Introduction:
A. I want to begin today’s sermon with a few cartoons to get us thinking about forgiveness and how difficult and confusing a subject it can be.
1. The first cartoon shows a wife saying to her husband, “Forgive you?...Sure I’ll forgive you…the moment I see something I really want on the shopping channel.”
2. The second cartoon shows a woman standing with her arms crossed saying, “I know I’d feel better if I forgave you, but so would you, and I really don’t want that.”
3. The final cartoon shows two men talking.
a. One man is holding a ledger with the heading “Ted Forgiveness” and it has many markings on the page.
b. That man explains to the other man, “As you can clearly see by this ledger, you have been forgiven 490 times and are no longer covered by the biblical policy.”
B. So, would you agree with me that forgiveness is a challenging subject?
1. As you know, we have been preaching through a series on love and we are trying to learn how to make love a way of life.
2. In the earlier lessons, when we were talking about love in a general sense, the sermons weren’t quite so challenging.
3. But now that we are getting into the “every-day,” “rubber-meets-the-road” practice of love, we are finding the sermons a little more challenging.
4. Someone mentioned after last week’s sermon on patience, that I have left the realm of preaching and entered the realm of meddling.
C. Well, if you thought that was the case with the topic “love is patient,” then I’m guessing many will think I’m meddling even more with the topic “love forgives.”
1. So let’s spend some time investigating what the Bible says about having a love that forgives.
2. And then, let’s spend some time wrestling with what a love that forgives looks like.
I. What the Bible Says about Having a Love that Forgives.
A. Let’s begin with 1 Corinthians 13, the same passage we have pointed to with each of the characteristics of love.
1. 1 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Love…keeps no record of wrongs.” (NIV)
2. Other translations render the verse: “keeps no record of being wronged” (NLT); and
“does not take into account being wronged” (NASB).
3. The Message renders it: “Love…doesn’t keep score of the sins of others.”
4. Literally, the Greek can be translated, “not reckon the bad.”
5. The original word “reckon” was an accountant’s term used for entering an item in a ledger so it would not be forgotten.
a. The goal for the accountant was to make a permanent record of a transaction that could be consulted at a future date if necessary.
b. What is helpful in the realm of accounting is harmful in the realm of relationships.
6. But how many of us are keeping a record of wrongs in our heads, or even on paper?
a. It’s hard to erase or tear up that list, isn’t it? But that’s what love requires.
b. Relationships are so damaged by the practice of constantly bringing up every wrong thing a person has ever done.
c. Who wants to have every wrong thing you have ever done brought up again and again?
d. And who can go on knowing that no matter how much you change or improve you will never be forgiven for the past?
7. How would it feel if God treated us that way?
8. True love does not keep tabs on the ways others have hurt us.
B. Let’s take note of the fact that God’s love is a forgiving love.
1. Because God loves us, He forgives us.
2. God never asks us to be something that He is not, nor do anything that He has not already done.
3. Psalm 103 is a favorite Psalm because of the way it reveals so clearly to us what our God is like. That Psalm includes these words, “Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits - who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion…The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:2-4; 8-13)
a. Did you notice what the Psalm says about what God does about our sins?
b. God is compassionate and gracious and forgiving.
c. God does not treat us as our sins deserve!
d. And God takes away our sins from our relationship with Him as far as the East is from the West!
4. If God held our sins against us, then none of us would have a chance, right?
a. Look at Psalm 130:3-4 which says: “If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.”
5. With our God there is love, and therefore, there is forgiveness.
a. In Isaiah 43:25, God says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”
b. In Jeremiah 31:34, God says, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
c. Here is one of the many NT verses that says the same thing: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them” (2 Cor. 5:17-19).
C. Another important verse that links love and forgiveness is 1 Peter 4:8, which says: “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”
1. Sometimes when people read that verse they think that it means that if we just love people it will make up for a lot of mistakes that we have made.
2. But what I think it means is that our love for others covers over the mistakes and sins that others commit against us.
3. In other words, love each other deeply, because love forgives.
4. Forgiveness is the bridge that reunites the offended with the offender.
D. Let’s look at Ephesians 4:31-32, it’s the passage we read for today’s Scripture reading, it reads: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
1. Over and over, the Bible tells us to get rid of things like anger, rage and bitterness.
2. Anger is an important emotion that God created us with so that we will deal with things that aren’t right.
a. But God has designed anger to be a visitor, not a resident.
b. When we hold anger inside and brood over it, it becomes bitterness and then turns into hatred.
c. These emotions and attitudes are destructive to anyone who harbors them.
d. Someone has said, “No matter how much you nurse a grudge, it won’t get better!”
3. So the Bible tells us to get rid of anger and bitterness because they ruin relationships and ruin us.
4. Forgiveness is the key to getting rid of anger and bitterness, and the key to forgiveness is the phrase “just as in Christ God forgave you.”
D. Jesus had a lot to say about the forgiveness we give being linked to the forgiveness we have received.
1. When Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, He included this important concept about giving and receiving forgiveness: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Mt. 6:12).
2. And then two verses later, He added: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Mt. 6:14-15).
3. Are we comfortable asking God to forgive us in the way we have forgiven others?
4. Are we comfortable with the thought that the forgiveness we receive may be dependent upon and in the amount of the forgiveness we have extended?
E. On several occasions Jesus taught about the extent and limits of forgiveness.
1. One day the apostle Peter asked Jesus this question: “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”
2. Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
“The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything. The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.
“When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
“In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart” (Mt. 18:21-35).
3. If we have been forgiven by God in infinite proportions, then how can we dare withhold forgiveness from others?
4. When we take God’s forgiveness for granted, and stubbornly withhold forgiveness from others, then we are basically saying that other people’s sins against us are greater than our sins against God.
5. Such an attitude and spirit reveals that we don’t really understand and appreciate the forgiveness we have received from God.
F. In Luke 17:3-4, Jesus says, “So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” The apostles said to the LORD, “Increase our faith!”
1. Forgiving others is not easy.
2. After Jesus gave this command about forgiveness, the apostles said, “Increase our faith!”
3. When they looked at how God wanted them to forgive, they knew they couldn’t do it without God’s help.
4. That’s what I have been saying throughout this series, we cannot love the way God loves without God’s help.
5. In this case, we cannot have a love that forgives without God’s help.
6. And even though the kind of forgiveness that God commands seems impossible, God gives us the grace to fulfill His expectations.
7. With God all things are possible – God can give us the strength to have a love that is kind, patient and forgiving.
8. God can help us to learn to forgive others just as He has forgiven us.
Now let’s turn our attention to:
II. What Love that Forgives Looks Like
A. In his book, Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez describes a marriage that collapses over a bar of soap.
1. See the wife’s job in the house included keeping soap in the bathroom.
2. When she forgot to replace the soap one day, her husband called her oversight to her attention, but she denied it.
3. She had unquestionably forgotten, but her pride was at stake in the confrontation, and she would not back down.
4. For the next seven months, the husband and wife slept in separate rooms and ate in silence.
5. The relationship broke down over a bar of soap.
a. But the problem wasn’t really the soap, the problem was the indictment-and-denial cycle that they set in motion over the soap.
b. She thought to herself, “Why couldn’t he find a bar of soap himself this once?”
c. He thought to himself, “Why couldn’t she admit she forgot to replace it?”
6. There was a simple way to break the cycle that was ruining their relationship.
a. Either one of them could have said, “Wait a minute, this is silly and has gotten out of hand. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
7. Forgiveness has the power to stop the downward spiral in relationships.
a. Forgiveness doesn’t resolve all the issues of blame and equity.
b. Forgiveness doesn’t guarantee that fairness will prevail.
c. But forgiveness does allow the relationship a fresh start.
8. Forgiveness cuts through the natural, human psyche that requires blaming, revenge and punishment.
a. Forgiveness in that sense is unnatural, and is supernatural.
b. William Arthur Ward said: “We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive.”
B. Victoria Ruvolo had every right to be angry and revengeful.
1. As the district attorney in her case said, a crime had been committed against her for which no punishment seemed harsh enough.
2. Ruvolo was fortunate to be alive after an eighteen-year-old prankster, Ryan Cushing threw a 20 pound frozen turkey from a speeding car into her windshield breaking every bone in her face.
3. Ruvolo endured 10 hours of surgery, a medically induced coma, and a month in the hospital before she was able to return home, where she faced months of rehabilitation.
4. Nevertheless, Ruvolo maintained contact with her assailant throughout her ordeal and expressed forgiveness for his actions.
5. One particular courtroom scene amazed onlookers when the young assailant, Ryan Cushing “carefully and tentatively made his way to where Ruvolo sat in the courtroom and tearfully whispered an apology, “I’m so sorry for what I did to you.”
6. Ruvolo then stood, and the victim and her assailant embraced, weeping. She stroked his head and patted his back, like a mother would, as he sobbed, and witnesses…heard her say, “It’s OK. I just want you to make your life the best it can be. I want you to be somebody,” and he said, “I will, I will, I promise.”
7. When Ryan was sentenced, Ruvolo asked the judge to be lenient.
8. In her courtroom statement to Ryan she said, “Despite all the fear and the pain, I have learned from this horrific experience, and I have much to be thankful for…There is no room for vengeance in my life, and I do not believe a long, hard prison term would do you, me, or society any good.”
9. And so the teenage prankster, who could have spent 25 years in jail, instead served six months.
10. Ruvolo went on to say in her statement: “I truly hope that by demonstrating compassion and leniency I have encouraged you to seek an honorable life. If my generosity will help you mature into a responsible, honest man, whose graciousness is a source of pride to your loved ones and your community, then I will be truly gratified, and my suffering will not have been in vain.”
C. That is a wonderful and powerful story of forgiving love, but there are a few important clarifications that need to be made about forgiveness.
1. First of all, we must acknowledge that forgiveness does not come easily.
a. Forgiveness is often one of the hardest things we are called upon to do.
2. Second, forgiveness does not remove all the consequences of wrong doing.
a. Wrong doing often destroys trust and trust takes time to rebuild.
b. Forgiveness alone does not restore trust, but without forgiveness, trust cannot be restored.
3. Third, forgiveness does not remove the offense from one’s memory.
a. It is impossible for us to forget, and when we do remember an offense, we may feel the pain again.
b. But because we are striving to lovingly forgive, we choose not to allow our minds to be obsessed with past failures that have been forgiven.
c. We choose to remove the offense as a barrier and allow the relationship to be restored.
4. Fourth, forgiveness is not reconciliation.
a. It takes one person to repent. It takes one person to forgive. But it takes two people to reconcile.
b. Paul says, “as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Ro. 12:18).
c. When reconciliation is not possible or warranted, for numerous reasons, we need to learn to release the situation into God’s hands.
d. Forgiveness becomes an act and expression of faith as we trust that God is a better justice-maker than we are.
e. In so doing, we free ourselves emotionally and spiritually to become the person God wants us to be.
e. We release our right to get even and leave all the issues of fairness and justice to God.
D. On October 2, 2006, Charles Roberts walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, and killed five schoolgirls before shooting himself.
1. His actions shocked the country.
2. Yet the story that shook the public even more was that hours after the shooting Amish neighbors reached out to Robert’s wife and three children with compassion.
3. They made it clear that they held no malice toward Roberts and that they desired reconciliation with his family.
4. Days later members of the Amish community attended Robert’s funeral and set up a fund to help support his wife and children.
5. Later we learned that the Amish schoolhouse shooting might not have occurred if the killer had sought and received forgiveness for an incident in his young adulthood.
6. In a suicide note, Roberts claimed he was haunted by memories of abusing two young family members 20 years earlier.
7. We’ll probably never know the full truth behind Robert’s words or how his past wrongdoings affected his actions that October day.
8. What we do know is that forgiveness – both given and received – can bring healing and can change lives.
Conclusion:
A. I am certain that every single one of us here today needs forgiveness (from God and from others) and will need to give forgiveness to others.
1. I know these things because all of us are sinners.
2. As we receive God’s forgiveness and as we receive the forgiveness of others, we must be ready to pass it on.
3. The person who wants to live a life of love must take forgiveness seriously.
a. When others offend us, we must strive to lovingly forgive them.
b. When we offend others, we must accept responsibility for our failures, we must turn from our wrongdoing, and seek the forgiveness of the one we have injured.
c. When we do this, relationships can be restored.
d. No long-term positive relationship can exist without confession, a change in behavior, and forgiveness.
4. We need not be perfect in order to have good relationships, but we must be willing to deal with our failures and the failures of others realistically.
B. What would your relationships be like if you…
1. Took the initiative to seek reconciliation rather than let resentment grow?
2. Learned how to forgive and release the offender and knew when to do each?
3. Confessed wrongdoing readily and allowed the other person to extend forgiveness to you?
4. Had the attitude of true love toward those who offend you and practiced forgiveness as a way of life.
C. Here is our homework for the week:
1. Think of a fractured relationship in your life where you are withholding forgiveness…consider what God would want you to do in order put love in action.
2. Consider if an offense you committed against someone is standing as a barrier between you…what step would God want you to take to confess your failure and request forgiveness?
3. What painful situation, that will likely never be resolved, do you need to release to God so that you can be freed of resentment and bitterness?
D. I am so thankful that we have a God who, as the Psalmist said: “forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases, who redeems our lives from the pit and crowns us with love and compassion.”
1. May God help us learn that
a. All you need is love.
b. God is love.
c. Love is kind, love is patient, and love forgives.
2. May God help us to live out these truths in our lives!
Resources:
Love as a Way of Life, by Gary Chapman, Part 2, Chapter 4, Forgiveness, Doubleday 2008.
