Outward Series: Forgiveness

Purpose

Colossians 3:13 ESV

bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Externaliaties are the things of this world. We value appearances so much that to some degree our minds adapt to them

Whether it be skin tone, body language, style of dress, etc. we develop, over the course of time, mental pathways that program us to respond in certain ways

Religion is no different…we have developed certain appearances that denote us as either being godly people or ungodly people.

The Jews were no different in this regard. They loved their ornate robes, long street corner prayers, doctrinal rhetoric, the pagentry of Judaism.

Very little has changed today. We have exchanged the robes for suits and modest dress, long prayers for eloquent speeches, doctrinal rhetoric for politics all for the pagentry of “are you really a Christian?”

Yet none of those things are definitive. Instead, here Paul calls on believers to “put on” various attributes. Not symbols or language, not political affiliations, not external things but instead dispositions of the heart.

The one we will focus on today is “forgiveness”

The purpose of forgiveness is one thing only…to restore relationship.

Forgiveness is the willingness of a person to allow for broken fellowship to be restored without condition.

That’s the crux of it right…unconditional.

Yet that is its purpose…to provide an avenue for righteousness…for right standing. To operate in relationships that have no lane for reconciliation is to create relationships in which you are not reflecting Jesus.

We do this by limiting forgiveness, frequency or what was the offense. “There are certain things I can’t forgive”…well than who is God to you?

Peter famously asked how often should I forgive? 7 times?

Some of us have to realize that although the offense isn’t justified, yes God has allowed you to enter into a world where terrible offenses happen and in doing so He can use the darkness of this world to shape you into His image.

Imagine the treachery of the Bible. Brothers killing brothers, sons raising up against fathers, murderers, liars, molestors, rapists, abusers.

And yet all can be forgiven in God’s eyes, their relationship can be restored…can it be restored with you?

The nature of forgiveness is debated

Love and forgiveness are not the same thing…John 3:16 states that God loves the world but that doesn’t mean that the entire world is forgiven.

Forgiveness does necessitate repentance…many of you are like “whew…let’s me off the hook”....let’s examine that for a moment because some of us have this “conditional forgiveness” side hustle going on....

TR: All forgiveness requires payment…but you set the price

Payment

Forgiveness is a tricky beast because it is one of the most conditioned attributes people are faced with.

What I mean is that we don’t like it so much we place as many qualifiers on it as we can to protect ourselves. “Forgive but don’t forget”, “forgive but I’m going to disassociate myself from you”, “forgive but don’t trust”.

All of these center on you as a person, protecting your vulnerabilities.

I remember when I got into my first sparring match. I was helping a boxer train for a professional fight. I hit him hard and he took it personally so he decided to teach the new guy a lesson. He slipped and hit me so hard I was dazed. The coach jumped in and stopped the fight and got on his fighter for losing his cool. The fighter went and cooled off and then returned. However, I was a little gun shy at that point. A little jaded to operate as I had before.

Making someone pay is similar.

It manifests in various ways, either by you “letting it go” and walking around jaded and making everyone else pay and/or by you not being vulnerable again to that person for fear of being taken advantage of. You don’t function the same as you did before.

Colossians 2:13–15 ESV

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

I had to ask myself at this point…how many times have I taken advantage of God? How many times have I presumed upon His grace, tempted Him, returned to my sin....and yet an unconditional relationship is still there?

We set conditions on forgiveness by determining for ourselves what repentance looks like and many times it looks like whatever pays homage to us and is without error

Yet how often has that been what your repentance looked like?

The interesting thing about God’s forgiveness of us is that while it is conditioned on our repentance from sin it is NOT conditioned on our behavior of sin.

What I mean is that far too often before we forgive someone we want them to not miss a step on our list of laws, if so the axe is ready to fall, and yet we expect a different type of forgiveness when we come to God.

We expect different gifts…we adjust how we respond to people based on what they do versus how they believe.

Let me show this in one of my favorite parables of Jesus.

Matthew 20:1–16 ESV

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.”

We operate similarly. We believe that we, through our conduct have earned our payment of forgiveness and so too must they.

Let me be clear…there is always a payment for forgiveness…it will either be at the cost of our relationship with someone else or it’ll cost us our self-righteousness…but either way it’ll cost....YOU PICK THE PRICE.

The real price though is the price of God’s glory versus our personal satisfaction.

TR: Forgiveness can be difficult when it becomes personal...

Personal

The reason why we find forgiveness so difficult is because we haven’t truly died. We have instead taken the offense against ourselves.

We have become our own gods. When someone offends God it is ok but when someone offends us it is impermissible.

This is why the crux of Col. 3:13 is the second portion of the verse....forgive not as you would like to....because you’ve surrendered to Jesus…instead forgive as the Lord has forgiven you.

That makes all the difference in the world!

The world tells you to show me something and than I’ll forgive you…God tells us to bear fruit as a response to our forgiveness!!

Do you see how one comes before the other?

As believers, when we interact with each other, the aroma that we ought to have is that of forgiveness…repeated, deep, forebearing forgiveness that covers a multitude of sins.

As we have stumbled and bumbled our way through this life has not the Lord given us the same?

One of the areas that I needed to confess to God was that the reason why I had trouble forgiving was because I was more concerned with someone’s sin against me than I was with how it offended God.

I took His place in my life. They had wronged ME and therefore must pay ME back! I’m the king, I’m the victim, I’m the one that needs to be recompensed....

I’m not saying we can’t be those things but CHIEFLY what makes something wrong is that it speaks something differently about God’s truth!

When forgiveness centers on us…we become god which is blasphemous. Instead, my forgiveness centers on God and His work in my life.

LAND IT LOUD

It’s paced, conditioned and mirrored in that forgiveness....

Do you realize what He has forgiven us from and what the forgiveness has accomplished?

Oh the joy of getting to be reflections of eternal forgiveness!! The joy of restored relationships!! The freedom from bitterness and resentment!

And that’s exactly the blessing that awaits our obedience! ref. 3:15-17

Our obedience leads to peace, harmony, and wisdom!!!

Some of us have been holding onto things…we’ve walked in qualified forgiveness or have refused to give it altogether…submit to the Lord today.

Reach out and provide a path for that person to be restored and if given the opportunity, forgive them without condition and disarm the power of sin and Satan in your life.