Forgiveness Part Three: The Next Step

Scripture Reading

WWTW

Introduction: Definitions

Questions that I think are worth asking:

My friends and I have some of the most stupid and pointless debates that anyone could ever possibly have...

And I love them!

Is cereal a soup?

Is water itself wet, or does it just make you wet?

Is a hot dog a sandwich?

We don’t have the kind of time required to get in to my thoughts on that…we have a meeting after this...

One of my friends in these debates always starts in the same place: Let’s define some terms.

How do you define soup? Or wet? Or sandwich?

Sometimes the argument makes the most sense when we’re all working from a common definition.

What we should have been asking all along: What do we mean by forgiveness?

Here we are at the last week of our series on forgiveness.

We’ve talked about how we’re all wounded, and we should all decide to take that next step toward forgiveness.

We’ve talked about how there are others who are going to be repeat offenders when it comes to wounding us, and how we probably shouldn’t pet that dawg.

If that didn’t make any sense to you, go back and watch last week’s sermon...

But we’ve never actually come to a definition of what we mean by forgiveness, have we?

We probably should have started there.

But it’s never too late to circle back!

And the answer might just lie in one of the most misunderstood passages of scripture ever.

Jeremiah and the Exiles

The split in the kingdom, and the exile that comes.

As we’ve seen these last few weeks, Isreal has been a place of violence and tragedy almost through its entire history.

At this point that we’ve read about today, the people of Isreal were taken into exile in Babylon.

Imagine being forced to leave your home at gun point.

Some invading army came in to town, and at spear point told the people of Jerusalem that they had to leave their homes, leave their jobs and livelihoods, and in lots of cases get separated from their families.

And the next thing you know, you’re in the land of the oppressor.

You work the enemy’s land.

You support the enemy’s economy.

You follow the enemy’s laws.

You worship the enemy’s gods.

So as you might expect, the people of Isreal have been praying to their God for answers.

And Jeremiah in this verse has some things to say on God’s behalf.

What does God have to say to those folks?

Settle in

Build houses?

Plant gardens?

Host a whole bunch of marriages?

These are all extremely time consuming activities!

You’re not talking days, weeks, months, or years.

You’re talking generations.

Oh and by the way, God says: Those guys who are telling you otherwise?

They’re lying to you.

They’re selling you false hope.

You’re here for a while.

And that’s the context that we get our often misused verse:

This is all part of the plan.

I know the plans I have for you...

The you there is plural.

This is not an individual promise.

It’s a promise for an entire people group.

I have plans for you…and they’re good ones.

But you’re probably not going to see it.

This is generations down the line.

I’m good God says, but I’m good in my own time.

Whatever pain and atrocity they’re experiencing in this moment, it’s actually part of the plan.

Jeremiah was probably the person who invented the saying “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

But even this probably isn’t the most offensive thing that Jeremiah has said to the people of Isreal.

Seek the welfare of the city.

So let’s try to modernize this a little bit, which is dangerous.

This will sound offensive, but I promise this is exactly how offensive this passage would have read to its first listeners.

Imagine God said to the Israeli hostages in Gaza right now:

Seek the welfare of Hamas where I have sent you, and pray to the Lord for their behalf.

I almost couldn’t put this in the sermon!

It’s preposterous!

It’s scandalous!

It’s offensive!

This is forgiveness.

This is what forgiveness looks like.

When we can seek the welfare of the people who wronged us.

And notice that God makes no judgement about what the people of Babylon are supposed to do to earn this welfare.

They’re not part of the equation.

The call is for the people of Isreal to forgive, and to seek the city’s welfare.

How others define forgiveness:

This whole sermon series, I’ve been showing quotes from other folks about forgiveness.

And it turns out that a bunch of folks we know have defined forgiveness.

And even better, they seem to have stumbled upon a biblical definition of forgiveness, whether they meant to or not.

Forgiveness is not approval.

Forgiveness isn’t approving what happened. It’s choosing to rise above it. —Robin Sharma (Canadian Writer)

When the boys were little, we had to monkey with their language a little bit.

If one brother pushed the other, we would make them say “I’m sorry.”

And the other brother picked up (probably from their father) saying “That’s ok!”

We had to stop that.

We trained them for a good while to respond to someone’s saying “I’m sorry” by saying “I forgive you” rather than “That’s ok.”

Because sometimes it’s not ok!

It’s not ok to push your twin brother on the play ground.

It’s not ok to insult somebody.

It’s not ok to steal from somebody.

It’s not ok to assault somebody.

It’s not ok to murder somebody.

It’s not ok.

But to forgive someone is not necessarily to give approval for what’s been done.

Jesus on the cross, as Romans are in the process of executing him for reasons they barely understand, says “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.”

I’m reasonably sure that Jesus wouldn’t say that killing people on the cross is “ok”.

But that doesn’t get in the way of his speaking forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not Justice

And in fact, something I’ve discovered in this process, you don’t need people to make it right before forgiveness can be offered.

Making things right might be another way to say “justice.”

Justice is a very different thing than forgiveness.

And in fact, I think which order you start in will go a long way in helping.

Remember that business administrator that I spoke about in the first sermon?

I was there for his court date.

This, incidentally, is not something they train you for in seminary!

I came to discover in that moment two really important things:

Justice was the judges job. Forgiveness was mine.

It helps to have a court in this case, because then I don’t have to take that job upon myself!

The judge was going to make sure that justice was handed down.

That’s literally what we pay him for.

My job was to work on my own heart, and to offer forgiveness.

And I think truthfully that’s more often the case than we want to realize.

Justice belongs to God.

Forgiveness is the work of our hearts.

But the second thing I learned:

Justice would never have felt complete if I hadn’t done the work of forgiveness first.

If I hadn’t forgiven that man in my heart, I don’t think I would ever have made peace with whatever justice the judge handed down.

It would have never felt like enough.

I would always have been looking for more.

I never would have found the closure I’m looking for.

Forgiveness is a “thank you.”

True forgiveness is when you can say “Thank you for that experience!” —Oprah Winfrey

For like three seconds I tried to be a mountain biker.

I am absolutely horrible at it!

But I tried!

One of the things I could never get past was the idea of “sessioning” a feature.

The idea was to ride up to something that was difficult to ride over, and hit it again and again and again and again until you got it right.

And when you’re doing that kind of work, the best teacher actually isn’t success.

It’s failure.

When you learn how not to do it, you learn how to do it better.

And so for a little bit anyway, I actually started to become thankful for the ways that I failed.

And fell over.

And hurt myself.

Sometimes the things that hurt us the most teach us the most.

Sometimes there are valuable lessons in the ways that people have let us down.

Sometimes there are glimpses of the grace of God in the most horrifying experiences of our lives.

Sometimes forgiveness is looking at someone and offering them thanks, even for the way they’ve wounded us.

Not exactly how the world works, is it?

Speak of which.

Forgiveness is counter-cultural

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave. —Indira Gandhi

Listen to what Paul says in verse 14:

Romans 12:14 “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”

That, my friends, it’s quite simply not the way the world works.

The world celebrates revenge.

The world says forgiveness is weakness.

The world says look out for number one.

It is extremely counter cultural to live the way Paul is suggesting, to bless those who are out to get us!

When we think of counter cultural Christianity, so often we think about watching clean movies or listening to worship music or something like that…living counter “entertainment” culture.

That’s ok, nothing wrong with that.

But it’s not enough.

Real counter cultural Christians are brave enough to bless those who persecute them.

Real counter cultural Christians are brave enough to speak forgiveness first, and leave justice up to God.

Real counter cultural Christians are brave enough to let love be our guiding principal, not bitterness.

It’s not the way of the world.

It’s so so much better.

Forgiveness is love.

You can’t forgive without loving. And I don’t mean sentimentality. I don’t mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say “I forgive. I’m finished with it.” —Maya Angelou

I’m with Maya on this one!

Love is not mushy.

Love is not sentimentality.

Love is not an empty emotion.

Love, according to Jesus

Is caring more about the person we love than even caring for ourselves.

Love is seeking the welfare not only of those we love, but those who wrong us.

Love is letting other people go, and realizing that it was really ourselves that we kept prisoner.

Love is realizing that we can rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep, no matter what our past histories with them have been.

Love is coming to realize that relationships matter more to us than actions.

Forgiveness is a sign that the person who has wronged you means more to you than the wrong they have dealt. —Ben Greenhalgh (English Soccer Player)

Do I have to?

One of the questions that I have heard the most from folks in the wake of this sermon series has been some variation of: Do I have to?

Do I have to forgive that punk that hurt my family?

Do I have to forgive that person who said that about me?

Do I have to forgive the one who has abused me in the past?

Short answer: no.

God never forces forgiveness on us.

We’re never made to forgive if our heart just isn’t in it.

We can go right on ahead walking around with all the bitterness and anger and rage that we can contain.

And absolutely no one will stop us.

Do we have to? No.

Should we?

You don’t know what you’re missing.

My family has a complicated relationship with oranges.

Legend has it that when my dad was a boy, he didn’t like oranges.

So my grandfather sat him down at the kitchen table, and said he wasn’t allowed to get up until he tried an orange.

So dad sat there for hours and hours and hours.

Eventually he caved, and tried the orange. And of course he loved it.

Fast forward to the year 1988, when as a young 5 year old, I didn’t like oranges...

And so my father sat me down at the kitchen table, and said that I wasn’t allowed to get up until I tried an orange.

I don’t know if this was in the original part of the story, but my dad kept coming back with the same line for me:

You don’t know what you’re missing.

You don’t know what you’re missing.

You don’t know what you’re missing.

And so I sat there, for hours and hours and hours.

And I tried it.

And I love oranges!

And I really didn’t know what I was missing.

The fun part of this sermon is that right now Josh and Julian don’t like oranges...

But that’s another sermon.

Do you need to forgive those who wrong you? No.

But if you don’t, you don’t know what you’re missing.

You don’t know what kind of freedom that can bring about in your own heart.

You don’t know how much closer that kind of freedom brings us to God.

You don’t know what joy can flood in the hole bitterness leaves in our hearts when we offer to forgive.

You don’t know what you’re missing.

You don’t know what you’re missing.

You don’t know what you’re missing.

What’s the next step?

Decide

We’ve been talking these last few weeks about the power of just deciding to forgive someone.

I think it will almost always be the first step in the process of forgiveness.

I don’t know anyone who has “accidentally” forgiven someone.

It has to be intentional.

Maybe the first step is all you have in you right now.

That’s ok.

Take that first step.

Decide that someone in your life who has wronged you is someone you want to forgive.

Remember

We talked about this last week, that remembering is essential to forgiveness.

Of course, if it’s a toxic person, if they’re the kind of person who is going to wound you again and again and again, don’t forget that.

Don’t pet that dawg.

But way more important to me, remember how Christ has forgiven us.

Nothing we’ve done ever has or ever will be outside the bounds of Christ’s forgiveness for us.

We can and we should hold that kind of forgiveness out to each other.

To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. —C.S. Lewis

Connect

This one could be tricky, because sometimes circumstances won’t allow us to connect with someone we need to forgive.

We may never actually see them again.

But those instances are few and far between I think.

The next step in forgiveness might be as simple as a text message.

Or a phone call.

Or a coffee meeting.

Or a hug.

We are at our core very relational beings.

Connecting with the person who wronged us is certainly one of the next steps in forgiveness.

Seek their welfare

I think this is the ultimate step.

I think this is when we’ve landed at forgiveness.

When we can look at someone who has wronged us, and not only wish them well.

Anyone can wish someone well.

It’s when we can take an active role in seeking their welfare.

It’s when we can be a part of making good things happen in their lives.

It’s when we can feed our hungry enemies and give drink to our thirsty adversaries.

Paul might not have been quite ready for forgiveness when he said that this will heap burning coals on their heads...

But he was right on when he said this:

Don not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Don’t hold on to bitterness for even a second longer my friends.

Take the next step.

Seek the welfare of those who have wronged you.

And take the next step in the art of forgiveness.