Unpacking Forgiveness Session 3 Review from previous sessions: Jesus invites us to come under his yoke and find rest (cf. Mat. 11:28-30). This is true in his calling to forgiveness. We need his rest as we deal with our own wounds and how we have wounded others. You need to be motivated properly to unpack forgiveness, or you will give up when it gets hard. You should be motivated to unpack forgiveness so you can know maximum happiness (37). John Piper: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. 3 Key verses: o Matthew 6:12 o Ephesians 4:32 o Colossians 3:13 The foundation for our understanding of forgiveness is to understand how God forgave us. God's forgiveness: A commitment by the one true God to pardon graciously those who repent and believe so that they are reconciled to him, although this commitment does not eliminate all consequences. (51) Interpersonal forgiveness must involve us forgiving as God forgave us. Forgiveness: A commitment by the offended to pardon graciously the repentant from moral liability and to be reconciled to that person, although not all consequences are necessarily eliminated. (55) Four promises that Christians make when they forgive another: o "I will not dwell on this incident." o "I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you." o "I will not talk to others about this incident." o "I will not let this incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship." Christian forgiveness must be gracious, but it is not automatic. Christian forgiveness values reconciliation, but it does not negate the reality of consequences. Any Christian who is offended should graciously wrap a present of forgiveness and offer it to all who offend him or her. If the offenders choose to open the package, they will find forgiveness and reconciliation inside. (64)
Chapter 5 More Than a Feeling Biblical Forgiveness versus Therapeutic Forgiveness Therapeutic forgiveness: Lewis B. Smedes. Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984. See Figure 5.1 on Brauns page 65. Therapeutic forgiveness argues: Feeling anger and bitterness is damaging to a person. If we forgive, we cease to feel anger and bitterness. So we should automatically forgive for our own good. From page 65: The problem with what Smedes advocates is that he redefines forgiveness. According to Smedes, forgiveness becomes an emotion rather than a transaction or commitment between two parties. Specifically, forgiveness becomes the universal antidote for bitterness. Therapeutic forgiveness distorts people's understanding of true forgiveness. From Page 66: If we say that we must forgive everyone unconditionally, then we cheapen what happens when forgiveness truly does take place. Therapeutic forgiveness attempts to redefine how people understand God's forgiveness. From page 67: One pastor recently wrote, "Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for."
Therapeutic forgiveness suggests that some people may even need to forgive God. Job 40:1-5 (ESV) And the Lord said to Job: Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it. Then Job answered the Lord and said: Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further. Job 42:1-6 (ESV) Then Job answered the Lord and said: I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of ours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me. I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes. Habakkuk 3:16-18 (ESV) I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. Therapeutic forgiveness results in "cheap grace" and a reluctance to identify and name evil. From pages 69-70: Listen to Bonhoeffer's own words. Keep in mind that Bonhoeffer speaks as a German, and this is his explanation for why the church was so ineffective in standing up against the Nazis: But do we also realize that this cheap grace has turned back on us like a boomerang? The price we are having to pay today in the shape of the collapse of the organized church is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available to all at too low a cost. We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale, we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition. Our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to
the scornful and the unbelieving. We poured forth unending streams of grace. But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was rarely ever heard. Therapeutic forgiveness discourages healing in Christian community. Therapeutic forgiveness may make individuals feel licensed to avoid dealing with their own sin. Proverbs 16:2 (ESV) All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV) The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Therapeutic forgiveness does not prepare us as Christians for the persecution and evil that we may face. Revelation 6:9-11 (ESV) When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.
Chapter 6 The Way Up Is Down Proverbs 17:1 (ESV) Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. How do we deal with conflict? Humility. Matthew 18:1-4 (ESV) At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. From page 78: Jesus' first point in instructing about forgiveness and conflict resolution was to tell his disciples to be humble. Dependent children, who accept a modest place in society, picture a biblical definition of humility. Biblical humility is seeing self in proper relationship to our Heavenly Father completely dependent on him. The biblically humble do not chase status. Mark 10:43-45 (ESV) But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. James 4:1-10 (ESV) What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us? But he
gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Matthew 7:1-5 (ESV) Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother s eye. Humility prevents conflicts. Humility shortens conflicts when they break out. You Can't Be Humble Through Sheer Determination From page 81: Pride is not limited to arrogance or cockiness; it is not just an inflated opinion of oneself. Pride is any way of putting self into the central focus. From page 82: The question is not if you struggle with pride but how. From page 82: But understand, you will never become more humble through sheer force of will. If all you do is tell yourself over and over again, "Be more humble," it will not work. That approach is ineffective because the reason we struggle with pride in the first place is because we are all wrapped up in ourselves. If our only remedial strategy is to look inward, we will just reinforce the problem. The only way to grow in humility truly is to take our eyes off ourselves and meditate on the beauty and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Humility is a matter of perspective, of seeing
ourselves in right relationship to God. When Isaiah looked at the holiness of God (Isaiah 6:3-5), he did not go in with a goal of becoming more humble. But that was certainly the outcome. Isaiah 6:1-5 (ESV) In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory! And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts! From page 83: If we begin to get a glimpse of the vast glory of God, we will realize that many of our conflicts are like two ants arguing about which is taller while standing in front of Mount Everest. We quibble over some infinitesimal difference of opinion while the vastness of Almighty God soars into the heavens. We need to stop looking at one another relative to ourselves or, better yet, stop looking in the mirror. And we need to turn our eyes to the loveliness of Christ in his Word. For next time, Chapters 7-8.