The Weight Of Unforgiveness Series

It’s a haunting scripture because if we will not forgive, God will not forgive us, and isn’t that the basis of our faith. What did Christ offer us on the cross? Forgiveness . . . radical and complete forgiveness. You see, He knew what was coming when He made this statement in Matthew 6. He knew He would suffer and die on the cross, so we could experience forgiveness from the God of all creation.

That is why passages like 1 John 1:9 are so important to our faith, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” You see, Jesus is there forgive us of our sins, only after we confess them; proclaim them to Him. He then purifies us, to make us as David asked in Psalm 51, to make us whiter than snow.

So . . . how are we supposed to forgive? Just the way Paul described it in Colossians 3:13 ~ “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” In other words, we want the Lord to forgive us, fully and completely, not a little bit of forgiveness, no matter what we’ve done, right? Since we want the Lord to forgive us, fully and completely, that is exactly what the Lord expects of us, when others come into our lives and whether it be intentional or accidental; and hurt us. God wants us to go through the process, as we talked about last week, and come to that event, where we can say, “I forgive!”

And we forgive, because God has forgiven us. That’s the ultimate forgiveness. We forgive because God commands it; and we forgive because it is good for our heart, soul and mind. Actually it is great for our whole being.

Because when you do not, and will not and cannot forgive it weighs you down. In fact, I’d like to illustrate that. I would like someone who is big and strong to volunteer to come up here and help me.

Jim Volk has volunteered to come up and help me out. Now, as you can see, Jim is a strong man, but Jim has a problem with forgiveness. He can’t forgive people.

Unforgiveness is weighing Jim down. But it didn’t start out that way. You see, when we don’t forgive, it’s like adding these rocks onto our body. It starts out as not too big a deal, it does not weigh us down too much.

In fact, right now Jim could carry on a conversation with me, couldn’t you, Jim?

YES!

Now, when we don’t forgive, it becomes easier and easier to not forgive and it weighs you down even more. So, we are going to add some heavier rocks to Jim. But because Jim is really, really stubborn, and Nina will attest to that, We will now add some really, really heavy rocks to Jim.

At this point Jim cannot engage us in a pleasant conversation, he cannot talk to Nina and tell her how wonderful she is. He cannot tell Erik or Jaime he is proud of them. In fact, prayer is pretty tough right now. You see, Jim is consumed with this forgiveness thing.

So, Jim, let’s move your arms a little closer, does that help? And Nina, come on up here, let’s help Jim out. Anyone else want to help Jim? Come on up and help.

Because you see, we don’t need to go through unforgiveness and forgiveness on our own. This is where the body of Christ comes in. We are here for one another. You see, we aren’t going to hold Jim’s arms in the air and force him to continue in the sin of unforgiveness, instead because we love Jim, we are going to help lighten his load.