THE SERIOUSNESS OF FORGIVENESS
Last week we looked into the subject of forgiveness. I started by saying we first had to answer the question of whether or not we want to forgive. And if we do we need to determine how to go about it.
We looked at Paul's words in Eph., and Col. and saw that we are told to forgive because God forgave us. And we are able to do that when we choose to take off the old garments of bitterness, anger, rage, slander and malice and replace it with being clothed in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Today, we're going to be delving into some statements from Jesus that communicate how important it is for us to forgive. Forgiveness is serious in the eyes of God. How serious? Well, let's find out.
1) Don't put it off.
Matt. 5:21-24, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
“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."
Jesus is addressing the sins of the mouth and heart here. He's taking it further than just the act of murder and the consequences derived from that. Jesus is saying that if one were to slander a fellow Jew by saying, 'Raca', which means, 'empty-head' and in today's world it would be like calling someone stupid or moron. Jesus is saying if you do this you will answer to the religious officials.
However, if your viciousness goes so far as to call someone a fool, you'll be in danger of hellfire. This doesn't compute with us who think calling someone a fool isn't that big of a deal. But if a person said this back then they would really be calling someone Godless (the fool says in his heart there is no God). Which in today's language it would be like telling someone to 'go to hell' or that they're going to hell.
Basically, Jesus is saying if this is your sincere wish for your fellow man then you are in danger of judgment. Therefore, since this is the seriousness of our venomous thoughts and words, Jesus doesn't want us to put off reconciliation. Jesus doesn't want us to continue to perform our religious duties if there's unforgiveness and animosity between me and my brother or sister in Christ.
I can see the importance because if I have committed the offense of saying nasty things to my fellow Christian and then come to church and conduct my spiritual disciplines there's something wrong. It's contradictory if I'm showing love toward God yet all along there's a wedge between me and my brother. God doesn't want me to put off dealing with this situation. He doesn't want the negativity to continue.
Unforgiveness gets in the way of the relationship between me and God. I can't properly engage spiritually when the black mark of resentment exists between me and my brother. This is especially true when it is between two members of the same church. How well am I going to engage with God when I have ill feelings towards the one who is sitting nearby me? How plentiful and uplifting will my praise and worship be when all along I know that there is someone in the room with whom I'm at odds with?
Now, if I've tried to correct the situation but the other person is unwilling to; that's different. I can't do much with that except pray for them. But I need to ask myself, have I done my best to resolve and reconcile? Or did I try to talk to them once and since they didn't seem receptive I just wrote it off? Could I try again? Did I communicate my love for them and that it bothers me that we have this problem and that it's not God's will for us to be this way?
We need to see the importance that God places on forgiveness. He wants us to do our best to resolve these negative situations so that Satan doesn't continue to have a foothold. A little yeast can work through the whole batch of dough.
One of the problems is when two people have issues with each other instead of resolving it between them they talk to other people about it. So, if I'm your friend I might develop an issue with that person too. Then that negative spirit blossoms and grows and starts to take down the church. Jesus wants us to attack it and resolve it before it becomes even more spiritually debilitating than it already is.
2) I need more faith.
Luke 17:1-10, "Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 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!” He replied, “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.
“Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’"
This is the only place where the Apostles ask Jesus to increase their faith. Jesus had given many lessons on various topics but it's when he teaches about forgiving others that the disciples are moved to make this request. Why? Because of how hard they felt it would be to carry it out. Forgiving someone once is hard enough let alone forgiving them multiple times.
Jesus isn't saying we should allow people to continue to take advantage of us. That's why he said, 'if they repent'. This indicates someone who is trying verses someone who is just playing us. But even so, it still wouldn't be easy to forgive in this capacity. So it makes sense that the disciples would respond like, "Jesus, if you want us to forgive like that then we're going to need more faith."
But Jesus responded by saying you only need faith as small as a mustard seed. Then he goes into giving an analogy about being a humble and appreciative servant. How does this fit with the rest? Jesus' point to them about being able to forgive isn't about having more faith, it's about having more humility, appreciation and willingness.
So if we're having trouble forgiving others it isn't because we're not at that level of faith yet. We can't think, "when I've been a Christian for a number of years and grow and mature, then I'll be able to forgive like that". That's not how it goes. I'm not saying that as soon as we come up out of the water we should automatically be able to forgive everyone of everything they've ever done to us. It's not impossible, but it's not likely either.
Being able to forgive like this is impossible without Jesus. The question is, do we want to? Are we willing to forgive? If so, the Lord will work with us to accomplish that. But if we're not it's not because we can't, it's not because we don't have enough faith; it's because we're allowing something to get in the way of it.
3) Being merciful brings mercy.
Matt. 5:7, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." When we read through the beatitudes we could easily miss the serious implications of this verse. When we look at the opposite rendering we are forced to ask, "so what if I'm not merciful? Does this mean I won't be shown mercy?"
James 2:12-13, "Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!"
We as Christians may not be under the OT law, but we are still under a law-the law of freedom-the law of grace. Therefore, we have an obligation to live in accordance with the law of life; we are obligated to live in accordance with our new nature. And being merciful is part of that. If we don't act on that obligation then we will be judged.
Paul said in 2nd Cor. 5:10 that we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And we will be judged according to how we lived once we became born again. If I don't show mercy to others, if I don't live with an attitude of forgiveness, then I won't be shown these things.
In Matt. 18 we see the parable of the unmerciful servant. Matt. 18:21-35, "Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” 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."
This is serious. This servant was forgiven of a debt he could never repay. However, when he failed to act according to the forgiveness he had received his forgiveness was retracted and his debt was put back on him. Just because we've been forgiven doesn't mean we are automatically good to go.
We have an obligation to live in accordance with that forgiveness. We have a duty to live with appreciation and gratitude for what we've received. And if we choose not to honor that indescribable gift we will be in a very dangerous position.
We have been forgiven much. If we aren’t willing to forgive others then we are failing to see the magnitude of the forgiveness we’ve received. If we’re holding past offenses over people’s heads then it shows we’re not grateful for having been released from our prison of bondage to sin and death. If we want to put others in ‘prison’ until they 'pay back every penny' then it shows we’re not appreciative of having our debt paid.
We can live in the Bondage of Bitterness or the Freedom of Forgiveness. Don’t be like the unmerciful servant and suffer the consequences of unforgiveness.
4) Being forgiving brings forgiveness.
When Jesus' disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he gave them what's known as the 'Our Father'. And we're familiar with the line, "And forgive us our debts (ie: transgressions, sins) as we also have forgiven our debtors". Even though we've probably recited this prayer countless times, we might not have realized the past-tense wording, 'as we also have forgiven'.
This doesn't mean that we have to forgive everyone before we come to Christ for salvation-that's impossible to do without the spirit of Christ giving us the power to do it. But once we repent and are baptized we now have the ability to forgive. Therefore, if we have the power to forgive but refuse to do it, can we rightly ask God to forgive us?
I think that's why Jesus gave this sobering statement at the close of the prayer. Matt. 6:14-15, "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."
Of all the phrases in the Lord's Prayer, the only principle that Jesus follows up on is forgiveness. But when you look at the prayer, we can see how forgiveness plays into the rest of it. If God is our Father, if we view his name and all that he represents as holy, if we truly want his will to be done in our lives, then we will do as he has done for us-forgive.
We look at these verses and we say to ourselves, 'obviously Jesus doesn't mean this literally'. A number of weeks ago in Sunday school we looked at Luke 14 when Jesus said, 'if anyone does not hate his mother and father, son or daughter, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple'. How do we know he didn't mean that literally?
In the parallel passage in Matthew 10 he says that anyone who does not love these people more than me is not worthy of me. Plus, God can't have one of the ten commandments read, 'honor your mother and father' and then have Jesus teach that we are to hate them; that's a contradiction. So, we deduce that Jesus' words in Luke are used as exaggerated speech to exemplify seriousness.
So is that what Jesus is doing here? Just using exaggerated speech to exemplify how serious forgiving others is? No. First, we don't find any parallel passage where Jesus says the same thing but in a toned-down way as the comparison between Luke and Matthew provided with the earlier example.
Plus, there are other places where Jesus reiterated this principle. We just looked at one of them in the parable of the unmerciful servant. But we also find these words in Mark 11:25, "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."
In this passage Jesus is talking to his disciples about faith and believing when we pray for something. But he adds this statement about what we need to do when we pray. Just like he communicated the importance of not going through with our offering without first attempting to reconcile with our brother, here he stresses the importance of forgiving others when we're asking the Lord for something.
It tells me that unforgiveness gets in the way of our prayer life and likely hinders God from answering our prayers favorably. But even more than that is the principle of being forgiven. If we are unwilling to forgive others we risk not receiving forgiveness from God.
Yes, unforgiveness hinders our relationship with God but it also hinders our forgiveness from God. If we are unwilling to forgive others for the sins they commit against us then God will not forgive us of the sins we've committed against him. English poet and clergyman George Herbert said, "He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven."
There are many verses that show us that in order to receive God's mercy and forgiveness we must extend them to others. Our commitment to doing that shows that we have the spirit of Christ living in us.
