p>Matthew 18:21 -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?”
Any teacher worth his or her chalkboard will tell you that ASKING QUESTIONS can be a very effective teaching tool because in the process of seeking the answer to one question, skilled teachers can guide their students to come up with other questions that lead their students to learn even more. The more questions they ask and answer, the deeper their understanding of a particular subject. Think of it this way-many times learning is like peeling an artichoke. The more layers you peel away, the closer you get to the truth.
Now, in my opinion, today’s text provides us with a great opportunity to make use of this teaching tool. Peter asks his Teacher a question about FORGIVENESS-an issue that we all deal with in life-but in order to fully grasp this issue that Peter raises-in order to get to the truth when it comes to understanding FORGIVENESS-we must first seek the answer to at least three other questions.
1. And the first is this: WHAT exactly IS “forgiveness?”
This is a good question for us to answer because understanding “forgiveness” can be very difficult for us. I say this because, in our culture genuine forgiveness is so uncommon…so rare. It’s MORE common to be unforgiving than forgiving. I mean, it’s a “dog-eat-dog” world out there-not a “dog-forgive-dog” world. In his book What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey writes that UNforgiveness…
“plays like a background static of life for families, nations, and institutions. [Unforgiveness] is sadly our NATURAL human state. We nurse sores, go to elaborate lengths to rationalize our behavior, perpetuate family feuds, punish ourselves, punish others-all to avoid the most UNNATURAL act of forgiving.”
And Yancey is right. In our society, REAL forgiveness is as rare as hen’s teeth. Now, people SAY they forgive. They SAY they “bury the hatchet.” But, they almost always keep a “map” that carefully marks the SPOT where it’s buried so they can dig it up when they need it. We say we forgive but what we really do is put our resentment in cold storage so we can thaw it out when we need it. Let’s face it. We “nurse”our grudges as if they were our precious children!
And all these examples of keeping our resentment and grudges where we can get to them are really the OPPOSITE of forgiveness because to “forgive” literally means, “…to release or send away…..to let off.” Forgiving is a commitment NOT to let feelings of resentment come between us and those who have wronged us.
Well, since forgiveness is NOT the norm, then perhaps the best way to answer this first question the best way to truly understand WHAT it IS….is to remind ourselves of WHAT it is NOT.
A. And….one thing forgiveness is not…is FORGETTING.
When people hurt us deeply, we CAN’T simply forget it and wipe it from our minds. We don’t have that ability! No, determining to forgive someone means that every time the wrong they did to us comes to mind we forgive them again. Colossians 3:13 literally says, “KEEP ON forgiving one another.” So forgiveness is a continuing process. I think this is what Jesus meant when He told Peter that we are to forgive one another not seven times but seventy times seven. Jesus was trying to get His student to understand that forgiveness is something we do over and over and over again. It is not forgetting. In fact it actually has MORE to do with remembering!
Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, was once reminded of something mean that someone had done to her years before. But she acted as if she had never even heard of the incident. “Don’t you remember it?” her friend asked. “No,” she said, “In fact I distinctly remember forgetting it.”
B. Forgiveness is also not RECONCILIATION.
You see, reconciliation takes two people, but an injured party can forgive an offender without reconciliation. We can forgive someone even if they don’t ask or want to be forgiven.
C. And then…..forgiveness is not CONDONING or DISMISSING.
It doesn’t mean saying, “What you did was bad…but it doesn’t really matter.” Because, if something doesn’t matter, then forgiveness isn’t needed in the first place. No-forgiveness involves taking the offense seriously, not passing it off as inconsequential or insignificant. Forgiveness acknowledges the act as being wrong and forgives it anyway. By the way, forgiveness is built around the root word, “give” which should tell us that it is something that is undeserved-like a gift. There is a great deal of grace in the act of forgiving someone.
D. Forgiveness is also not PARDON.
A pardon is a legal transaction that releases an offender from the consequences of an action, such as a penalty. But, as Lewis Smedes writes,”You can forgive a person and still insist on a just punishment for the offense.” A parent might say, “I forgive you for going to that party I had forbidden you to attend, but you’re still grounded.” We might say to a friend who has gossiped or slandered us, “I forgive you for talking about me behind my back-but it’s going to be a while before I can give you my trust again.”
E. Another thing FORGIVENESS is not…EASY.
It can be extremely difficult to forgive. Perhaps this is one side affect of our sinful state. Forgiving someone seems to go against our grain. It’s so much easier for us to GET revenge than to GIVE forgiveness to those who wrong us. Elizabeth O’Connor writes,”Despite a hundred sermons on forgiveness, we do not forgive easily, nor find ourselves easily forgiven. Forgiveness, we discover, is always harder than the sermons make it out to be.”
The movie Dead Man Walking tells the true story of how an unsuspecting Catholic nun became the spiritual director of a death row inmate. Throughout the movie, this prisoner, who was convicted of the brutal murder of a young couple, does little to make us identify with him as a human being. He is sickening and repulsive. Yet this nun, Sister Prejean, continues to guide him, hoping somehow to touch is soul. Finally she leads him to an act of contrition and penance and as a result, he declares to the parents of his victims, “I hope that my death gives you some peace.”
But for the parents of the young girl, there is no peace. The only thing they have is their hate. And under the circumstances…their reaction is understandable, even natural. But, the father of the young man is not as hardened. He attends the grave side services for the murderer, but stands at a distance. Sister Prejean goes to him and he tells her, “Sister, I wish I had your faith.” She replies, “It’s not faith. It’s a lot of WORK.” And forgiveness is hard.. We have to WORK at it. Forgiveness does not come easily to us.
Okay-we’ve dealt with one question-but our answer brings another question to my mind…
2. Namely, WHY would God ask us to do something that is so hard to do?
Well, one reason is because God is so forgiving. When Jesus first commanded us to love our enemies-which would of course include forgiving them-He said He wanted us to do this so that we would be seen as sons of our Father in Heaven. In this way our Lord was reminding us that we are called to resemble our Heavenly Father. We are called to bear God’s family likeness-and forgiving one another is one way we do this. As William Arthur Ward once said,”We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive.”
But another reason God has issued this command is the simple fact that He knows that forgiving is good for us. As our Designer and Creator He knows that UN-forgiveness harms us in many ways.
A. For example, one way UN-forgiveness hurts us is PSYCHOLOGICALLY.
You see, people who refuse to forgive-people who entertain bitter thoughts and exhibit angry attitudes toward others-well…they often turn into bitter, angry, joy-LESS people. They become psychological hostages to their own hate. Lee Strobel says, “They don’t hold a grudge as much as the grudge holds them.” And he’s right. UN-forgiveness has the power to change us psychologically and emotionally. This is what Proverbs 23:7 means when it says, “As a man thinks within himself, so he is.” Several times I have seen people who have been wronged-but because they refused to forgive they became bitter to the point that they became just like the people who had wronged them.
So if you WANT to become a resentful person, refuse to forgive-fill your mind with resentful thoughts and plans. You see, resentment literally means “to feel again.” An UN-forgiving attitude causes us to cling to the past, to relive it over and over again, picking at each fresh “scab” so that the mental wound never heals. It is no wonder that Job 5:2 says, “To worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish, senseless thing to do.” (The Living Bible)
In his book, Healing for Damaged Emotions, Dr. David Seaman writes, “The two primary causes of emotional stress are the failure to forgive and the failure to receive forgiveness.”
God knows this. He knows that UN-forgiveness can damage our spirits. He knows that the only way to heal the emotional wounds caused by others is to forgive them.
B. And He also knows that UN-forgiveness hurts us PHYSICALLY.
UN-forgiveness has been linked to cardiovascular disease, hypertension, high blood pressure, and even cancer. An article in The New York Times said, “Researchers have gathered a wealth of data lately, suggesting that chronic anger is so damaging to the body that it ranks with…or even exceeds…cigarette smoking, obesity, and a high-fat diet as a powerful risk factor for early death.”
In one study at the University of Michigan, a group of WOMEN was tested to see who was harboring long-term suppressed anger. Then all the women were tracked for 18 years-and the outcome was startling: The women with suppressed anger were three times more likely to have died during the study than those who didn’t have that kind of bitter hostility. A similar study at the University of North Carolina examined MALE medical school graduates over a period of 25 years. The results showed that the physicians with hidden hostilities died at a rate that was six times greater than those who had more forgiving attitudes.
So, in a very literal sense, bitterness is a dangerous “drug” in any dosage. Your health is at risk if you stubbornly persist in being unforgiving. I think this is what God was warning us of in Proverbs 17:22 where it says that, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
Harboring resentment can hurt us psychologically and physically and perhaps the most obvious consequence is seen in the fact that unforgivness can also….
C. ….do great harm to OUR RELATIONSHIPS.
At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as tension was building toward what could have been the outbreak of WW III, Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev sent an urgent communique to President John F. Kennedy. In part, the message said, “You and I should not pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied a knot of war, because the harder you and I pull…the tighter the knot will become. And a time may come when this knot is tied so tight that the person who tied it is no longer capable of untying it….What that would mean I need not explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly what dread forces our two countries possess.”
Kruschchev was exhibiting a great deal of wisdom here because in effect, when we make the decision to return evil for evil, we ARE choosing to yank on “the rope of conflict” and make the KNOT in our relationship so tight that it may never be able to be untied. But…by forgiving….by simply dropping our end of the rope, we loosen the tension and preserve the possibility that the still-loose knot might somehow be untangled and our relationship restored.
You see, hatred writes people off. Only forgiveness holds out hope that relationships can be mended and that enemies can be made into friends! In his book, Seeking the Kingdom, David Dockery writes, “There were probably some Christians who hated Saul when he was filled with malice and breathing threats and murder against the church…Who would have guessed that he would become the apostle Paul…preaching love and forgiveness? The one who treats us as our enemy today…may become our sister or brother tomorrow. Jesus says to treat them TODAY as our brother and sister.” Remember, relationships don’t thrive because the GUILTY are PUNISHED but because the INNOCENT are MERCIFUL.
D. But, you know, the greatest harm that is done by UN-forgiveness is the damage it does to OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.
When we fail to forgive…we sin….and when we sin we erect a barrier between ourselves and God through which His love and mercy cannot flow. We tend to think that being forgiven by God and forgiving others are two separate things but they aren’t. God’s forgiveness of our sins HINGES on our forgiving others. Remember – in Matthew 6 Jesus said,
“…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.”
Several years ago our revival speaker, Randal O’Brien, illustrated this truth by pointing to the obvious fact that a door closed from one side is closed from the other side. With this word picture he was reminding us that a “door” closed from one side so forgiveness can’t get OUT to others is also closed from the other side so God’s forgiveness can’t get IN to us. His illustration reminds me of something Frank Stagg, New Testament professor at Southern Seminary once said,
“It’s not that God is unwilling to forgive the unforgiving but that the condition of the unforgiving person is such that they are incapable of receiving forgiveness.”
As you probably know, Leonardo da Vinci painted his famous fresco of “The Last Supper” in a church in Milan. At the time that he painted this work he had an enemy who was a fellow painter. Da Vinci had had a bitter argument with this man and despised him. Well, when he got to the point of painting the face of Judas Iscariot at the table with Jesus, Da Vinci decided to use the face of his enemy. It brought him great pleasure to think that for ages to come others would equate his enemy with Judas….the betrayer of Christ.
Well, as weeks passed and he worked on the faces of the other disciples, he would often try to paint the face of Jesus, but couldn’t make any progress….he had sort of a “painter’s block.” Da Vinci felt frustrated and confused. But in time he realized what was wrong. His hatred for the other painter was holding him back from finishing the face of Jesus. Only after making peace with his fellow painter and repainting the face of Judas was he able to paint the face of Jesus and complete his masterpiece. This illustrates the fact that it is only when we forgive that we can we “look God in the face” so to speak, and enjoy a close walk with Him.
So you see, forgiving others is good for us….it has psychological, physical, relational, and even spiritual benefits.
E. But forgiving also benefits THE FORGIVEN PERSON as well.
Lewis Smeades writes, “When you forgive someone, you slice away the wrong from the person who [harmed you.] You disengage that person from his hurtful act. You re-create him.” And he’s right. Forgiveness DOES have the power to re-create. A wonderful example of this is Peter. Remember when his cowardice led him to deny Jesus three times the night of His arrest? But on the beach that morning after Jesus’ resurrection He forgave Peter. And as a result he was changed….transformed! He boldly preached at Pentecost and thousands came to faith in Christ.
Peter died as a brave martyr for his faith in Jesus. God used Peter in a great way to further His kingdom…but this wouldn’t have happened if he had never been forgiven for his cowardice.
You see, our forgiveness makes it possible for people to repent and change. As Randall O’Brien puts it “The question is not, ‘Should I forgive if he doesn’t repent?’ Its ‘Can he repent if I don’t’ forgive?’
Okay-we’ve dealt with the “What” and the “Why” of forgiveness but our study brings one more question to mind.
3. …namely “HOW?” How Can we forgive? How can we do this thing that goes against our nature?
In his book God’s Outrageous Claims, Lee Stroebel suggests that we use the word PEACE as an acronym, to help us remember five things that make forgiveness possible.
1. And the “P” in this acronym stands for the word “PRAY.”
In the Sermon on the mount Jesus said, “You have heard it said that you are to hate your enemies, but I say to you, love your enemies. PRAY for those who despitefully use you.” This should remind us that the first step in the process of forgiveness is to PRAY for that person who wronged you. And praying for someone who has hurt you or someone you love may be one of the most difficult things of all. But this is what we must do because praying allows us to seek God’s assistance and tap into His forgiving power.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN prayed fervently for the Southerners during the Civil War. Someone once confronted him about this, saying, “Mr. President, you should DESTROY your enemies, not PRAY for them!” Lincoln replied: “Do I not make a FRIEND of my enemy-do I not ‘DESTROY’ my enemy-when I pray for him?” In his book, Letters to Malcolm, C.S. Lewis observes, “Last week, while at prayer, I suddenly discovered-or felt as if I did-that I had forgiven someone I have been trying to forgive for over thirty years…trying and praying that I might.”
Lewis learned that without the hard work of prayer, the words, “I forgive you” are empty and powerless. And he was right. You see, as we pray for the person who’s wronged us, we find that the HARD FEELINGS and the HURT seems to diminish. In fact we can’t pray for a person very long and still hate them. If we pray genuinely and earnestly, we discover that we can’t help but forgive that person.
2. The first “E” in this peace acronym stands for “empathy.”
This reminds us that in order to forgive someone we need to EMPATHIZE with them. In other words, we need to back up and look at our enemy from a completely different viewpoint. We need to try to understand why they did what they did. We must turn from seeing them from our painful perspective to seeing them as God sees them. This point of view helps us to realize that our enemies…our persecutors….have infinite value to God…They bear His image….even though it is distorted and obscured by their sin. And then….when we see them as people who MATTER to God, they begin to MATTER to us.
William Barclay relates a wonderful rabbinic story that emphasizes how much God values those He has created….even though they sin. In this ancient tale, the angels of heaven begin to noisily rejoice as the waters of the Red Sea. cave in on the Egyptian Army and drown them as they pursue the Israelites. Amid their celebration, God lifts His hand to stop them and says, “The work of My hands are sunk into the sea….and YOU WOULD SING?!” Those angels should have read Ezekiel 33:11 where it says that “God takes no pleasure in the demise of evil people.” To forgive, we need to love sinners as God does even though we hate what they did to us. As Martin Luther said, “To love one’s enemy does not mean to love the mire in which the pearl lies, but to love the pearl that lies in the mire.”
3. And then…the “A” in Peace stands for “ACT.”
To forgive we need to sidestep our feelings of revenge and ACT in forgiving ways. John Stubblefield put it this way, “We need to ACT ourselves into a new way of THINKING, rather than trying to THINK ourselves into a new way of ACTING.” This principle of action is what Jesus was teaching in Luke 6 when He commanded us to “Do GOOD to those” who hate us and to “BLESS those who curse us.”
And then, remember in Matthew 18:15-17 Jesus said that when we are hurt we are to ACT…GO to the person who hurt us. We-the innocent party-are to initiate reconciliation because forgiveness involves ACTION!
Harry Emmerson Fosdick said that when he was a boy he overheard a conversation between his dad and his mother at the breakfast table. He heard his dad say, “Tell Harry he can mow the grass today if he feels like it.” Then as his father left he heard him say, “Tell Harry he’d better feel like it.”
You see, forgiveness is not a matter of whether you feel like it. It’s a matter of acting on a command from our Heavenly Father.
So, if a business competitor beats you out for a contract, send a note offering your congratulations. If a friend or family member continues to hold a grudge, keep on acting toward them in loving ways. If your adversaries require help moving or fixing a flat tire or need to borrow something, go to their aide. Act in a forgiving way…..even if you don’t feel like it!
4. The “C” in peace stands for “Confess.”
You see, part of forgiveness is owning up to our side of the problem. And more often than not we share part of the blame for pushing the person into being our enemy. I’m sure you’ve heard to old saying that there are three sides to every argument. There’s A’s version, B’s version and the truth which lies somewhere in between. The fact is that as sinful people we almost always bear some blame in any argument. Sometimes it’s our own jealousy…our own stubbornness…our own ambition…or even our own bad attitude that has contributed to the rift that is between us and others. And we need to admit our part of the problem. We need to say, “It’s not my mother, not my father, not my toilet training but it’s ME oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.”
Few things accelerate the peace process more than humbly admitting our own wrongdoing and asking for forgiveness. We need to get to the point that we dan say, “I’m sorry. The hurt I caused you now causes me pain as well.” This tells our enemies that we are so serious about dealing honorably with the friction between us that we are willing to go beyond pride and self-interest to confess that yes-we do own some of the responsibility for the disagreement.
5. The final “E” in peace represents the word “Example.”
This should remind us that whenever we are not sure how to love an enemy….whenever we hesitate because we’re perplexed over how to proceed….whenever we wonder if we’ve gone far enough in our effort to reconcile, we should look at the EXAMPLE of Jesus and model ourselves after Him. Some of you might say, “Mark, you just don’t know the terrible things that person DID to me.” And you are right, I don’t-but I do know what WE did to our Lord, and yet He forgave. I know how much we were forgiven…and remembering that ought motivate us to forgive as well. The truth is we’ll never be asked to forgive someone more than God has already forgiven us.
So if you have trouble forgiving others REMEMBER what Jesus did for you. Watch in your mind’s eye as our Lord was arrested in Gethsemane. Watch as the soldiers with lanterns and clubs, beat Him and whip him…and then march Him to the High Priest’s home. And then be PRESENT over the period of the night that He went through several MOCK trials. LISTEN as false witnesses are brought to declare testimony against Him-and He utters not a word. FEEL the pain of the lash as it’s laid on His back. WALK with Him as He carried that cross out through the streets of Jerusalem to the place called GOLGOTHA. FEEL the agonizing pain as the nails are driven into His hands and feet…and a spear is thrust into His side. LISTEN as the crowd mocks and jeers Him. And then LISTEN as He prays, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And then YOU forgive.
Associate Press reporter TERRY ANDERSON was held hostage in Lebanon for nearly seven years. He was chained to a wall in a filthy, spider-infested cell. He suffered through sickness. He endured mental torture. He longed for his family. Through it all, he was given one book to read-the Bible-and as he devoured it in a search of words of hope, he came across Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy’ but I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
Can you imagine how outlandish that command must have seemed to Anderson…..after spending 2,455 mind-numbing days in cruel captivity? Love WHOM? Pray for WHOM? Show kindness toward those WHO brutalized me? Exhibit compassion toward those WHO callously extended none to me?
Finally Anderson was released on December 4, 1991 and journalists peppered him with questions. They wanted to know what his ordeal had been like-what his plans were for the future. But one reporter called out a QUESTION that stopped Anderson in his tracks. He asked: “Can you forgive your captors?” Anderson paused and before the words of his response could come out of his mouth, the Lord’s Prayer coursed through his mind: “Forgive us our sins, as we also forgive those who sin against us.” Then this victim of undeserved suffering replied, “Yes I can forgive them because, as a Christian, I am required to forgive no matter how hard it may be.” Sometimes the only way we can forgive is to stop and remember our OWN experience and need of God’s forgiveness.
As we come to the conclusion of our study two more questions pop into my mind and the first is this. “Is there someone you need to forgive…someone who needs your forgiveness?” If so, then I hope you see the need this morning to ACT-the need to forgive that individual. Use the PEACE acronym or whatever but obey our Lord and FORGIVE…for your good and for theirs!
And the second question I have is this… “Have you experienced God’s forgiveness…personally?” Have you confessed your sin to God and asked for His cleansing? Have you claimed His Son as Your Savior and Lord? If not, I hope you’ll do so right now.
We sing to give you an opportunity to respond publicly or privately. Won’t you come as God leads?