Sermon Tone Analysis

Question: Why Is It So Hard to Forgive?

Answer: Because forgiveness comes at such a great cost.

We experience such incredible hurts in life, don’t we?

And our bodies and minds and hearts are not made to experience pain, and so we want to avoid it, or get rid of it by any means.

And when we are hurt, the reason its hard to forgive those that have hurt us, is because it requires us to surrender our justice for God’s.

And, if we are honest, we don’t want God’s justice in every situation, sometimes, we only want our justice.

We want our offenders to feel the pain we feel, to be brought down to submission, and to beg for our mercy and forgiveness.

We want our anger to be justified, and we want our desire for their destruction to be likewise, justified.

The thing that sin does more than anything else is that it damages relationships by using one person to wound another, or by using one person to wound his/herself.

Sin is a betrayal of trust and a disobedience to God.

Sin demands repayment, yet no one is truly able to repay the wrongs we’ve committed against each other, against ourselves, and against God.

Now, if sin cannot be repaid, how can relationships be restored?

Through forgiveness.

And here is where the progression stops for most of us.

Let’s face it.

We’ve all been hurt by others.

We’ve been betrayed, mistreated, wounded, and sadly, probably so much more.

And it is these wounds, the ones that never close, the ones for which we have not been able to come to a closure, it is these kinds of hurts that it is likely that many of us are still carrying today, and that includes some of us in this room.

Hurts from our childhood, our marriages, our kids, our parents, work, church, and so on.

Nevertheless, we read the Bible and God’s command that we forgive one another permeates the entirety of Scripture as a command from God to believers.

Colossians 3:12-13

Yet is it not an endlessly perplexing paradox that this is an explicit command that so many believers feel justified in disobeying because they feel that their own hurt gives them a pass?

We have all experienced the feeling when our anger over a particular hurt actually helps us feel better.

Doesn’t that seem strange?

Yet isn’t that so common?

Or

Of course, those are the lies that our sinful hearts tell us, and then our damaged emotions lead us into attitudes and behaviors that are anything but Christlike.

And the good feeling we think we are experiencing, and the justification we try convince ourselves that we are obtaining, is nothing more than our own euphemisms for the bondage to sin that we are caught in ourselves.

Following Jesus is not about our own justice prevailing, its about receiving the justification of Jesus Christ, according to His perfect justice.

Following Jesus is not about being right in our conclusions about one matter or another, its about being made right in and through Christ, and helping others to receive righteousness through Christ as well.

Today we are going to take a bold look at the cost of forgiveness because we need to see it on full display so that we can understand not only why it is so hard to forgive others, but also the gravity of the command to forgive that Christ gave us.

In taking this bold look, we are going to examine the crucifixion of Christ in all 4 Gospels, and hopefully we will see just how incredibly important forgiveness is, not just for the offender, but also for the one against whom the offense has been committed.

If you are here today, and you trust in Jesus, and you know that the freedom from your past hurst is available in Christ, yet you are still wearing the bonds of unforgiveness, you are here today to hear this truth on purpose.

And if you are here today and you’ve been able to overcome the hurts of your past and present through forgiveness, you are here today to be encouraged and strengthened as you live in the freedom that Christ purchased for you 2000 years ago on the cross.

Let’s pray as we come to God’s Word.

Matthew 27:32-44

Matthew

Just imagine this scene for a second.

Here is Jesus.

Even in His trial, it was clear that He had done nothing wrong, yet the crowds, who just a few days before had celebrated His arrival, were now bloodthirsty, literally, and they campaigned for the state-sanctioned murder of Jesus Christ.

Yet Jesus suffering and death was to pay God in full for such sin.

And as Jesus now is being led to the site of His death, carrying the instrument upon which He would die, He is mercilessly mocked.

He is given a bitter drink, which is so bitter, He would not drink it.

How bitter would a drink have to be for you to refuse it, after you’ve been beaten for hours and you are on the way to your death?

He is mocked and accused of being powerless to stop this.

The dare to “save Himself” rings out in the ears of our Savior, as He endures such atrocity to save us.

And before you think that, while Jesus was willing to do this, that He 100% wanted to.

Luke 22:39-44

When Jesus said, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me...” it wasn’t in response to being scared of physical pain, but it was in view of the spiritual desolation that Jesus would face as He bore our sin and God’s judgment for our sin on the cross.

That was a weight that Jesus Himself was not completely looking forward to.

Not out of disobedience, but because He knew the weight that would fall upon Him, and it was unimaginable.

Now, back to Jesus being led to Calvary.

Jesus knows the full weight of what He is doing, that will accomplish the satisfaction of God’s judgment for sin, which includes all the sin that is mocking Him, and torturing Him as He approaches Golgotha.

Now, back to Jesus being led to Calvary.

As you approach opportunities to forgive someone who has wronged you, what emotions do you feel, and what kinds of thoughts go through your head?

Are you tempted to “save yourself” and “let them eat cake” (so to speak).

Do you feel that they need to feel sorry about what they have done before you will offer your forgiveness?

Just as there was negative inertia, emotion, and action that accompanied Jesus on His journey to Calvary, we experience negative inertia when we are faced with the choice to forgive or not forgive.

Usually, the negative inertia that we face comes in the form of lies about what it really means to forgive someone.

Here are a few of those lies about forgiveness.

Forgiveness Is Not

Forgetting

We don’t forgive and forget.

We forgive and we remember.

But we no longer hold such offense against them.

God cannot forget anything.

He knows everything and He will for all eternity, yet He promises that He will separate us and our sin as far as the east is from the west ().

I know that some of us are haunted by the hurts in our past and we feel guilty because we think that, because we still remember the hurt, that we have not truly forgiven them.

But this is another lie to keep us, and our transgressors from the freedom that Christ-like forgiveness brings.

Ceasing to Feel the Pain

As we will read in just a few minutes, Jesus’ act of forgiveness did not come without pain, nor did it come without the memory of the pain.

Furthermore, His scars remained as well.

Again, I know that we wrestle and wonder if we have really forgiven someone if we still feel some of the pain.

Its not a matter of whether or not we feel the pain, but whether its our pain, or God’s Peace, that is dictating our attitudes, actions, motivations, and speech.

Automatically Trusting Again

Trust is built slowly and lost quickly, isn’t it?

To forgive someone does not mean I fully trust them right away.

The trust building process is often what takes the longest to fully realize when it comes to forgiveness between people.

Guaranteed Relational Reconciliation

Some of us have been really hurt, and some of us have been hurt by people who should not be a part of our lives.

To forgive that person in your life, does not mean you need to have an ongoing relationship with them.

If they are a danger to your life or your family’s life, then it is within the realm of biblical appropriateness to offer forgiveness, while not fully reconciling in terms of friendship or relationship.

Granted, the forgiveness of Christ in terms of salvation certainly carries with it relational reconciliation, but the truth of living in a fallen world, when it comes to non-salvation forgiveness, means that there are some people whom we will forgive, and yet not fully reconcile.

Pretending it Never Happened

Jesus is not pretending that sin never happened, that we never betrayed, that the very people He died to save willingly handed Him over to be murdered, and I submit to you that part of the God’s glory is that He overcame the worst evil with the greatest good.

Who but Christ could do such a thing?

Here again, when we forgive others, we don’t pretend that the hurt never happened.

There are a few days I can remember in my life when I have hurt others, but where forgiveness occurred.

I didn’t automatically forget what I did, nor did those I hurt, but, now, because of forgiveness, those days that are the worst days of my life, are also the best days of my life because they are the moments in which Christ conquered my sin-filled past and helped me into a Christ-led future.

Letting Them Get Away With It

How many people curse Jesus because some of the people who will be with Him in heaven have committed unspeakable acts of horror here on earth?

How many of us refuse to lay down our bonds of unforgiveness because we are afraid that if we forgive them, they will be getting away with it.

As Jesus approached Calvary, and as we will read in just a minute, it looked like, at least to most people who were there, that Christ was letting them get away with His own murder.

But it precisely the opposite that was true.

He (Jesus) was paying for that very crime, and by the way, every other crime, right then and there.

Ok, so we’ve looked briefly at the negative inertia that keeps us from forgiving by looking at what forgiveness is not, now, through the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion, let’s look at what forgiveness is.

Mark 15:33-39

Forgiveness is

The Power That Renders Sin Powerless (v.37)

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary notes: