Early in my relationship with Ann, before we were married, I did a number of really stupid things in our relationship.
• There was the time she sent me a “swatch” watch for my birthday and when she called me the first thing I said was “I wanted a blue one” instead of “thank you”
• I won’t bore you with the details – but I actually tried to break up with her on 3 different occasions over the course of 2 years of long-distance relationship.
Somehow we ended up making it through my stupid mistakes and we’ve enjoyed almost 15 years of marriage. But we wouldn’t have made it without Ann’s willingness and ability to forgive.
Today, as we continue our series called “Nothing Beats Love”, we come to 3 descriptions of love that help us understand what forgiveness is all about. After telling us that…
Love is patient, love is kind
Love does not envy, does not boast, it is not proud
Love is not rude, it is not self seeking
Paul continues by writing…
1 Corinthians 13:5b-6 (NIV) [Love] is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
All 3 of these relate to our need to forgive people when they wrong us. Let’s take a look at them in turn, and seek to understand not only what Paul means but how we are to live this way today.
Love is not easily angered.
In the Greek this quite simply says “love is not angered” or “love is not provoked”. Other translations of this verse have rendered this phrase like this:
“it is not touchy or fretful or resentful” (Amplified Bible)
“it is not irritable” (New Living Translation)
“it is not provoked” (New American Standard)
I like that last one the best because it puts it so simply. Godly love for another person refuses to be provoked into an argument.
We all know the feeling of being in a conversation that turns into an argument, that turns into a shouting match. This happens when we lose perspective that our relationship with this person is far more important than being right, or being respected, or winning.
So the first way to apply the truth that love forgives is to not allow yourself to be provoked and easily angered. If you learn to let things roll off your back you’ll find there is a lot less “forgiving” that needs to be done. We know that we are much more prone to remember situations in which our emotions were at extremes – and so if we are able to allow God’s work in us to keep us from getting so bothered when people wrong us, we’ll find it much easier to forget about the whole situation.
If you find that you are irritable, touchy, easily provoked, the antidote you need is love. And the source of it is God’s Holy Spirit.
TRANS: But there is more to learning to forgive than just becoming a person who is not provoked easily. Sometimes we have to learn to let go of the wrongs that have been done to us. That’s where Paul goes next, when he says…
Love keeps no record of wrongs.
There are a couple of ways this phrase could be interpreted and it’s important that we understand what Paul was talking about here. This makes it sound like if we really forgive someone the way God forgives then we won’t even remember it.
I don’t think that’s true. In fact I believe if forgiveness is ever really going to happen then you and I have to acknowledge that we have been wronged. Forgiveness does not ignore the hurt and act like it isn’t there. It doesn’t pretend it didn’t happen or sweep the feelings of anger and distrust under the rug.
Literally what Paul said in this phrase is love does not count, reckon; regard, or consider the wrongs done. IN other words, love refuses to keep mulling over a wrong done. Love doesn’t store them up and it doesn’t hold those wrongs over the head of the person who did them.
And this is what is so difficult about forgiving. Although it is impossible to actually forget the wrongs – you can make the choice to stop keeping score.
ILLUS: I’m a really gifted scorekeeper. I’m not supposed to keep track of the score in Ryan’s soccer games – but I secretly mark down the score on my clipboard. Actually I don’t even need to make the tally marks because I’m able to keep track of it in my head. But last week I could see that the team we were playing was very weak. I could tell that we were going to have to implement some measures to KEEP from scoring too many goals. And for once I didn’t keep score. I knew that we were winning – the score didn’t matter anymore.
Is this what it means to keep no record of wrongs? We realize the person has wronged us – but we refuse to allow our minds to begin tallying all the ways they have hurt us or make a list of the times they have let us down.
Only love can motivate such a choice. Only love sent from God can enable us to love people like this.
TRANS: So Paul tells us love is not easily angered, and that it keeps no record of wrongs. Then he makes sure we get the point about forgiving others by telling us that…
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
“The Message” puts it this way:
“Love doesn’t revel when others grovel.”
If we do NOT forgive people we can celebrate when things go wrong for them. It can bring us delight when evil comes upon them. You know what I’m talking about. It’s like having that annoying driver tailgating you and honking at you to move over, then you finally move over and he flips you off as he passes you. Then two miles ahead you see that guy pulled over and trying to explain why he was going so fast to a police officer. What goes through your mind? “Hah – serves him right!”
That’s a pretty natural response because you don’t love that person – they are a stranger. But when you are in a relationship with someone who hurts you, it can become a temptation to either plot revenge against them, wish evil upon them, or simply to laugh when you discover something bad has happened to them.
Once again, forgiveness is the key to seeing this attribute of love begin to grow in your heart. For if you truly forgive someone, and God is helping you to love them even though they have hurt you, then you will not delight in their misfortune. Because love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
So the truth is plain – when you love someone you extend forgiveness to them. We don’t get easily angered. We don’t keep a mental scorecard of their wrongs. And we don’t delight when bad things happen to them.
But I know it is one thing to talk about forgiveness and quite another thing to actually forgive someone. Especially someone who has hurt you repeatedly. I’ve got to admit that I don’t know from personal experience what it is like to be told to forgive someone who has abused me, or trashed my reputation, or trampled my heart. But many of you do.
And you’re learning that forgiveness is much more a process – an ongoing process – than a state. You’re also learning that when you forgive someone who has hurt you, the person you free is yourself. You’re also learning that forgiveness will cost you something.
Corrie ten Boom, a survivor of Hitler’s concentration camps in WWII, and a beloved Christian speaker and author after the war, tells the following story about the challenge of forgiving others.
It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavy-set man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. ...
And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!
Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent. ...
"You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk," he was saying. "I was a guard in there." No, he did not remember me.
"But since that time," he went on, "I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein, ..." his hand came out, ... "will you forgive me?"
And I stood there — I whose sins had every day to be forgiven — and could not. Betsie had died in that place — could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
For I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. "If you do not forgive men their trespasses," Jesus says, "neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses." ...
And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion — I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. "Jesus, help me!" I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling."
And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart!"
For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.
CONCLUSION:
If someone has hurt you badly I am not all that surprised if you feel you cannot forgive them and really mean it. But what Corrie ten Boom’s testimony reminds us of is the power God has to fill us with true, agape love for others if we will purpose in our heart to do what we know we must. If you are holding on to unforgiveness in your heart, perhaps God is simply waiting for you to tell him “I want to forgive him. I want to forgive her. But I must have your empowerment. Fill me with your love and help me to love like you do.”
Lets pray.
Lord forgive me for sometimes being easily provoked to anger, and forgive me for holding the sins of others over their heads, and for the times I’ve delighted in the downfall of those who have hurt me.
If I’m ever to really love people I’m going to have to learn to forgive.
And I know that will never happen apart from the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in my heart, my mind, my soul.
Come Holy Spirit and fill me completely with your love once again.
