Forgiving One Another

wondering, well, how do you start the service? And so my mother always said I was the slowest of her 11 children. And she only had five. But let me just say, as I get ready to start, that I am so glad to be with you. The subject area that we are talking about this morning is one that could hardly be more important. And yet it isn't oftentimes elevated to such stature. As I was hearing the prayers this morning, the truth of the matter is, I can't remember if in my entire Christian life I've ever heard prayers that were more to the point, I literally felt as the sermon, as the prayers were done, you know, we could just give an invitation and this would be fine. This is, you all have said it exactly. Three years ago, no, four years ago, I believe it was, I was here as we were welcoming the goads. And that was wonderful news for the followers for several reasons. One, because we love Keith and Lisa. Two, because we love their parents. And three, because we could come and learn to love you. And it has been a wonderful time. I'm so glad that we've been able to maintain this fellowship. I tell you sincerely, if we were within reasonable driving range, we would be going to church here. So I am really thankful to be here. It's something that you can't possibly see because you don't see my life or my heart, but I don't think you could have invited anyone more appropriate for the hour because I am truly a trophy of God's grace. The reason why God's power is so manifest is that I, of all people, should be here sharing a word of God with you about forgiveness. Rarely, it seems to me, in the kingdom has anyone ever drawn more heavily upon the grace of God than me. 120 years or so ago, the Christian Church in the Western world, it literally hung, by its fingertips, perched on the edge of extinction. And it did so because of theological liberalism. 120 years ago nearly every denomination, every school had been all but overcome by scientific challenges to the faith. And I found it utterly fascinating that in its darkest moment the church somehow came together around a group of godly pastors who formulated a list of fundamentals that were essential for the survival of the church. And that term fundamentalism has still stuck. It revolves around a set of doctrines that are so important to the church that whatever our doctrinal differences might be, these are the fundamentals that unite all of us. And of course, they represent the key doctrines of our faith. The virgin birth of Christ, the inerrancy of God's Word, the second coming of Christ. Things that are indeed fundamental to our faith. For a number of years, I've been struck by the fact that in all that time, the church never came up with a list of fundamentals for behavior. It seems to me that we have put so much of our emphasis in the cognitive or doctrinal or epistemological arena that the proof of the lack of our emphasis on behaviorism is that we have never come up with a list of fundamentals for Christian behavior. That's why, four years ago, and I had to smile this morning as I was coming into the church because I noticed outside on what would be a, looks like a ceremonial cornerstone, that this building was built in 1963. Is that right? Is that right? Somebody say yes. It wasn't built in 63? It was built in 63. All right. Well, I thought that was amazing. In 1963, I got my first taste of God's forgiveness. That's when I became a Christian. Isn't that amazing how your beginning was somehow connected or perhaps not connected to my beginning? It seems ironic that I should be here and share a moment like this with you. If we had a fundamentals of behavior, certainly forgiveness would be in the top ten. Maybe it would be number one on the list. I have no way of knowing. Forgiveness is such an incredibly important aspect, both in our doctrine and in our relationships. So when I was here four years ago to have a part in the inducting of the goads to be here, I spoke in Romans 12 through 14. And I'm sure each and every one of you remember exactly what I spoke about. The truth of the matter is, the reason I remember is I found my old sermon. And so, here it is. And I said to you, you know, we need to love one another. And I spent my time talking about how love works itself out in behavior and how we relate to one another. So, now you've invited me to come back and we're going to talk about forgiveness. So, I'm going to preach an expositional sermon, but I'd like to tell you that every expositional sermon, listen please, it has its limits. Because, without an exposition of the text, that leads into behaving the text, we haven't really had an expositional sermon. So, I'd like to challenge you as I challenge me. I've already had my moment on the front row where tears were running down my cheek as I washed myself in the reality of God's forgiveness, both then and now. And if we don't have tears running down our cheek at some time today, maybe something might be wrong. Maybe we've become professional Christians. Maybe we become like those ball players that you see on TV, you know, when they sing the national anthem, and they do this 165 times a year in baseball, and they just sort of stand there because it isn't real to them. It doesn't have any current realism for them. So, the great challenge is to make the truths of forgiveness come alive in our hearts. And when Pastor Keith called me. He didn't say anything to me except that I'd like you to come and I'd like to preach on this subject area, so that's all I know. But I could hardly find anything that touches my heart faster than God's forgiveness. It's not accidental that forgiveness became important early in the Gospel message. It's probably not accidental that in the Gospels, for every time we have the word forgive appear in the epistles, we have it appear three times in the Gospels. It's a subject area that is particularly important to the Gospel message. And as we heard this morning in the Scriptures being read, it can be downright scary. If you don't forgive, I won't forgive you. That's pretty sobering. That's pretty scary. So, we want to talk briefly about the context of the Sermon on the Mount. Most people know that it really isn't a sermon. And it seems like Jesus was putting himself in the line of Moses. And you might remember Moses was the lawgiver, and of course in the Jewish tradition, he's revered for giving the law. In the Christian tradition, I really think deep in their hearts it was like, did you have to give us law? Couldn't you just give us grace? But Jesus said specifically, I didn't come to get rid of the law. And indeed, the gospel of the kingdom seems to be what Jesus is giving And there's probably a direct connection to the gospel that Moses was giving. And rather than create a gigantic contrast with the so-called six great antitheses, you know, Moses said this, but I say that, as if Jesus and Moses were having a disagreement with one another. Moses gave laws about murder. He gave laws about adultery. about divorce, about oath-taking, about retribution, and about love. Jesus did not come to say Moses didn't give you enough. Jesus came to tell us this is what the law that Moses gave meant. So, in light of that, when Moses said, you shall not commit adultery, Jesus was clarifying why God said, you shall not do this. And in doing so, he made the point that thinking was on a par with doing. So these six great antitheses, I would like to submit to you, I really don't think are contrasts, Jesus is complimenting the message of Moses. He's filling it in. He's explaining that since Moses gave 611 or 613 laws, depending on how they're counted, this is what those laws meant. He was getting to the essence of what law was about. So, these laws, then, that Jesus was teaching us about, covered two things, okay? Two things. If I was in class, I would say, write this down. And then they all wake up and start writing furiously. Or, pastor, this would be a good one for you. Say to your congregation in the morning, this would be on the test. And then they'll just wake up and start writing down. Jesus gave these laws for two reasons. What were they? One, was to get to the original intent of why the law was given in the first place. And two, to establish a fact that almost all the teachings of Christianity are ironic. They don't make sense to the unbelieving individual. They chart a different path for human purpose, and they result in a different success than the way humans measure success. In other words, blessed are those, and then Jesus proceeds to list a whole bunch of things that don't sound like blessings. So, that's why we're talking about forgiveness, not because forgiveness makes sense, Because it doesn't. It's ironic. Like all the other things that Jesus was saying in the Gospels, it's ironic. Who would have ever thought that this was the path for making Christianity work? So, he got to the intent, and secondly, his message was almost always ironic. So, he said in his great prayer in Matthew, that has already been read to us, A prayer that is centered in no small measure on forgiveness. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. There it is in the so-called great model prayer. And the prayer is based upon something already that the worshiper is supposed to have done. Forgive us because we have forgiven. And it's interesting that he didn't say forgive us because we have forgiven debts. He said forgive us because we have forgiven debtors. You know, if you have enough money, it's pretty easy to say, oh, just forget that loan. It's a whole lot harder to forgive the debtor than it is to forgive the debt. And so what Jesus was doing was making the point that the model Christian is one who has forgiven not just the debt, anybody can do that, it's visible, it's showy. Jesus is saying, pray this prayer when you have forgiven people who owe you. Pray this prayer when you have managed to forgive the person who has not paid his debt to you. And so on that basis, Jesus then proceeds to the centerpiece of his teaching on this. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Now, this is controversial because If you just read that and you weren't careful, you could hear Jesus saying that the way to go to heaven is to forgive others. And that if you forgive others, you will go to heaven. On the other hand, you could conclude erroneously that if you don't forgive debtors, you will not go to heaven. Well, part of me would like to stand up in front of you and any other church I've ever been in and say, yeah, this is what's said and if you don't get this right, you're going to burn. Because forgiveness is that important. But that isn't what Jesus was saying. What Jesus was saying is that when you stand before God and we will all do this and we will all answer For those who have been successful in forgiving their debtors, they can be assured that at that day, Jesus will reward them, not rebuke them. You see, God forgives all of our sins, but he doesn't forget them. We will answer for all that we have done when we stand in front of the living God. And I think what Jesus is probably saying here is, if when you stand before God and He holds you accountable for how you have lived your life, Christian life, if you've never mastered or participated in the fundamental of Christian behavior, forgiveness, then God is not somehow going to forgive us at that moment when we stand before Him. I don't know how that works. I have never understood the punishment-reward system as taught by Scripture. It's all metaphorical. You know, if we behave properly, He's going to give us crowns. I don't want to have a crown. I've already got one now. It's stark naked up there. I hope that that's just a metaphor. I hope that we're, you know, it's like, Keith, I'm going to get five, you're going to get six stars in your crown. I think that's all just metaphorical. But I don't know what it's metaphorical of. I don't know how the metaphor works, but I'm hoping it's more than just a crown. To me, it just looks silly in heaven for us to walk around with crowns. One person's got one star, another... This person, he looks like a constellation up there. Look at all the stars. I don't understand the rewards and punishment system, but the scriptures teach that. And when we stand before God, we're going to be rewarded or punished on the basis of how we have lived, and I think part of that is going to be this important concept of forgiveness. So, clearly Jesus made this a centerpiece of New Kingdom theology. But so did the Apostle Paul. Perhaps you could just quick-like this morning turn with me to Colossians chapter 3. Colossians would be written three decades after Christ, and written by a person who, when Jesus was alive, never knew him, but who became a centerpiece of the new emerging faith that we call Christianity. I say that we call it because in Acts, the book of Acts refers to Christians as the way. So in Colossians chapter 3, Paul wrote this, In verse 4, when Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming, and these too you once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put on the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its brethren. And then he goes on to say in verse 12, put on as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another, And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you. Well, guys, that's what I mean about the fundamentals of Christian behavior. I have never heard anybody disciplined from a Christian church for any one of those. Slander, obscene talk, lying. We have a bizarre value system that has elevated certain sins that are oftentimes not elevated in the scripture and ignored this list of fundamentals of human behavior. And it's not an accident that at the end of the list, Paul, too, adds forgiveness to our responsibilities, forgiving each other. Why? As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. So, why am I saying this? You know, I come here and visit, and then I always forget. Come on, now be honest with me. When are we done? What time do we get done? Twelve? Well, no, I know. The normal time we finish. We normally finish at twelve. It varies. Sounds like my waistline. It varies. All right, quickly. There isn't any necessary connection that I can tell between knowledge and behavior. You can know a lot and behave properly very little. Conversely, you can know very little and amazingly live out Christianity in dramatic ways. So, as we get ready to start talking about practical aspects of forgiveness, let me just make the point. If the secret of forgiveness was knowledge of the scriptures, seminary professors would be the most spiritual people in the world And I think I've mentioned to you this before, I taught in the seminary faculty for 20 years, I can tell you that's not the case. When it comes to failures in these things, like pettiness, and harboring feelings, and all the stuff that he put in his dirty dozen up here, of behavior, seminary professors are no better than anybody else. So the point is, Just knowing is not the secret. There's more to this. And that is, at least on a simple level, I mentioned this four years ago. Guys, ultimately it just keeps coming back to rule number one. Do we love Christ more than we love ourselves? Sometimes I get a good answer to that question in my heart. Too many times, if the truth were known, I love myself. We won't go there. But that's the problem that we have. So, let's talk a little bit about what are we going to do about our problem. You know, we don't forgive well. One of my favorite authors is a guy named Louis Smeeds. And I think he's went home to be with the Lord now. He taught for years, decades actually, at Fuller Seminary in California. And he specialized in his ministry, he specialized in the area of grief and forgiveness. And he wrote a number of books on forgiveness that I found to be particularly helpful. And toward the end of his ministry, here's what he said about his experience in Christianity. What he said was, in his experience in working with non-church people and church people, it was his conclusion that non-church people forgave more naturally than church people. Having been in ministry all my life, I could have told him that. We know a lot, but when it comes to Christianity 101, which is forgiveness, we don't do that so well. And maybe part of the trouble is, maybe part of it is because we're not really sure what forgiveness is. You know, in class I can stop and just say, Bob, tell me, what's your view of forgiveness? Now, we don't do that in church. Somehow that's in violation of Holy Writ. But, if I were to ask you, what goes through your mind about forgiveness, you would probably, most of you, or certainly many of you, would say to me, well, you need to forgive and forget. Well, I've already told you that's not true. Jesus doesn't forget the sins that we commit as Christians. Now, they're forgiven, thank God, but they're not forgotten. We're going to have to answer for them. Scripture, forgiveness, whatever it is, it isn't forgiving and forgetting. And perhaps forgiveness in a biblical context might not even be something we could give a solid definition to because maybe it functions differently with different personalities. I'm really not sure. But here's what I think forgiveness really is. Forgiveness is giving up your right to hurt back. When we're hurt, we want to hurt back. Biblical forgiveness is consciously choosing not to hurt back. It is not forgetting what happened, it is choosing not to do something about the wrong that is vengeful. For that to happen, we have to have a power greater than the power that is naturally in us. Everybody knows when our feelings are hurt, we don't forget that. The question about Christian forgiveness is, even though my feelings are hurt, and even though a wrong may have been done, I choose not to strike back. That's Christian forgiveness. Now this doesn't mean, when we do it, this doesn't mean that we trust the other person. You know, we know that's true, Because clearly somebody like Paul forgave John Mark when he left them in the lurch, but he didn't trust him. As a matter of fact, what it meant was John Mark then had to prove himself in order to be welcomed back into the community of the saints. So it doesn't mean that we have to trust the person who's done a wrong to us. It means that we have to choose not to get even. Secondly, forgiveness. It doesn't mean that we have to reconcile, because to reconcile takes two people. Forgiveness isn't the same as reconciliation. Forgiveness is a personal, private thing that any one of us can do, and it may or may not result in reconciliation. We could wish it resulted in reconciliation. So, our first and simple question is, what exactly is forgiveness? It is choosing not to render evil for evil. It is constantly choosing not to hurt back when we've been hurt. How do we do that? That's probably a harder question. How do we do that? First of all, let me say, I think it's a decision. We can do this. It's a decision. I can choose not to hurt back. We have the power of Christ. We can be different. We're not slaves to sin. It's not as if we can't do this. We can choose it. It's a decision. We can, to use Paul's terms, decide to put it to death. We can put on forgiveness. We can let the peace of God reign in our hearts. It is a decision that we can do. At the time, it doesn't feel like it does. When somebody has hurt our feelings, at the time, we can hide it and just let it fester. But the truth is, any one of us can forgive. It's a decision. But there's more to it. It's a decision that has feet. It goes places. So a lot of times, here's what goes wrong. Somebody has hurt our feelings. Our feelings are hurt. We want to get even, but we know as Christians that's wrong. So we say in our hearts, OK, I forgive you. But you know what that means? I really haven't. Been there? Been there. What is the secret to this? Well, the secret is not that our decision was not pure, but that our decision was incomplete. It's sort of like, you know, Peg and I went to a Bible college, and they had altar calls, and we had altar calls, and people were going forward all the time. And they would go forward, and they would mean it, but then it meant nothing. Because a decision without action is an incomplete thing. So, when we think about how exactly is forgiveness done, you have the power to do this, I have the power to do this, but there's a second step, and that is choose to put feet to your decision by consciously, purposely choosing to show love. Physical love. Love that you can feel. Love that does something. Because that's an important part of making forgiveness real instead of just cognitive. Right? Most of us in the room are married, not all of you. Don't we have to do this in our marriages? If your partner does something, you have to do more than just say, I forgive you. you have to tangibly reconnect the relationship by showing acts of love so that it teaches me that forgiveness without love, it's sort of like a plane without wings. The motor can make lots of noise, but it's not going anywhere. So secondly, forgiveness is a decision that has to connect emotions with our cognitive being, we have to put feet to it. We have to do it. We have to speak nicely. We have to pray for blessings for the person who has hurt us. We have to do Christianly things. Otherwise, we're just talkers and not doers, as one person mentioned in the prayer. First question, what is forgiveness? It is choosing consciously not to hurt back. Secondly, How exactly is forgiveness done? We make a decision, and then we put the decision into real life situations. Third, why is it important to forgive? Well, obviously, duh, because God told us to do that. And it's kind of like one of those things when you are the person who's been wronged, and your feelings are hurt, it's kind of like one of those things where if you could be really honest with God, you would say, did you really have to give us that one? Why couldn't you just smite the sinner? That's a good Baptist term, isn't it? Smite? Why couldn't you just smite the sinner? I thought that's what gods did. You know, they smote. Why can't you just smite the sinner? Well, obviously, because I am one. Here's my thought this morning, dear friends, because in the irony of what makes Christianity irony, I turn out to be the one who needs to forgive. I cannot really have the joy of the faith that I say I have if I'm not doing this. Forgiveness, bizarrely, makes the person who has been wronged happy. Who would have thought? We need to forgive. And here's the reason why. Not just because God forgave us and we ought to do it, but because God loves us so much that He gave us a doctor's prescription for life when we're perpetually sick. In other words, this world is a mess. I'm a mess. If I may say so, so are you. This world is a mess. But thanks be to God that he didn't just plunk us down in a world and say, have at it. What he gave us is a remedy for making life work properly in a fallen world. He didn't take away fallenness and he didn't take away wrongs. Those things still exist and happen and will probably happen today to some of us. But he gave us a key. And the good news is it's not like my doctor's remedy where he gives me the key and says that'll be 80 bucks. He gives me a key to wellness and he puts it in my hand and he says to me, you can use this key anytime and you'll be well. So I've got this key in my hand, and God is saying, put the key in the lock, turn it. You can walk out of the room of wrongness, injustice, and hurt. You can walk out of the room and be happy. Who would have ever thought that would work? It works. And so, forgiveness is not just us doing this because God has done it for us, although that's a message for another time. It is because this is God's key out of an unjust world. When we do this, our faith really works, and we're really different. And it's not just because we don't drink, dance, swear, smoke, or go with the girls that do. This works. This makes us different. I came across this story this week. I'll close with it. It's about our seventh president, Andrew Jackson. He was an old man when he decided he wanted to join a church. So he informed his minister, the Reverend Dr. John Edgar. We have to lose doctor titles in the church, don't you think? He wanted to become a member of the Presbyterian Church and receive communion. According to the account from his biographer, Robert Rimini, Dr. Edgar asked the president about his conversion and convictions and gave his approving nod with each satisfactory answer. I didn't know Andrew Jackson was a Christian, but he was. But Edgar was different than a 21st century minister. He felt the need to probe the president's soul. He said, General, there's one more question, which is my duty to ask you. Can you forgive all your enemies? The question stunned the general and president. He stared at his minister for a moment while he gathered his thoughts. And then he broke his silence and said this. My political enemies I can easily forgive. But as for those who abused me when I was serving my country in the field and those who attacked me for serving my country. Doctor, that is a different sense. Unlike Andrew Jackson, few of us had to suffer for serving our country, but every last one of us knows how hard it is to forgive, to bear injury from others, from those who have mistreated us. And yet, the good doctor was correct in his insistence that Christians must forgive all. Followers of Jesus will suffer mistreatment with what Jonathan Edwards called a lamb-like disposition, like lambs. The kind we see in Jesus, slights and slanders, hurts and harms are met with meekness, not with hostility. This, to be biblical, is not and has never been optional. On July 15th, 1838, General Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, was admitted into the Presbyterian Church. He was 70 years old when his battle-withered soul and tired body knelt to receive communion for the first time. And as he did, his biographer tells us, tears of penitence and joy trickled down his careworn cheeks. forgiveness had triumphed. You know, dear friends, that's an amazing story, isn't it? You see, he thought what he needed was to join the church so he could receive communion. What he really found out that it's not about a church, not about communion, that the joy of Christ is bound more specifically in the amazing gift of freedom from slavery to self. He came asking for communion and he found forgiveness and he found happiness instead of just a place among the pews. So, I'm here because God has forgiven me I'm here because people have forgiven me. Because my parishioners have forgiven me. Because my wife and my daughter have forgiven me. Because my students have forgiven me. But the real joy was less in receiving the forgiveness and more in ways of figuring out how to do it. I pray that God will put that in our hearts. Because until we're doing this, were just shriveled up pieces of fruit, God built to be tasty, but instead are dry and without nourishment.