Human Forgiveness
Notes
Transcript
Well, we have been looking at forgiveness for the last couple of weeks.
I hope that this series has been beneficial in your life.
Today, it is my task to tie up this series and give you some practical tips.
Let’s open up with the Lord’s prayer, which is located in Matthew 6:9-13.
I’ve included in your notes the Scripture references so that you could refer to them in the future, or even check them out as I preach.
I really encourage you to bring your own Bible, or use your phone’s Bible,
especially since we have no projector.
If you need a Bible,
please let me know.
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“ ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’
Let’s pray.
In the prayer we just prayed,
the Our Father,
we prayed a lot about God and to God.
We prayed that his name would be hollowed.
We prayed that his kingdom would come.
That his would be done.
That he would give us our bread.
That he would forgive us.
That he would deliver us.
In this prayer,
it’s all about God doing something,
about God’s activity,
...
except for one section. (underline)
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
There is this reference to human activity in the Lord’s prayer.
While we pray to God that he would do something in this world,
we also refer in our prayer that God should forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.
Because the only human activity in the Lord’s prayer is human forgiveness,
human forgiveness is evidently important to humans.
Jesus was emphatic about the need for human forgiveness.
The community that followed Jesus practiced forgiveness.
There was this one church in Corinth that had practiced forgiveness.
The Apostle Paul wrote,
If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything.
Somebody had grieved the church,
and this grief had also grieved the Apostle Paul.
But instead of hating this person that brought so much grief,
the church practiced forgiveness and consoled him.
The church forgave and consoled this person who had hurt the church so that the person would not be overcome by excessive sorrow.
So that the person would not suffer excessively.
In Ephesians 4:32,
the Apostle Paul echos the New Testament’s teaching about forgiveness.
Ephesians 4:32 (NIV)
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Paul urged the church that it would forgive one another, just as God, in Christ, had forgiven them.
As God forgave, Christians forgive.
We forgive one another in the manner that God forgave.
And again in Col 3:13
Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Bear with each other.
Mhmm,
Bear with each other.
And forgive one another.
We forgive as the Lord forgave us.
Paul’s words about forgiveness really stem from Jesus’ teaching.
Jesus had some strong words and parables that reveal the nature of forgiveness.
And to a great extent,
Jesus’ teaching of forgiveness focuses on the fact that as Christians,
as God’s representatives on this earth,
as people who bear the name of God,
we are to reflect God’s character.
Therefore, because God is merciful,
we must be merciful.
There’s a powerful parable on human forgiveness in Matthew 18:21-35.
Jesus gave this story to reveal how it is important to forgive because we have been forgiven by God.
And the story goes like this,
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Mhmmm
(Draw scene 1)
There was a king who started to collect his dues.
His slaves had owed him money.
One slave owed the king 10,000 talents.
A talent was a measuring unit for the weight of silver or gold.
10,000 was about 665,796 pounds.
If it was ten thousand talents of gold,
that would be 12 billion dollars that the slave would owe the king. (draw amount)
If it was talents of silver,
it would have been 151 million dollars that the slave would have owed the king.
The point is that the slave owed too much to the king.
When the king called the slave,
the slave cried,
“have patience with me,
I will pay you everything.”
The king was probably like,
“Yeah right,
you’ll pay me several billion dollars,
yeah right.”
So out of pity,
the king forgave him the debt.
The king forgave the slave his billion dollar debt.
...
That’s kinda what happens with us,
we owed the cosmic king a debt,
we had to pay a sentence that we could not pay,
but because Jesus paid the sentence in our place,
God forgave our debt.
Well,
Jesus continues in the parable:
The slave is free to leave the king,
since he didn’t owe the king anything.
Outside of the palace,
the slave confronted a fellow slave who owed him a hundred denarii.
(draw scene and amount)
A hundred denarii were about $800.
It doesn’t compare to the billions of dollars the king had forgiven.
So the slave confronted the other slave, grabbed him by the throat, and said,
“Pay what you owe.”
The fellow slave fell on his knees and said the same thing that the forgiven slave had said:
“Have patience with me, and I will pay you.”
But the slave whom the king had forgiven refused.
The forgiven slave refused to show forgiveness to his fellow slave.
The slave was not reflecting the forgiving character of the king.
Instead, the slave pressed charges and had his fellow slave arrested.
The king heard about this.
Called the slave he had forgiven and called him a wicked slave.
And the king sent the slave he had forgiven to be tortured until he would pay off his debt.
Jesus ended:
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
We have been forgiven.
And people approach us for forgiveness,
this is not saying that we go around forgiving everyone,
but when we have the opportunity to demonstrate God’s forgiveness, just as he had demonstrated it to us,
we must be willing to forgive.
If you do not forgive those who have sinned against you, you have failed to represent God,
you bear the name of God in vain.
We are children of our heavenly Father,
we call God our father.
and as his children,
we must reflect our Father’s character.
If we do not represent our father,
how can we say we are his children?
Children are like their parents.
If we are God’s children,
then we must reflect God’s forgiving nature.
This isn’t a matter about earning God’s forgiveness.
It’s not about,
“Oh if I forgive, then I would deserve God’s mercy.”
No,
God is already merciful.
The king was merciful since the beginning.
But through forgiveness,
we are representing him,
and understanding what it cost God to forgive us.
If the slave had forgiven,
he would have understood what it cost the king to forgive.
Forgiving creates within us the capacity to truly receive and appreciate God’s forgiveness.
The parable of the unmerciful servant shows us what it means for us to pray,
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
Each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer,
which I hope is often.
Each time Christians, each time we pray the Lord’s prayer,
God’s community is confessing that they have received God’s unconditional forgiveness.
We pray it everyday because we need God’s forgiveness each day.
We fail God each day.
We become guilty each day.
So we pray for forgiveness each day.
And we recognize that each breathe we have is a gift,
because God has forgiven us.
And God’s forgiveness must change everything we do,
everything we say,
everything we think.
How we interact with fellow humans has changed.
...
Those who are unable to forgive others,
who cannot let go of their anger,
have not understood the unconditional forgiveness of God.
Those who truly understand God’s forgiveness,
can forgive and make all relationships new,
because they forgive.
We forgive over and over again.
It doesn’t matter how many times they offended us,
we forgive.
The Apostle Peter tried developing rules for forgiveness.
He asked Jesus how many times he should forgive, and Jesus said seventy-seven times.
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Seventy seven times.
That is a lot.
The point with Jesus' response is that we shouldn’t establish rules on forgiving.
God doesn’t put a limit on how many times he will forgive us,
and we shouldn’t either.
We value relationships.
Therefore,
we will forgive in order to restore relationships.
...
Now let’s talk about the specifics of forgiveness.
Forgiveness will not occur if you don’t truly process what happened—we’ve talked about this already.
But if you don’t process what happened,
your relationship will not be restored.
The wrongdoing should be accepted for what it is—it’s wrong--and then forgive the wrongdoer.
We have spent time in the Bible,
and we need to do that,
but I believe God also reveals his truth through nature.
We can find truths about forgiveness when we look at nature, at the observable world around us.
Like looking at two kids playing in a sandbox.
We see a boy get mad and storm off with his toy truck.
He cries to the other kid,
“I hate your guts, and I’m never going to talk to you again.”
But,
after ten minutes pass,
the kids are playing again,
laughing,
and enjoying the day.
We see this,
and we might admire it,
wondering,
“How do kids do this?
How can they be at each other’s throat one second and then get along so well in the next?”
I think that we can conclude that they choose happiness over being right, or feeling sad over themselves.
The kid could have just stayed in his feelings,
thought that the other kid was horrible,
but instead,
he forgave so that he could have fun with his friend.
Humans are social beings.
We need each other.
And intrinsically, we would rather repair relationships,
than hold a grudge.
Most of us want and would like to forgive.
But we don’t,
because what the other party has done to us, hurts.
And it really hurts.
When it hurts to forgive,
and we want to forgive because we reflect our merciful Father,
we might just not forgive because of the pain, or we opt for some cheap type of forgiveness.
Sometimes we opt for a cheap type of forgiveness because we think that we only have two choices when someone hurts us,
but no,
it’s much deeper than that.
We don’t just have the option of forgiving or not forgiving.
Here are the options:
(write on board)
Not forgiving,
cheap forgiveness,
acceptance,
and genuine forgiveness.
I think we should all strive to get acceptance and genuine forgiveness.
But sometimes,
genuine forgiveness is not possible,
so all we could do is accept.
Acceptance helps you value yourself,
your own health,
your head space,
Acceptance helps you stay true to yourself and recognize that what the perpetrator did was wrong.
Acceptance helps you stop seeking revenge and forgive yourself for your own failings.
Acceptance is when the boy gets back into the sandbox if he chooses,
and the other person does nothing to right the wrong he has done.
The boy can opt for no relationship with this person.
The boy doesn’t have to dwell on the injury,
and he doesn’t have to minimize it either.
The boy can be himself, and be open to Genuine forgiveness if the other boy chooses to do just that.
Look,
in the Bible,
God’s attitude is always merciful,
but some people just don’t repent,
don’t recognize their sin,
or need for forgiveness,
and God is respectful and accepts the reality.
That’s acceptance.
We have an attitude of mercy,
and we want to forgive.
But true genuine forgiveness takes time and takes both parties.
The best thing we can do when the other party is unwilling to ask for forgiveness is to accept.
Forgiveness is not just up to us.
It takes two.
Of course, we do all we can so that forgiveness and restoration are possible.
But it takes two.
Forgiveness is a weighty thing.
True forgiveness is not easy.
But because it’s so hard,
and because people don’t know about forgiveness,
(refer to board)
people choose cheap forgiveness or refuse to forgive.
Cheap forgiveness is when you are desperate to preserve the relationship or so afraid of the perpetrator that you “forgive” the person.
This type of forgiveness is premature,
superficial,
cheap.
It’s cheap forgiveness.
...
Refusing to forgive is just wanting to punish the person.
You might think that forgiveness is a weakness.
Not forgiving makes you feel powerful,
that you’re in control.
but it often makes you mad.
Cuts you off from life.
...
Forgiveness is hard,
but if you are going down the list,
if you are accepting more,
if you are hoping for genuine forgiveness,
you are growing.
But don’t stay in cheap forgiveness or refusing to forgive.
Cheap forgiveness is compulsive.
When you refuse to forgive,
you hold to your anger.
When you forgive cheaply,
you just let your anger go.
And these are both wrong.
We need to process our anger.
Cheap forgiveness is dysfunctional.
It might give you the illusion of closeness,
but nothing has really been resolved.
With cheap forgiveness,
you silence your pain,
and fail to recognize the harm that was done to you.
...
When God forgives us sinners,
he knows that our sin causes a lot of pain and grief,
but God dealt with that pain.
He processed that pain.
Cheap forgiveness is cut-rate.
You might do it because you just want to avoid conflict.
You’re compliant and dismissive of the pain because you just want to avoid conflict.
Therefore, you give cheap grace.
...
There is this story about this woman named Marsha.
She had parents who always argued with one another.
She said that it was frightening.
Sometimes the parents would throw tables,
the father would get drunk and chase his wife with a gun.
Marsha would lock herself in her room,
and would just avoid her parents.
She hated them.
But she said she had “forgiven” them.
Cheap forgiveness.
Now,
she is not good at anger.
She’s afraid of feeling angry.
She doesn’t allow herself to feel angry because she offered cheap forgiveness.
Another story about cheap forgiveness is from Kathy.
She was married to Jack.
Jack drinks too much, cheats on her,
lashes out at Kathy verbally and at times physically.
But Kathy gave cheap forgiveness.
She said,
“I think of myself as a love junkie.”
Sometimes,
some people just offer cheap forgiveness so that they don’t stay alone.
So that they keep some of their relationships.
Cheap forgiveness makes excuses for abuse.
...
Cheap forgiveness makes you passive-aggressive.
You might say you have forgiven somebody,
but then lash out sometimes.
You’re angry.
You make subtle comments that are hurtful.
Cheap forgiveness is terrible.
It might make you feel righteous because you have “forgiven”,
but man,
don’t be so quick to forgive.
I know that sounds weird.
But
Forgiveness
True forgiveness is a process.
Don’t just forgive to move on.
No, cheap forgiveness takes away the possibility of developing a deeper bond with someone.
You’re just being surface-level.
Understand yourself and understand the pain, the situation, and accept and give true forgiveness if possible.
It’s harder… but it’s better.
It’s better than cheap forgiveness or refusing to forgive.
...
People who refuse to forgive were typically abused at a young age,
and you want to empower yourself, so you think,
if I don’t forgive, I’ll be stronger.
But note that God, the Almighty and all-powerful, forgives, and that does not make him weaker.
He does not become weaker when he forgives.
You might refuse to forgive because you grew up in a family that held grudges their entire life.
Here are some questions to consider whether you refuse to forgive:
Do you get insulted or offended easily?
Do you have too many confrontations with people?
Do you jump to conclusions or take things too personally?
Do you hold on to grudges forever?
Do you never find an apology as good enough?
Do you dream of crushing your opponent?
...
You know,
not forgiving,
makes you feel invulnerable,
like nothing can affect you.
But that’s a lie.
We are human.
Refusing to forgive is just prideful.
Recognize that you are human,
that you can suffer.
And recognize that the perpetuating party is also human.
The party messed up, but he is human.
...
We need to practice life-giving habits,
like acceptance and genuine forgiveness,
not cheap forgiveness or refusing to forgive.
...
Let’s talk more about acceptance.
Acceptance is the best response to someone who hurts you but is unavailable or unrepentant.
It is based on a personal decision to take control of your pain,
to understand your injury,
and carve out a relationship with the offender which works.
It’s not forcing the offender to ask for forgiveness,
but it is being open and desiring the offender to repent,
to ask for forgiveness.
Acceptance gives you freedom.
You receive power to decide how to live your life,
instead of wasting time thinking about the past.
Acceptance makes peace with the past.
Psychologist Janice Abrahams Springs gave ten steps for forgiveness (I’ve included them in your notes):
Step 1: You honor the full sweep of your emotions.
Through the Holy Spirit, you analyze what you are feeling and what happened.
You might replay the event.
And you accept it:
You might say,
I feel hurt.
This hurt me.
It really did.
What happened was wrong.
Step 2: You give up your need for revenge but continue to seek a just resolution.
You know that God will take care of revenge if it is necessary.
He’ll take care of it.
But you understand that you need to seek a just resolution.
How can you best reflect God?
Step 3: You stop obsessing about the injury and reengage with life.
You slowly stop obsessing over the incident.
You start living the abundant life God called you to live.
You begin to reengage with life.
Step 4: You protect yourself from further abuse.
You know that what you experienced was wrong.
God gave you emotions so that you could feel.
So that you could sense that things that are wrong.
So you should try to protect yourself from suffering again.
Take the necessary steps to avoid being hurt as you were hurt.
Step 5: You frame the offender’s behavior in terms of his own personal struggles.
You understand the offender.
He or she is a sinner.
It does not excuse the offender,
but it does explain why the offender acted as he or she did.
Step 6: You look honestly at your own contribution to the injury.
Sometimes, you don’t contribute to the injury at all.
But sometimes you do.
Maybe you angered the person,
or failed in some areas.
Again, we are trying to understand the situation by seeing the context.
We’re not shifting blame,
but we are identifying what happened.
Step 7: You challenge your false assumptions about what happened.
Maybe you had this false picture of what actually happened.
You should consider the possibility of being wrong in your depiction.
What really happened?
Again,
we’re not saying that you weren’t hurt,
but we are saying that we need to know what actually happened.
Step 8: You look at the offender apart from his offense, weighing the good against the bad.
Step 9: You carefully decide what kind of relationship you want with him.
Is it worth returning or not?
Step 10: You forgive yourself for your own failings.
If you messed up, or contributed to the incident,
you forgive yourself.
This is acceptance.
And this is good.
Of course we want genuine forgiveness,
but it is a process.
...
There’s a story about a man named Sam.
His father would always ignore him.
His father wouldn’t be there for him.
So as a child,
Sam would get into trouble.
into crime and drugs,
so that he could get attention of his father.
As an adult,
Sam confronted his father about how he was insensitive.
He asked,
“How could you have been so insensitive?”
And his father responded,
“What did I know?”
Sam saw the shallow response of his father.
And began to value himself and what was likable about himself instead of his dad ignoring him.
Sam stopped focusing on how he was neglected,
and started to focus on himself and his family.
Sam began to understand and accept his father’s limitations:
He discovered that his father’s dad had abandoned him.
Sam also recognized that as a kid,
he had a terrible temper.
He never forgave his dad,
but he began accepting the situation.
And he wanted genuine forgiveness.
Before Sam’s father died,
Sam visited him in the hospital.
Sam valued some of the good qualities of his father,
but he wanted to forgive,
so he asked,
“Dad, it would help me get closer to you if you could acknowledge how alone I felt as a child and how you were never able to give me much of yourself.”
His father looked at him and said,
“Get off the cross. Stop nagging at me.”
Sam wanted to forgive his father,
but couldn’t.
His father was incapable of grasping the harm he had done to Sam.
But Sam accepted that and stopped agonizing over it and continued with his life.
Acceptance is awesome.
And sometimes that’s the best choice.
But if there is an opportunity for you to genuinely forgive, then do it.
And then we can have genuine forgiveness.
I want to end with something that has helped me think of forgiveness.
I’ve mentioned it before when I spoke about the Lord’s prayer during the Luke’s series,
but I think it’s a great illustration. (draw bag)
This idea is called emotional wealth.
It’s similar to monetary wealth.
You can only give money,
if you have money in the bank.
And you can really only give forgiveness,
if you have emotional wealth.
If you have forgiveness.
It’s as I said at the beginning of this series,
you can’t teach forgiveness,
you can’t teach someone to give mercy.
No.
Only forgiven people can forgive.
It’s only when you have you have received mercy
that you could give mercy.
It’s only when you have mercy in the bank,
that you could give mercy.
And as Christians,
as people who are not perfect,
but who have been forgiven,
who have received God’s mercy,
we should have mercy in our bank to share with others.
If not, we really need to spend time with God and knowing his mercy.
---
Back in World War 2,
there was this hero.
His name was Louis (Loui) Zamperini.
(write name)
A movie was actually made honoring his life.
The movie is called Unbroken.
Louis was on a war mission over the Pacific back in 1943.
His plane crashed into the ocean,
and most people who were on the plane died.
He survived after spending 47 days afloat in shark-infested waters.
Louis and one other survivor survived the sea but then were captured.
For two and a half years, Louis was imprisoned, and suffered beatings, humiliation, and torture.
After the war, Louie he returned home,
and like many veterans, he suffered post-traumatic stress,
which led him to become an alcoholic.
His wife, Cynthia, lost hope for their marriage.
All Louie did was dream and plan how he would return to Japan to murder “the Bird.”
The Bird was a Japanese sergeant who had assaulted and tormented Louie in the camps.
One night,
when Louie was dreaming about “the Bird,”
he heard a scream which woke him up.
When his eyes opened,
he saw his hands locked around the throat of his pregnant wife.
Cynthia couldn’t handle it so she filed for divorce.
Louie was going to lose his wife, and his child.
But he couldn’t stop drinking,
he couldn’t change his self-destructive behavior.
The pain that he suffered when he was imprisoned
tormented Louie so much that he couldn’t leave his bitterness so that he could change,
even to save his family, he couldn’t change.
...
In the fall of 1949,
Louie’s wife, Cynthia, heard about a young evangelist coming to town.
This evangelist, he became uber popular.
His name was Billy Graham.
He would have large services, that were stadium full, and thousands would profess that they will follow Christ.
Well, Cynthia attended one of these crusades.
And she came home.
She became a Christian.
...
And she immediately went to Louie and told him that she did not want a divorce anymore.
She told him that she had a spiritual awakening.
She wanted Louie to go with her to another service.
Louie resisted, said no.
But after days of Cynthia inviting him, Louie gave in.
Louie went to a Christian service.
At that service,
the evangelist Billy Graham honed in on human sin.
Louie was indignant.
He told himself, I am a good man.
But as soon as he told himself that,
he knew that that was a lie.
Several nights later,
Louie went to another Christian service,
and gave his life to Christ.
...
Immediately,
Zamperini was delivered of his alcoholism.
And even more important than that...
Louie felt God’s love flood into his life and realized that he was able to forgive all those who had imprisoned and tortured him.
The shame, the hate, the misery all vanished.
His relationship with Cynthia “was renewed and deepened.”
They were happy together.
...
In the October of 1950,
Louie was able to return to Japan.
And he spoke through an interpreter at the prison where many of his former camp guards were now imprisoned.
He spoke about the power of Christ’s grace to bring forgiveness and to the prisoners’ shock,
he embraced each of them with a loving smile.
God had filled Louie’s emotional bank.
Therefore, Louie was able to forgive his torturers.
You know,
not everything is so instantaneous.
It could happen that God immediately delivers you from hate and alcoholism.
But many of the times it’s a process.
But as we see with Louie,
Jesus has the power to heal deep wounds.
Through the Spirit,
through the love of God,
Jesus changes hearts.
And it might look sudden like Zamperini,
or it may take some time.
Either way there is hope.
There is hope for you to heal.
And there is hope to forgive.
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Louie Zamperini was literally tortured, and his inner hate, anger, and fear, had stopped him from loving and serving others.
There is a God-sized hole in all of us.
But God can fill it up.
Otherwise, that hole, that darkness,
will eat you up,
and make you bitter.
I pray that you would encounter Jesus’ restorative forgiveness.
Let’s pray.