Hands-Free Forgiveness

Hands-Free Forgiveness Colossians 3:12-14 Today’s world seems to be getting crazier every day, doesn’t it? I mean, we have a country fearing the Coronavirus. We have politicians bashing their opponents and people bashing the politicians. Cities are growing larger, and so is the crime rate. AIDS and other diseases are spreading faster. Anyone can have an abortion, but almost no one can adopt. Prideful people are legalizing sin, and anyone who doesn’t agree with them is labeled hateful, or worse. Living life as a faithful Christian is becoming harder and harder. The world has re-defined Christian love and turned love into Christian hate. The world says if we don’t love their sinful ways, then we hate them. But love is not just acceptance, because if we accept everything, then we stand for nothing. Christians don’t love sin, but we don’t hate the sinner either. And standing up for Christ by telling the world what sin is is not hate speech, but God’s truth revealed in Christ, read in the Bible, and living through a faithful Christians example. You see, we must tell the world what sin is. In Mark 16:15 Jesus tells us to, “Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.” We must love the sinner enough to care for their eternal well-being. As verse 12 in today’s Scripture says, we must “clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” But in doing so, in being a faithful witness for Christ, we must also be a people of forgiveness. I say we must be a people of forgiveness because Christ forgave us. I’m not saying to overlook or excuse their sin, but to be able to forgive. Now when we look at the world, when we turn on the news, or when we see someone actively sinning when we’re out and about, we may pray for them. We all know the Lord’s Prayer, so we may pray something like, “Lord, forgive them their trespasses,” hope for change, then go along our merry way. But when someone sins against us, when the trespass is aimed directly at us, our prayer for forgiveness becomes much more difficult. And saying, “we forgive those who trespass against us,” is a lot harder because now it’s personal. When someone sins against us, it not only hurts, it breaks our trust. But we must remember that when the sinner repents before Christ and seeks forgiveness, Christ not only forgives, but He also restores. You see, forgiveness is the easy part, restoration is the hard part, because restoration means restoring that person back into a right relationship. We can say we forgive, but the true test of Christlike forgiveness is seen in restoration. For example, after King David sinned and sought forgiveness, he cried out, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (Psalm 51:12). David longed not just for forgiveness, but to be restored and to be upheld, because the only support he wanted was found in God. To Uphold is to support something that’s been in question. So when somebody sins against you, and your relationship with them is now in question, true forgiveness comes when you uphold their apology. That’s restoration! Another excellent example of restoration is found in St. Patrick. As you know, this Tuesday is St. Patrick’s Day. And besides green everything, shamrocks everywhere, and people all becoming Irish for one day, there is something real to celebrate in the life of St. Patrick, and that’s how he showed forgiveness to those who sinned against him. Remember, it only takes one sin, one lie, to break our trust. While we pray for the forgiveness of sin in others, when that sin affects us, forgiveness becomes harder because now we must forgive. But for St. Patrick, he didn’t just suffer through a few sins aimed at him. No. He endured 6 long years of sinful treatment as a slave. Now, an interesting fact; St. Patrick was not Irish, but British. When St. Patrick was only 16 years old, he was kidnapped from his home in Britain and enslaved in Ireland. For 6 years, he was forced to work for the people who kidnapped him. Just think of his situation for a minute. He’s only 16, kidnapped, scarred, away from home, away from his parents, in a completely different country and environment, with all his freedoms taken away. I’m sure he was scared, thought every day about escaping, or maybe even harming and taking revenge at his captors. Just think about the environment he grew up in. No love, no trust, no mercy, no forgiveness. I think any one of us would have a hard time forgiving someone who stole 6 years of our lives and daily terrified us by taking away everything that we held dear. St. Patrick eventually did escape and returned home to England. Now he could have easily lived the rest of his life as a bitter, resentful, and unforgiving man who held nothing but hate for his kidnappers. And if he did, many people would say he’s justified in doing that. Or, he could have taken the high road and prayed to forgive his kidnappers, all while staying safe at home. That would be honorable, right? He could have done the “Christian” thing and simply said, “I’ll pray for you.” After all, you can forgive the sin, but the after-effects are still there. Forgiveness can be spoken, but the damage has still been done. And even with all this damage done to St. Patrick, he took it one step further. He didn’t just pray for them, he didn’t just forgive them, he chose to love them. St. Patrick chose to do what verse 13 in today’s Scripture is instructing us to do, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Tall order, right? Because to put this verse into practice, it involves not just mouthing words or saying prayers, but putting your words and prayers into godly action. And that’s what St. Patrick did. Once back home in England, he studied, became a priest, and boldly returned to Ireland to share the Gospel with them. He returned and saw face-to-face the very people that kidnapped him, who hurt him, who enslaved him. And instead of seeing revenge, he saw people who desperately needed to hear about Jesus Christ. God called St. Patrick to return to Ireland, and he humbly obeyed God’s instruction. After being held captive for so long, St. Patrick finally found his way. It’s just like a young couple who were returning to their seats in a movie theater. The man asked a man at the end of the dark row, “Did I step on your toes as I went out?” “You certainly did,” the man shrewdly answered, waiting for an apology. The man then turned to his wife and said, “Over here honey, this is our row.” You know, the Bible likens sin to darkness, and in the darkness, like that young couple, it’s hard to find our way. But once we do, it’s time to act. Caught up in the sin of his kidnappers, St. Patrick found his way outta the dark, and he did something. He didn’t wait for someone else to share the Gospel with his kidnappers, because the trials St. Patrick endured for 6 years uniquely equipped him for the ministry of reaching the Irish with the Gospel. St. Patrick, in his own words, said, “I testify in truth and in great joy of heart before God and his holy angels that I never had any other reason for returning to that nation from which I had earlier escaped, except the Gospel and God’s promises.” God is eager to forgive and longs for restoration. But many times, forgiveness only comes after we see our need to both forgive and to be forgiven. Trials in life have a way of shaping us for future ministry. Think about it: if this experience would never have happened to St. Patrick, do you think he would have ever become a preacher, let alone a missionary to hostile and hateful people? Think about your own experiences in life. What have you learned from your trials that only your trials could have taught you? Verse 12 tells us to “clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,” and we can only clothe ourselves with those things if we’re willing to put them on. We learn compassion by experiencing inconsideration, kindness by rudeness, humility by pride-fullness, gentleness by violence, and patience by experiencing impatience. But once we clothe ourselves, we’re ready to go out and “Bear” as verse 13 says, “with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.” Instead of “Bear,” other translations say, “Accept.” We don’t accept the sin, but we are to accept the forgiveness. To “Bear” means to hold up and support. When someone sins against you, remember, they’re also sinning against God. So you hold them up to be accountable to their sin, but once confessed, you support them. We can support people by letting Christ’s light shine through our lives, thereby revealing who Christ is as we share the Gospel. But I came up with an acronym for BEAR. Be Eager, Always Ready. So, when you “Bear” with anyone who you have a grievance against, in keeping with the Bible, you must Be Eager and Always Ready, to share the Gospel. As Charles Spurgeon said, “We cannot always trace God's hand, but we can always trust God's heart.” Bear with others and trust God’s guidance. St. Patrick trusted God’s guidance and lived out what God called him to do. St. Patrick entered an Ireland full of paganism and idol worship. But after a few short decades, a healthy, Christ-honoring church was thriving. And during his ministry in Ireland, St. Patrick planted over 700 churches and baptized as many as 100,000 people, thereby changing Ireland forever. As we finish up today, allow me to say one more thing about sharing the Gospel, forgiveness, and restoration. I’m sure all of us have seen, even if it’s just in a picture, a bell in a bell tower. Like the bell hanging in our church’s steeple, the bell hangs up high and has a rope attached to it. To ring the bell, the rope must be pulled a few times. The rope is continually pulled, the bell continually rings. Now, when the pulling is over and the person pulling the rope lets go, the bell will keep swinging. The bell doesn’t just stop swinging because the rope isn’t being pulled anymore. The bell will swing for a while before it slows down and eventually stops. So what does that have to do with today’s message? It’s because forgiveness is the act of letting the bell rope go. It means that you are choosing to no longer hold the rope. A lack of forgiveness is when you’re always pulling the rope. Each ring of the bell reminds us of each wrong inflicted on us by someone else. And our constant pulling on the rope keeps the wrong-doings on our minds. Now, if we choose to let go of the rope by a decision of your will, your emotions will still hear the bell for a little while. But, if you let the rope go and leave it alone, after a while, the bell will slow down until it stops. Don’t let the fact of the feelings of the pain get in the way of your forgiveness. You are responsible for not continually ringing the bell. If you don’t pull the rope, the sound will die down. Sometimes in our lives, forgiveness is so hard because you’ve been ringing the bell for so long that you can’t know what life is like without the bell. And sometimes, we’ll leave the bell alone for a while, only to later start pulling the rope all over again. This time of year, Lent is about letting something go. But our lives as Christians should be characterized by what we let go of, and how much we’ve gained in Christ. With your hands free from the rope, you’re able to use them in reaching out to others. St. Patrick is just one of many examples of people who have let go of their rope. Now it’s our turn. Remember, you may still hear the sound of the bell after you let go of the rope, but soon things become still. Your vertical relationship with God is connected with your horizontal relationship with others. What makes forgiveness possible is to understand that the Lord has forgiven you. Remember, as verse 12 says, you’re “holy and dearly loved.” When people look at you, let them see “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,” but over all of those, as we see in verse 14, “put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Love doesn’t accept or approve the sin, but forgives the repentant, restores the relationship, and glorifies God. Are there any ropes that you need to let go of today? Or do you still hear the sounds of the bell ringing? Then confess your need to Christ. He died on the cross to forgive, and as our risen Savior, is willing to show you how to forgive too. Let go of the rope, and live a life of Hands-Free Forgiveness. AMEN