FREEDOM OF FORGIVENESS
COLOSSIANS 3 VERSES 12-17
“I had a brother once, and I betrayed him.” With these words, African writer Laurens Van der Post begins a wonderful book The Seed and the Sower, (I recommend you read it). The story is of two brothers from small South African village. The elder brother is tall, athletic, good student and a natural leader. The younger brother was not. He had a back deformity and was very sensitive to the fact. He had a beautiful singing voice. They both attended the same private school. One night some of the older boys dragged the younger brother out and ripped off his shirt and made fun of his deformity until he cried. They threw him into an abandoned water tank and forced him to sing. The older brother was aware of what was going on but did nothing to rescue his younger brother. The younger brother survived but with a crushed spirit. He returned to the family farm and lived a reclusive life and never sang again. During World War II the older brother had a dream in which he realised he had been Judas to his younger brother. He makes the incredibly difficult journey back to South Africa and asks his brother’s forgiveness. Later that night in the dark of the night he hears a beautiful sound – it is his brother singing a song that the older brother had written when they were boys. Please do buy the book and read it, it is truly an excellent read. Why did I begin a sermon with such a story? Because this morning I want to address the issue of ‘Freedom in Forgiveness.’ I am not going to spend any great length of time preaching to you this morning about the forgiveness of our sins by Christ – I am going to assume, rightly or wrongly, that you know about that from my sermons over the past nine years. This morning I am going to concentrate on Colossians 3 verse 13 (Read) and on this line from the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”
In that story the younger brother had a choice to make when his older brother asked his forgiveness. He could forgive him or he could hold on to the hurt, bitterness, resentment and anger and refuse his forgiveness. But let me ask you a question – who is held captive then? In the prison of resentment, bitterness, anger and revenge who is really in the prison? If he held on to bitterness whose soul was paralysed? Whose mind held in bondage? Whose emotions frozen? If the younger brother decides to hold on to the pain, to the resentment and the desire for revenge all he will gain is self-centred pain. In the films the bounty hunter always rides alone and truth be told “who wants to be friends with someone who settles scores for a living?”
Holding on to the bitterness of past hurts is like knowing how to ride a bicycle without knowing how to stop. You just continue to pedal, on and on, afraid to stop, unable to stop but desperately hoping that someone pulls the brakes and gets you off. And what if you get revenge then what? Is justice satisfied? Are you released from all the pain? Does the resentment disappear? Does the open wound suddenly close over and heal itself? So this morning I want to give you some Biblical advice about the Freedom that is found in Forgiveness and is only found in forgiveness. Turn with me for a moment to Colossians 3 verses 12-17.
COLOSSIANS – Paul wrote to the church at Colossae around AD60 to refute some false teaching. He never explicitly mentions the false teaching but from the letter we can deduce that it contained ceremonialism, asceticism, angel worship, secret knowledge and a reliance on human wisdom and traditions over and against the gospel of the free grace of Christ.
Look at verse 10 of chapter 3 – we see there that the Christian has already put on the new self in Christ through regeneration, i.e. through being born again. Therefore when we turn to verse 12 we read Paul pointing out the practical outworking of this change in the believers life because of Christ Jesus. He must clothe himself with new garments, the garments of grace which befit a new creation in Christ. Look at what he says to them in verse 12. Chosen by God – you are the elect. Holy – that is set apart by and for God. Deeply loved by God – is that not the most wonderful phrase your soul has ever heard? How many of us today long to know we are deeply loved? This is Paul’s simple formulae for saying who they are in Christ. Then he outlines in the second part of verse 12 five great virtues of this new creation which should be evident in their lives as believers.
Compassion – relentless tenderness is the best description I ever heard of that word. Relentless tenderness towards the suffering, miserable, rejected, abandoned, honoured, arrogant, pompous – yes we are to be compassionate towards all people. Was Christ any less compassionate towards the rich young ruler than he was to the young woman caught in adultery? I don’t think so!
Kindness – goodness, kindliness and graciousness towards others. It is seen in the simple gestures as well as the grand gestures, but it has more to do with your heart and attitude than it has to do with your actions.
Humility and Gentleness – I believe they cannot really be separated from one another. The pagans at Colossae did not consider these to be virtues but to be weaknesses of character and life. The world today does not value them at all, especially in a man. Yet here is the great apostle Paul saying they will be evidence of your new life in Christ. Are they?
Patience – that self-restraint that enables one to bear injury and insult without resorting to hasty retaliation. Paul has written in Romans 2.4 that this is an attribute of God.
Verse 13 then we come to the heart of what I want to address this morning. Listen to these words as I read them to you. Paul could only write these words to the believers at Colossae if they would clothe themselves with the virtues he has just mentioned. They could only bear one another’s burdens and forgive one another if they had put on those virtues. They would need to bear with those whose faults irritated them. They would need to forgive those who sinned against them. Yet without those 5virtues both of these would be impossible for them. Verse 14 – you see the virtues are manifested in obedience to verse 13 and verse 13 is a reflection of the garment of love for one another which reflects their love for Christ. I want to humbly suggest to you all this morning that this is actually a regulative principle of Christian living, i.e. this is non-negotiable in the Christian life and in fact must be how we live in fellowship with one another and the world around us.
I want in closing to spell this out in very simple practical terms so that we all understand what Scripture is saying this morning and so we can put it into practice in our daily lives.
Let me read you the first words Christ Jesus spoke from the cross on Calvary ‘s hill – “Father forgive them.” There was no questioning the reality of His wounds. There was no doubting the pain of the injury or the injustice. There is no doubting that He was sinned against, that He was innocent. The same is true for you this morning. Jesus does not doubt your pain. He does not deny the reality of the injury or the injustice. He does not refute the fact that you are innocent. The issue is not the existence of the pain, the injury or the injustice. The issue is in fact the treatment of the pain, the treatment of the injury and the injustice.
Let me ask you a very practical question this morning. What are you going to do with your debts? I don’t mean your financial debts. I mean “What are you going to do with the debt of pain, injury, hurt and injustice that people have done against you?” “What are you going to do with it?” How you answer that question this morning is at the very heart of your happiness this morning. How you answer that question is at the very core of who you are in Christ this morning. How you answer that question is at the very centre of how you will live your life from this day forward. How you answer that question will in fact decide the intimacy you have with God today, tomorrow and on into the future. How you answer that question will affect your walk with God today. It will determine your witness before men and your contentment in life. It is serious business we are dealing with here this morning, make no mistake about it.
So what are we to do? Let me suggest to you that Scripture is clear – we are to forgive those who have sinned against us as we have been forgiven by God our Father. Colossians 3 verse 13 is in fact an echo of the Lord’s Prayer and an echo of Christ’s words from the Cross. Let me say to you again God does not deny your pain. He does not deny the hurt, the injury or the injustice. However, He does say in Romans 12 verse 9 that vengeance is His and His alone. Revenge is such a lonely and unhealthy occupation. When you put someone in your jail of resentment and hatred you imprison yourself. The prisoner has the freedom to walk around, you must be alert at all times guarding the door. The prisoner gets to relax you must be alert at all times. Who is really the prisoner to resentment and hatred. In so doing you are saying to God “Treat me as I treat them. Give me what I give them. Grant me the same peace I grant them.” Is that not the heart of those words from the prayer of Christ? Honestly this morning “How can you pray that line if in your heart you harbour hatred and resentment towards another person?” You can say to me ‘But Alan you have no idea what they did to me.” You are right I don’t, but God does. He is omniscient, He knows all things and He remembers all things. That is why He does not say to us I will forget your sin but I will remember it no more (Hebrews 10.17). That is not the same as forgetting. In Psalm 103.12 God says to us “I will not hold you past against you.” God does not forgive and forget. He forgives and He makes the choice to remember no more – to not hold it against us. Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgetting may be a long term by-product of forgiving but it is not the same. God says to each of us “I will not let the past dictate the present.” It does not mean He will tolerate sin or that we should. He takes, and we should take, a stand against future sin whilst forgiving past sin.
Secondly you have a choice this morning. A conscious choice of how you live with the sin of another. You can choose to live in the Bondage of Bitterness or the Freedom of Forgiveness. You can choose to forgive in order to bring healing into your life and into theirs. You do not heal in order to forgive, that is to put the cart before the horse. Let me state that again. You do not heal in order to forgive, you forgive in order to heal. By forgiving you are consciously choosing not to allow the past to dictate how you live in the present or how you will live in the future. It is as much for you your sake as it is for their sake. You are as much the captive as they are. Can say to all of this morning and I genuinely believe God would have us all take this on board this morning. We are no longer a product of our pasts – we are new creations in Christ. Evaluate your past in light of the redemptive work of Christ Jesus. It is who you are now in Christ as opposed to who you were then.
I am not trivialising the pain, the injury or the injustice. Forgiveness is a process. It is a series of steps, some of which need to be retraced many times. It does take time. It is the restoring of an attitude of love and a releasing of a painful past. It repudiates revenge and reopens the future to the possibility of a restored relationship. It is costly and hard. It is not tolerance. It is not ‘make-believe it didn’t happen or matter.’ There is a difference between forgiveness and a tired memory. You see as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2.10-11 nothing keeps us in bondage to the past as much as our unwillingness to forgive. The refusal to forgive leads to bitterness of the soul which in turn leads to spiritual death.
Finally can I say to us all forgiveness of others is required by Christ in the Lord’s Prayer. Forgiveness of others was modelled by Christ on the Cross. And if you read Matthew 18.21-35(The parable of the umerciful servant) you will understand that forgiveness of others is necessary for our own freedom. Amen.
