Last week we spoke of why to forgive [see sermon “Why In The World Should I Forgive, Anyway?”]. Quickly on the heels of that question, though, comes the equally difficult question of how you forgive.
We all understand the general concept of forgiveness, but most of us are not especially proficient on the specifics on how to do it. So, this morning, we’re going to answer the questions: How do I forgive him? How do I forgive her? (As I said that you thought of who that ‘him’ or ‘her’ is in your life).
As we begin our study this morning, let me acknowledge my debt to the various writings of Lewis Smedes for many of the concepts that undergird this sermon.
How Do I Forgive Him? How Do I Forgive Her?
1. Acknowledge that you have been seriously hurt.
- The starting point for being pursuing forgiveness is to admit that you’ve really been hurt. We like to pretend like what he said didn’t really bother us or what she did didn’t even phase us, but until we are willing to admit that we were hurt by them, we’re not in a place where we can begin to pursue forgiveness.
- There are many incidents in life that are not candidates for forgiveness - things like minor
disappointments or passing slights. Situations that require forgiveness are ones where the pain inflicted is personal, unfair, and deep. Things like betrayal and brutality (physical or emotional) come to mind.
- At this point, as we hurt, we are likely to find some hatred in our heart. Hatred, of course, is never a good thing, but we must be careful that we don’t try to get rid of it by covering it up. When we find that hate in our heart, that’s simply a sign we’re going to need to forgive.
2. Surrender your right to get even.
- The mother ran into the bedroom when she heard her seven-year-old son scream. She found his two-year-old sister pulling his hair. She gently released the little girl’s grip and said comfortingly to the boy, "There, there. She didn’t mean it. She doesn’t know that hurts." He nodded his acknowledgement, and she left the room.
As she started down the hall the little girl screamed. Rushing back in, she asked, "What happened?"
The little boy replied, "She knows now."
[source: www.preachingtoday.com]
- Few would dispute our right to get even. The rule of the world is ‘do unto others as they’ve done unto you.’
- When we choose to forgive, though, we choose to lay aside our right to extract our revenge. In the moment of making that decision, we are doing a couple of things: 1. We are leaving ultimate justice and vengeance to God, and 2. We are deliberately choosing for ourselves the path of forgiveness.
This is the first step down a different path.
Acknowledging that we have been hurt gets in the right place to begin, but surrendering our right to get even is the first step down the path.
- Some would argue that choosing such a path is inevitably going to make us a patsy - we’re yielding all our power and are going to end up as a doormat. I believe, though, that there is a power that is unleashed in this decision that cannot come from any other source. What does this power look like? Consider the following story:
- Albert Tomei is a justice of the New York State Supreme Court. A young defendant was convicted in Judge Tomei’s court of gunning down another person execution style. The murderer had a bad record, was no stranger to the system, and only stared in anger as the jury returned its guilty verdict.
The victim’s family had attended every day of the two-week trial. On the day of sentencing, the victim’s mother and grandmother addressed the court. When they spoke, neither addressed the jury. Both spoke directly to the murderer. They both forgave him.
"You broke the Golden Rule——loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind. You broke the law——loving your neighbor as yourself. I am your neighbor," the older of the two women told him, "so you have my address. If you want to write, I’ll write you back. I sat in this trial for two weeks, and for the last sixteen months I tried to hate you. But you know what? I could not hate
you. I feel sorry for you because you made a wrong choice."
Judge Tomei writes: "For the first time since the trial began, the defendant’s eyes lost their laser
force and appeared to surrender to a life force that only a mother can generate: nurturing, unconditional love. After the grandmother finished, I looked at the defendant. His head was hanging low. There was no more swagger, no more stare. The destructive and evil forces within him collapsed helplessly before this remarkable display of humaneness."
[source: www.preachingtoday.com]
In choosing the path of forgiveness, that grandmother unleashed a power that could not be tapped in any other way. And that power was what caused the defendant to hang his head for the first time.
3. Search for the real person beneath the evil mask.
- When we have been wronged, we like to caricature our wrongdoer. We emphasize all the bad things about them, we twist anything that looks remotely good, we are quick to impugn their every motive, we see them only and always in one way.
- The process of forgiveness requires that we begin to look for the real person behind the caricature we’ve created in our minds. We begin to see that they have not only hurt, they have been hurt. We begin to see that they are weak, needy, and fallible. We begin to find reasons for our hearts to turn toward mercy instead of malice.
- This doesn’t mean we grant them victim status and excuse all their wrong - we’re forgiving, not
excusing. It does mean that we begin to try to treat them as another participant in this messy thing called life.
- What is our motivation for doing this? As our passage points out, we are doing for them what God did for us. God could have simply seen our sin and said, “I’ve seen enough, that’s all I need to know about them.” But God looked beyond our sin and saw something worth loving. And that’s what we’ve been called to do as well.
4. Desire that good things would happen to your wrongdoer.
- I know that sounds impossible when you first hear it, but stay with me for a minute.
- In the process of forgiveness, we move from dreaming of bad things befalling them toward hoping for good things in their life.
- At this point, it might be helpful to address a related question: does forgiving mean there’s no
punishment?
The answer to that is, No, forgiving does not necessarily mean there should not be punishment.
If they are unrepentant, punishment that leads to sorrow may be the loving thing to want for them because it will bring them toward where they need to be. The key in this is your motive. Whereas before you prayed for them to be punished because of your anger and hatred toward them, when you’re pursuing forgiveness you might pray for them to be punished because you want to see their heart changed and that is the most likely route for that to happen. Your
motive has changed from wanting something bad to happen to praying for something good to happen.
- What are some examples of this?
a. A thief breaks into my house and steals most of my stuff. He is caught and put on trial, but is
completely lacking remorse. If I go to the court and plead for his release, he will immediately return to stealing. In that situation, the good things I want for his life are a change of heart and a change of lifestyle. Because this is most likely to happen with punishment, forgiveness does not keep me from supporting punishment, although I might well want to write or visit him while he’s in there to try to share the love of God with him.
b. My spouse says some things in an argument that hurt me. Forgiving her and wanting good things for her life doesn’t mean I pray, “God, I hope you’ll bless her by giving her the ability to win all the arguments we have from now on.” Rather, wanting good things might mean praying that God would open her heart (and mine) to where each of us could be a better spouse.
- When Chris Carrier was ten, he was abducted, stabbed, shot through the head, and left for dead.
Surprisingly, he survived, but the emotional and physical scars were very difficult to heal. Eventually, though, his commitment to Christ helped him to move on with his life. The perpetrator was never found.
Over twenty years later, on September 3, 1996, Chris received a phone call from a detective in the Coral Gables, FL police department. The detective said that an elderly man in a local nursing home had confessed to being his abductor. The man’s name was David McCallister.
Chris visited David the following day. Here are his words: “It was an awkward moment, walking into his room, but as soon as I saw him I was overwhelmed with
compassion. The man I found was not an intimidating kidnapper, but a frail seventy-seven-year-old who had been blind for the last half-dozen years. David’s body was ruined by alcoholism and smoking - he weighed little more than sixty pounds. He had no family, or if he did, they wanted nothing to do with him, and no friends. A friend who had accompanied me wisely asked
him a few simple questions that led to him admitting that he had abducted me. He then asked, ‘Did you ever wish you could tell that young boy that you were sorry for what you did?’ David answered emphatically, ‘I wish I could.’ That was when I introduced myself to him.
Unable to see, David clasped my hand and told me he was sorry for what he had done to me. As he did, I
looked down at him, and it came over me like a wave: Why should anyone have to face death without family, friends, the joy of life - without hope? I couldn’t do anything but offer him my forgiveness and friendship.”
In the days that followed, Chris was able to share the love of Christ with David.
[Source: J. Arnold, ‘Why Forgive?’]
- What is our motivation for doing such a difficult thing? Again, as our text points out, we are doing for them what God did for us.
5. If possible, enjoy the healed relationship.
- Sometimes the other person can’t join you in moving toward reconciliation (for example, in forgiving a parent now passed on) and sometimes the other person won’t join you (for example, someone who won’t acknowledge that they’ve hurt you).
- For reconciliation to happen, they must understand the pain that they’ve caused you and must be sorrowful over it.
- But when they are, make sure you enjoy the healing and the renewed relationship that can only come through forgiveness.
