Have you ever overheard a conversation like this between mother and toddler? “I love chocolate ice cream,” declares the mom. “Me too!” echoes the child. “I don’t like rainy days,” observes Mom. “Me neither,” adds the child. “I wish I could get my hair done,” sighs Mom. “Me too,” huffs the toddler. And on and on it would go, the toddler replying “Ditto!” that is “Me too!” to everything Mom says because, well, she loves her and wants to be just like her.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. According to our sermon text imitation is also a sincere form of worship, for the Apostle Paul urges us to mimic God. How do we do that? Simple. Ditto the Divine when you speak from the heart these words to fellow sinners: “I forgive you.”
But is it a simple thing to say, “I forgive you.”? The words themselves aren’t tongue-twisters but speaking them from the heart is quite another matter. You see that when a father urges bickering brothers to apologize and to offer forgiveness to one another. They may say they’re sorry and “I forgive you,” but it’s often clear from the tone of voice or body language that they don’t really mean it. Today the Apostle Paul gives us a couple of good reasons to say “I forgive you,” and to really mean it. Paul said in our text: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (Ephesians 4:30, 31).
We want to offer genuine forgiveness to fellow sinners because if we don’t, we grieve the Holy Spirit with whom we have been sealed for the day of redemption. Being sealed with the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption, that is Judgment Day, is like having a local offer to guide you to safety after you’ve wandered from your tour group and become hopelessly lost on a jungle trek. When you were lost and alone you stumbled from one trail to the next desperate to find your way out and afraid that come nightfall you would still be lost amid the bugs, snakes, and bigger predators. But now with this friendly local at your side all is well. Just follow his footsteps and listen to his instructions. If he tells you not to step on the purple flowers because they are endangered and the locals use them for medicine, then don’t. When he directs you down a certain path, don’t argue that it isn’t the right way. Ignore your guide’s repeated pleas and he’ll finally get exasperated and will leave you to fend for yourself!
Likewise when we refuse to forgive others we are ignoring the Holy Spirit’s pleas to us. We’re saying that we don’t want him in our life as we would like to do things our way. To such a person the Holy Spirit may just say: “Suit yourself.” But without the Holy Spirit there can be no saving faith in Jesus. And if there is no faith, then there can be no hope of salvation – only a certainty of God’s anger. Why do we want to ditto the Divine and say “I forgive you,” to fellow sinners? Because we don’t want to grieve the Holy Spirit and chase him away. If that should happen, we would never find our way home to heaven.
So how do we go about forgiving? Paul said that we should first of all get rid of all bitterness. He used a Greek verb there which means to “carry off.” It’s what you do with the trash underneath your sink. You take it out often so that it doesn’t stink up the house. Likewise you’ll have to carry off your bitterness toward others if you don’t want it to stink up your life. You can’t just suppress it. That would be like ignoring the egg shells and chicken bones piling up under the sink. They’ll just become more stinky and gross – like bitter feelings do when they are not “carried away” from the heart.
“But getting rid of bitterness is not as easy as taking out the trash, Pastor. I’ve tried but the bin keeps filling up faster than I can empty it!” That’s why you’ll have to carry off the bitterness every day just like you do the trash from underneath your sink. Thankfully the Apostle Paul gives us another reason to be so forgiving. He wrote: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. 1 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 4:32-5:2).
We are to forgive others again and again from the bottom of our hearts because this is how God forgives us in Christ Jesus. Every day we commit the same sins and every day Jesus stands before his heavenly Father and pleads on our behalf. Do you suppose he ever gets tired of doing that? If one of your children kept stealing from her classmates, wouldn’t you get tired of going to the principal’s office to apologize? I’m glad Jesus doesn’t get tired of pleading forgiveness on our behalf!
“But isn’t it easy for God to forgive just like it’s easy for a billionaire to forgive the $5 dollars you owe him?” Our sins, of course, cost more than $5; they cost a life – the life of God’s only Son. Was it easy for God to give up his Son for us? Was it easy for God’s Son to give up the glory that was his in heaven and live on the margin of poverty only to be ridiculed by many of those he had come to save? Was it easy for God to forgive? I don’t think “easy” is the word he would use to describe it. And neither is it easy for us to forgive. Every time we do, we have to sacrifice our pride and our desire to get even. But when you nail that bitterness to the cross, even if it takes a life-time supply of nails to do it, the bitterness will become more and more dead to you so that it no longer has a hold on you. Don’t give up doing this, for Jesus did not give up on us; he gave himself for us. Ditto the Divine and say often: “I forgive you.”
But perhaps you think that this sermon on forgiveness is really only meant for Christians who are spiritually stronger than you and who have an easier time forgiving. If so, listen to what Jesus said to his disciples when they thought the same thing. Luke 17 records Jesus telling his disciples that divine forgiveness has no limits, neither should our willingness to forgive. Upon hearing this, the disciples cried: “Lord, increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5) What Jesus was asking seemed impossible. Do you remember Jesus’ puzzling response? He said: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you” (Luke 17:6). The disciples imagined faith to be a power like a battery but Jesus wanted them to know that faith is more like a portal or an electrical outlet. If we, like the disciples, imagine faith to be a battery, we’ll surmise that, like a small AAA battery, our faith doesn’t have the juice needed to perform the tasks God asks of us – like forgiving fellow sinners again and again. Even if our faith were the size of a car battery, we figure that we’d eventually run out of juice to continually forgive. But faith is not a battery – a power stored inside of us that can only drain away each day. Faith is a portal, a wall-socket through which we connect to God’s ever-flowing, omnipo-watt power. Connected to this immense power that brought the world into existence, that calms storms, that raises the dead we could command a mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea, if that were God’s will. What is God’s will is that we forgive as quickly, as completely and as often as we ourselves have been forgiven by him. Through faith in Jesus we can do this, we will do this as we tirelessly ditto the Divine and say, “I forgive you.”
Of course there is the fear that if we really forgive as freely as God has forgiven us, we’ll be seen as doormats that others are willing to tread. But forgiving a wrong doesn’t mean acting like the wrong never existed. A good parent will forgive a child who has broken curfew but will still ground him for a week or two. Sin has consequences. Likewise you can forgive a co-worker who betrayed a confidence but be hesitant to entrust him with sensitive information again. Just be careful that you’re not covering your bitterness and refusal to forgive under the guise of “handing out consequences” for sins committed against you.
In preparing this sermon I ran across a humorous poem which sums up the challenge of forgiving. It goes like this.
To dwell above with saints we love,
That would be grace and glory.
But to live below with saints we know;
Well, that’s quite a different story!
- Anonymous
It’s not easy living with the sinner/saints we have around us. But don’t forget that it’s not easy for them to live with us! Every day we say and do things to hurt one another. How are you going to handle that pain? Like the world does with bitterness and anger? No. We’re not of this world. We’re children of the heavenly Father who freely and fully forgives us day after day. Ditto the Divine then and say “I forgive you,” when a fellow sinner makes a mess of your life. It’s not just good for that sinner; it’s good for this sinner, the one who lives inside you – the sinner who already has received Jesus’ forgiveness and who has been sealed with the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption. Amen.
