[1] Better Together #2 ~ Forgiveness Matthew 5:21-24 and 18:21-35

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1 [1] Better Together #2 ~ Forgiveness Matthew 5:21-24 and 18:21-35 Last week, Jeff and I watched the movie Unbroken which tells the true story of the life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete who joined the armed forces during the second world war. After a nearfatal plane crash, Zamperini spent a harrowing 47 days in a raft with two fellow crewmen before he was caught by the Japanese navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp where he experienced ruthless and brutal torture. In the years after he returned home from the war, Zamperini struggled with what we would now call PTSD. He was haunted by images and memories of The Bird, his chief tormentor from his time in the camp. It wasn t until Zamperini gave his life to Jesus and learned about forgiveness that he was able to find healing. In fact, Zamperini returned to Japan to meet his former Japanese captors and forgave all of them. We may not experience anything quite as traumatic as torture in a prisoner of war camp, but the reality is that we are all going to get hurt in some way. Your spouse lets you down Someone gossips about you Someone steals your money Someone may have abused you Someone may have harmed your child Getting hurt is a reality of life. How we respond is the difference. Last week, as we began this series Better Together, we were reminded that as followers of Jesus we are called to love one another. It is by our love for others that people will know we are followers of Jesus. Today, we are going to look at another principle Jesus taught and that is Forgiveness! It is our responsibility to both seek and give forgiveness. 1

2 [2] I. When we have offended someone i Picture yourself before the altar in the temple ready to offer your sacrifice to God when an image of someone whom you ve offended pops into your mind. You ve avoided reconciliation for weeks and here you are at worship. What do you do? Ignore it? Ask the priest for forgiveness? Continue to try to justify yourself? Here s what Jesus taught Matthew 5: I like the Message translation: This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God. Don t waste another minute, leave your offering, go be reconciled with the other person, go make things right, then come back and present your offering to God. A healthy relationship with God requires a healthy relationship with other believers. When we ve offended someone, WE ARE THE ONES RESPONSIBLE to ask for forgiveness. When we ve hurt someone, it is up to us to initiate reconciliation not just halfheartedly, we need to go all the way with complete honesty and commitment to make things right. This is hard for many of us because we don t like to admit we might be wrong. CS Lewis wrote, Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive. ii Forgiveness is like money. We want to get it, not give it. iii But Our humanity is bound up in one another, and any tear in the fabric of connection between us must be repaired for us all to be made whole. iv So, we must set aside our selfish pride, we need to stop making excuses and seek out the one we ve offended and make things right. 2

3 [3] II. When someone has offended us Let s turn the tables now. What about when someone has offended us? Say that a neighbor borrows your lawn mower and returns it with a chipped blade. a friend betrays your confidence the boss promotes a less experienced employee over you. the pastor forgets your name two weeks in a row your spouse remembers your birthday the day after. What s the proper response when you re the one who has been hurt? And how often do we need to forgive? Here s what Jesus taught Matthew 18:21-22: 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. Peter thought he was being generous by suggesting seven times, but Jesus raises the bar, and says no, not just 7 times, but 7 x 70. In other words, Jesus is teaching that forgiveness is not about keeping score. It s about losing count! [4] And to illustrate his point he tells a story. Matthew 18: This story is a vivid picture of forgiveness and it is our story. As sinners we come to God with nothing but debt and no way to purchase salvation. Yet, He in His mercy and compassion, cancels our debt. He says. My Son paid it for you on the cross believe in Him, and your account with me is settled. With God as our model, forgiving others for wrongs they ve done to us should come naturally, right? But the truth is not always. Notice how quickly the slave forgot the king s gracious treatment? The servant was no sooner out of the room when he came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him ten dollars. He seized him by the throat and demanded, Pay up. Now! v. 28 MSG 3

4 The nerve of that slave! Forgiven ten thousand but won t forgive another for 10 bucks! But hold on, before we judge him too harshly, let s face up to how we do the same thing. Christ death covers ALL OF OUR SINS no matter how severe. Yet, we sometimes want to squeeze every last drop from those who owe us. We withhold hellos from our neighbor until he pays for the mower. We resent the boss for overlooking us. We ll never like another of the pastor s sermons until she remembers our name and we might even switch churches because she s supposed to be next to God. And, there will be no hugs for that forgetful spouse either. [5] Ironically, withholding forgiveness usually inflicts more pain on the one who needs to forgive than on the one who needs to be forgiven. I once heard it said that refusing to forgive someone who hurt us is like drinking poison every day and waiting for the other person to die. You can choose to allow the bitter poison of anger and resentment to corrode and destroy you from the inside out or you can choose forgiveness. You can choose to stay bitter or you can work to find healing by forgiving the one who hurt you. Refusing to forgive doesn t only hurt you. Anger and bitterness do not just poison you, they poison all your relationships, including those with your children. But when we choose to forgive, we release God s power to bring healing to our lives. [6] Forgiveness holds the key to freedom, to healing, to wholeness. v A woman whose husband had left her and their four kids for another woman was struggling with all the hurt and pain. She went to see her pastor who told her the first step to healing was to forgive him. This wasn t well received. With tears in her eyes, the woman exclaimed, But my husband doesn t deserve to be forgiven. To which the pastor responded, I get that. I mean, he did a terrible thing that has caused you and your children great pain. He doesn t deserve to be forgiven. But do you? 4

5 See none of us deserve to be forgiven. None of us deserve grace. None of us deserve mercy, but God s mercies are new every morning. None of us deserve to be loved with an unconditional unfailing, unstoppable love vi but we are loved by a God who ultimately gave up his life so we could have forgiveness. As Louis Zamperini discovered, The only way to experience healing and peace is to forgive. Until we can forgive, we remain locked in our pain and locked out of the possibility of experiencing healing and freedom, locked out of the possibility of being at peace. Without forgiveness, we remain tethered to the person who harmed us. We are bound with chains of bitterness, tied together, trapped. Until we can forgive the person who harmed us, that person will hold the keys to our happiness; that person will be our jailor. When we forgive, we take back control of our own fate and our feelings. We become our own liberators. We don t forgive to help the other person. We don t forgive for others. We forgive for ourselves. vii [7] III. How do we forgive Jesus gives instructions in Matthew 18:15-17: If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you ve made a friend. If he won t listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again. If he still won t listen, tell the church. If he won t listen to the church, you ll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God s forgiving love. It starts with you. When you have been hurt, when you ve been offended, when you ve been wronged, go to the other person and work it out. If that doesn t resolve it, take a mediator. And if that still doesn t work, take the whole church with you. That might sound a little extreme, but the point Jesus is making is that forgiveness is so important to our health and wellbeing that we need to do whatever it takes. 5

6 [8]Forgiveness doesn t mean you forget. But releases you from the pain and begins process of healing. Forgiveness does not release the offender from consequences Example you may forgive someone who killed a loved one but that doesn t mean that person should not go to prison. Vengeance is not ours to carry out. It s not up to us to keep people accountable. It s up to God. (Romans 12:19-21) Do not overcome evil with evil. Overcome evil with good. Give God your anger, your desire for vengeance. Allow God to be the judge and repay.. Forgive no matter what others do and let God handle the rest. viii Forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. For example, a parent abused you or business partner cheated you. Forgiveness is still required, but unless there is a miracle of God, a future relationship would be unhealthy. The invitation to forgive is not an invitation to forget. Nor is it an invitation to claim that an injury is less hurtful than it really is. Nor is it a request to paper over the fissure in a relationship, to say it s okay when it s not. It s not okay to be injured. It s not okay to be abused. It s not okay to be violated. It s not okay to be betrayed. The invitation to forgive is an invitation to find healing and peace. ix Forgiveness is like a healthy diet. We know the benefits, but practicing it well, that s another story. The doughnuts, cheeseburgers, and pizza of resentment taste better and require less preparation than the whole grains, salads, and broiled fish of forgiveness. So, we often settle for junk food, savoring the sweet taste of vindictiveness. But the penalty is steep our spiritual arteries harden, our hearts grow cold and dark. Perhaps you re holding a grudge and its eating your soul. Time to put into practice forgiveness. Broken relationships don t magically mend they take hard work, but they are so worth it! To your health, to the church body, and our witness to the world. x 6

7 Whether it is the tormentor who tortured me brutally, the spouse who betrayed me, the boss who passed me over for a promotion, or the driver who cut me off during my morning commute, I face the same choice: to forgive or to seek revenge. We face this choice of whether or not to forgive as individuals, as families, as communities, and as a deeply connected world. xi [9] Forgiveness is nothing less than the way we heal the world. We heal the world by healing each and every one of our hearts. The process is simple, but it is not easy. xii i Charles R. Swindoll, Joinonia: A Recipe for Authentic Fellowship, (Anaheim, CA: Insight for Living, 1995), 41 ii Jentezen Franklin, Love Like You ve Never Been Hurt: Hope, Healing and the Power of An Open Heart, (Minneapolis, MN: Chosen, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2018), 64 iii Franklin, 64. iv Tutu, 7. v Franklin 71. vi Franklin, 74. vii Tutu, 16. viii Franklin, 77. ix Tutu, 24. x Swindoll, 45. xi Tutu, 3. xii Tutu, 5. 7

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