Fully Formed - Forgiveness

Pray with me

Friends if you’re able, please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Colossians 3:12–17 CSB

Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

This is the word of the Lord - please be seated.

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Friends, I’m so glad you’re here with us today. If you’ve been around here the past month, you know that we are in a series on Revelation - today however we are taking a monthly reprieve. We want to make sure that we have a regular monthly rhythm to Church Mission and Values. To make sure we stay on mission and focused on who we are and what we do.

So first, who are we?

The Seed Community Church is a congregations of believers called by Jesus Christ to Love God, Love Others, and make disciples of all nations. Partnering with the C&MA, we want to see the gospel proclaimed globally, and see ourselves primarily partnering with God to raise the spiritual temperature of south eastern South Dakota. That’s who we are.

What do we do, how do we do that? that raising of the spiritual temperature - We partner with God by being Fully Focused on God and his word primarily on Sunday mornings, by being Fully Formed by the Spirit in Community primarily in our community groups during the week, and by being Fully Engaged with God on mission in our daily lives and with different outreach ministries.

This is what we want to do, and be about - Focus on God, be Formed by God, and Engage with God on Mission - and truly, i believe that by doing so we will continue to see the temperature of our area raised.

And so once a month we are going to take a Sunday to reflect and refocus on our call so we can better get after it. And today I want to talk about the formation part of what we do - being Fully Formed by the Spirit in Community.

To make disciples we need to be disciples. We need to become more and more like Jesus.

All righteousness if from God - holiness is Christ in us, as it were. And when we are born again by grace through faith in Christ - we are justified, or positionally made new and righteous in God’s sight. That is the miracle of Salvation - so it’s appropriate then in 2 Corinthians 5:17 to say

2 Corinthians 5:17 CSB

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!

For that is Jesus’ life in us. Justification. We are justified in God’s sight, declared righteous by the blood of Jesus.

Then there is the journey of the righteousness being made evident in the here and now - being made holy - we call this sanctification. I think of 2 Corinthians 3:18

2 Corinthians 3:18 CSB

We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

We ARE being transformed into the same image of God - glory to glory - and this is from the Lord. And we partner with him in this journey of sanctification in discipleship, and spiritual formation.

And so we need to be focused on how we make disciples, and how we change and are formed. Practicing the Way uses this model for their theory of Change, and I want to show it again. *practicing the Way theory of change slide*

We are declared righteous, but we change by the Holy Spirit working through teaching, by practicing and engaging with God, and in community, over time through the hard knocks of life.

With the advent of podcasts and you tube - many of us have good and bad teaching flying at us all the time. And we’ve been doing the practices in our community groups - and so a lot of people think - okay God, sermons, and I pray and read my Bible - and I would observe that our growth is still stunted as we try and do it by ourselves - a lone.

WE are the Church, WE are the Bride of Christ. But we are culturally hyper-individualistic and struggle to do life in community. Even though our culture is desperate for community - we have baggage and therefore we would rather jettison community and just grip the wheels of life and do #MeandJesus through life.

Friend - we are called to be one. Unified. Going through life together. And I would argue that our growth into Christ is dependent on our “with-ness” with God and with each other. We are called to submit to one another and to christ together. Talk about counter cultural.

But for a lot of us, we live in resentment, we live in half truths, and we live in a lot of unforgiveness. So we end up being alone in a crowded room.

Friends look at the passage we started with today Colossians 3:12-17

Colossians 3:12–17 CSB

Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

In my Bible I have written on the side of this section “I want a church like this!” But it takes grit.

“Bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are to also to forgive.”

Can I be so bold, I think a lot of Christian communities get stunted because we don’t do the hard work of bearing with another and true forgiveness. So our community get’s stunted and stays surface level. But the call to forgive “as the Lord has forgiven you” isn’t a suggestion it’s a command.

So today, in order to help us be fully formed by the spirit in Community. I want to talk about forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a great idea - and we love to receive it, however, I think of this quote by C.S.Lewis.

Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.3520

C. S. Lewis

The fact is forgiveness is difficult, and hard, and costly by it’s very nature. I would argue one reason we struggle with forgiveness is we struggle to count the cost first.

Most people end up going through life tied up in bitterness, anxiety, and unforgiveness. And Satan would love nothing more then for our community to be united in name only without truly being a place where we forgive sins.

Let’s be honest - in this space right now there is almost certainly unforgiveness, bitterness, callousness. There may be even at time a faux-unity and vulnerability. Friends, we need to continually remember count the cost and forgive.

John Chrysostom, an early church father wrote this.

Nothing causes us to so nearly resemble God as the forgiveness of injuries.

John Chrysostom

To forgive is to be like God. So many times however, we struggle to recognize the injuries that incurred before we offer forgivness, so we say we forgive someone, but them a week later we realize that we are still actually really hurt by the action - we just didn’t take the time to recognize all the ways that we were harmed first.

At a recent conference I attended, Dr Mary Westergren shared this quote from John Starke and his book “The Possibility of Prayer”

Too often I move on quickly when others cause me pain. I’m not honest about the inner bitterness and anger stewing. I put a pillow over it so that no one sees and hope that maybe it’ll be forgotten. But at some point, it does come out. Eventually, it will find its way out, but it won’t be a prayer or lament. Instead, it will be malice and suffering either in me or toward my neighbor. John Starke; The Possibility of Prayer

In other words - we know that as good Christians that we are supposed to forgive, but we haven’t count the cost, so though we want to forgive, we haven’t actually realized what that means. So we find out that we become hardened towards people that we apparently forgiven.

I think of this quote from Tim Keller in his book on Forgiveness:

“To forgive someone’s debt to you is to absorb the debt yourself. If a friend borrows your car, totals it through reckless driving, and hasn’t any ability to remunerate you financially, you may say, ‘I forgive you,’ but the price of the wrong does not evaporate into the air. You either find the money to buy a new car or you go without one. Either way, forgiveness means the cost of the wrong moves from the perpetrator to you, and you bear it. Forgiveness, then, is a form of voluntary suffering.” Tim Keller; Forgive

It’s not often i feel that we think of forgiveness as voluntary suffering and absorbing the cost - but is that not the model we see from King Jesus on the cross? Absorbing the suffering and debt himself so that we can be forgiven of that debt and reconciled to God the father?

This is where the phrase in Colossians bearing with one any other comes from, I believe. We are called to bear with one another! Meaning we will continue to offend each other and wrong each other - most of the time without realizing it - but sometimes we will indeed harm each other with wrong intent - and we are called to bear with each other and forgive.

Nothing reflects the character of God more than us extending forgiveness to each other - absorbing the debt ourselves to allow someone else to walk free. This kind of forgiveness is only ultimately possible in and of the Spirit of God. Where we consider the horizontal person to person reality, but also the vertical of we forgive because we were forgiven. We have the capacity to forgive much because we have been forgiven much. We need both! We must be a community of grace, but not cheap grace, no grace, or little - but costly and extravagant Grace that only makes sense because of the extravagant love of God poured out on us.

So how do we become a community of love and forgiveness? How should we even define forgiveness? What does it look like to become a community of love and unity that resembles the triune God we worship?

Lysa Teurkuerst in her book “Forgiving what You cannot Forget” defines forgiveness as such

Forgiveness: the heartfelt decision to graciously release the person who hurt you from the moral obligation incurred when you were mistreated.

Love that - it’s a good definition. It’s a decision to release.

She then divides the fact of what happened from the impact of what happened as a result the fact.

We decide to forgive the event. The Fact. That’s a decision.

Then we need to deal with the impact of the wrong - and that can be a process with The Spirit to heal. And that takes time. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t decided to forgive.

She has a graph that looks like this: *decision to forgive to full healing and release*

We decide to forgive the action that happened - and then it takes time to fully be healed from the impact of the wrong doing.

What can happen if we are not intentional is we don’t make a decision to forgive, we just say the words, and then when we still feel emotions that come out of the effects of the wrong doing, we are conflicted and feel that perhaps we haven’t actually forgiven. So we live embittered and hidden, offering no real forgiveness, and living in woundedness. So we pull away from community, grow cold, grow distant.

I want to offer a resource of how to actually forgive when it comes to community, first though, We need to recognize that not all offenses are the same, some are easier to forgive then others. Mary Westergren uses the analogy of different denominations of money.

First, that of nickel offenses. What’s an example of a potential nickel offense? *take some answers* think small things that offend us, perhaps a side-eyed glance, a weird comment, someone cutting you off in a conversation - they are offenses, but aren’t deep wounds. These may be offenses that we are able to decide to forgive with little or no impact on our lives, and perhaps even without needing to talk to the offender.

Then there are five dollar offenses. These hurt - perhaps when a manger at work chews you out wrongly. A cutting comment from a spouse that hits your core - any other ideas of five dollar wounds? *take answers* yeah these hurt - but they aren’t the end of the world. These offenses are significantly more costly then nickel wounds - and often times require us to let the offender know that the offense hurt us to try and stop the pain from stacking up - but still are not the most costly to forgive.

Then there are 50 dollar wounds. Tell you what - a random fifty dollar expense is a really bad day. Ideas behind fifty dollar wounds?

Two more - there are hundred dollar wounds - these are the true deep offenses - think abuse, divorce, betrayal of trust - deep wounds that cost a lot.

And there is one more - Mary Westergren calls it a piggy bank full of nickels that over time becomes so heavy that it breaks. Where one nickel wound would have been easy to forgive, we have just allowed the debt to pile up and now bitterness comes out of us, and what would have been easier to forgive one at a time now is a costly load. While all of these denominations of expense are perhaps present - i think a lot of people struggle with the piggy bank of nickels especially in our culture. Those little offenses add up, and instead of recognizing the cost and forgiving them - we just let it stack up.

All of the wounds we need to forgive - but we need to recognize that we are going to handle these wounds and offenses differently because they effect us in different ways and cost different amounts. Forgiving someone who accidentally interrupts you in conversation is a lot easier then forgiving a father who abused you and has since passed away.

These are going to require different things of us as we count the cost and work towards forgiveness.

With that in mind, I want to share with you the REACH model for forgiveness from Everett Worthington Jr has written about in his book Forgiving and Reconciling.

It’s a 5 step journey R E A C H or Reach model.

So with offenses, when someone offends you, step one is

R - Recall The Hurt

Sometimes we don’t realize that we have been offended at first, but then usually when we slow down, we realize that we have been hurt. The first step towards forgivness is recalling the hurt. This is work that needs to be done with the Holy Spirit. And if you’re dealing with 100 dollar wounds, abuse, catastrophe, etc, it’s best done with a guide too.

Id suggest praying taking some time and ask the Spirit: “Spirit, guide me. Lord protect me, Father lead me into the truth of the matter here.”

And when we recall the hurt, let’s be really specific about our emotions- perhaps it’s best to write this out. For example perhaps someone made a rude comment to you after church you would perhaps write:

At first I was surprised that they would make such a comment, then i felt that those words actually hurt me. The more i dwell on those words, I feel anger and ashamed. Now I feel resentment towards this person - they never even considered me or how the words would make me feel. I don’t want to be around them. Ultimately I am sad that this situation happened.

See how in this example we got really curious about how the comment affected us? We are naming the emotions that well up in us. For smaller offenses this may be easier: “Gosh that really annoyed me.” Ask the question why, get curious about your heart, bring it to God, and recall the hurt.

Again if there is a deep wound here - do it with a consoler or coach.

Step 2

E - Empathize With The Offender

Generally immediately - especially with deeper hurts we can immediately react to this: “I don’t want to empathize with them!”

And for a number of reasons, “But I’m the one who got hurt, not them! They should have empathized with me!” or “Are you saying that that was okay?” or “What if they hurt others?” or “But i’m worried if I empathized then I might forget about the wrong doing and i don’t want to do that!”

All those thoughts are normal - but we must remember that while we were still sinners Christ died for us, amen? So with the help of the Lord, we can look into the offender with empathy - and they can still be wrong and the offenders! But we need to realize that our battle isn’t against flesh and blood. The offender, as wrong as they may be, are still made in the image of God.

Dr. Westergren offers the following advice when it comes to consider empathy towards the offenders,: Soft emotions are usually behind hard emotions. People are influenced by their situations. People are hard-wired for survival. People are conditioned by past experiences. and People don’t think things through when they are hurting.

So we should pray that God helps us, and then ask the following questions:

What do you believe to be true about your offender and how might these things have contributed to the offense? If he or she could understand how they hurt you, and what it cost you, what might they say?

I find it much easier to journal this stuff down, as my mind is prone to wander and become unfocused.

After we have recalled the hurt, and with God empathized with the offender, we move on to

step 3:

A - Altruistic Gift Of Forgiveness

This is where we choose, we decide to forgive. Not based on the offender deserving it - but because we want to extend the same grace that was given to us.

We can do this even to people who it is not safe to be around, and to people who have passed away. This is a decision to no longer count the offense against them. It’s a release, and it strips the barnacles from our souls too.

While the goal is reconciliation - and ultimately that can only be found in and through the Gospel of Christ, we need to recognize that reconciliation may not be fully possible here and now.

I think of this quote by Jones and Musakura:

Even if reconciliation is not possible, we move forward to a place where we recognize our yearning for reconciliation. This involves a yearning for reconciliation with our individual offender as well as a larger awareness of how deeply we need reconciliation amidst our faith communities. (Jones and Musakura)

I love that - we move forward to a place where we recognize our yearning for reconciliation.

Dr. Bill Willson, the founder of The Center For Healthy Churches teaches and writes about different levels when it comes to forgiveness and trust. *make slide here*

Decisional Forgiveness-involves one person; I agree to control my negative behavior toward another person; located in the past. Emotional Forgiveness- involves one person; I seek to replace my negative emotions with the Fruit of the Spirit; located in the past, affecting the present. Reconciliation- involves two or more persons; apology or acknowledgement of wrong- doing or a need for change is likely necessary; located in the present. Trust-Located in the future; I must analyze the risk of this happening again and what I will open myself up to; we behave ourselves back into a trusting relationship.

The idea is we need to decide to forgive what happened in the past. choosing to control our behavior.

Then comes emotional forgivness,

Reconciliation involves two or more people - meaning there needs to be a conversation about what transpired and an acknowledgement of what occured. This is not always possible - sometimes due to death, sometimes due to lack of safety or understanding. But our hearts can still desire this.

Then comes trust. You can have forgiveness and even be reconciled, but depending on the offense, it can still take time for trust to grow again.

But we choose forgiveness, and ask God to help our hearts desire reconciliation. And this is a free gift we offer as we received from God.

The fourth and fifth step go hand and hand

Fourth is

C - Commit To Forgive

We choose. We decide. and we commit.

Then the final is

H - Hold On To Forgiveness

It is normal to question whether or not we have forgiven, when our emotions come up when we encounter the person - especially depending on the wound.

Dr. Westergren offers a few things to remember:

We will get hurt again by the person we forgive

We will remember the offense we wish we could forget, and we will wonder if we truly forgave

Awkwardness is just awkwardness… that feeling doesn’t mean you haven’t forgiven

All together the model is

R - Recall The Hurt

E - Empathize With The Offender

A - Altruistic Gift Of Forgiveness

C - Commit To Forgive

H - Hold On To Forgiveness

Here’s the reality of the situation, friends, if we want to see the spiritual temperature of south eastern south dakota raised - and I know I do, and I think you do - if we want that but we are unwilling to put into practice radical forgivness in our own community, then we are on a fools errand. Gospel kingdom culture is one that is permeated by radical honesty and forgiveness.

When we offered each other - AND WE HAVE AND WE WILL, we ought to be quick to confess, and we should do the hard work of forgiveness, bearing with one another in love, and reconciling.

The change has to start in the here and now.

I love you all. And I also know that I have perhaps wronged some of you. None of us are perfect, we are human and becoming like Jesus day by day as the Spirit works - we are going to offened each other.

But if we want to partner with God, yes we need to focus on God, and we need to engage with him - but we need to be Fully Formed by the Spirit in Community and that means we need to be real about our issues with each other and submit to each other and let forgiveness and reconciliation pour out here.

Our culture is hungry for that lived out Gospel. I know I am.

So I want to encourage us to be honest.

Sometimes we want to pretend like we are more spiritual then we are and we say: “Oh nothing offends me.” all the while it really does. And instead of forgiving we just pretend like we are okay.. until we aren’t.

But what would it look like if we put into practice Colossians 3:12-17

Colossians 3:12–17 CSB

Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

What would it look like if we were compassionate, kind, and humble with each other. if we were gentle and patient. If we bore with one another and forgave the grievances we had. What if we chose love and unity. What if we chose gratefulness. What if we taught and admonished each other through psalms and hymns and songs, and what if we did all things in the name of Jesus.

So what?

Friends - can we put this into practice? Can we practice radical confession and forgiveness and pray for reconciliation? That kind of love will change the world.

As we come here week after week, the chances of frustrating each other goes up exponentially each week in the flesh. So let’s do the hard work of forgiving the nickels. Address the hurt with the offender when we cant forgive.

If we notice that we offended someone, honestly submit to your sister or brother and ask for forgiveness.

Let’s put into practice the radical gospel of Grace and push back satan and shame by forgiving each other and by being honest when we mess up and come up short. We don’t need to pretend like things are all okay all the time. We are human, and all of us are in process. Let’s abound in grace for each other, and ourselves.

Imagine the freedom we could all walk in if we free each other of the debts. If we preach the gospel to ourselves and each other with “You are forgiven.” That will raise the temperature of our region REAL quick.

If you are working through forgiveness and need a coach, please let me know and i’m happy to help you or help you find someone to help you walk through that,

But today, I want to put this into practice as we look to the Lord’s Supper.

Communion

The go to text for communion comes from 1 Corinthians 11, and the words are familiar - “I received form the lord what I also passed on to you:” and it goes on -

But the passage starts with a rebuke, look at 1 Corinthians 11:17-22

1 Corinthians 11:17–22 CSB

Now in giving this instruction I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse. For to begin with, I hear that when you come together as a church there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. Indeed, it is necessary that there be factions among you, so that those who are approved may be recognized among you. When you come together, then, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. For at the meal, each one eats his own supper. So one person is hungry while another gets drunk! Don’t you have homes in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you? I do not praise you in this matter!

Paul is saying that the church in Corinth wasn’t regarding each other - and in fact some were coming to the lords supper and getting drunk! Crazy. And then he continues with the popular instruction: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 (CSB)

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

But paul continues. Let me read the rest of the chapter for us here: verses 27 - 34

1 Corinthians 11:27–34 CSB

So, then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself; in this way let him eat the bread and drink from the cup. For whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. This is why many are sick and ill among you, and many have fallen asleep. If we were properly judging ourselves, we would not be judged, but when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned with the world. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, welcome one another. If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home, so that when you gather together you will not come under judgment. I will give instructions about the other matters whenever I come.

Notice - we out to take a moment and recognize the body. That is both recognizing Jesus - but in context, the church. We need to consider each other! If we are in deep conflict with a brother or sister we ought to recognize that - settle the matter, decide to forgive, and then take communion.

So friends, we are going to move to a time of communion, but I want to ask us to enter in. Friends, we are doing life together, and I know that we can frustrate each other. If there is some forgiveness or confession or reconciliation that needs to happen, let’s do that work now.

If you need to confess to someone, would you do that before going to the table? If you need to forgive someone, would you go do that now?

If you need to confess sin or bitterness, would you confess - I will be off to the side if you want to confess to a pastor, and the elders are around, but find someone near you too - we can step into the fray for each other.

Don’t let communion just be a religious box check - but would we recognize the body. And seek to be reconciled vertically with God, but horizontally with each other.

BE BOLD friend. There is no condemnation for those in Christ - so confess, forgive, and be reconciled.

Let’s have a few moments of work with God, then the team will come up and we can take communion - but friend - if there some business that comes to mind - someone you need to forgive or something you need to confess, I exhort you, do that now, then come and participate in Communion. Don’t wait till tomorrow to release your brother or sister, or to confess and receive forgiveness.

I know this can be intense, as you may have bitterness towards someone who has no idea - you may only now realize your holding on to a fist full of nickels from offenses. It’s time to let them down and be reconciled to God and each other. Let’s be bold, and let’s love each other and God well by being unified.

Let me pray.