Forgive One Another
Notes
Transcript
Text: Ephesians 4:25–32
Father, as we open Your Word today, humble our hearts before You.
Show us where anger, resentment, bitterness, or unforgiveness may have taken root in us. Keep us from hearing this message only for someone else. Help us to examine our own hearts in the light of Your truth.
Remind us again of the grace You have shown us in Christ. We have been forgiven far more than we could ever repay, and we ask that Your Spirit would produce that same grace in the way we treat one another.
Give us ears to hear, hearts willing to obey, and the courage to forgive as You have forgiven us.
May Your Word accomplish Your purpose in us today.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Over the past few weeks, we have been walking through those New Testament commands that contain two simple words:
“One another.”
We began with Jesus saying:
“Love one another.”
Love is the foundation.
Then we heard:
“Receive one another.”
Love makes room.
Last week:
“Bear one another’s burdens.”
Love gets underneath the load.
But if we are going to live closely enough to welcome one another and carry one another’s burdens, then sooner or later something else is going to happen.
We are going to hurt one another.
Not necessarily because we intend to.
But wherever real relationships exist, offenses eventually happen.
Words are spoken.
Feelings are hurt.
Expectations are disappointed.
Trust is strained.
Sometimes the offense is small.
Sometimes it is deep.
And that means a church family cannot survive on love, welcome, and burden-bearing alone.
We must also learn how to forgive.
Ephesians 4:32 says:
32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
That is our central truth today:
Because God has forgiven us in Christ, we must refuse to let bitterness take root and extend grace to one another.
Now forgiveness is not pretending something did not happen.
It is not calling evil good.
It is not saying the hurt did not matter.
Biblical forgiveness takes sin seriously.
But it also takes grace seriously.
And Paul shows us that if we refuse to deal with offenses biblically, they do not simply sit still.
They grow.
Listen to Ephesians 4:26–27 and 30–31:
26 “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath,
27 nor give place to the devil.
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.
That brings us to the first truth.
1. RECOGNIZE WHAT UNFORGIVENESS PRODUCES
1. RECOGNIZE WHAT UNFORGIVENESS PRODUCES
Paul says:
“Be angry, and do not sin.” v26
That tells us something important.
Anger itself is not always sinful.
There is such a thing as righteous anger.
Jesus became angry at sin.
God is rightly angry with wickedness.
So Paul is not saying that every feeling of anger is automatically wrong.
He is warning us about what anger can become.
He says:
“Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.” v26
In other words:
Do not feed it.
Do not nurse it.
Do not let it settle into your heart.
Because anger that is allowed to remain can turn into bitterness.
And bitterness is dangerous because bitterness rarely stays private.
It begins inside, but eventually it comes out.
Paul describes the progression:
Bitterness. Wrath. Anger. Clamor. Evil speaking. Malice.
What begins in the heart eventually affects the mouth, the attitude, and the relationship.
And then Paul says something even more serious:
“Nor give place to the devil.” v27
Unresolved anger creates an opportunity.
It gives the enemy room to work.
That does not mean every disagreement is demonic.
But it does mean Satan loves to take unresolved offenses and use them to create division.
A hurt becomes resentment.
Resentment becomes distance.
Distance becomes suspicion.
Suspicion becomes gossip.
And before long, people who once worshiped together hardly speak to one another.
That is why Paul says:
Deal with it.
Do not let bitterness take root.
Bitterness is a little like a splinter left beneath the skin.
At first it may seem small.
But if you leave it there, infection can set in.
And eventually the problem becomes much larger than the original wound.
That is what unforgiveness does.
The original offense may have happened months or years ago.
But if bitterness is allowed to remain, it keeps the wound alive.
And sometimes the person who hurt you has moved on, but you are still carrying them around in your heart.
They are not paying the debt anymore.
You are.
And Paul says that is not how the people of God are meant to live.
Then he adds:
“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” v30
That means bitterness is not merely a relational problem.
It is a spiritual problem.
When we harbor resentment, speak maliciously, and refuse to forgive, we grieve the Spirit who lives within us.
So before Paul tells us what forgiveness looks like, he tells us what must go.
Bitterness has to go.
Malice has to go.
The desire to wound someone back has to go.
And that raises the question:
If we put those things away, what takes their place?
Listen to verse 32:
32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
That gives us the second truth.
2. REPLACE BITTERNESS WITH CHRISTLIKE GRACE
2. REPLACE BITTERNESS WITH CHRISTLIKE GRACE
Paul does not simply tell us:
“Stop being angry.”
He gives us something better.
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.”
That is important because Christianity is not merely about putting off sinful behavior.
It is about putting on a new way of life.
Bitterness is replaced with kindness.
Hardness is replaced with tenderness.
Resentment is replaced with forgiveness.
Paul says:
“Be kind.”
Kindness seeks the good of another person.
Then he says:
“Tenderhearted.”
That means we do not allow hurt to turn our hearts to stone.
And then:
“Forgiving one another.”
That word carries the idea of graciously releasing someone from a debt.
That is one of the clearest ways to understand forgiveness.
When someone wrongs us, we naturally begin keeping an account.
What they said.
What they did.
How much it hurt.
What they owe us.
And if we are not careful, we become spiritual accountants.
We keep the ledger.
We remember every entry.
We rehearse the debt again and again.
And every time we see that person, we mentally pull out the account book.
Forgiveness says:
“I will not spend the rest of my life trying to collect this debt from you.”
Now that does not mean consequences disappear.
Forgiveness and trust are not exactly the same thing.
Trust may need to be rebuilt.
Wisdom may require boundaries.
Serious sin may need to be confronted.
Forgiveness does not mean pretending justice does not matter.
It means I surrender personal vengeance.
Romans 12:19 says:
19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
That means forgiveness is not saying:
“What you did was okay.”
It is saying:
“I am placing justice in God’s hands instead of carrying the role of judge myself.”
And that is difficult.
Sometimes people make forgiveness sound easy.
It is not always easy.
There are wounds that go deep.
There are betrayals that leave scars.
There are words that cannot be unheard.
But Paul is not grounding forgiveness in how small the offense was.
He grounds it somewhere else.
He grounds it in what God has done for us.
Listen to the rest of verse 32:
32 ...forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
And that brings us to the heart of the message.
3. REMEMBER HOW GOD HAS FORGIVEN YOU
3. REMEMBER HOW GOD HAS FORGIVEN YOU
Paul does not say:
“Forgive because they deserve it.”
He does not say:
“Forgive because they apologized perfectly.”
He does not say:
“Forgive because the offense was small.”
He says:
“Forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
The model for our forgiveness is God’s forgiveness of us.
So ask the question:
How has God forgiven us?
He forgave us when our sin was real.
He forgave us when our guilt was real.
He forgave us when our debt was greater than we could ever repay.
And He did not simply ignore our sin.
The debt was paid.
But it was paid by Christ.
At the cross, Jesus took the judgment our sin deserved.
He bore our guilt.
He paid our debt.
And because of His sacrifice, everyone who repents and believes is forgiven.
That means every Christian lives every day as a forgiven sinner.
We do not stand before God because we earned mercy.
We stand because mercy was given to us in Christ.
And people who understand how much they have been forgiven should become people who know how to forgive.
Jesus told a story in Matthew 18 about a servant who owed a king an enormous debt—more than he could ever repay.
The king forgave him.
But that same servant went out and found someone who owed him a much smaller debt and refused to forgive.
The point was obvious.
He had received mercy but had not understood mercy.
Church, that is the danger.
We can sing about grace.
Preach about grace.
Thank God for grace.
And then refuse to show grace.
But the cross will not allow us to boast in forgiveness while living in bitterness.
The closer we stand to the cross, the harder it becomes to keep a ledger against someone else.
Because at the cross we remember:
My debt was greater.
And Christ paid it.
Now that does not make another person’s sin against us unimportant.
But when we remember how deeply we have sinned against God and how fully He has forgiven us in Christ, it humbles us and changes the way we view the wrongs others have done to us.
And suddenly we remember how much grace we have received.
That is what Paul means:
“Even as God in Christ forgave you.”
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
So church, here is the message of Ephesians 4.
When anger begins to settle in your heart:
Recognize what unforgiveness produces.
When bitterness begins to harden you:
Replace it with Christlike grace.
And when forgiveness feels impossible:
Remember how God has forgiven you.
Love one another.
Welcome one another.
Bear one another’s burdens.
And now:
Forgive one another.
Because you cannot live closely with people without eventually needing forgiveness.
And you cannot live long at the foot of the cross without realizing how much forgiveness you have already received.
Maybe today there is a name in your mind.
A conversation.
An offense.
A wound you have been rehearsing.
You may not be able to repair everything today.
You may not be able to restore trust immediately.
But you can begin by refusing to let bitterness own your heart.
You can place justice in God’s hands.
You can stop feeding the anger.
You can remember the grace you have received.
And by the power of the Spirit, you can begin to forgive.
Because the gospel does not merely create forgiven people.
It creates forgiving people.
May The Ridge be a church where offenses do not become roots of bitterness, where grace is stronger than resentment, where truth and love remain together, and where forgiven people learn to forgive one another.
“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
Father, thank You for the forgiveness You have given us through Jesus Christ.
Thank You that our sin was not ignored, but that Christ bore our guilt and paid the debt we could never pay.
Now help us to live as people who have truly understood that grace.
Where bitterness has taken root, help us put it away. Where anger has lingered, give us the humility to deal with it. Where someone has wounded us, give us the strength to place justice in Your hands and refuse to keep rehearsing the debt.
Make us kind to one another, tenderhearted, and forgiving, just as You have forgiven us in Christ.
May The Ridge be a church where the love of Christ is seen clearly—in the way we welcome one another, carry one another’s burdens, and forgive one another.
Guard our unity, shape our hearts, and make us more like Jesus.
In His name we pray, amen.
