[Read Ephesians 4:25-32. Ask the congregation to look for statements that can be applied to marriage.]
Series: MARRIAGE MATTERS
Sermon Title: Forgiving and Forgetting
When we are hurt or offended or wronged by someone, the intensity of our pain will be directly proportional to the closeness of our relationship with that person. For example, if I’m walking down the street and a total stranger yells an insult at me, I won’t be bothered too much. But if someone very close to me hurts me, it’s a much different story. The closer the relationship is, the deeper the hurt will be. There is no closer relationship than the relationship between a husband and a wife.
Someone once said, “Marriage is God’s way of keeping people from fighting with total strangers.” Obviously, that’s not why God invented marriage. But the reality is, husbands and wives can often hurt one another in many ways. Actually, this started with the very first marriage. In Genesis 3:12, Adam blamed his bride for his own decision, and men and women have been playing the blame game ever since. Often, we are not “kind and compassionate to one another.” And sometimes we react to unkindness (especially if it is severe) by refusing to forgive the offense.
Sermon Text: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Eph. 4:32).
1. I should forgive since I WILL SOON need to be forgiven.
“…forgiving [continual] each other [both husband and wife]….”
C. S. Lewis said, “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive.”
What is forgiveness? In some ways, it’s easier to say what forgiveness is not than what it is. Often when we say we can’t or won’t forgive, we are actually talking about something other than biblical forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean…
• Approving of what someone else did.
• Pretending that evil never took place.
• Making excuses for other people’s bad behavior.
• Overlooking abuse.
• Denying that others tried to hurt you repeatedly.
• Letting others walk all over you.
• Refusing to press charges when a crime has been committed.
• Pretending that you were never hurt.
• You must restore the relationship to what it was before.
• You must tell the person that you have forgiven them.
• All negative consequences of sin are cancelled (example: confession of a crime).
In Luke 23:34 we find the greatest example of forgiveness in the entire Bible, probably in all of history. When Jesus hung on the cross, condemned to death by evil men who plotted to murder Him and who produced lying witnesses to convict Him, as He surveyed the howling mob assembled to cheer His suffering, Jesus the Son of God, the only truly innocent man who ever lived, in His dying moments uttered words that still ring across the centuries: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Those eleven words sweep away our shabby excuses. Many of us say, “If only the people who hurt me would show some remorse, some sorrow, then maybe I would forgive them.” But since that rarely happens, we use that as an excuse to continue in our bitterness, our anger, and our desire to get even.
Consider Jesus on the cross. No one seemed very sorry. Even as He said those words, the crowd laughed, mocked, cheered, and jeered. Those who passed by hurled insults at Him. They taunted Him. “If you are the King of Israel, come down from the cross and save yourself.” And yet He said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
2. I should forgive BECAUSE God forgave me.
God’s forgiveness is our MOTIVE.
“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).
“He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13b-14).
“…the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
There’s a story that one night Martin Luther went to sleep troubled about his sin. In a dream he saw an angel standing by a blackboard, and at the top of the board was Luther’s name. The angel, chalk in hand, was listing all of Luther’s sins, and the list filled the blackboard. But suddenly in his dream he saw a pierced hand writing above the list these words: “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” As Luther gazed in amazement, the blood flowed from the wounded hand and washed the record clean (Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations & Quotes, pp. 363-364).
“…he who has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:47).
3. I should forgive LIKE God forgave me.
God’s forgiveness is our MODEL.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12).
“If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared” (Ps. 130:3-4).
“In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put my sins behind your back” (Isa. 38:17b).
“I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more” (Isa. 43:25).
“You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19).
Have you received forgiveness from God?
a. Real forgiveness is UNLIMITED.
“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’” (Matt. 18:21-22). We are to forgive no matter how big or how frequent the offense.
Matthew 18:21-35
The King = God
The Servants = Us
The Debt = Sin
We are often like the unforgiving servant. We stand before Almighty God with our sins piled up like a mountain. The mountain is so tall we can’t get over it, so deep we can’t get under it, so wide we can’t get around it. That’s every one of us. Our sins are like a multi-million dollar debt we could never pay in our lifetime or in a thousand lifetimes. We come as debtors to God, come with empty hands, and we say, “I cannot pay.’ God who is rich in mercy replies, “I forgive all your sins. My Son has paid the debt. You owe me nothing.” Then we leave the worship service, walk outside humming a hymn. And before we get to our car we see a man who has done us wrong and we want to grasp him by the throat and say, “Pay me right now!”
Jesus said, “What happened to that man will happen to you unless you learn to forgive.” The tormentors will come and take you away and torture you. What tormentors? The hidden tormentors of anger and bitterness that eat your insides out, the tormentors of frustration and malice that give you ulcers and high blood pressure and migraine headaches and lower back pain, the tormentors that make you lie awake at night on your bed stewing over every rotten thing that happens to you. The tormentors of an unforgiving heart that stalk your trail day and night, that never leave your side, that suck every bit of joy from your life.
b. Real forgiveness is not SELECTIVE.
God forgave all our sins. And we must do the same with the sins of others.
c. Real forgiveness is UNDESERVED.
d. Real forgiveness is COSTLY.
It cost the Father His Son. And it will cost us the sweet taste of revenge and the pleasure of our pride.
e. Real forgiveness leaves past offenses in the PAST.
“[Love] keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Cor. 13:5). This is what forgiving and forgetting is all about. Of course, we can’t wipe our memories clear of past offenses. When the Bible says that God no longer remembers our sins, it doesn’t mean that He literally forgets them. It means He keeps them in the past. We are to do the same.
Excuses for refusing to forgive:
• It’s not fair. Forgiveness is not fair; but that’s precisely the point of it.
• But you don’t know how bad he/she hurt me. That’s not the issue. Your spouse may still hurt you. But forgiveness is how you stop the pain.
• I have to heal first—then I’ll be able to forgive. Research shows that forgiveness brings healing, not the other way around.
• But I want revenge! We have to trust God to even the score, as Hebrews 10:30 says: “For we know him who said, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay.”
• Why should I let him/her off the hook? If you don’t forgive, you’re still on the hook. Your spouse doesn’t “deserve” forgiveness, but no one does—including you.
Are you more interested in being “right” than in being reconciled?
[Some of the ideas and material in this sermon were borrowed from a series on forgiveness by Ray Pritchard and a sermon by Brian Bill of Pontiac Bible Church.]
