Myths About Forgiveness

Greg Laurie Sermon Archive What Is Forgiveness

It was December 1, 1997. About a dozen students were gathered together for their daily prayer meeting at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky. As they were praying, they got to the end and were saying their final amen. Suddenly a 14-year-old boy walks up and begins to open fire on them. He shoots a number of the students. Three of them were killed. Five others were seriously wounded. The irony of this situation is these students had actually gone out of their way to befriend this young man and this is how he repaid their kindness.

In the midst of this tragic story a stunning demonstration of forgiveness emerged. One of the injured girls was 15-year-old Melissa Jenkins. She lay in the hospital just a week after the shootings and was told that she was now gong to have damage to her spinal cord for the rest of her life and she would be a paraplegic.

She had a message she wanted to give to the boy who shot her. What do you think her message was? How about tell him I hate him. Or tell him he will get his in the end. Or tell him he will burn in hell. That is not what this 15-year-old Christian girl had to say. Her response was tell him I forgive him.

Can you believe it. She forgive him. Why? Why would she do it? Why would she give the gift of forgiveness to the person who had damaged her for life. How could she forgive such a terrible act.

I think our scripture that was just read tells us not only why she forgave. But, it also helps us to deal with some myths that are out there about forgiveness. Today we are going to look at what forgiveness is, and what it is not.

This is the first in a new series of messages simple called "FORGIVE"

In Matthew 18 we discover what forgiveness is and at the same time we will put to rest three myths about forgiveness that keep coming up. Let's get started. The first myth is:

If I Forgive it means"It Really did not hurt me"

Matthew 18:24 NIV

As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him.

According to this scripture the man owed ten thousand bags of gold. That is no small thing.

Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Matthew (1) A Huge Debt Is Forgiven (18:23–27)

Thus a laborer would have to work sixty million days, or roughly 193,000 years (60,000,000 days divided by 310 workdays per year), to earn this much money.

Often people see forgiveness as weakness. Hear this, Weak people don't forgive, only strong people can forgive. No one would say that Melissa was not hurt by the boy who shot her. She would be in a wheelchair the rest of her life. She will never be able to take care of herself. She will always need help. Yet she forgave him. Just like the King in our story. The king faced a great loss. Charles Stanley was right when he said,

Experiencing Forgiveness A Definition of Forgiveness

Forgiveness does not mean, “It didn’t matter.” If you have been hurt by someone, or if you have committed a sin, it does matter.

Forgiveness does not take away the pain. You are going to still hurt. I wish I could say, just forgive and all the pain will go away. But that would be a lie. The pain will remain. It will lessen with time, but it will never go completely away.

Henry Ward Beecher, a popular nineteenth-century American preacher, said,

Let me saw off a branch from one of the trees that is now budding in my garden, and all summer long there will be an ugly scar where the gash has been made; but by next autumn it will be perfectly covered over by the growing; and by the following autumn it will be hidden out of sight; and in four or five years there will be but a slight scar to show where it has been; and in ten or twenty years you would never suspect that there had been an amputation. Trees know how to overgrow their injuries, and hide them: and love does not wait so long as trees do

So if forgiveness does not take the pain away what does it do.

Forgiveness say I will focus on the future and not on the past.

On what I have, not on what I lost.

On where I am going, not there I have been.

The first myth about forgiveness is if I forgive I am saying it really did not hurt me much.

The Second Myth is If I Forgive it means " it was not important."

Matthew 18:25 NIV

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.

There is nothing further from the truth then to say the enjure you have suffered was not important. When we suffer pain, it is important.

Look for a moment at the cross. As our Lord and Saviour, suspended between heaven and earth, he said, "Father Forgive Them." Would anyone say that the pain he was suffering was not important. The Roman soldiers had laid his back open with a cat of nine tails. He was is angrny. Yet he said, "Father Forgive them." He was carrying the weight of the sins of all the world, your sins, and my sins, and stilll he said, "Father Forgive Them."

When we offer forgiveness it does not mean that what has been done to us in no important. In fact it it the opposite. It means it is gravely important. It is so important we need the help of other to get through. But we offer forgiveness anyway. Look up here, Paul said in Colossians 3:13:

Colossians 3:13 NIV

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Notice the motivation for the forgiveness. We forgive, Not because the other person deserves it. Them may not, they may not even ask for it. We forgive, not because we are such nice people. We forgive, because we are forgiven

Forgive as the Lord Forgave you.

Forgiveness say I will focus on the future and not on the past.

The First Myth is If I Forgive it means"It Really did not hurt me"

The Second Myth is If I Forgive it means " it was not important."

The Third Myth is If I Forgive it means" I will forget."

Matthew 18:32 NIV

“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.

Notice the king did not forget. He remember, he said, "I canceled all that debt of your." When we forgive it is like canceling a long standing debt. A debt that some people don't know they owe, or could care less. A when we cancel the debt they may not even be thankful. Realize now there are some things that been done to you, or ever harder to take, your family, that you will never forget. They we haunt you the rest of your life. But you can let them go. As Christians, we forgive.

Greg Laurie Sermon Archive What Is Forgiveness

An unforgiving Christian is oxymoron. An oxymoron is one of those terms that contradicts itself.

This morning, as we prepare for communion, some of you are still carrying pain from your past. You would love to let it go. Today is the day to let it go. As you break off the bread, visualize it as your past pain, then dip it into the blood of Jesus and let it go.

Matthew: A Bible Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition 5. The Extent of Forgiveness 18:21–19:1

The Greek word consistently used in the Gospels for forgiveness literally means to let go of. While this provides a beautiful picture of what must happen in forgiveness, it also teaches that forgiveness is an action one can—and must—choose to do rather than being simply a feeling that one tries to create.

Forgiveness say I will focus on the future and not on the past.