We are coming to the year-end charitable giving season. When you think about giving to help those in need, think about our Benevolence department, mechanics ministry, or Counseling Network. These could all use your help and it would benefit people right here.
We thank God for the dry weather which has allowed us to finish the excavating with getting overcome with slop. We have gotten the work done for about 10% of the originally estimated cost.
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked,
"Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?
Up to seven times?" 22 Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times,
but seventy-seven times. 23 "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a
king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the
settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents[1]
was brought to him. 25 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. 26
"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he
begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27 The servant's master took pity on
him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28 "But when that servant went out,
he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.
He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.
29 "His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with
me, and I will pay you back.' 30 "But he refused. Instead, he went off and
had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other
servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told
their master everything that had happened. 32 "Then the master called the
servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours
because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow
servant just as I had on you?' 34 In anger his master turned him over to the
jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 "This is
how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother
from your heart."
We are all pretty comfortable with the general themes of this passage
until we come to the last sentence. It
wouldn’t be too hard to find a consensus in
Most people don’t believe it. They
have turned God into a cross between Barney, Santa Claus, and everybody’s
grandmother. He wouldn’t anymore do what
Jesus said he would do. The only problem
is, that particular God is not the God we are talking about here. We are talking about the Lord Almighty and he
actually does what he says he will do.
Forgiveness is an issue for everyone at some point in his life. Those of us who are dealing with these kinds
of issues are typically in one of four places.
·
Those
who don’t think it’s a good idea to forgive someone and don’t intend to.
·
Those
who want to but can’t.
·
Those
who think it’s a good idea and are ready to do it right now.
·
Those
who already have forgiven, but it keeps coming back and they feel like they
need to do it all over again.
Last week I preached on the Spirit’s work in changing us and setting us
free from a variety issues. I want to
illustrate that spiritual idea today in talking about forgiving those who have
wronged you.
First, I want to give a kind of warning.
Sometimes forgiveness can be confusing.
I think about people who live in abusive situations of domestic
violence. Wrong thinking about when to
forgive and what it means to forgive can prove destructive of physical and
emotional health, if not even fatal. It
can be very dangerous. I am not
recommending forgiveness as the initial approach for people who are currently
dealing with domestic violence, sexual abuse, and the like. I do not want to see people manipulated into
being victims by a misuse of forgiveness.
Second, I don’t believe it
is easy to forgive just because we know we should or we would like to be able
to. Any time you have been deeply hurt,
forgiveness is going to be difficult.
Third, time by itself does
not really heal. A study by a
Fourth, your memory is not
reliable in indicating whether or not you have forgiven a person. We are different from God in that we do not
forget injuries suffered. Some people
say that if you forgive you must also forget.
(“For
His will is, not that you should forgive an offence, but forget it.”[2]) I’m not sure that is either accurate or even
possible. Remembering a wrong suffered
is not the same as not having forgiven a person.
Fifth, forgiveness doesn’t mean you necessarily
change your opinion of someone. If
someone rips you off in some way, you can forgive them and still regard them as
a thief.
Sixth, having forgiven someone does not require that
you be best friends after that. I have
sometimes advised people to forgive each other and then stay away. Give each other some room.
What I am speaking to today is how to forgive where forgiveness is both the correct thing to do and we have proper expectations of what it means to forgive. It is not an enabler of abuse. It doesn’t pre-date amnesia. It is not expected to take away of pain of the injury suffered or change your opinion of the perpetrator.
In the book, Letters to Malcolm, C.S. Lewis wrote "Last week in prayer, I discovered, or at least I think I did, that I suddenly was able to forgive someone that I had been trying to forgive for over thirty years." Lewis had discovered that there is a moment of the Spirit’s working in our life that we are able to do what we truly want to do but are powerless to do without his help.
In our text today, Peter asked about forgiveness. He thinks he is being very generous by forgiving seven times. In a way he was being generous because the rabbinic teaching of that day said you should forgive up to three times. After that you could stop forgiving. Peter thinks he is being very spiritual when he proposes seven times, more than twice what the rabbi’s were requiring.
Jesus astounded Peter as he does us
by saying 490 times, or an infinite number.
There is a similar case in Luke 17:4-5
where Jesus said, “If he sins
against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says,
'I repent,' forgive him." In that case, “The apostles said to the
Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’”
They knew to forgive so greatly required faith. It was going to take more than
willpower. It would take spiritual
power. That is why this is the right
place to have this discussion. It takes
God’s grace to really be able to forgive.
Corrie ten Boom was arrested during WWII for hiding Jews from the Nazis. She and her sister Betsie
were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. They suffered terribly there all sorts of
inhuman treatment and her sister eventually died there.
Two years after the war, Corrie returned to
After speaking in a church one night, she saw a man in a gray overcoat
come toward her. “One moment I saw the
overcoat, the next, a blue uniform with a visored cap
with its skull and crossbones.” As her
former guard stood before her, his hand reaching toward hers, all the memories
came flooding back. The harshly-lit
room. The pile of dresses on the floor.
The shame of walking naked past this man.
The death of her sister. It was
all tied to this man.
He said, “A fine message, fraulein.” How good to know that all our sins are buried
at the bottom of the sea and God has put up a “No fishing” sign.
As he spoke Corrie remembered his face and the
leather crop hanging from his belt.
He said, “You mentioned Ravensbruck in your
talk. I was a guard there. But since then I have become a
Christian. I know that God has forgiven
me, but I would like to hear from your lips that I have forgiven for the cruel
things I did there. Will you forgive
me…Fraulein?”
She froze. Her sister had died a
cruel and terrible death there. She knew
what God had done for her, but she also knew what this man had done. She prayed, “Lord Jesus, forgive me, and help
me to forgive him.” Still struggling, Corrie took his hand.
Later on she described what happened to her.
“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. As so I
discovered that when Jesus tells us to love our enemies, He gives along with
the command, the love itself.”[3]
She discovered what we have reduced to a saying. To err is human to forgive, divine. The grace to forgive has to come from God or
we cannot do it.
We are asking God for the grace to
forgive today. If you are listening to Corrie’s story, and see how it is like your own, is God
doing for you what he did for Corrie? Is he putting it in your heart right now to
forgive? They don’t have to be here or
even still be alive. If God is giving
you grace right now, then forgive right now.
Maybe you are listening and you know that this is right. You know you should forgive. If want to forgive, but can’t, you need God
to give you the grace. Your prayer
should be God, I want to but I can’t.
Help me. Just say to God, “If you
give me the grace, I will forgive.”
It could be that you have heard all kinds of messages like this and have
forgiven your tormentors many times before, but you do not feel any release in
your spirit. You need what C.S. Lewis
spoke about. After 30 years he was
suddenly able to forgive. Your prayer
is, “Lord, I want to know that I have forgiven.” There is a kind of work that God does by the
release of faith. You suddenly know that
it is taken care of. In the future when
you think about it, you can recall this moment when God gave you that
release. You can write it in your Bible
with the date. It can become a signpost
of the healing of your life.
In many ways, we are like the crippled man waiting by the pool of
[1] The talent was the largest unit of silver, shaped in pellets or rings, with approximately the value of one ox. A denarius was about the daily wage of a laborer. ( Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary Copyright (C) 1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
[2]Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., “Tertullian Against Marcion,” Ante-Nicene Fathers; Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian; vol 3 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994) 407.
[3] Adapted from “Who put the skunk in the Trunk?” By Phil Callaway, page 159-163.