FORGIVING ONE ANOTHER

Introduction

-The title I have chosen for the sermon series I am doing over the next three weeks is “LET THE PAST DIE”

-This is actually a quote from the Star Wars movie THE LAST JEDI, and I thought that it was a good illustration for a lesson that Scripture has for Christians

-In the movie, the bad guy Kylo Ren is trying to convince the good girl Rey that she is letting her preconceived notions and her past keep her from her true potential.

~So, he tells her “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. That's the only way to become what you were meant to be.”

-Of course, he says that for duplicitous reasons, trying to convince her to join him in ruling the galaxy.

-But that quote reminded me that there are many Christians that are letting the past drag them down, keeping them from living in the freedom and victory that can be found in Jesus Christ—and, not only does it affect your personal walk with Christ, it also affects your relationships…

-Paul tells us in Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (Heb. 12:1 ESV)

-There are Christians that are carrying so much weight from their past that it makes it near impossible to run the race set before them—and so I want to talk about three different types of weights that are keeping you from running forward in freedom and victory, hoping that you will give those burdens over to Christ.

-The first weight that I want to speak about today is the topic of forgiveness—when you have a spirit of unforgiveness, when you refuse to extend forgiveness, it is a very heavy weight that hinders you spiritually more than you will ever know.

-Unforgiveness is devastating. As Voddie Baucham pointed out in one of his sermons:

People walk out on marriages and families because of unforgiveness. Young people walk away from home and go down horrific paths that threaten to derail and destroy them…friendships are thrown away…people walk away from the church and from the Lord…

-So, while this is a very sensitive topic and many of you are already feeling uncomfortable, I am clinging to the promise for you that the Son will use His Word to set you free, and when the Son sets you free you will be free indeed

-What we find in the passage that we are reading today is that Paul wrote to the Ephesians that part of living out our new life in Christ is to have a forgiving spirit toward others, and the immediate context makes it clear that this is especially true in the body of Christ, the church

Ephesians 4:25–32 ESV

25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

-This passage gives us four lessons on forgiveness:

I) The meaning of forgiveness

-There are a lot of false notions about what forgiveness entails—some think it is a matter of just making the statement “I forgive you” without any change of attitude or heart on the part of the one saying it; others might think that forgiveness means a lack of hostility

-But the biblical concept of forgiveness is something that I think all of us are going to be a little uncomfortable with

~Forgiveness in the Bible literally means TO CANCEL A DEBT—the word used here for forgiveness is related to the word for GRACE, and it means to show grace to somebody by completely canceling any sort of debt that they owe you without any expectation of payment or restitution {REPEAT}

-Just like when we say that salvation is by grace, meaning that it is a gift given without any sort of work or payment, so also the biblical concept of forgiveness is that it is a gift given without any expectation of work or payment

-Right there, some of you are arguing with me, because you think that if you are going to forgive someone it has to be earned by that person you are forgiving—but that is not Bible

-Forgiveness is completely dependent on the one who extends forgiveness, and it is a choice by you to show grace by giving this gift, whether or not they deserve it

-That means our giving of forgiveness is not based on whether the other person is worthy or whether they have done enough in our eyes to have made up for whatever they did—you give forgiveness simply because it is the right thing to do and it means the debt is cancelled, never again for you to pick it back up again

-This does not mean that you forget what someone did—the whole concept of forgive and forget is unbiblical, you can’t literally forget what someone did

~But in spite of the action and in spite of the memories you choose to cancel the debt, never to hang it over their head again

-Forgiveness is also not equated with reconciliation—but, as far as your part goes, you make the conscious choice to cancel the debt and you have a willingness to make reconciliation

-The biblical concept of forgiveness sounds hard, but it is what is required of our new life in Christ—but how do you know when you or someone else has not truly forgiven another?

II) The outward expressions of unforgiveness

-It is a spiritual truth that a tree is known by its fruits—no matter how much someone talks the right talk, what is truly in the heart will come to the surface of someone’s life

-This is true about forgiveness—someone may say that they have forgiven another, and yet intentional or unintentional words and actions demonstrate that they have not cancelled the debt

-In our passage today, Paul tells Christians that part of being a new man or woman and part of cancelling someone’s debt for forgiveness means to put off certain actions against another no matter how much you may think you have the right to do them

-There are obvious and intentional actions that talks about like lying about someone to hurt them as much as they hurt you—this also includes gossiping about someone (or as Paul puts it, corrupting talk and slander) to try to get others to think the way that you do about someone

~Now, I know that it is a common adage that if it’s true it’s not gossip, but that’s a lie—even if you speak the truth with the intention of causing someone grief it is a sin

-Another obvious action he lists is being angry—although there is a righteous anger, the anger that he talks about here is anger that leads someone to sin—it is an unrighteous wrath

-Paul also warns that bitterness that is held in the heart against someone demonstrates unforgiveness—if you continue to stew over things in your heart, if you constantly go over in your mind what someone did to you such that it leads you to want them to be hurt physically, emotionally, or spiritually in some way, that is definitely unforgiveness

-And I don’t need to remind you (but I will anyway) that bitterness does more harm to you who are bitter than doing harm to anybody else

~As the cliché goes: bitterness and unforgiveness is like you drinking poison expecting the other person to die

-Wrath, anger, malice, slander, on and on Paul goes==these all equate to having an unforgiving spirit in you

-While those are pretty obvious, active actions of unforgiveness, there are also more passive aggressive means that we use to punish someone because we have not cancelled their debt

Voddie Baucham lists three ways we do this:

(1) When we withhold attention—someone does something to us, and even if they come to apologize or not, when they approach us we’re like: I don’t want to talk to you—get out of my face

(2) When we withhold affection—when we have no warmth toward someone—we give them stone-hard looks and a cold shoulder

(3) When we withhold honor—someone to whom honor is due we withhold that honor—my parents did this or that to me, so I’m not going to call them on their birthday; my boss did this or that to me so I’m going to ignore his orders; the preacher preached a sermon I didn’t like or I don’t like the changes he made so I’m just not going to show up for church or I’m going to withhold my tithes

-This is all unforgiveness and it is wrong—the Bible commands us to cancel the debt

-You’re sitting there trying to justify yourself:

~If that person would sin less, then I’d forgive them—no, that’s not how it works. If they sin more you just forgive more.

~That other person has to make the first move. NO! You cancel the debt now.

~Forgiveness means that you have given up the right to punish someone for what they have done

-Unforgiveness is serious, because:

III) The spiritual dangers of unforgiveness

-Paul mentions two spiritual dangers that will happen to us when we allow unforgiveness to rule and reign in our spirits

-The first he mentions in v. 27—the ESV warns against giving opportunity to the devil, other versions translate it such that it warns us against giving the devil a foothold in our lives

-When we allow unforgiveness to develop anger and wrath and malice in us, what we are doing is opening the door for the devil to come into our lives and lead us into greater sin

-Now, I want to make it clear, I am not talking about possession or anything like that—true believers in Jesus Christ cannot be demon possessed; but how I would describe it is being demon oppressed

-The more we hold onto our unforgiveness and all the expressions that come with it, the more opportunity the devil has to weasel his way into our minds and hearts and influence our thinking and actions, and it will just be a downward spiral from there, and without a serious work of repentance it is hard to shake

~When we give the devil a foothold, it will eventually turn into a stronghold, and it will drive us away from God

-The other spiritual danger that Paul mentions is given in v. 30—unforgiveness and all its expressions quenches the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives

~I guess you could picture it as the Holy Spirit wanting to light us on fire to live and do great things for God, and the unforgiveness and anger and bitterness that we cling to so tightly is a strong fireman’s hose that douses that fire out

-If you have no spiritual vitality, if you have no spiritual power, if you have no victory, if you don’t hear from God, if you don’t feel led of the Spirit, then it might be because you are holding something against someone and won’t let it go

-So, you might make up whatever excuse to justify your unforgiveness, but all you are doing is rotting away spiritually because you’ve given the devil a foothold and you’ve quenched the spirit

-If is very important to forgive, and I want to give you the ultimate reason why you should forgive:

IV) The justification for extending forgiveness

-Very simply put, v. 32, FORGIVING ONE ANOTHER AS GOD IN CHRIST FORGAVE YOU

~We forgive because we have been forgiven

-Through Jesus Christ God has cancelled our debt of sin completely by His grace—we didn’t necessarily go looking for it, we didn’t do anything to earn it, God canceled our sin debt by grace when we trusted in Jesus Christ

~The cross of Jesus Christ made peace between me and God, and that then means it makes peace between me and you

-And God takes this so seriously, that He says in His Word that if you do not forgive others, He will not forgive you

~Does that mean we lose our salvation? No, but unforgiveness may be an indicator that we were never saved to begin with

-Listen to this parable Jesus told:

21 Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?"

22 Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

23 "Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.

24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.

25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.

26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.'

27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.

28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, 'Pay what you owe.'

29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.'

30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.

31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place.

32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.

33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?'

34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.

35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."

(Matt. 18:21-35 ESV)

-Listen carefully to this:

When you refuse to forgive someone, what you are saying is that you have a stricter standard regarding forgiveness than God does. {REPEAT}

-Do you really want to go there?

Conclusion

-Let me conclude with this thought—Lewis Smedes said this:

To forgive is to set a prisoner free…only to finally discover that the prisoner was you

-Maybe there are some here today who have never received the forgiveness found in Jesus Christ—during the invitation come forward and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

-Christian, you may have deceived yourself into thinking that you have forgiven someone, but if you have not truly cancelled the debt then you haven’t forgiven.

~Today is the day to let it go—come to the altar and lay the debt at the foot of the cross and leave it there never to take it up again—let go of anger, bitterness, slander, malice, all the expressions of unforgiveness and set yourself free when you set the other person free