In our passage for today, Paul speaks about the dangers of unforgiveness. He tells us that unforgiveness . . .
A. Negatively impacts our influence on others - v. 29
B. Negatively impacts God’s influence on us - v. 30
Consequently, he tells us to avoid all those things associated with unforgiveness - bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, and malice. Instead, we are to choose to forgive when we are offended.
He tells what it looks like when we forgive others. It will look like what God has done for us in Christ - v. 32
1. In forgiving us, God did not deny the fact of our sin.
In forgiving us, God did not turn a blind eye to our sin. He did not deny its existence. Rather, He dealt with our sin appropriately by
forgiving us.
Likewise, forgiving others does not require that we deny that an offense has taken place. God does not expect us to live in denial. Denial causes us psychological harm. Instead, we should acknowledge our pain and admit our hurt.
When God saw the sinfulness of mankind in Noah’s day, the Bible acknowledges His grief.
“The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.” - Genesis 6:6 (NIV)
The Bible says that God was grieved by the sins of the people of Israel who rebelled in Moses’ day.
“How often they rebelled against him in the desert and grieved him in the wasteland!” - Psalm 78:40 (NIV)
Jesus grieved over the rebelliousness of the people in His day.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” - Matthew 23:37 (NIV)
When we sin, it breaks the heart of God even today (v. 30).
God gets emotional about our sin against Him. It hurts. In forgiving us, He is honest about the pain our sin causes Him.
Likewise, in forgiving others, we are not asked to deny the reality of the offense or the depth of the hurt. In fact, facing the reality of having been hurt is essential to our experiencing the healing and wholeness that comes from forgiving others.
A man had a peculiar issue. Though he was clearly alive, he kept insisting that he was dead. His family sought all kinds of treatment for his problem, but to no avail. Finally, his physician hit upon an idea to persuade the man to come back to reality. The doctor asked him if dead men bleed. “No,” he replied, “dead men definitely do not bleed.” Right away the doctor took hold of his finger and pricked it with a needle. As the man looked at the blood bubble up on the end of his pricked finger, he looked at his doctor and said, “What do you know? I guess dead men DO bleed!”
Now, while I described the man in this story as having a peculiar issue, sadly, denial of reality is an issue that is all too common. And this is a problem, because, keep in mind, the primary beneficiary of forgiveness is the one who chooses to forgive.
Some people like to live by the motto, “Fake it. ‘til you make it.” Well, when it comes to experiencing freedom from hurt caused by the
offenses of others, if we pretend everything’s OK, when, in fact, it is not, we will never deal with the need to forgive. And if we don’t ever deal with the need to forgive, we will never be whole.
God does not deny His hurt at our offenses toward Him when He forgives us; and we do not need to deny our hurt at the offenses of
others in order to forgive them.
2. In forgiving us, God did not approve of our sin.
Sometimes, people withhold forgiveness until the other person changes their behavior. They are afraid that if they forgive the other person of their offense before that person admits they were wrong, that they are somehow saying that what that person has done to them was “OK.”
But God didn’t do that with us. God never approved of our sin. God hates sin. But He loves the sinner. So, in Christ, God took the initiative to provide forgiveness for the whole world.
“He (Jesus) is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” - 1 John 2:2 (NIV)
You see forgiveness involves only one person - the person who has been offended. Our sin offended God, and He chose to provide for our forgiveness. God didn’t wait for the world to first admit their wrong before He chose to forgive. No, He chose to forgive, and now calls us to repent, so we might be reconciled to Him.
Forgiveness involves one person; while reconciliation involves two.
God has taken the first step whereby reconciliation with Him has been made possible; but if reconciliation is to take place between me and God, I must repent. Until I repent, I may have God’s forgiveness, but I am not reconciled to God. We’ll talk more about reconciliation later in this series. But for now, I want us to understand that there is an entire world filled with people whose rebellion does not have God’s approval, who are, nevertheless, forgiven by Him.
This is why the Gospel is Good News! The message of the Gospel is that God has provided through the sacrifice of Christ, forgiveness for all your sin. Now, respond to that choice made by God with the choice to repent of you rebellion against Him, and be reconciled with God.
So, just as God has forgiveness does not mean He approves of our sinfulness, we are not expected to approve or excuse the other person’s offense when we forgive. But we are expected to forgive.
3. In forgiving us, God has given us a “clean slate.”
Now, a common saying is that we should “forgive and forget.” Often this is based on the notion that this is what God has done when He
forgave our sin through Christ. We get this idea from Hebrews 8:12 (NIV), which says, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will
remember their sins no more.”
But think with me about this. The Bible says that God is all-knowing. He knows everything about us - past, present, and future. So to say that God has erased His memory is really not consistent with what the Bible tells us elsewhere about Him. We must conclude, therefore, that what Hebrews 8:12 is emphasizing is something else.
The idea is not that God has amnesia regarding our sin, but that He will never bring them up again. He has determined that He will not allow our sin to ever again come between Him and us. When the Bible says that God “remembers our sins no more,” it is referring to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:5 (NIV), when he declares that love “keeps no record of wrongs.”
“He forgave all our sins. He canceled the record that contained the charges against us. He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ’s cross.” - Colossians 2:13-14 (NLT)
“Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s Cross.” - Colossians 2:13-14 (The Message)
Likewise, when we forgive other person their offense, we must choose that we will not let this offense remain a barrier in our relationship with the other person. We will “keep no record of wrongs” to “throw up” to the person the next time they offend us.
Forgiveness may be described as a decision to make four promises: “I will not dwell on this incident.” “I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you.” “I will not talk to others about this incident.” “I will not let this incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.” - Ken Sande, The Peacemaker
Conclusion: When it comes to forgiving others, we must ever keep the cross before us so we might be reminded of all God has forgiven us for. Such a reminder should enable us to choose to then extend forgiveness toward others - forgiving them as God has forgiven us.
“We take God’s forgiveness for granted [when] we stubbornly withhold our forgiveness from others. In effect, we behave as though other’s sins against us are more serious than our sins against God.” - Ken Sande, The Peacemaker
Are you seeking to practice forgiveness toward those who have offended you? Are you guilty of withholding forgiveness from others? The fact is that even God did not choose who was worthy of forgiveness when He chose to provide for the forgiveness of the entire world that was horribly undeserving of any forgiveness at all.
Don’t try to play God with your forgiveness. Instead, be godly about your forgiveness, forgiving others as God in Christ has forgiven you.
