The Power of Forgiveness and Unforgiveness
Matthew 18:21-35. WBC 28.11.04pm
How Arguments Should End212.mpg (a video clip with the bloke ’making up’ after an argument by slamming his lady with a log!) in Ills to keep folder
THE REALITY OF FORGIVENESS
We jest- and I love the video clip…
- but this is a very real subject.
o Many of you… all of us… have real issues to deal with
o Maybe you’ve been hurt even this week
o Certainly you’ve been hurt.. ‘sinned against’ in the past
Probably hurt others
And so we’re all affected… trapped… handicapped even… by the things done and done to us
- and ask ‘how can I be free.. get free… free others from the power of hurt and sin?
It’s very real. But the Bible is real in addressing it
- Jesus leaves no important issue unaddressed
- In fact: deals with forgiveness repeatedly
o = therefore majorly important
- Christianity IS eminently practical
A man left work one Friday afternoon. But instead of going home, he stayed out the entire weekend fishing with the boys and spending his entire paycheck.
When he finally appeared at home Sunday night, he was confronted by his very angry wife and was barraged for nearly 2 hours with a tirade of his actions.
Finally his wife stopped the nagging and simply said to him "How would you like it if you didn’t see me for 2 or 3 days?" To which he replied, "That would be fine with me!
Monday went by and he didn’t see his wife. Tuesday and Wednesday came and went with the same results.
On Thursday, the swelling went down just enough where he could see her a little out of the corner of his left eye. www.sermoncentral.com
Jesus’ teaching is PRACTICAL… and works
- If you apply Jesus’ teaching, tonight, you (and others) can be free
So Jesus gives a parable about forgiveness
- in response to Peter’s question about how often he should forgive
o note: Jesus also answers with how and why
- Peter thinks he’s being generous… smart
o Pharisees taught ‘only 3 times’ (he goes to 7!)
o No mention of ‘if they say sorry to me
Jesus replies with 70 times – or 70 times 7
- i.e. infinitely!
And then goes on to illustrate the principles of forgiveness:
There’s this bloke, a servant, who owes his king a billion pounds
- the king is shrewd, unmerciful and a bit of a book-keeper. An accountant
- the servant can’t pay. The king acts as people did in those days and orders the servant & family be sold. Cool. Unmerciful. Just.
The servant cries out for mercy
- but also must think the kind is not only a book keeper, but a rather thick one
o “Be patient…. I will pay back everything”
Here’s the incredible thing. The immovable king is suddenly moved
- v 27 the servant’s master took pity on him
- has ‘gut wrenching compassion’
- cancels everything and lets him go. 1 Billion pounds!
Unfortunately- the servant is the thick one
- has no sense as to WHY the king let him go
- thinks it’s based on his offer of repayment
o either he’s fooled himself ‘I really CAN earn this £1Bn
o or he thinks the king is the fool: ‘what a dork! He thinks he’s gonna get £1Bn out of me!
And so-he goes Scott- free…. But hasn’t learned. Is still thinking it’s about accounts and book-keeping n and LAW
So- when he meets a fellow-servant who owes him a few pence, he thinks ‘let’s balance the books! GIMMIE!’
- ignores the realistic cry of the servant “I WILL pay you back”
- and does what was bog-standard… what he was entitled to, actually
- has him thrown into prison until he can repay
His on-looking colleagues… who have received no mercy for themselves, yet… see more than the big debtor does. See why he was forgiven the first amount
- not because he earned it, or could repay it or was smart
- but because of the Master’s mercy
They see the inconsistency and sneak on him to the boss
And it’s time for some home truths. If the indebted servant wouldn’t learn from grace… he’ll now learn from life
- he’s called wicked.
- The reason the debt was forgiven is actually explained
o (in plain English. Or Greek!)
- finds himself handed over to (lit) ‘the torturers’ until
o he learns
o he can pay it all back (the consequences of wanting to play it all by law and book-keeping)
THE POWER OF UNFORGIVENESS
Oh, heavens-here’s an incentive
- it’s not the incentive God wants
- in fact: the master doesn’t torture him at all
The master demonstrates and only plays by GRACE
- incredible grace.
- And the point of this parable is that if that is how a shrewd, unmerciful king can act. Changed in a second to gut-wrenching compassion
o Think how the loving, consistent FATHER acts
But this man’s deeds , actions, attitude and approach put him in the ‘law’ rather than ‘grace’ game
- he puts himself in the hands of ‘natural law’ … in prison, and in the hands of the torturers
As someone once said: The only thing harder than forgiveness is the alternative.’
- and that’s a real incentive to forgive!
o The sheer power of unforgiveness
’Bitterness is the poison we swallow, while hoping the other person dies’ Skip Gray, Navigators.
Even people who are not Christians recognise this: soldiers & psychologists
’If you spend your life full of recriminations and bitterness, then you’ve failed yourself, failed the surgeons and nurses and everyone else, because you aren’t giving anything back. Hatred can consume you and it’s wasted emotion.
(Simon Weston, the British soldier who suffered burns over 46 per cent of his body as the result of a bomb in the Falklands/ Malvinas war, underwent 70 operations and will have to have more)
And so- here’s one thing we learn from this parable
- the power of unforgiveness
- the power WE have to keep ourselves trapped!
o GET EVEN: Forgive! Let go. Let God deal with it!
Many years ago, Pastor Stuart Briscoe visited a mission in a remote, primitive area. He spent the night in the hut of the local "witch" doctor. Overhead, Briscoe noticed a variety of small objects hanging from the ceiling. The missionary informed him t hat each object represented some offence the villagers had committed against the doctor or his family. If someone spoke unkindly of the doctor, he would hang up an object representing that person’s unkind words. Forgiveness was not an option. In fact, the doctor hung those objects from the ceiling so that as he lay in bed each night, he could count the objects and remind himself of each person’s offence. In this way, he was continually replaying his grievances.
[Jill Briscoe, Heart Strings (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1997).]
As hinted at: there is a debate as to whether we should forgive those who don’t say sorry. Perhaps it was a debate then. One of my colleagues believed that: that you couldn’t, didn’t have to forgive those who showed no remorse
- but then, that leaves you at their power…mercy
- they still affect you YEARS on
- and it neglects the example of Jesus who said ‘Father, forgive them, they know not what they do’
- and it neglects the fact that when we bury the hatchet (in God’s grace, not in their head) we hand over to God who has said “it is mine to avenge, I will repay”
The famous English preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, "Forgive and forget. When you bury a mad dog, don’t leave his tail above the ground."
Contributed by: Ray Navarro on www.sermoncentral.com
I’m not pretending that is easy. At all
"At last I understood: in the final analysis, forgiveness is an act of faith. By forgiving another, I am trusting that God is a better justice-maker than I am. By forgiving, I release my own right to get even and leave all issues of fairness for God to work out. I leave in God’s hands the scales that must balance justice and mercy.
SOURCE: Yancey, "What’s So Amazing About Grace?" p.93 Contributed by: Mike Wilkins on www.sermoncentral.com
And there is the other incentive hinted at here- unforgiveness wrecks our relationship with God
- it’s central to prayer (the Lord’s prayer “forgive us as we..)
- receiving Mk 11:2424 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 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. "
- worship: MT 5:23 "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
o This is them having something against you!
So-how DO you do it?
- with difficulty! But with God’s help
- with the incentive that God has forgiven you a BILLION pounds
o that’s the whole point, here. If a book-keeping old king will do it-how much more your FATHER
PS 103:3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
PS 103:4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
PS 103:5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
- in view of GOD’S mercy (Roms 12)
And I guess you KEEP ON doing it
- as an act of the will
- maybe that ‘keeping on’ is inferred by 70x7
- until it loses it’s power
- * maybe helped by you coming to understand that ‘they are human too’
Doesn’t mean you have to condone, accept what happened
- nor does it mean they are… should be.. free from the consequences
But you can be free from the power of the consequences. The situation can be placed in God’s hand
Sometimes it’s helpful to
- draw a list and burn it
- picture the person and speak words to them. ‘Close the door’
o do it ‘before God’ in prayer… (with someone?)
- if it would benefit them: ACTUALLY speak to them
-
Does it mean you then have to be ‘best buddies’?
- CAN be (me + SR after a ‘talking out’)
- Don’t have to be
o Us +law suit (was her man)
o Gonna have to work hard at us + Ed
o Me + Sarah. Would be friends, but not really helpful to be
THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS
Look at the power of forgiveness, here
- the bloke was let off £1B. Should have gone away ‘bouncing’ rather than ‘counting up his books’
o ‘singing like a bird released!’
Forgiveness releases
- us (to be who we should be. From the past) From the wrongs we have done and the wrongs done to us
- God- to touch our lives, heal relationships, to do what He wants
- The other person- into God’s grace. Into salvation, maybe? Into God’s justice
Forgiveness
It was five days before Christmas when a stranger approached ten-year-old Christopher Carrier, claiming to be a friend of his father. "I want to buy him a gift, and I need your help," said the stranger. Eager to do something good for his dad, Chris climbed aboard a motor home parked up the street.
The driver took Chris to a remote field, claiming to be lost, and asked Chris to look at a map. Suddenly Chris felt a sharp pain in his back. The stranger had stabbed him with an ice pick. The man drove the wounded boy down a dirt road, shot him in the left temple, and left him for dead in the alligator-infested Florida Everglades.
Chris lay lifeless for six days until a driver found him. Chris miraculously survived his injuries, though he was blind in his left eye. Because he was unable to identify his attacker, police could not make an arrest. For a long time young Chris remained frightened, despite police protection. Finally at an invitation given after a church hayride, Chris trusted Jesus Christ as his Saviour. He recalls, "I was overwhelmed with emotion…because I knew I had never really accepted and personally met the Saviour." This turning point in Chris’s life came three years after the attack. At age 15, Chris shared his story for the first time. He eventually decided to pursue full-time ministry, helping others find the peace he had discovered in Christ.
In 1996 a detective told Chris over the phone that a man had confessed to the crime that had cost him his left eye. The man’s name was David McAllister. Chris made plans to visit the feeble and now blind man, living in a nursing home. The strong young man Chris remembered was now a broken, humbled 77-year-old.
Chris learned from the detective some of the background of what had happened years ago. McAllister had been hired by Chris’s father to work as a nurse for an ailing uncle. Chris’s dad had caught McAllister drinking on the job and had fired him. The senseless attack on Chris had been motivated by revenge.
As Chris now talked to the old man, at first McAllister denied knowing anything about the kidnapping. As Chris revealed more about himself, the old man softened and eventually apologized. Chris said, “I told him, ‘What you meant for evil, God has turned into a wonderful blessing.’” Chris told his attacker how God had allowed his wounds to become open doors to share the good news of Christ.
Chris went home and told his wife and kids about meeting the man who had tried to kill him. The entire family began almost daily visits to McAllister’s nursing home. During one Sunday afternoon visit, Chris popped the most important question he had yet asked McAllister: "Do you want to know the Lord?" McAllister said yes. Both men basked in forgiveness as McAllister gave his heart to Christ. A few days later McAllister died—peacefully—in his sleep.
Carrier says it is not a story of regret, but of redemption. “I saw the Lord give that man back his life, and so much more,” Chris said. “I can’t wait to see him again someday—in heaven.”
From a sermon by Paul Decker THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION ARE OPEN Matthew 6:5-15 on www.sermoncentral.com
