3 Reasons to Ditch an Unforgiving Attitude

Introduction

I follow a podcast called the Myths and Legend podcast. This podcast looks at myths, legends, fables, and folktales from around the world. He usually tries to go back to the oldest tellings of the stories and synchronize them to make a coherent narrative to share on his podcast. I have noticed two things specifically. One, the original tellings are usually a lot darker than modern adaptations and two forgiveness is a lot less common in the original stories. I thought I would share one these stories with you today.

By the River

This story originates from Japanese folklore. Long ago a monkey and a crab were playing together by a river. The crab happened to come upon a persimmon seed and a rice cake. The monkey suggested that he take the rice cake and the crab take the persimmon seed. Of course the monkey wanted to the instant gratification of the rice cake, but the crab agreed and went off and planted to persimmon seed.

Waiting on the Tree

The crab waited and watched the tree grow. Unfortunately, he could not climb up and retrieve all the persimmons once the tree was fully grown, so he called up his friend the monkey. The monkey came and happily agreed to help in exchange for a few persimmons. However, once the monkey got in the tree he started gorging himself on them and refused to send any down to the crab. Eventually, the monkey grew tired of the crab’s complaining and chunked an unripe persimmon down and crushed the crab. Realizing that he’d made a mistake, the monkey ran back home.

Crab’s Son and the Four Losers

Unfortunately for the monkey, the crab had a son. The son looked at the scene and knew that the monkey was responsible for what happened to his dad and vowed revenge. The son had four friends, a bee, a mortar, a chestnut, and a pile of dung. What a group of friends. He rounded up his friends and using their skills came up with a convoluted revenge plan.

Revenge

He approached the monkey, and invited him to his dad’s funeral claiming that he’d forgiven the monkey for this deed which must have been an accident. The monkey came to the funeral dinner, and the crab son’s plan worked perfectly except all of his friends died to make it happen. In the end, the crab was left fatherless and friendless, but at least he’d taken care of the darn monkey.

The Poison

At the end of the story, the monkey may have been dead, but the crab was left to live with the price of his unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is a poison that hurts the one who holds on to it more than the one who it is held for. Unsurprisingly, God has a lot to say about forgiveness and unforgiveness and as we looked at the sin of attitude from our Returning to Holiness study this past week, we are going to focus in on the attitude of unforgiveness today.

Read and Pray

If you will, turn with me to Matthew 5:44. God’s word says, “But I tell you , love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Let’s pray. God as we seek to find truth in your word today, I just ask that you would help us be honest with ourselves. Reveal to us the areas that we may be holding onto attitudes of sin specifically, the attitude of unforgiveness. Be with us in this time. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Looking at this verse in Matthew 5:44, I see three good reasons to ditch an unforgiving attitude. First part of this verse Jesus says, but I tell you. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, do as I say and not as I do. Fortunately, God is more of a do as I say because I do this also kind of God. God models forgiveness for us by loving his enemies. If you’re keeping score, our first reason to leave behind an unforgiving attitude is because God models forgiveness. He shows us forgiveness that is astounding when you grasp who we are and who He is.

Who is God?

In our Youth Bible studies on Wednesday nights we are exploring the question, “Who is God?” We’ve learned that God has revealed himself to us, that he is One God who exists in three persons. The trinity trips people up. How can this be One God three persons? To me the crazy thing is not the trinity, God is outside creation of course he has attributes we cannot fully understand as created beings, but the crazy thing to me is that God is Holy. We are unholy, full of sin, and yet God instead of saying yeah they messed up cleanse the whole place with fire.

Vengeance is Mine

If we’re talking about making a revenge scheme, God doesn’t have to round up the four losers to make it happen. He would not only be justified, but He also has the power to see it out and lose nothing in the process. “Vengeance is mine says the Lord,” and honestly that should scare you senseless. As Dale touched on God knows the wickedness of our hearts, and as Dean touched on He knows the wickedness of our thoughts, and He knows that we’ve earned death. Justice must be up held, and God has the power to see justice done, but instead says no, no, I’m going to die your death so that you may be made holy.

Forgiveness and Response

The first reason we should ditch our attitude of unforgiveness is because God models for us how to forgive, and he has done so by forgiving us a debt that we could not pay. When you grasp this reality, the reality that God is holy and still forgave us there is only one response that is appropriate, reverence and obedience. Isaiah shows us how, in chapter six of his book. He saw the holiness of God and saw the his sin in comparison and he said this: “Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.” Isaiah sees the vast gulf that sin creates separating who God is from who we are, but God cleanses Isaiah of his sin and then God spoke saying “Who should I send? Who will go for Us?” Isaiah responded the only way he could, “Here I am. Send me.” Reverence and obedience is required when you understand who God is and the way that he has modeled forgiveness for us to us.

That brings us to the second reason we should ditch an attitude of unforgiveness, God commands it. How do we respond to seeing God’s holiness and forgiveness. The same way Isaiah responded, with obedience to the things that he commands us to do. In Matthew 5:44 Jesus goes on to say, “love your enemies.”

Perspective of Evil

When we are the judge of what is good and evil, it can be easy to categorize people as allies and enemies. Allies are those we see as good, enemies are those we see as evil. Sometimes, evil is a matter of perspective. If I get a job that Danial Sprinkles also wanted, thats good news for me, but bad news for Danny. Danny may see me as the cause and consider me evil. Same could be said if Que Ball McGee recieved a promotion that you applied for. You might think Que Ball is your enemy perhaps evil. Maybe you hold a political opinion and Samson T Waddelsworth hold the exact opposite opinion. His opinion benefits him, your opinion benefits you and you both consider each others opinions evil, so you are enemies. Unfortunately, the only perspective that matters is God’s perspective.

God’s Perspective

We know that He is holy, and we, collectively, as a species are not. Romans says “For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.” That’s a big fat everybody. That means that when Waddelsworth looks at you and says well I think that we need to let teenagers take guns to school in order to defend themselves from all these school shooters, you can look at that guy and say, “Waddelsworth, that may be the worst opinion I’ve ever heard, but my God has modeled forgiveness to me and commanded that I forgive others in return so I disagree with you but let me tell you about my savior because I was in the same boat as you destined for a literal, burning hell, the outpouring of God’s wrath against my unholiness and He stepped in and saved me from my own sinfulness.”

Afraid to Share

Maybe Waddelsworth is a coworker and you’re afraid to tell him about Jesus because he might report you to HR. Two things that we are going to have to come to grips with is that a) God gave us our job b) he knows our needs and c) we are called to forgive and share the gospel. If God wants you in that job do you think Waddelsworth or HR can interrupt God’s plan? We have been pushed into a corner and told to keep our faith private, but we can argue politics and flame up over who has the best sports ball team in a hurry. Did you know in 1969 Honduras and El Salvador fought a war for 3 or 4 days over whose soccer team was better? Seriously, as humans we can fight and argue about anything, but we’re scared to share the forgiveness and gospel of Christ.

Not the Enemy

In the end people with different opinions and values are not our enemy, even if we consider their opinions and values to be evil. As Dean has said, they are victims of our enemy. Paul tells us we do not wage war against flesh and blood. We have a spiritual enemy. When we recognize this truth, we can follow the model of our God and keep his command to love our human enemies despite how they may persecute us, which brings us to our last reason to ditch an unforgiving attitude.

God Uses Forgiveness

When we decide that we are going to love our enemies and forgive them when they wrong us, God will begin working in us and through us. God can use forgiveness, He will not work when we hold an attitude of unforgiveness. The last part of verse 44 says, “and pray for those who persecute you.” If you have not forgiven your enemy, you will not be able to pray for them appropriately.

Prayers of Unforgiveness

Dean touched on this point a bit last time. Oh God, you know Mr. Waddelsworth, I just pray that he’ll fall down a well so I never have to listen to his dumb political opinions again. Oh God, you know the monkey, I pray that you help me get my revenge against him that dirty scum bag. Oh God, Que Ball McGee took my promotion out from under me, I just ask that he would do a terrible job so they will fire him and give me the promotion. Oh God, you know our president Joe Biden, You know I pray for him every night. Please just hurry up let his dog maul him before he has a change to sign any more executive orders you got real close, but I think you could do better. Thanks. These kinds of prayers miss the point. In theory each of these people likely represent a real person your life that has a real soul that will spend a real eternity separated from God in hell. When we decide to forgive them, we can begin praying for them legitimately, and I believe in that moment we will see God begin to work in our lives and their lives and see people come to faith in Christ.

Repent and Believe

When we repent from our attitude of unforgiveness, we agree with God that forgiveness and love are needed for those who persecute us. This repentance in our life will begin to shape how we interact with these people. We can begin to look passed our differences in opinions and realize that they need salvation. We’ll start praying that God will bless them, that he will work in their life to bring them to salvation, and if needed, we will go and tell them of Jesus if God will provide the opportunity.

Conclusion

It is time to cast off the attitude of unforgiveness and put on the attitude of forgiveness. Our God has modeled it for us, He has commanded us to demonstrate it to our enemies, and he will use us and work through us when we respond with obedience. If you have been drinking the poison of unforgiveness, Jesus is calling you to repent of that attitude today.

I’m going to pray, Pastor Dean is going to be waiting down front, and worship team is going to come back and sing our invitation hymn. If Jesus is calling you to respond, take that step into one these isles and come down and talk with Pastor Dean about that today. As Dean has said many times, the isle is not magical, it is simply a physical commitment to what Jesus is calling you to do. Let’s pray.