REGIFTING FORGIVENESS
Eph 4:32
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: THE BASS BOAT
1. Boudreaux won a bass boat in a raffle drawing. He brought it home & his wife looked at him & said, “What you gonna do wit dat? There ain’t no water deep enough to float a boat within 75 mile of here”.
2. He says, “I won it and I’m gonna keep it.” Thibodeaux, his friend, came over to visit several days later. He saw the wife & asked where Boudreaux was.
3. She says, “He’s out there in his bass boat,” pointing to the field behind the house. Thibodeaux headed out behind the house & saw Boudreaux sitting in a bass boat with a fishin rod in the hand, down in the middle of a big field. There wasn’t a drop of water in sight.
4. Thibodeaux yelled from the porch, “What do you think you’re doing?” Boudreaux replied, “I’m fishing…What does it LOOK like I’m a doing?”
5. Thibodeaux yelled back, “You know, it’s people like you that give people from Louisiana a bad name, making everybody think we’re stupid. And if I could swim, I’d come out there & whip you!”
B. THESIS
1. As we approach the Holiday Season of Thanksgiving and Christmas, we approach the “Season of Regifting!” The Urban Dictionary defines “regifting” as: “the act of taking a gift received from a friend (or family) and giving it to another friend as if you had actually purchased it for them.”
2. This is actually a pseudo-scriptural practice (minus the deception) of passing on a blessing you have received to someone else.
3. So we’re going to look at why we CAN forgive, that we’re COMMANDED to regift forgiveness, and the PENALTIES of not regifting forgiveness.
I. THE BASIS OF ALL FORGIVENESS
A. THE SOURCE OF ALL TRUE FORGIVENESS
1. Being a just God, He CAN’T just dismiss our transgressions; EVERY ONE OF THEM MUST BE PAID FOR! The scales of Justice MUST be balanced. But that’s what Jesus came to earth to do.
2. “And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” Isa. 53:6. “…and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” Heb 9:22. “He 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.
3. JESUS FULFILLED THE REQUIREMENTS OF JUSTICE by taking our sins on Himself, and suffering the death penalty in our place. We who were locked up awaiting trial have now been freed!
4. So now we can be forgiven, but this isn’t due to anything WE have done. Our forgiveness is wholly an act of God, undeserved by us. It’s a miracle that God is a forgiving God! As a perfect Being maintaining strict Justice, forgiveness should not be allowed. Each action of sin should be met with the (equal & opposite) reaction of judgment.
B. THE ALLOWING OF A SUBSTITUTE
1. The great Escape Clause, or, Loophole, is that God allowed a substitute to take the penalty of another, as long as it was the substitute’s free will (& without spot/sin).
2. Jesus, the Son of God, loved us so much that He volunteered to take our place and suffer for our collective sins. One died for all, that all might live to pass on the forgiveness they had received.
C. STORY OF THE SUBSTITUTE
1. W. E. Nelson tells the true story about a ship that was wrecked at sea. When they let down the life boats, they realized that there wasn't room in them for all of the crew.
2. They agreed to decide who would stay behind by drawing straws. One of the short straws -- to be left to die -- was drawn by a young, wild, and very lost sailor. When he faced the reality of his death, he began to cry, "Oh God! I'm going to hell!"
3. Suddenly he was picked up bodily and thrown into one of the boats. The man who had done so, called to him, "You aren't ready to die, but I am, and I'm willing to die for you. My only condition is that you get your heart right with God so that you someday make it to heaven."
4. It was an older sailor who had often told him of the Lord, but he had laughed him off. But now that death was a certainty for him, he was terrified. He finally realized the importance of the death of Jesus for him. He watched as the ship finally sank and the abandoned sailors died.
5. Later when he told his story to other Christians, he ended with the words, "Two men died for me!"
6. Just as certainly as that sailor died for him, Jesus died in your place, so that you could go to heaven!
II. CHRIST’S COMMAND TO “PAY IT FORWARD”
A. THE MEANING OF “PAY-IT-FORWARD”
1. “Pay it forward” is a practice where a person ahead of you in line pays for their purchase AND ALSO PAYS FOR YOUR PURCHASE. [Usually it’s coffee or fast food]. Their hope is that you will then pay for the person’s purchase behind you.
2. The idea is to get people to learn to be giving toward others and feel the warmth of happiness that comes from knowing that their generosity will shock the next person and make them experience the feeling of GRACE.
3. Similarly, forgiveness is supposed to be passed on. God is hoping that since we’ve had our debt-bill paid by Him, that we’ll forgive other people’s debt-bill, and all will experience the meaning of GRACE.
4. It’s a wonderful experience, not only to receive grace, but to give grace to others. In that way we’re being like our Heavenly Father. That’s why forgiveness must be regifted, because there’s no other way for the lost to know about grace and forgiveness, except through Jesus and His church.
B. ENORMOUS VS. SMALL REGIFTING
1. God paid our enormous SIN debt of $millions and He asks us to forgive other people’s small debt of OFFENSES against us amounting to $100s (Matt. 18:32-35).
2. Christ’s whole teaching is that we are to forgive others because God has forgiven us. Eph. 4:32, “And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, FORGIVING one another, EVEN AS GOD for Christ's sake HAS FORGIVEN YOU.” Col. 3:13, “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
C. FUNNY INSTANCES OF REGIFTING
1. One lady said, “My mom is the queen of re-gifting. My father gets a really nice aftershave set every year. He never opens it, just puts it in the hall closet. My mom gets it out right before Christmas and wraps it up again. Every year he would open it up and thank my mother. My sister and I would bust out laughing. It took him over 10 years before he finally figured out that it was the same set! [quoted by Steve Jones]
2. According to a recent online survey conducted by Bookoo.com, a virtual yard sale community, 92 percent of 3,774 people interviewed think it's completely acceptable to regift. Home décor products (63 percent), antiques (63 percent) and books (59 percent) are among the most popular regifted items.
3. But the survey also found that nothing is too outrageous to be passed along: Monogrammed clothing--with someone else's initials on them; two-year-old fruitcake (that the person had originally given the gifter); a box of chocolates with bites taken out of several pieces; an outdated desk calendar; partly used gift cards; and–yes—even a used toilet seat (don't ask). [“The Joy of Holiday (Re) Giving,” Abby Ellen]
III. PENALTIES OF NOT REGIFTING FORGIVENESS
A. WE ARE AFFECTED PHYSICALLY
1. If we don’t forgive, we hurt ourselves physically. In one study where the subjects took “forgiveness training” mental distress dropped by 40%, and there was a 35% dip in headaches, back pain and insomnia. [Lisa Collier Cool - Reader’s Digest, May 2004]
2. As long as you don’t forgive, you’re shackled to the past. Unforgiveness keeps the pain of the wrong alive; it keeps the sore open.
B. IT AFFECTS US SPIRITUALLY
1. Unforgiveness also hurts us spiritually. Eph. 5:26-27 says, “In your anger do not sin: don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, and don’t give the devil a foothold.”
2. When we allow ourselves to remain bitter and unforgiving toward others -- Satan gets a foothold in our lives, a tool he uses to enslave us. He pulls us down to his level.
C. IT AFFECTS OUR RELATIONSHIPS
1. We can’t maintain a long-term, negative attitudes toward one person without that same attitude spilling over onto others around us, especially our family.
2. Bitterness will distort you into a negative, caustic, condemning person. Bitterness is like acid that corrodes the container which holds it. Forgive them for your own sake!
D. IT LOCKS US OUT OF GOD’S FORGIVENESS
1. Jesus said “…when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." Mark 11:25
2. Unforgiveness blocks our prayers to God. Confessing your sins to God won’t do any good until you forgive your enemies; then you’ll be forgiven.
3. Jesus said, “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Mt. 6:15. The person who won’t forgive destroys the bridge over which he himself must travel.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: When We Are Robbed
1. A man testified, “A few days after my conversion I got a job with a New York contracting company, as a common laborer. Pay-day came. My earnings amounted to thirty-five dollars for a week, and at the close of the day I returned to the Mission very happy.
2. “Had I not reason to be happy? It was the first money in years that would not be gambled away; and I felt that now I was able to accept my responsibilities as a husband and father.
3. I prepared to clean up a little before going to the post office (to send the money to my wife), but before I could do so that very first pay/money was stolen!
4. It would be difficult even to attempt to express my feelings. It was bitter disappointment; it almost caused me to throw everything to the winds...
5. And then an arm was placed around my shoulder. It was the superintendent of the Mission. He said, "I want you to do something for me." I am afraid I turned to him rather roughly as I asked, "Well, what is it?" He replied, "I want you to pray for the man who stole your money."
6. His words almost took my breath away. I thought that was adding insult to injury as my thoughts were anything but to pray for the man; and yet after a few moments, I was on my knees praying for that very man whose act had caused me such bitter disappointment. [Bible Today]
7. By praying, the man released the thief, but also released himself from the bitterness and hate. We can always replace money but we can’t walk with God without a pure heart!
B. THE CALL
1. Do you have some family member, work associate, neighbor, or church member who has hurt you, and you need grace to forgive them?
2. I will admit that forgiving people is often impossible – to a human; but with God ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! God, like the master surgeon, is able to reach in and take out the offense.
3. The real question is, are you willing to give it up? Are you ready to let go? Let’s go to God in prayer;
“Heavenly Father, I have a wound I can’t heal. I can’t seem to forgive the person who hurt me. But I ask You to heal me; I give you all my hate, my hurt, my anger, and my regrets. Forgive me, forgive the other person, and help ME to forgive them. Do a supernatural work in my life to make this possible, I ask in Jesus’ name. And I believe that You’re doing it right now, and I give you praise. Thank You God, Amen!”
