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Healing the Hurt We
Never Deserved
Matthew 18:21-35
Christian author and theologian C. S.
Lewis made this telling remark: “Everyone says forgiveness is a
lovely idea until they have something to forgive.” There are two
parts to that observation and both of them are important for us to think
about:
1. Forgiveness is a Christian
virtue.
Consider these words from
the lips of our Lord:
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you
will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37).
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said it very plainly:
“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins,
your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15).
The Apostle Paul said a very similar thing in Colossians 3:13: “Bear
with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one
another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
There is another way to say it, and it comes from the “Love
Chapter”—I Corinthians 13. While describing the greatest
virtue, Paul declared that “love … keeps no record of
wrongs” (I Corinthians 13:5). That little phrase deserves a closer
examination. Eugene Peterson (The Message) says it this way, “Love
… doesn’t keep score of the sins of others.” Love
doesn’t keep score because love has a bad memory. It finds a way to
forget the sins of others.
Finally, we have the greatest, most profound statement on this topic in
the entire Bible, the finest, purest, highest example of forgiveness.
When he hung on the cross, condemned to death by evil men who plotted to
murder him, who produced lying witnesses to convict him, as he surveyed
the howling mob assembled to cheer his suffering, Jesus the Son of God,
the One who knew no sin, in his dying moments uttered words that still
ring across the centuries: “Father, forgive them, for they
don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
Those 11 tortured words
sweep away all our shabby excuses. They reveal the barrenness of our heart.
Many of us say, “If only the people who hurt me would show some
remorse, some sorrow, then maybe I would forgive them.” But since
that rarely happens, we use that as an excuse to continue in our
bitterness, our anger, and our desire to get even.
But consider Jesus on the cross. No one seemed very sorry. The crowd
laughed, mocked, cheered, jeered. Those who
passed by hurled insults at him. They taunted him. “If you are the
King of Israel, come down from the cross and save yourself.” Let us
be clear on this point. When he died, the people who put him to death
were quite pleased with themselves. No one said, “I was wrong. This
is a mistake. We were such fools.” And yet he said, “Father,
forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
That is precisely what we must say if we are going to follow Jesus. We
must say it to people who hurt us deliberately and repeatedly. We must
say it to those who intentionally attack us. We must say it to those who
casually and thoughtlessly wound us. We must say it to those closest to
us, to our husband or wife, to our children, to our parents, to our
friends, to our neighbors, to our brothers and sisters, to our fellow
Christians.
2. Forgiveness is
difficult in part because we do not understand it properly.
At this point it is
necessary to clear up some of the misconceptions about forgiveness. In
some ways, it is easier to say what forgiveness is not than what
it is. These misconceptions matter because sometimes when we say we
can’t or won’t forgive, we are actually talking about
something other than biblical forgiveness. Let me list a few things
forgiveness does not mean:
It does not mean approving of what someone else did.
It does not mean pretending that evil never took place.
It does not mean making excuses for other people’s bad behavior.
It does not mean justifying evil so that sin somehow becomes less sinful.
It does not mean overlooking abuse.
It does not mean denying that others tried to hurt you repeatedly.
It does not mean letting others walk all over you.
It does not mean refusing to press charges when a crime has been
committed.
It does not mean forgetting the wrong that was done.
It does not mean pretending that you were never hurt.
It does not mean that you must restore the relationship to what it was before.
It does not mean that you must become best friends again.
It does not mean there must be a total reconciliation as if nothing ever
happened.
It does not mean that all negative consequences of sin are canceled.
Let me make an observation: It is
quite possible to mouth kind words of forgiveness while harboring anger
and bitterness within. So, let me
suggest this morning that forgiveness begins in the heart and then eventually
works its way outward.
Forgiveness in its essence is a decision made on the inside to refuse to
live in the past. It’s a conscious choice to release others from
their sins against you so that you can be set free. It doesn’t deny the pain or change
the past, but it does break the cycle of bitterness that binds you to the
wounds of yesterday. Forgiveness allows you to let go and move on.
▪ You can forgive even when other people make no
confession.
▪ You can forgive without a restoration of the
relationship.
▪ You can forgive when the other person has done nothing
to earn forgiveness because forgiveness is like salvation—it is a
gift that is freely given, it cannot be earned.
▪ You can forgive and
the other person may never even know about it.
▪ You can forgive without saying, “I
forgive you” because forgiveness is a matter of the heart.
That brings me back to the
statement by C. S. Lewis: “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely
idea until they have something to forgive.” Then it becomes
difficult.
Jesus tells a story, which we read this morning about a man who owed his
boss a vast debt that in today’s terms would be something like $1
million. Somehow he had run up this enormous debt and somehow he had
managed to spend all the money. When the boss demanded his money, the man
unashamedly begged to be forgiven. He even promised to pay the money
back. But the boss forgave him the whole debt. Just wiped the slate
clean. Soon after that, the man who had been forgiven such an enormous
sum saw a fellow who owed him a tiny debt—something like $100. When
the fellow couldn’t pay, he had him thrown into jail. But people
heard about it and told the boss who got angry and had the first man
thrown into jail to be tortured until he paid back the amount that
previously had been forgiven. The King James Version says that he was
turned over to the “tormentors.”
The moral of the story is
very clear: “This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you
unless you forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:35). These words are for believers. Jesus said,
“What happened to that man will happen to you unless you learn to
forgive and forgive and forgive.” The tormentors will come and take
you away and torture you. What tormentors you may ask?
The hidden tormentors of anger
and bitterness that eat your insides out, the tormentors of frustration
and malice that give you ulcers and high blood pressure and migraine
headaches and lower back pain, the tormentors that make you lie awake
at night on your bed stewing over every rotten thing that happens to
you. The tormentors of an unforgiving heart that stalk your trail day and
night, that never leave your side, that suck
every bit of joy from your life.
Why? Because you will not forgive
from the heart. It is happening to
you just as Jesus said because you refuse to forgive.
We are like the unforgiving servant. We stand before Almighty God with
our sins piled up like a mountain. The mountain is so tall we can’t
get over it, so deep we can’t get under it, so wide we can’t
go around it. That’s every one of us. Our sins are like a $100
million dollar debt we could never pay in our lifetime or in a thousand
lifetimes. We come as debtors to God, come with empty hands, and we say,
“I cannot pay.” God who is rich in mercy replies, “I
forgive all your sins. My Son has paid the debt. You owe me
nothing.” Then we rise from the pew, leave the communion table,
walk outside the church humming “Lord, I Lift Your Name on
High.” And before we get to our car we see a man who has done us
wrong and we want to grasp him by the throat and say, “Pay me right
now!”
No wonder we are so tormented. No wonder we are so angry and bitter. No
wonder we have problems. No wonder our friendships don’t last. No
wonder we can’t get along. We have never learned the secret of
unlimited forgiveness. Verily, the hidden tormentors have done their work.
We will speak more on forgiveness in the weeks that follow, but let me
conclude this morning with one final thoughts:
1) Forgiveness is not an optional part of the Christian life. It is a
necessary part of what it means to be a Christian. Ed Johnston, properly
reminded me Wednesday night that last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday…a
time on the church calendar where we remember Jesus pouring out his
spirit, the Holy Spirit on us the church.
Let me suggest that one of the test as to whether the Holy Spirit
has been poured out on you …on us…. is our willingness and
ability to forgive. Kindness,
forgiveness, and a concern for lost souls is a true gauge of where we are
in Christ. You can't judge the spirituality of a Christian on the basis
of his prayers, since praying is often done for its effect on the
listeners. Nor can you measure a person's spiritual status by the
loudness of his "amens" and
"hallelujahs." The generosity of one's giving is not an
infallible test for it may be done for personal recognition or to ease
one's conscience. Faithful attendance
at worship or participation in church programs is not reliable either for
they may all be done because of family, community, or peer pressures. A sure test of the depth of our
relationship with God is found in our willingness to show compassion and
to forgive those who hurt us. If we are going to follow Jesus, we must forgive. We
have no other choice.
Mark Twain said it this way: “Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet
gives to the heel that has crushed it.” You are never more like
Jesus than when you forgive. And you will never be set free until you
forgive.
As I prepared this message, it occurred to me that we need two things:
soft hearts and courage. Some of us have been deeply hurt by the things
others have done to us. People have attacked us, maligned us, mistreated
us, abused us, sexually assaulted us, ridiculed us, belittled us,
publicly humiliated us, physically beaten us, and they have done it
deliberately, repeatedly, viciously. In response we chose to become hard
on the inside to protect ourselves from any further pain. But that
hardness has made it difficult for us to hear the gentle call of the Holy
Spirit. We need soft hearts to hear his voice. And then we need courage.
The timid will never forgive. Only the brave will forgive. Only the
strong will have the courage to let go of the past. May God soften our
hearts to hear the truth. And may God give us
courage do the hard thing and let go of our bitterness, give up our
anger, turn away from our resentment, stop keeping score, and enter into
the miracle of total forgiveness.
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Baptist Sermon page.
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