Forgiveness...No Buts (Part 1)

We live in a time where seemingly everything is permitted but nothing is forgiven. That’s a weighty and thought-provoking statement. C.S. Lewis wrote: “We all agree that forgiveness is a beautiful idea until we have to practice it.” That’s a “step on your toes” statement, or a “spanky spoon” statement as Terry and Barb like to say.

This is the way of the world, the way of the sinful and selfish flesh, and the way of Satan. And wherever forgiveness is lacking or nonexistent, I can guarantee you that the deeds of the flesh recorded for us in Galatians 5:19-21 are in full operation causing nothing but havoc and turmoil. Our enemy, the devil, will be in the midst of such a culture of unforgiveness, looking to steal, kill, and destroy at every opportunity.

The church, meaning individual believers, have fallen for the cultural mentality that vengeance and revenge and reckoning are virtues to be enacted and celebrated. We take pride in saying things like, “Those who cross me will discover that I am their worst nightmare”. Hollywood, professional sports, and politics have led the way in promoting and exalting retaliation and retribution, and sadly most of the population have followed suit, even Christians. Forgiveness is no longer a virtue but is instead considered a sign of weakness.

The price of refusing to forgive is high. MacArthur writes: “Unforgiveness produces hatred, bitterness, animosity, anger, and retribution. It not only clogs up the arteries but also the courts with thousands of vengeful lawsuits. Refusing to forgive imprisons people in their past. Unforgiving people keep their pain alive by constantly picking at the open wound and keeping it from healing. Bitterness takes root in their hearts and defiles them. Anger rages out of control and negative emotions run unchecked. Life is filled with turmoil and strife instead of joy and peace. On the other hand, forgiveness frees people from the past. It is liberating, exhilarating, and healthy. Forgiveness relieves tension, brings peace and joy, and restores relationships.”

It has been said that we are never more like God than when we forgive. We can probably add many of God’s other attributes to that premise, but forgiveness is indeed that God-like.

Turn with me in your Bible to the Book of 2nd Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 2:5-11

Let’s pray.

I have already stated several times that the trouble in the church at Corinth began with the seemingly minor infraction of the Apostle Paul changing his travel plans. I have also mentioned how this insignificant issue had blown up into a massive controversy at the church, causing many to no longer trust Paul and to question his integrity and even question his teaching.

I’ll fill in a few more details in the chronology along with a few conclusions that we can draw from this and other passages before we begin to look at our current text.

When Paul learned from Timothy’s visit to Corinth that there were troubles in the church, Paul paid the Corinthians an unscheduled visit, presuming that he would quickly fix things and be on his way. To his surprise, he was apparently publicly opposed to his face by someone of prominence in the Corinthian, likely someone who held a position of leadership. This person attacked Paul while the church passively observed, which is alluded to in 2 Corinthians 12:11. As to the nature of the insults, we can only guess by what we have already studied in previous sermons, that they had to do with Paul’s integrity, that he was dishonest and double-minded and lacking in courage. The humiliating surprise attack, coupled with a lack of support from others in the church, so affected Paul that he decided to leave Corinth. It was in the wake of this rejection that Paul wrote his severe letter that was partially described for us in the verses we looked at last week.

I mentioned last week that this severe letter apparently did not do much good, but upon further study I was wrong. The letter did its work very well in fact.

Hold your place in chapter 2 and turn over a page or two in your Bible to chapter 7.

2 Corinthians 7:8–13a

I will spend more time with that passage when we get there, but I now believe that Paul is indeed referring to this letter he wrote to the church that is known as the severe letter. That letter is not part of Scripture, so we have no record of the details, but we definitely have the sense of what was written. Titus delivered the letter and waited for a response before he returned to Paul. Paul was most obviously and rightly thrilled with the report that Titus brought back to him.

We can glean from these verses that at least a majority of the church repented. And while we do not know any specifics of what the church did with this brother who had publicly attacked Paul, they administered some measure of church discipline and this man too, repented. But there was a problem – even though this man repented, the church did not forgive him and apparently had no desire to forgive him.

R. Kent Hughes writes in his commentary, “How true to life, and the church universal! The church is loath to exercise church discipline against an unrepentant sinner. And then when it finally steps up to its responsibility and does it, it finds it difficult to forgive and restore the repentant sinner.”

Let’s go back to chapter 2.

2 Corinthians 2:5

Paul emphasizes an essential truth concerning the church. In theology, the study of the church is called ecclesiology, which is a topic that I am feeling burdened to teach or preach on at some point. I think that pastors, like me, have been lax or even lazy in ensuring that we all know what the Bible says about the church and how we each should be individually operating as part of the church. People attend the church and are somehow are just expected to understand and assimilate, but that rarely happens so most of us don’t know our biblical responsibilities regarding church life.

But for now, we have Paul to remind us of one of the essential aspects of church life – we are divinely connected and inseparable. The body analogy is used more than once in Scripture to help us understand this principle, but I am afraid that most believers have never truly made the connection, or at least they do not believe it is as serious as Scripture proclaims.

Paul makes it abundantly clear that when this unnamed person attacked Paul, he essentially attacked the entire church at Corinth. The individuals who make up any particular church body are so connected through Christ, that when one is hurt the entire body is hurt. When one is being rebellious, the entire church is experiencing the results of that rebellion. When one is choosing to disobey Scripture, the entire body will feel the impact. When one has stumbled and fallen into a trespass, we all are weighed down by the effect. When one causes division in the church, we all are distressed and grieved.

God did not design the church to operate in compartments but instead as a unified body. So, Paul reminds the Corinthians of this vital truth. Paul was indeed initially grieved and in sorrow over this public attack, but he makes it plain that the grief and sorrow was taking its toll on all of them.

In Paul’s first Letter to the Corinthians, he wrote, “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” (12:26). Later in this Letter that we are studying, Paul writes, “Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?” (11:29).

The church is not a club, not a community organization, not a social gathering, and not a civic association. The church is divinely called fellowship of believers who are radically connected to one another by the incredible bond of the blood of Jesus Christ; we are heirs of God the Father and joint-heirs with our Lord Jesus Christ. We are supernaturally connected like no other human institution could ever hope and dream to be connected. We are the body of Jesus Christ, and Paul is using this incident in the church of Corinth to remind them and us of this amazing privilege and responsibility.

I need to quote R. Kent Hughes again because this is so good: “Paul would never have countenanced the free-riding ecclesiastical hitchhikers of today, much less the McChurch consumers who attend one church for the preaching, send their children to a second church for the youth group, and participate in another church’s small groups—people who live without commitment, without accountability, without discipline, without the Lord’s Table. For Paul, the church was central to Christian existence. He never conceived of Christians living apart from the visible church. Rather, Christians lived in such profound relationship that the pain of one was truly felt by all. And the drubbing that Paul suffered was a misery for all.”

Hughes continues, “Today’s church needs to take back the seriousness of the doctrine of the church and live out the profound mutuality of the Body of Christ. We must take to heart that the commitments of praying for the church, participating in the regular services and ministries of the church, supporting its ministries and missions with our resources, and submitting to the constituted leadership are not options but rather Biblical imperatives.”

That’s good stuff, and it is so needed in the current church culture that has mostly degenerated in the last several decades or more. We have allowed ourselves to become disconnected and splintered into factions and cliques and status. The explosion of denominations has only encouraged and emphasized these unholy divisions.

One influential teacher or preacher misinterprets or pulls a passage out of context and the creates a new denomination built on a faulty foundation that grows into a firm and unshakeable belief in the minds of this influential teacher’s mishandling of Scripture.

It is that important for us to fully understand what God has declared about His church. So, Paul not only was aware of this division, but he was also the object of what started this division and experienced it firsthand.

2 Corinthians 2:6-8

Beloved, I cannot emphasize enough that forgiveness is the key to the proper operation and functioning of the church. Without genuine biblical forgiveness happening constantly and consistently, the church will always be in one state or another of ineffectiveness, and it will never experience the full measure of what God has designed us to be.

Our little church has a pretty amazing history; we have experienced the miraculous hand of God in more ways than we can count. But we are nowhere near what God designed His church to be. We have only scratched the surface of His blessing, or His miraculous power and provision, of His gifting, or of His glorious grace. We have a long way to go as a church because we have a long way to go as individual believers, and it begins with total utter comprehensive forgiveness.

Many of you are scanning the files in your mind right now trying to think of people that you haven’t forgiven while others of you have that person or issue front and center right now. But we all have people that we have not forgiven. Is there anyone in our church that you think haven’t handled this virus the way you would? Maybe you think that the leadership and I have not taken things as seriously as we should. Maybe you think the people who have stayed away are overreacting. Maybe you look at people who do wear masks or don’t wear masks with even a small measure of disdain.

Each one of those instances that are issues in your mind, are actually offences in your mind – offences that you have not immediately and comprehensively forgiven. And this is just about one issue. There are a multitude of other issues that run through the church at any given time. Little grudges we hold, little disagreements we have, little struggles we have with how so-and-so does things, or the songs Beverly or Greg or I choose for us to sing, or how often we take the Lord’s Supper, or how we support missionaries, or who gets to choose the topics at our men’s and women’s retreats, or what kind of food we have at our celebrations, or whatever.

The list is endless, and if you hold even a small measure of ill-will towards anyone over any of these issues or any other issues I did not mention, you have not forgiven them for doing or saying something that you would say or do differently. Unforgiveness is that inclusive, that insidious, and that pervasive. And even these small and seemingly insignificant instances of unforgiveness thwart the impact and effectiveness of the church.

The Apostle Paul is excited that most of the people of the church at Corinth have repented but they have not forgiven the one who started it all, even though it is apparent that he too, has repented. The church seems to still want him to suffer more for what he did. Maybe they don’t think he has suffered enough, maybe they want to make sure he doesn’t do anything like this again, maybe they just don’t like the guy and would rather that he left the church for good, or maybe some of them love Paul so much that they can’t get over that someone attacked him of all people.

Paul says it has been enough, the punishment has been sufficient to the crime. The church had gone through the steps of some kind of church discipline – to what extent we do not know – but it was enough, and it is now time to thoroughly forgive and restore.

I have been working through Galatians in my morning video devotions on Facebook Live, and we are in a passage that is relevant to this, so with the time we have left this morning, let’s leave any more exposition in 2nd Corinthians for next week and go to Galatians. If any of you follow these video devotions, prepare for a review.

Galatians 5:26-6:3

The context in this passage is the ongoing battle between our sinful and selfish flesh, and the desires of the Holy Spirit within us. So, after spending ample time detailing several categories of sinful behavior, or deeds of the flesh as Paul calls them, and then detailing the fruit of the Spirit that is available to every believer and should be operating in our lives all the time, Paul admonished the Galatians to walk in the Spirit and crucify the flesh.

With that extremely brief context in mind, Paul then gives his readers a few things to look out for: Pride, challenging one another and envying one another, but then he quickly transitions into the all-important practice of helping one another to overcome what he calls trespasses.

A trespass is more of being careless and stumbling into a sin as opposed to a blatant defiance of God and His Word. And those who fall into these trespasses are to be helped by those who are spiritual. What Paul means by spiritual is not necessarily someone who is a mature believer, it is instead in the context, someone who is currently walking in the Spirit and experiencing victory over the deeds of the flesh – that could even be a fairly new believer who still has a long road to maturity.

So, this one who is spiritual is to restore the one who has stumbled in a spirit of gentleness, or to help them back up, and then they are to bear or share their burden, meaning to now help them stay standing in the faith for as long as it takes. This is well beyond forgiveness and is now restoration. And when we fail to take things to this level of loving and gentle restoration, Paul says that you may think that you are something, you may think you qualify as spiritual, but you are nothing of the sort.

Without this restoration, the Corinthians may have thought that they were being spiritual in how they handled this fellow who had sinned against Paul and the church, but they are not being spiritual at all.

In my video devotions, I likened this to discipleship. Discipleship is a lot more than taking someone through a book or some material, it is also getting into the practical nitty gritty of everyday life. It is helping the disciple to stand on the foundation of Scripture but then it is helping them to remain standing by addressing the disciple’s specific concerns and helping them with any trespasses they have stumbled into.

The point is that the Corinthians were not following through with this repentant brother in Christ; they were instead leaving him out in the cold to fend for himself and to likely be swept away by Satan, which we will see as we get deeper into our initial passage.

The essential nature of forgiveness is weaved into pretty much everything about the Christian life. Obviously beginning with being forgiven by God by His grace through faith in Christ. For those of us who have been granted such forgiveness, how can we possibly withhold forgiveness from a brother or sister in Christ? And we will unpack that much more next week.

Let’s pray.