Forgiveness & Grace
Do you remember a time in your life where you were forgiven for something that you had done? Whether or not you had claimed it was an accident, you knew down inside that you had done something wrong, and when confronted by the truth you confessed, and the person you had hurt simply forgave you?
I think it is the most freeing thing to be on the receiving end of forgiveness, and knowing that you are truly forgiven.
The Bible speaks often of the forgiveness that God has shown to us.
Colossians 1 says (13-14)
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom
of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
1 John 1 says (9) - If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Psalm 103 tells us that - as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Years ago I had been really hurt by someone. This classmate had bullied me all through Jr High School, he made life really difficult. I was excited when he switched schools for grade 10, but then in high school he turned my two best friends against me. University comes and things are finally going better when this guy shows up again… and my girlfriend leaves me for him. Needless to say, I was not a fan of this guy and did not want anything to do with him for all that he had done over the previous 8 years. Well, a few months later he came to me with a heartfelt apology, confessing that he knew he had hurt me, and saying that he didn’t want to keep going down that path, but wanted instead to be friends. It was huge, and I told him at that time that I forgave him. And on some levels I really did.
But there was part of me that wanted to see him experience some of the hurt I had been through. It was horrible of me to think that, but our world tells that us that what goes around comes around, and I really wanted to see some “justice”, so to speak. Well, after a few months of being friends, he brings me a flash drive of video files. See, my new friend was training to be a police officer, and he had just brought me some of their training videos of his class that he thought were cool and wanted to share them. Things like offensive driving tactics, and hand to hand combat drills. But there was one video on there that I have to admit, fed that unforgiveness deep down. It was the taser training video. I got to watch my high school bully who had later stolen my girlfriend, get tasered in the - uh - hind quarters, while his sergeant screamed at him “CRAWL! CRAWL!!” Guilty pleasure much? I watched it, a dozen or so times, and kept thinking, “yeah, he had that coming.” WHY?!
Why are we so willing to place our trust in this idea of karma, that good brings good - and evil brings evil, that one day soon this person who has hurt us will reap the consequences of their wrongs against us? Why are we so quick to declare ourselves innocent for what we’ve done, justified of any wrong, but then we want to see others fall and be crushed for hurting us? Why, even as believers in God do we look for this immediacy of judgement on others, but are unwilling to put our trust in a God who is the righteous judge. He is Holy, He is perfect, He is Just, and He says that in the last day He will judge the world.
Maybe we see His mercy and His love and we think that this person who has done wrong against us might get off the hook for their sin! We ask, “What if they repent and God forgives them? Then they won’t be punished for what they’ve done wrong? That’s not fair at all! Look how they hurt me. I know that God has forgiven me, but the things I’ve done wrong are not anywhere close to what they’ve done.”
We can even start comparing a person who has slighted or cheated us to the worst of the worst as we try to justify ourselves.
What if they had killed children? Could they just repent and ask God to forgive them and that would be that? Yes.
Then we need to escalate it: Well what if it was Hitler?! What if Hitler, after all that he had done, turned to God, could HITLER be forgiven for the millions that he killed? That is too far, there is a line that he crossed, and there is no way that God could forgive him. That would not be just, and I could not believe in a God who could let something like that go.
Well… the truth is that they’re right, He can’t just let that go. He didn’t just let that go. Jesus took on the full wrath of God when He died on that cross. He took it on for you, and He took it on for me. For anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who puts their trust in Jesus and surrenders their life to Him, will be covered by His blood from the wrath and judgement of God. It wasn’t just wiped clean without a second thought. Jesus felt it all. Though He Himself was God, the sin that he bore on that cross, the sin of murderers, and rapists, and thieves, and liars, and cheaters; our sin, separated Him from God as He cried out “My God my God, why have you forsaken me?” But as hung there from that cross his heart broke even for the men who were killing him, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” As he was being executed, he was asking God to forgive the people who were responsible for it, that includes us.
[go over to the cross]
It’s as if the wrath of God was a massive explosion that was coming, and Jesus on the cross was able to stop everything from passing by him. For us to fall under the salvation of the gospel of Christ, and be forgiven of our own wickedness, we need to come in behind the cross and let Jesus shield us from that blast. We need to take on the form of Christ, choosing to deny our old shape, pick up our cross, and follow Christ. It is about becoming like Him in HIS death.
That is what we are confessing when we say that we are a Christian. That is what we are proclaiming when we get baptised. That we are wanting to die to our old self, our old ways of doing things, and choosing instead to live for Christ and for His bride, the church.
Jesus bore the punishment for us. He forgave us for our crimes that, though little in our own eyes, deserved the death sentence before a Holy God.
Forgiving others is so foundational to the path we must walk as Christians.
In Matthew chapter 6 Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray.
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’
He then explains what it means to ask God to forgive you of your debts or sins, as you forgive others. He says, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
That seems harsh! What if I have only ever told a few lies, and really only hated one person, but someone else has now kidnapped my prize winning llama. I have to forgive them or I won’t be forgiven?
What Jesus is saying here is that when we understand what WE have done, and the sins we committed that have separated us from God, and we see the forgiveness and mercy shown to us by God, who has every right to find us guilty. What position are we putting ourselves in if we, already guilty ones, are choosing to not forgive another guilty person? Are we saying that we are better than God himself?
Now, a quick caveat before I go further. Forgiving does not always mean forgetting. It does not mean that you must keep bringing a person back into your life for them to hurt you over and over again. There are times where you must remove someone from your life because of the hurt and abuse they continue to cause. But placing that into the hands of God is the only way to move forward. Holding onto that anger and bitterness is only going to hurt you in the end.
One day in Edmonton I met an East Indian man on the bus, his name was Prabdeep. He and I got talking, and he shared with me a saying they have in India. He said “Carey, bitterness is drinking a cup of poison and hoping the other person dies.” Holding onto anger and bitterness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person is the one who dies. That’s not how poison works my friends. Knowing that we have been forgiven and made free by God should make us the most gracious and forgiving people when we have been hurt by others.
In Matthew 18, Jesus is asked a question about how many times we need to forgive others:
Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold [this is millions of dollars worth of gold] was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Can you imagine being millions in debt, and having it forgiven? Then to go out that same day and have someone arrested because they owed you $50 and hadn’t paid you back yet? Jesus is saying that’s what is happening when we choose to not forgive others. We wish that God would open up a can of justice on their -uh- hind quarters, but don’t remember that he just let us go free even though we had done so much more against Him.
Forgiveness frees you of the burden of waiting for the person to get tasered by the police, and it allows you to see that you yourself have been forgiven by God and can now live free.
It’s not easy to do. And I will admit, it’s not the popular thing to do. I have even read some Christian publications from the States recently that say things like “it’s okay to hold onto anger towards someone if they really deserve it.” The world is making us as Christians want to justify our own sin and hatred of others, but that’s not what we were called to! This idea of the incomprehensible forgiveness that we are asked to show to others is getting more and more radical by the day, even within circles that claim to follow Jesus.
On a brisk Monday morning in Lancaster County Pennsylvania, Charles Roberts and his wife Marie walked their kids to the schoolbus. Charles kissed his wife goodbye and left for work as he did every day. He was the milkman for the local Amish community, picking up their dairy and taking it to market. But this day was different. Charles went instead to the one room schoolhouse of the Amish, and took all 10 of the young girls in class hostage. He barricaded himself in the classroom, and as the police descended on the school, he proceeded to shoot each of these girls before killing himself.
Indescribable evil. His poor wife at home had found suicide notes written to her and each of the kids, and had desperately tried to stop it, but he had made his choice.
A few hours later, Marie was sitting at home with her parents, completely beside herself with grief at what her husband had done, when she saw several Amish men walking up her driveway. She asked her dad, who had been the milkman there for decades, to go speak with them. She was sure they were coming to point the finger and say “Do you know what your husband has done?!” One of the men there had lost a daughter that morning, another his granddaughter.
But Marie watched through the curtains as her father was met with tears and and an embrace. These men had not come to condemn her for the evil her husband had done just hours before, but they had come to see how Marie and her children were as they had just lost their husband and father. These men had come to show her love and compassion, as they knew that she must be devastated as well.
The quotes out of the Amish community that day blew the world away.
"We must not think evil of this man."
another, "He had a mother and a wife and a soul and now he's standing before a just God."
And, "I don't think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts."
Incredible. Having 5 girls killed, and another 5 in critical condition in the hospital, and extending forgiveness to the man who committed these horrible acts, and to his family.
Some commentators criticized the quick and complete forgiveness with which the Amish responded, arguing that forgiveness is inappropriate when no remorse has been expressed, and that such an attitude runs the risk of denying the existence of evil...
But the Amish then explained that their willingness to forgo vengeance does not undo the tragedy or pardon the wrong, but rather constitutes a first step toward a future that is more hopeful.
One of the most powerful things that I saw in the weeks after the shooting, was on the day of the funeral for Charles Roberts.
The Amish creating a human wall to prevent news media crews from photographing the grieving family of the shooter, Charles Roberts, during his funeral. This is significant for several reasons. First, because it’s the funeral for the man who shot, killed, and grievously wounded their children. Second, because the Amish believe that photographs violate the Biblical commandment, "Thou shalt not make unto thyself a graven image." They want to be remembered by the lives they lived and the examples they left, not by physical appearance. So these men and women forming a human wall to shield the Roberts’ family from the media is an incredible act of selfless love for another, even the family of a man who could be considered their enemy.
Are we willing to ask God to help us to forgive those we feel have wronged us in some way? It may be something small, a slight, a cruel word, or it may have been something terribly huge. But God wants us to show love to those who hate us, even those we consider our enemies. He wants us to pray for those who persecute us, and cause us harm.
I’m not saying that this is easy.
I’m not saying that this will be popular.
I’m saying that this is what Christ did for us a thousand times over on the cross,
And that He is asking us to do in our own lives today.
Pray for grace for others, pray for a heart that understands how much you have been forgiven. Because if we are holding onto hatred and unforgiveness of others, do we really understand what Jesus has done for us on the cross? He is victorious, and one day He will judge the living and the dead. Which side of the cross do you want to be on? Let’s fall at His feet, because when we confess our sins he IS faithful and just to forgive us, and he WILL cleanse us, purify us, from everything we have done wrong.
