“Seventeen Words”
Ephesians 4:32
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven you.”
There is one fundamental issue that is at the very heart of human existence. It is so important that everyday, every moment is touched by it. If the issue is dealt with correctly temporal joy is a certainty, a joy that passes into eternity; if the issue is dealt with incorrectly, temporal misery is a certainty, a misery that could also pass into eternity. The issue is that of relationships. Everything about the human existence revolves around relationships – relationships with God, spouse, children, the church, bosses, the clerk at Penny’s, the US government, etc.
Even the world has recognized the importance of relationships to the human existence. Just walk into any bookstore (such as Boarders or Barnes and Noble) and you will find the shelves loaded with books dedicated to the task of establishing decent relationships. One goes so far as to describe humans as extra-planetary beings: Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars. On television there is a commercial for Eharmony.com that identifies 27 key points for a relationship. All one has to do is take its personality survey and success is guaranteed. The truth of the matter is, though, the road to relationship success does not require a multi-volume library, but just one volume called the Bible. In fact, it doesn’t even require memorizing the whole Bible, but rather the implementation of the 3 imperatives found in the 17 words of Ephesians 4:32.
I. So much of the New Testament is dedicated to inter-personal relationships, especially how to have godly relationships within a congregational setting. Within the seventeen words of this verse there are three principles offered as the path to meaningful human relationships. Let’s take them in reverse order as they occur in the passage.
“. . . forgiving one another as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven you.” The importance of this principle can be seen in the first recorded argument. When God confronted Adam and Eve with their sin, their response was to immediately start seeing the sin of others rather than acknowledging their own. “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:12) Adam not only blamed Eve, but even God for creating woman in the first place (The woman YOU gave to be with me.) Eve, hearing her name mentioned replied, “The snake deceived me and I ate.” (Or more commonly, the devil made me do it!) The problem was that they had both sinned, and their refusal to accept their personal responsibility in the matter resulted in their hiding under a bush from God and the first recorded argument.
This “blameshifting” continues emphatically today. The key to relationships is not identifying the need of others for forgiveness, but your own. It is not being an expert in the sins of others, but rather an expert in your own so that you might forgive others as you have been forgiven by God. (Stop worrying about other people until you have worried about yourself.)
Once when Jesus was at a dinner party, a prostitute entered the room and began to wash his feet with her tears, anoint His feet with expensive fragrances, etc. After being criticized by His host, Jesus told a parable and then concluded by saying in Luke 7:47, “Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, that person shows little love.” Do you see the importance of forgiveness to relationships? It’s not just that this woman had great sins and required more forgiveness than the rest of the people in the room; it is that she knew she needed forgiveness and loved Jesus all the more for forgiving her. Did the host need less forgiveness? He too was totally dependent upon God’s forgiveness for salvation, but he was an expert in the prostitute’s sin rather than his own. He thought He needed little forgiveness and he loved little. Do you see why forgiveness is so important? The host could not rejoice over the woman’s repentance because he didn’t understand the depth of his own sinfulness! His relationship with the woman was ghastly.
“Forgiving one another as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven you.” I will need far more forgiveness from God than anyone, even everyone, on this planet will ever need from me. When I remember this I can be so much more patient, so much more forgiving toward others. As such, I will be so much more able to maintain a solid relationship with those around me.
Let’s apply this principle to other real life situations. Most children have the responsibility of emptying the cat litter box. Sometimes this responsibility gets ignored to the point the room starts smelling like road kill (or, as happened recently, my friend’s dog comes out of the laundry room with cat litter on her nose – if that litter box isn’t emptied quickly, the dog has a repulsive lunch.) Or how about church members bickering over the color of the new carpeting or changing the times of services? People can argue over these things, but to do so one would have to forget how much they have been forgiven by God.
II. The second imperative in the seventeen words – “(be) tenderhearted” is dependent upon the previous principle. The Greek word for tenderhearted is a compound word. The root of the word is "splagna." This word literally refers to a person’s intestines, liver, innermost being, etc. It was used to emphasize that love has to be intense, from the deepest part of a human being. But this word has a preposition in front of it that intensifies the word. It means to love a person from the inside out. Do you see why forgiveness is fundamental to being tenderhearted? The failure to forgive results, not in tenderness, but in bitterness and hardheartedness. The failure to forgive produces a brokenness in relationships that only death can end. It is like two siblings who were best of friends at one time. One sibling did something to offend the other, whether intentional or accidental, and the offended sibling never spoke to his or her best friend ever again because of failure to forgive. Only in death can that bitterness and brokenness conclude. On the other hand, it is a tender heart that says, “The burnt dinner is really no big problem, the forgotten birthday was probably just an oversight, the carpeting in the church is not my favorite color but that’s no big deal, etc.”
III. The third imperative in these seventeen words rests on both forgiveness and tenderheartedness. “Be kind to one another. . . “ Kindness is a barometer of forgiveness and tenderheartedness. The Greek word here implies courtesy, doing kind things unexpectedly. It is a husband surprising his wife with phone calls through the day or actually remembering every birthday and anniversary. It is a father taking the time to review his children’s homework or teach them from the Bible when he would rather vegetate in his easy chair after an exhausting day. It is giving a backrub to someone who is stressed, praying through an issue with someone or sharing a comforting Scripture. Yet, we have all been in grocery stores and seen people argue over such huge decisions as “paper or plastic?” or forgetting to get the milk. We have all heard children, couples, and church members backbiting another person behind their back. In these situations the kindness barometer is revealing that there are very serious problems in these relationships. Should you or I find ourselves failing the kindness barometric exam, we must quickly run to the cross, see the forgiveness being bought with the blood of Jesus, identify our desperate need for the forgiveness of sins, submerge ourselves in God’s Word and prayer, and then forgive, develop a tender heart, and start being kind.
Just one last thought. Knowledgeable Christians know their need for forgiveness and would never deny that need. However, remember what Jesus said in Luke 7:47 – we love in proportion to our understanding of our need for forgiveness. We will only be a tenderhearted and kind as we understand this need. When was the last time you spent as much at 15 seconds at the end of the day confessing your sin to God? If we do not look for sin in our life, how can we understand the depth of our need for forgiveness? If we don’t understand the depth of our need for forgiveness, how can we be tenderhearted? If we aren’t tenderhearted, how can we be kind to one another as we should be? Also, if we don’t know the ways we sin, how can we change it? This isn’t a plea to start weekly confessionals, where people think up things to say to a priest. It is a plea for all of us to become sensitive to the sin in our life so that we might find victory over it through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word. It is a plea to mature in our walk with the Lord by overcoming the sin in our life. It is a plea to see just how much we need forgiveness so that we might love much, be tenderhearted and kind.
Seventeen words - “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven you.”
Seventeen words - the very key to meaningful relationships with God and everyone else.
