Forgiveness...No Buts (Part 3)

I started on the topic of forgiveness on December 13th. I preached another sermon on forgiveness on December 27th. Here we are on January 17th and I will preach one last sermon on this vital topic. And while this is obviously not the most ideal way to preach through a single topic, The Holy Spirit has His reasons for how He leads and how He teaches each of us.

One of the great deceptions that none of us are impervious to, is what we do to ourselves when we choose to not forgive someone. When someone offends us or does us wrong, we will to some measure think that our choice to not forgive for a time will somehow accomplish revenge or retribution; we feel the need to retaliate in some manner and we think that we are getting our pound of flesh and returning harm for harm by withholding forgiveness.

Depending upon the person who offended us or wronged us, and the closeness of the relationship we had with them previous to the offence, this course of action may have some impact but not nearly what we think. Withholding forgiveness impacts you and consumes your mind, your peace, your contentment, and your mental and physical health, more than it impacts the other person. We are self-deceived to believe that we have that kind of power over someone else. The one who offended may be seeking to be forgiven but they will usually continue on with their lives. The on whoa has been offended will usually be thinking about the offence and allowing it to consume their thoughts in much greater measure.

The passage we started with on this topic, covers or implies this aspect of self-deception. This passage also reveals that when we choose to withhold forgiveness, we expose ourselves to Satan’s attacks; we essentially remove the armor of God to be wounded by the enemy, forgetting about his schemes, and allowing ourselves to be harmed by him in much greater measure than we were harmed by the offender.

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

2 Corinthians 2:5-11

In the first sermon on this topic, I covered verses 5-8 in this passage, and then in the second sermon we looked at a passage in the Gospel of Luke. This morning, we will focus on verses 9-11 with a brief review of verse 8.

If you recall, there was an emotional and spiritual storm in the church at Corinth. The Apostle Paul’s travel plans were changed and a few people in the church got upset about it. It seems apparent that others who visited Corinth and had a grudge against Paul, fueled the fire. One man in the church, possibly someone who was a leader of some kind, then viciously confronted and verbally attacked Paul in front of the whole church when he did come through town.

Paul, sensing that it was not the time or the emotional and spiritual climate to immediately set things right, left Corinth and shortly thereafter wrote a letter to the church, known as the severe letter of which we do not have as part of the Bible. The church responded properly to what Paul wrote and they enacted some form of church discipline on the man who verbally attacked Paul. This man also responded properly to this rebuke and repented, but the church was slow in offering forgiveness and restoring him to the fellowship of the church.

2 Corinthians 2:8

Paul is lovingly encouraging to the church at Corinth to forgive this man and to make amends. Love is the primary call and command that Jesus has instituted and required in His church. Lack of forgiveness is a lack of love. MacArthur writes, “Forgiving love is a precious jewel (and) a rich treasure in the life of the church.”

I can tell you from my perspective as a pastor, that I am overwhelmed with joy when those of you who have been offended come to me in private and tell me to not worry about anything because you have chosen to forgive and to let love cover the offence. I can also tell you that I am grieved when others choose to remain steadfast in their unforgiveness. Oftentimes our church either thrives or is stunted by the simple issue of whether love and forgiveness are being manifest among all of you or hurt feelings and unforgiveness is ruling the day.

Without forgiveness and love, churches are at best mediocre with little impact in their community, and at worst are torn apart, fragmented, and even split. The greatest demonstration of love in the church is undoubtedly forgiving one another. And as I mentioned before, we are a messy group of people, so forgiveness will be needed often.

Paul writes to the Corinthians that enough is enough – it is high time to forgive and reaffirm agape love, self-sacrificing love, forgiving love to this brother in Christ. Paul knows this is not easy in their own power, but it is completely natural in the power of the Holy Spirit.

2 Corinthians 2:9

The phrase, “so that I might put you to the test” is one Greek word. The way the NASB has chosen to translate this shows that it is not a simple Greek word to translate into English. I think the Lexham English Bible did a good job – “Because for this reason also I wrote, in order that I could know your proven character, whether you are obedient in everything.”

The sense of what Paul wrote is that the spiritual maturity of the people in the church at Corinth is on the line and being measured by their willingness and ability to forgive and reaffirm their love to this repentant brother in Christ. And that is a profound thought, again because we are so easily self-deceived when it comes to dealing with an offence or dealing with being treated wrongly. This verse is essentially teaching us that our maturity in Christ is not so much based on how much we read and study the Bible but is more so measured by how quickly and thoroughly we forgive those who have offended and harmed us.

Is your knowledge of Scripture all in your head, or has that knowledge seeped down into your heart and become who you are in practice?

Paul is emphasizing character and obedience in this verse, obviously in the context of love and forgiveness to those who have hurt you in some way. Every time we are offended, hurt, treated poorly, etc., it is a spiritual test and an opportunity to prove the genuineness of your maturity in Christ. You will quickly be seen as someone who either is obedient in all things or someone who picks and chooses which parts of the Bible to follow.

Yes, that’s a sobering thought, if not a massively convicting thought.

The church at Corinth had been obedient in confronting and disciplining the offending brother, but are they now going to also be obedient in forgiving him and reaffirming their love for him and restoring him to the fellowship of the church?

And the fact that Paul calls this a test, or an opportunity to prove their obedience, reveals that at least sometimes you will be mistreated and offended just to be able to measure how you are coming along in your spiritual maturity. We see this often with the Children of Israel in their wilderness wanderings; their struggles and challenges were often called being tested by God to reveal the level of their faith – it’s no different with us. God will sometimes, if not often allow these tests and opportunities in our lives to measure our growth in becoming like Jesus.

So, maybe if we also view these challenges as tests and opportunities to prove and reflect our growth in Christ, it could influence our responses and our attitudes toward forgiving one another and loving one another even after we have been offended or hurt.

2 Corinthians 2:10

So, first of all, the primary offence was against Paul personally. Paul has made it clear that the offence was not just against him but against the whole church, but Paul was the one who was singled out and verbally attacked in front of the whole church. And it is implied that nobody stood up for him at the time of the attack. Yet, here is Paul telling the church that he forgives anything that they forgive, while at the same time telling them that he has already forgiven the man – his brother in Christ. And he adds that his choice to forgive was also for the benefit of the whole church.

Paul humbly downplays the offence against him. Our culture and our personal humanness instead, magnifies personal offences. We are quick to proclaim to the world that so-and-so will regret the day that they crossed me, or that no one is going to impugn my character and get away with it. We elevate and exalt our own status to ridiculous heights that anyone would dare offend me. And yet we are quick to expect and even demand forgiveness when we are the offender.

Paul takes the high road. Paul knows his place and knows the fallibility of being human. He knows that he is not perfect, and he does not expect perfection from others with their interactions with him. He is slow to anger and quick to forgive. He has a very long fuse instead of the customary short fuse that we too often display. Paul is quick to defend Christ and quick to defend Scripture, but he is longsuffering and patient when the offence is against him personally.

As we will see much later in this Letter, Paul can be a bit sarcastic with false teachers and his attackers at times, but for the most part he does not allow personal attacks to affect him – forgiveness is virtually the automatic response from Paul with everyone but especially with true brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is an important distinction. While the Bible is replete with mandates to even love our enemies, there are some acceptable reasons to stand up to and against unbelievers who are attacking, but when it comes to our brothers and sisters in Christ, we have a higher standard to follow. Even Jesus defended Himself with harsh rebuke against the unbelieving religious leaders of Israel. Jesus even took a whip and drove such unbelieving hooligans out of the temple, but it’s a different story with those who believe.

And how hard is that, really? How hard is it to be patient and forgiving and loving with our brothers and sisters in Christ? Why are we so hell-bent if you will, on making sure that others pay a price when they offend us? Why must we get revenge and vengeance on those who make the egregious mistake of crossing us? Does our pride and arrogance really have that much control over us that we are incapable of allowing the love of Christ that resides in our hearts to cover offences against us?

To answer my first question, it is hard; it is quite honestly impossible if we are not walking in and living in the Spirit. We have been equipped with the ability to forgive and love, but that will only happen as we submit to the Holy Spirit and as we allow Him to control our responses, which means that we must learn to respond patiently instead of flying off the handle from the get-go. Our human response will most often be an immediate reaction to defend our so-called honor, but beloved, allow me to boldly and bluntly say that none of us are as honorable as we believe that we are. Self-deception rears its ugly head again.

Notice the last phrase of verse 10 – “in the presence of Christ.” That is a monumental consideration when it comes to our willingness to forgive and to love in the face of being offended or hurt. If you were always fully aware that you are in the presence of Christ, would you respond differently?

Quoting MacArthur again, “Paul lived his whole life in the presence of Christ, aware that the Lord knew his every thought, word, and deed. Later in this chapter he reminded the Corinthians that he spoke ‘in Christ in the sight of God’ (2:17). In 4:2 he wrote that he commended himself ‘to every man’s conscience in the sight of God’. To Timothy he wrote, ‘I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction’ (2 Timothy 4:1–2). Paul eagerly forgave the one who had offended him because Christ, in whose presence he constantly lived, had fully forgiven him.”

If your salvation is genuine, you are in the presence of Christ 24/7, the presence of the One who has forgiven you completely and comprehensively, the presence of the One who paid the full penalty for your sins, your transgressions, your failures, your offences by being brutally tortured and inhumanely killed on the cross. He now lives in you through the Person of the Holy Spirit and thus you are in His presence 24/7. Does that fact make a difference in how you love and forgive others, especially others who have been loved and forgiven by Christ?

2 Corinthians 2:11

Satan loves it when we choose to withhold forgiveness. This verse clearly states that we shed our spiritual armor when we don’t forgive, making us infinitely more susceptible to the attacks of Satan and his demons.

There is a song that I reference often by the Christian duo known as Harvest from a few decades ago. The song is called “The Army of the Lord” and the opening lines of the chorus says,

Are we walking into the enemy’s camp

Laying our weapons down?

Shedding our armor as we go

Leaving it on the ground

But this is exactly what we do every time we choose to not forgive and choose to not let love cover a brother or sister in Christ’s offence against us.

If you were in the military and on the battlefield, you would never think of taking off your body armor and your helmet, dropping your weapons, and walking toward the enemy who is shooting at you. But you do this with your ultimate enemy every time love and forgiveness is withheld from a brother or sister in Christ.

True Christian forgiveness is, as Paul declared, a matter of obedience “in all things”, and we have been equipped to forgive all things. The late Corrie ten Boom recalled in her book The Hiding Place had a postwar meeting with a guard from the Ravensbrück concentration camp where her sister, Betsie, had died and where she herself had been subjected to horrible indignities. Here is a passage from that book:

It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbrück. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming, and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me, and help me to forgive him.

I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.

As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

Beloved, you can do it! God’s Word says, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). And again, “So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you” (Colossians 3:12, 13).