What Forgiveness Requires
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
In the class I’ve been teaching, we’ve been reading through Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. It’s my favorite Shakespeare play mainly because of Antony’s funeral speech that being with “Friends, Romans, countrymen, let me your ears.” If you’ve never seen or read the play, it is not so much about Julius Caesar as it is about the conspiring against him and the subsequent vengeance by Mark Antony upon Caesar’s assassination. A man named Cassius is fully of jealousy against Caesar and wants to see him dead, but he knows that he cannot do it himself. He goes to Brutus, Caesar’s best friend, and manipulates his sense of honor, spinning the facts about Caesar so that Brutus begins to believe that in order to protect the Roman Republic, Caesar must be killed. Had it not been for Cassius, Brutus would never have delivered the death blow to Caesar, in which Caesar stated those famous lines, “Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar.”
Incidentally, when Dante wrote his Inferno, he wrote of the nine-levels of hell. On the 9th and deepest level are four figures: Satan himself, Judas Iscariot, and Cassius and Brutus. Dante believed that the gravest of all sins was betrayal against the one you loved, and none so great as the devil against God, Judas against Christ, and Cassius and Brutus against Caesar.
Some here may echo those sentiments. You may have been betrayed and know the heart-wrenching pain it brings. And the question that typically comes up is must I forgive someone who has hurt me so badly? But maybe this issue isn’t betrayal; perhaps it is some other sin that someone has committed against you that has caused you immense pain. Do you have to forgive? Is forgiveness required?
This morning, we are looking at a passage dealing with that very question. And it may seem, by the way Bibles have them separated, that these three pericopes are separate topics, but they really are not. They are all helping us develop an understanding of the three requirements of forgiveness. The first is the requirement of repentance. The second is the requirement of reliance. And the third is the requirement of readiness.
Forgiveness Requires Repentance
Forgiveness Requires Reliance
Forgiveness Requires Readiness
And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!
It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.
Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,
and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’?
Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’?
Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?
So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”
Forgiveness Requires Repentance
Forgiveness Requires Repentance
The first requirement of forgiveness is that it requires repentance. Now that may sound wrong to most of us, if not all of us. We’ve been taught that we must always forgive. But that isn’t exactly true. We must always be ready to forgive, which we will see later. But being ready to forgive and actually forgiving are two different actions. This is probably going to be the longest of the three points because I think we need to look at the various places in Scripture that talk about forgiveness and see them for what they say. We’ll start right here in Luke 17.
And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!
It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.
Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,
and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
Before we begin, we do need to deal with the first part of this text; the part about temptations and sin. In this part, we actually see something like what I talked about between Cassius and Brutus. If it had not been for Cassius’s temptation and manipulation of Brutus, Brutus never would have plotted against and assassinated Caesar. In this sense, Cassius is actually more culpable. It isn’t to say that Brutus had no culpability, but Jesus shows in this that all sins are not the same. Being the instigator and the temptation for someone else to sin is a greater offence. And we also notice that Jesus doesn’t have a fatalistic understanding of sin. He’s a realist “temptations are sure to come.” But he isn’t a fatalist in that it doesn’t matter how they come. He says it does matter, and the person by which it comes is more culpable.
And the “little ones” here is not speaking specifically of children, though many take it to mean that. The “little ones” refers to those who were standing with Jesus. Those who’s faith is a fledgling faith; those who may have weak faith, small faith. Anyone who sets a trap, manipulates, harms the faith of these young in faith, is highly culpable.
And that’s why Jesus told his disciples to be careful. They are to watch themselves. They are not to harm these young in faith. And he gives two examples of how the disciples could harm such fragile faith. (And let’s be honest; we all have fragile faith. There is always something that can cause us to doubt, to be afraid, to hide in shame). And keep in mind that while this is not the same as tempting one to sin by placing some enticing thing in front of them, it is still be harmful by withhold something necessary.
The first way that we could harm someone’s faith is by not confronting him about his sin. Jesus said, in verse 3 that if a brother sins (and that could mean sister as well), then we are to rebuke him. That doesn’t mean that we have to be harsh about it. In fact, we ought to be kind and gracious about it. We ought to take God’s approach of rebuke.
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
Not to confront a person with his/her sin is actually causing harm to his/her faith. It is allowing sin to continue to be embedded in their heart and soul. It is allowing the searing of the conscience to continue on.
And we should note that it is not simply that this person has sinned against us. It doesn’t have to be a personal sin that Jesus is saying has happened. It can be a general sin. Every sin is a sin against God and therefore in an indirect way, it is a sin against God’s people; his family. If someone was to sin against Katie or one of my children, I would still have the right and responsibility to confront that person about that sin. And in the end, I would still need to forgive if they repented; though the sin indirectly affected me.
We can see that in 1 Corinthians 5. There was a young man who was sleeping with his step-mother. That was a major offense against God and his father, indirectly an offense against the church. He was to be confronted, excommunicated if necessary, but then in 2 Corinthians, we see Paul saying he has suffered enough and is to be forgiven.
Which leads to that second way we could harm a believer’s faith: if we refuse to forgive. If you’ve experienced what it is like when someone withholds forgiveness from you after you’ve repented of your wrongdoing, you know how painful that feels as well. It can weaken one’s faith in God when God’s people are not displaying God’s attributes of mercy and forgiveness.
But notice that Jesus stated that repentance is required. “If he repents, forgive him.” Then again in verse four he ups the ante by saying that if he sins against you seven times and says I repent seven times, we are to forgive. In both verses, Jesus puts the condition on repentance. If he repents.
I want to quickly take us to various passages on forgiveness because they can, at first glance, seem to be saying the opposite of this passage. The first is probably the most famous. It’s out of the Lord’s Prayer
and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
As we pray this, it is often thought, if I don’t forgive everyone, then I may not be forgiven. But there are two points we need to notice. First, we are seeking forgiveness. We understand that we have sinned against God. We are asking him to forgive. And so the implication is that we would and are doing the same for those who seek our forgiveness. Second, if we truly are asking God to forgive as we forgive, we are doomed, as we could never forgive perfectly.
Matthew 6:14-15 also seems to say that if we fail to forgive, God will not forgive us. In both of these passages, we find what Leon Morris would call the aspiration of the believer and not the limitation, otherwise no one would ever be forgiven. Our greatest forgiveness is still imperfect. But we are ready and willing to forgive, and that is what we ask of God.
But then there is Jesus’s teaching through the parable of the unforgiving servant who owed a great deal to the king and the was himself owed a much smaller debt. This is in Matthew 18, where Jesus said that we are to forgive 77 times if it comes to it. But notice in this parable that the the servant acknowledged his guilt and promised to make things right; in other words, repented and begged the king for time. So did the man who owed the lessor debt. The difference was that the one who owed so much was forgiven because he repented, but the second was not forgiven though he too repented. Remember that this parable comes after the instruction for church discipline.
We are to go one on one and confront the offender just as the king settled his accounts. And if the offender listens, in other words repents, then he is to be forgiven just as the king forgave his servant. But when the servant confronted the man who owed him, but refused to forgive as he was forgiven. That is a terrible sin—to refuse to forgive the one who has repented though we have tasted forgiveness ourselves.
Let’s go to one more. In Colossians we read
Put on then, 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, so you also must forgive.
Notice once again, that we are called for forgive, but we are to forgive as we have been forgiven. Paul wrote that if one has a complaint against another, he is to take it to him. At that point, there is to be forgiveness. The implication is that there is repentance. We are to forgive as we have been forgiven, but in order for us to be forgiven, we are required to repent of our sin. If not, then we must become universalists, believing all to be saved. If God does not require repentance to extend forgiveness, then his forgiveness goes out to all and all therefore are saved. To put it another way: if he is required to give forgiveness then all will be forgiven and all will be saved.
Repentance is required for forgiveness. As R.C. Sproul has said, “Where there is no repentance we don’t have to forgive; but where there is repentance we must forgive.” Of course, the question is often asked, if they repent seven times in a day, doesn’t that show that person is insincere in his request? Again, I quote Sproul, “If a person says he is sorry, even if he is insincere, we are required to forgive him. If his apology is not genuine, that is for God to deal with, but our duty is to forgive.”
Or as another writer has said, “If ‘forgiveness’ is given prematurely without the prerequisites of confession and repentance, then the truth has not been dealt with openly by both parties. If the offender doesn’t acknowledge his sin, then he really does not understand what it means to be forgiven. In the long run, bypassing confession or repentance doesn’t help the offender to understand the significance of sin, and it precludes a sense of justice, causing the offended person to battle even more against bitterness.”
That being said, one can extend mercy. Mercy by its very definition is undeserved and therefore not required. We can certainly choose to forgive without repentance. It is a mercy upon the other person that we can freely give. But we are not required to do so. But let me give one more piece of advice, whether or not forgiveness is offered to the unrepentant, seek forbearance. Another word for it is endurance. Don’t allow the offense to get the better of you and cause bitterness.
Forgiveness Requires Reliance
Forgiveness Requires Reliance
And this takes us to the second requirement. First, forgiveness requires repentance, but secondly it requires reliance. Of course, this reliance is not upon ourselves, but upon God and his promises.
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
I know there is probably a divider in most of our Bibles, but those weren’t there originally. This response is not separated from the previous teaching that Jesus just gave. It’s all one. The response of the apostles indicates that what Jesus said was difficult and they understood that it requires faith. In fact, they believed that it required much faith. They were asking Jesus to increase their faith in this matter because forgiveness is so difficult. “Increase our faith!”
But notice what Jesus said in response. If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed...” Jesus had said something similar in Matthew 17 when the disciples couldn’t cast out a demon. Except then, he mentioned throwing a mountain into the sea. This time, he’s making the case that they could uproot a mulberry tree with such little faith.
It’s not the size of your faith. It isn’t really even the strength of your faith. It’s where your faith lies. In whom do we rely? In whom do we trust?
The idea is that it does not take much faith to uproot a mulberry tree and replant in the sea and it is simply done by saying the words. In the same way, we can speak the words of forgiveness and truly forgive through faith. Maybe they were insincere in their repentance, but we entrust that to God. We rely on God to get the details right. We rely on God to take the vengeance so we can let go of the bitterness and pain against someone.
This is what we see with Jesus on the cross. The soldiers and accusers did not repent and yet Jesus entrusted it to God, speaking the words of forgiveness himself. “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Stephen had finished preaching his sermon indicting the Jewish leaders of the sin of rebelling against God’s will. They stoned him, but before he died he entrusted them to God, speaking words of forgiveness that echoed Jesus’s words on the cross. “Lord do not hold this sin against them.”
That’s what forgiveness is. We do not hold the sin against that person. We no longer bring it up to them. We forget it in the sense that we do not judge a person by it. It is not that we forget by memory-loss, but that we keep it out of our accounting books as “love keeps no record of wrongs.” Now, we can’t do that on our own. We can only do that through faith, through our reliance upon the very God who forgives us fully and holds no sin against us ever.
Forgiveness Requires Readiness
Forgiveness Requires Readiness
And so, we come to the the last requirement of forgiveness. It not only requires repentance and reliance upon God, but it requires a readiness on our part.
“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’?
Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’?
Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?
So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”
Notice in this lesson, Jesus speaks of servants who are busy doing one thing, but when the master comes, they stop what they are doing ready to serve him. The master does not say, “I’m serving you,” but instead, calls them to serve him and they are ready to do so. And then, Jesus said that the master doesn’t even thank them because they are doing only what they are required to do in the first place.
Now, before we go too far, we need to see that Jesus is a more generous master than most masters. This is simply a statement of fact. Masters don’t tend to thank their servants for doing their jobs. However, we do see in other places that Jesus will praise his servants for doing theirs. “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
That being said, the point of this lesson is that we realize that we are only doing our duty. We are ready and willing to do that which is required of us. This is in any area of obedience for sure, but in this context, we are looking at the area of forgiveness. The Master has called upon his disciples to forgive—forgive the same person 7 times a day (in essence, completely) if it comes down to it, so long as a person states repentance.
Being in the thick of things can make it difficult to forgive. We’re out their just plowing along, tending our sheep, minding our own business, going about our Christian life, when suddenly it comes time to serve our Master in some different sort of way: forgiving the one who has repented.
We may no longer tend sheep or plow fields, but what about sitting at the dinner table and someone says something that offends then repents? Then offends again, and repents? How are we to respond? We’re at work and someone does not live up to their end of a project and they have a reputation for never contributing as they ought, but they repent. How do we respond? A parent has promised to do this thing or that thing for the umpteenth time and fails to live up to that promise. Yet they repent. How do we respond? Jesus says, we are to be ready to serve because it is a requirement of forgiveness. And when we are asked how we could forgive so quickly and so fully, our remark is, “We are unworthy servants. We do not deserve the forgiveness we’ve been given. We have only done what was our duty, and we were ready at a moment’s notice to serve in such a way.” Freely we have been forgiven; freely we forgive.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we finish this section, we’ve seen the three requirements of forgiveness. First it requires repentance, though we can show mercy if we desire. Secondly, it requires a reliance upon God because of the difficulty that comes with it. Do we trust God enough with our pain? Thirdly, forgiveness requires a readiness to serve Jesus. Do we love Jesus more than our bitterness against the offender?
Jesus was willing to die that we could be forgiven of our sins. He rose again so that we would forever be in right standing with our Father in heaven. He is no stranger to the difficulties that come with forgiveness. Our strength in forgiving others comes only because of the grace that we were given. Forgiveness always comes with a cost. We are letting go of a debt that someone else owes to us.
In forgiving such debt though, we imitate our Master. We imitate our Father.
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
May we seek, as beloved children, to imitate our Father and do what forgiveness requires: forgive upon repentance, forgive by reliance upon God, and forgive, ready at all times. When we are ready and willing to forgive, whether the offense was great or small, when we are ready and willing to forgive at a moments notice we glorify our own Redeemer who shed his precious blood that we may be forgiven.
Prayer
Our heavenly Father,
Strengthen our resolve to be good and faithful servants
ready to go from one service of labor to what can be a more difficult service of forgiveness.
May we rely upon your grace and your strength and your justice
so that we can extend forgiveness to those who repent.
If there is anyone in our lives to whom we hold a grudge
Anyone who receives our bitterness now
Who has repented but we won’t let go
May today be the day of our freedom
May today be the day of readiness.
May we who have been given your forgiveness and mercy
Imitate you as beloved children.
Let us glory in our Redeemer and glorify him forgiving as we have been forgiven.
In Jesus’s name, we pray. Amen.