Six of Life’s Most Important Words
Matthew 5:23-24, Colossians 3:13
Last week we started our series on the Lessons in the Game of Life. We’ll look at the lessons of life that if we follow them life just becomes that much easier. If you don’t then you will end up with less joy and more pain in life. Last week, we learned about something we have known from the time we were little children, the Golden Rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This week we’re focusing on Six of Life’s Most Important Words. These are two sets of three words which should readily flow from our lips and yet so often we forget to say them or can’t find the strength to say them.
Now I just want to see if you can guess what the first three are. I’ll give you a couple of really good hints. The first is that in a study of marriage of both couples whose marriages succeeded and those whose didn’t found that those whose marriages succeeded said these words twice as much as those whose marriages didn’t. Got it? How about another one.? The University of Michigan Heath Care System in 2002 began to instruct their physicians to say these 3 words to all of their patients in certain situations. When they did, the number of lawsuits for malpractice dropped by 50% and their legal fees declined by 2/3. Have you figured what they are yet? “I am sorry.” Those words are huge and if you are going to succeed in life, they will have to flow from your lips. Paul Meyer of Success, Inc. found that one of the most important factors determining your success in life is to admit you were wrong.
Now the Bible regularly teaches us the need to reconcile ourselves to others and God when we have offended them. It also teaches us how to do both of those things. One of those principles is that if you have offended someone then you are to go to them first and ask for forgiveness rather than wait for them to come to you. And if you are going to be asking God for forgiveness, you first need to ask for forgiveness and get right with the people in your life. The people in the New Testament tried to get a short cut. They would go and ask God for forgiveness but they would not go ask for forgiveness from the people they offended. So Jesus said to them: "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” Now the gifts they were offering were animal or grain sacrifices in Jerusalem. These were atonement offerings as a way to be reconciled before God. Jesus says, before you make your offering and ask God for forgiveness, leave worship and go to be reconciled to your brother or sister because you can’t receive forgiveness from God until you do. Now the context of this is worship. When I go about my day-to-day life, it’s sometimes hard to hear the voice of God. But when you come to worship, we listen for God’s voice and it is the spirit of God which pricks our heart and all of a sudden we remember something we have done. Jesus says, when God speaks to us we are to go be reconciled to our brother or sister because you can’t receive forgiveness from God until you do. Isn’t that what we pray each week, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Who is someone the Spirit brings to mind that you need to go and ask for forgiveness or offer forgiveness?
Why do we need to ask for forgiveness? (Call someone up and give them a tote bag and say,) What happens when we offend someone is that we give them baggage. They are then forced to carry that baggage around with them which is represented by these rocks I’m putting in the bag. It may be anger or bitterness or pain but I have given that to the person I have offended and now they have to carry that around because of the things I have done against them. (Send them back to their seat with their bag and take another bag for yourself) But what also happens is that I begin to carry my own baggage around. Every time I look at that person I can tell that she is mad at me and that doesn’t feel very good. I don’t like the fact that she is mad at me. It makes me feel uncomfortable but I’m not ready to apologize quite yet. When it comes time for me to pray, I’m feeling the weight of this. How am I going to pray knowing that I have this baggage and God’s knows it too. So I begin to struggle in my own relationship with God as well. Here’s the thing: I try to go on with life pretending everything’s normal but I can still feel the weight. I can’t enjoy life quite as much and everything seems that much harder because I’m carrying that baggage due to the hurt I’ve inflicted and haven’t done anything to make amends.
Now sometimes apologizing is really difficult. Do you remember the Fonze? He was so cool that he just couldn’t apologize. Remember when he would try and say, “I am s…s…s” and he just couldn’t get the word out. Why? He thought it was uncool or a sign of weakness or maybe he suffered from low self-esteem and that would be just one more reminder. Sometimes it can be difficult for us to say I’m sorry as well and so we choose to carry around 35 pounds of burden around with us but it just doesn’t seem to be a very effective way to live life. So how do you apologize? You know somehow just saying you’re sorry while rolling your eyes just doesn’t cut it? (mimic Mattie and Luke) Or the non-apology apology, “I’m sorry that you feel that way.”
Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas have written a book about how to apologize and in it they share five steps to making a sincere apology. The first step is heartfelt regret. You have to feel it first and then it’s conveyed by the look in the eyes, the posture of your body, the tone of your voice. The second is accepting responsibility. I was wrong in doing this. Third is making restitution, “What can I do to make this right?” Fourth is genuine repentance which means sharing that you really regret what you have said or done. I am going to do my best to try to not do that again. Please forgive me. Fifth, request forgiveness: “Would you please forgive me?”
Many times in order to effectively apologize you have to see through the eyes of the person you offended. You can’t understand why that person is so upset because you first have to understand what they are thinking or how they are feeling. That means taking the time and making the effort to try to understand why they are hurt. Perhaps the best way to do that is to go to them and ask. “Why does that upset you so much?” And it may come to the point that you couldn’t have done anything differently but you want to make things right with them. So you don’t apologize for what you did but rather for how you made them feel. “I didn’t think I had any other choice. I’m sorry I hurt you. I care about you and want to make things right with you.” You can apologize for the impact you had or the feelings you hurt.
Apologizing can make all the difference in the world. One woman in the University of Michigan study almost died on the operating table. Lawyers began to contact her to see if she wanted to file suit. But before she did, the doctor called and said, “I am so sorry for what had happened. I can’t even sleep at night over this, thinking about how you might have died and it would have been my fault. I am glad things worked out for you and I want you to know if there’s anything I can do to help during this healing period, I will do anything. I will come to your house. I want to ask you to forgive me. I am so sorry. I just missed this thing and I can’t tell you how bad I feel about that.” She indicated in her interviews that it was because her doctor called to apologize that she chose not to file suit because she accepted his apology and saw it as earnest.
George lives in San Diego. He had gotten to a point in life where he was able to purchase his dream car, a Volvo. A week after he had gotten it, his wife asked to drive the car and you guessed it, she wrecked it. Now Volvo’s are known for their safety and my wife was just fine but the car was not. She had wrecked my baby. And I really lit into her, criticizing her about her carelessness and her wreckless driving. After that fight, I thought I would be the man and never bring it up again. Several years went by and I realized that our relationship was never really the same after that. It was like night and day different. And then one day several years later, I realized that I had never apologized to her. So I did just that and it was as if a cloud had been lifted from us. It was that baggage she had been carrying with her. She didn’t even really realize it. I didn’t realize it but the moment I apologized, the baggage slipped away from not only her life and mine. That’s the power of an apology.
It can lift some of the burden. The moment I apologize the person I offended is able to let go of some of these stones. (Person comes back up and takes some of those stone out of her bag) And here’s the thing: the moment you apologize you get to let go of some of the baggage too, like the alienation, embarrassment and guilt you’ve been carrying around. But not all of it because the rest of it is in her court. The other person has to decide if she is going to let go of her right for retribution. She has to decide whether or not if she is going to forgive me. So while I have asked for her forgiveness, she has to decide whether or not she’s going to accept it. But here’s the thing: even though I have asked for forgiveness, it still lightens my burden and we feel better when we take the initiative and because it lightens my burden. While my burden might have been 30 pounds of rocks, now it’s lighter but it still has 15 pounds.
I recently experienced this in my own life. As you know I proposed that Annual Conference, our meeting of UM across the state, met here in New Orleans as another way to help the city rebuild. One member of the Conference staff became very angry at me because this created a lot more work for her and she didn’t want to come New Orleans. It got so bad that every conversation was curt and she treated me very cold. I decided to reach out to her and apologize for whatever I had done to hurt her and asked if we could sit down talk about it. I was willing to drive to Baton Rouge to be reconciled to her. And yet I got absolutely no response from her. I was continually talked down to, treated with no respect and received her anger directed toward me. At one point, during Conference she almost yelled at me when I needed something from her. It hurts that I had done something to anger her. I don’t think I did anything wrong and yet because she was unable to accept my apology there is still a pain in my heart. Yes, I realize there is nothing more that I can do. And I realize that this is her problem and she is unable to talk with me and accept my apology. And yet, I still carry some baggage and pain over all of this.
And that leads us to the other three words we need to say, “I forgive you.” It can take time to forgive someone. It may be that the other person is not ready to forgive. It may take years for someone to forgive. Paul writes in Colossians 3:13 “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” The fact is we are continually doing things that rub others the wrong way. And if we are unwilling to bear with each other or put up with one another, we just start adding to our baggage. There are little things that irritate me (Put little rocks in the bag) and there are bigger things that irritate me. If you continue to add those things to your life, it will begin to weigh you down.
Now here’s the key: all of us have fallen short of the will of God. In other words, all of us have offended God by the words we say, the thoughts we have and the things we do. But because of the grace of Jesus Christ, we have all been forgiven and because we have been forgiven, we need to forgive others.
What happens if someone offends you but never asks for forgiveness? We have three choices. First, We can hold onto it and just add to the baggage we carry because they never ask you to forgive them. (Put more rocks in) The second thing we do is just let it go. People do things all the time that irritate us and we say life is too short and we just let it roll off our back. But sometimes things are so difficult or painful that it deeply wounds us. Third is to address it. Jesus gives this advice, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.” In other words, you have restored that relationship. Don’t go and accuse them of their behavior, their defenses will go up. Instead, say something like, “You know something happened the other day and it’s just really been eating at me.”
Asking for forgiveness and giving forgiveness. We do it because though we didn’t deserve it, we were first forgiven first by Jesus. When I apologize to ________ (name of participant with the bag) and ________ has accepted my apology, we find that we are both able to take the stones which bind our hearts and make it difficult to live and function and we’re able to just let them go when we forgive. (Empty bag and embrace the other) There is power and healing in these words, I am sorry and I forgive you. If you know someone today you need to ask forgiveness from and someone you need to forgive, today is the day and now is the time. Jesus Christ has forgiven us so that we might forgive.
