and sin separates us from each other.
Strained relationships between each other,
Children in a family may be alienated because of jealousy, selfishness, deceit, or hatred. Husband and wife struggle with lies, deceitfulness, adultery…
The Bible says,
Our salvation rests on the fact that: “The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin.” (1 John 1:8b NIV)
…God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! (Romans 5:8-9)
Believe on Jesus and receive God’s forgiveness.
Forgiveness from God brings us back into a relationship with Him.
Our second great need is our need to forgive.
This is where I want to spend the most time today.
Jesus brought this out in His model prayer --- turn to Matthew 6:9-15
READ 9-11m.
The prayer assumes we will forgive. It says, “Forgive us as we forgive others.”
The lack of forgiveness is a cancer to our souls
Nearly everyone has been hurt by the actions or words of another. Your mother criticized your parenting skills. Your friend gossiped about you. Your partner had an affair. These wounds can leave you with lasting feelings of anger, bitterness and even vengeance.
Clinical studies show that if you hold on to these offences and do not forgive, you will experience things like:
• High blood pressure
• High stress
• Anger issues
• Higher heart rate
• Higher risk of alcohol or substance abuse
• Depression symptoms
• Anxiety symptoms
• Chronic physical pain
• Poorer relationships in general
• Poor spiritual well-being
• Poor psychological well-being
Often times people think that forgiveness follows request and or repentance. That is, I have no need to forgive until I have been apologized to. But this is not correct. In fact the apology may never come.
Forgiveness is a gift you give to the one who wronged you and a gift you give to yourself!
ILL. My mother spent years, even decades in grief and anguish over a situation with her father.
Her mother died when I was just three months old. My grandfather whom I called Pop, married my grandmother’s sister. My grandmother’s sister basically removed pop from my mom’s life. She did not like my mother, or my sisters. It seemed she did not like other women in pop’s life. She loved me, so I didn’t get it growing up. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I knew mom’s story and how she felt so rejected for decades. After I became a pastor we talked about it several times because I knew the importance or forgiveness. One day my mother called me. “I’ve got some news for you,” she said. I forgave my daddy. (Now, this was several years after his death). I cold hear it in her voice. The pounds and pounds of burden she had been carrying for decades had been lifted. She said, “I know he can’t hear me, but I looked toward heaven and said, ‘I forgive you.’”
Her years of anguish were over.
She did it for herself.
Forgiveness is so important; Jesus interrupted the thought to expound on it.
(READ 14-15)
Now we need to differentiate between two kinds of forgiveness. – There is the total forgiveness we call justification by Christ’s blood on the cross, by which we will stand before God on judgment day and be pronounced NOT GUILTY.
AND here is the day to forgiveness that keeps us in right relationship with the father. Jesus is talking about the later because if he was talking about the former we would earn our salvation.
BUT, can we distinguish between “earning” forgiveness on one hand and on the other hand adopting an attitude which makes forgiveness possible?
When we accept Christ we are called to develop the heart of Christ.
Quote: John Stott put it this way, “Once our eyes have been opened to see the enormity of our offence against God, the injuries which others have done to us appear by comparison extremely trifling. If, on the other hand, we have an exaggerated view of the offences of others, it proves that we have minimized our own.” (Stott as quoted in EBC vol 8 pp. 173)
Who do you need to forgive? Maybe a recent wrong or one from your past?
We are called then, as Paul put it, in Col 3:13, Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
FIVE questions that come up when Christians need to forgive:
[Read these five questions first and let people answer Y or N in their point guide.]
1. A Christian should always try to forgive and forget. [ Y N ]
NO
Trying to pretend an injury didn’t happen or that it didn’t really matter to us, when it did, is only denying our true feelings. By remembering, we face the injury, and can heal from it.
I also believe it is important to remember, so we can learn from our injuries, and try to protect ourselves and others from being injured in the same way again.
This whole question may be a moot one. I say that because, very likely, it’s not even humanly possible to forget a serious injury. One can try to repress a memory, but that’s not healthy. "Forgive and forget" is an Old English proverb which dates back at least to the 14thcentury. But as a general rule, I don’t think it is good advice.
God Himself forgives but does not forget. In 1 Kings 15:5 (years after King David) it says, For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD’s commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.
NOTE: “Not forgetting” does not mean holding a grudge. The grudge goes with forgiveness.
2. A Christian should forgive even if the person who hurt them does not repent. [ Y N ]
YES
Making our forgiveness dependent on another’s repentance is not very helpful. It sets us up to be a victim, not just once, but twice! By making our forgiveness so dependent, we hand considerable power over our lives, to the one who injured us! Remember “forgiveness is a gift to the one who injured us and to ourself.
3. A Christian should always be willing to be reunited with the person he/she forgives, as if the injury had never happened. [ Y N ]
NO
In my view, forgiving takes one person. In forgiving, the forgiver opens the way, in him/herself, for the possibility of reconciliation with the injurer to take place.
Reconciliation takes two people--the forgiver and the injurer. For true reconciliation to take place, the injurer must usually accept responsibility for the injury and desire reconciliation. Reconciliation is foremost a matter of the heart: two people accept and relate to each other again in a spirit of peace, without malice.
IL. Some of you already know this story, but when we first cast the vision for starting The Vine church, one person who disagreed with me came after me with a vengeance. He made a page worth of accusations against me, all of which the elders dealt with. It was a bad time for Tam and I, especially since the man and his wife had been our best friends for about three years.
Now, I’ve forgiven him, but I don’t see him at my dinner table anytime in the future. If a dog bites you once, he’ll bite you again.
4. Over time, a Christian’s forgiveness of another will usually come about by itself. [ Y N ]
NO
I believe that forgiveness requires an initial decision that one wants to forgive. Without our wanting to forgive--whether verbally expressed or not--I don’t believe our forgiving happens. The journey of Christian forgiving begins as a choice. It ends as a gift of God’s grace.
5. To forgive completely, a Christian should try to make everything go back to the way it was before the injury. [ Y N ]
NO
Even if this were possible, which it is not, it may not always be desirable. A woman may forgive a boyfriend for physically abusing her--assuming the abuse has stopped and she is safe. However, she may also choose not to be reunited with him.
In fact, many offences simply change things forever.
[Some of this is from (http://www.vsg.cape.com/~dougshow/webdoc2.htm#8.%20%20Return)]
Forgiveness is so important; Jesus told a story in Mathew 18:23-33 to illustrate it.
READ Matthew 18:23-33
Conclusion:
Listen! Bottom line is this: When you are wronged, As a Christian, the first thing you should think of is how much you have wronged both your fellow man and God. And you should think of the scope of the forgiveness you have received from God.
You see an unforgiving spirit is not only inconsistent with one who has found forgiveness, but breaks our fellowship and blessing from God.
One question as we close.
1. Who do you need to forgive?
The word here literally means “to hurl away.”
Who do you need to forgive?
How much longer will it take? What else needs to happen?
Who do you need to forgive?
Jesus said, 14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15)
