Forgive us our sins:
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?
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
Therefore the Kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him millions of dollars was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. “Be patient with me,” he begged, “and I will pay back everything.” The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt, and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a few dollars. He grabbed him and began to choke him. “Pay back what you owe me!” he demanded.
His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.”
But he refused. Instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
Then the master called the servant in. “You wicked servant,” he said, “I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.
Today's message centers on Matthew 6:12: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Pre-forgiven. Life comes at you fast (that’s a registered trademark by the way). But when you come to Nationwide Insurance (also registered), you can be forgiven before anything even happens. For your first accident, your premium won’t go up – not a penny.
*accident forgiveness only applies to customers that have purchased the additional coverage option and does not come standard with a Nationwide policy.
What a great concept – instead of having to wait until you’ve done anything wrong, you can get pre-forgiven. This kind of loses the whole point of forgiveness, though, doesn’t it? Because it’s not true forgiveness, because it’s so limited. You’re limited to one “accident” (why don’t they just call it a crash), and you have to pay extra to get it.
This doesn’t sound like the forgiveness that we’re talking about today. We’re in our 4th message in the series on the Lord’s Prayer, and today we’re looking at Jesus’ instruction on forgiveness. We’re to ask God to forgive us our debts/trespasses/sins as we forgive our debtors/those who trespass/sin against us. In the scripture I read earlier, Peter asked Jesus a pointed question: how many times do I have to forgive my brother who sins against me? That Peter suggests 7 times is extravagant; the Rabbis considered 3 times sufficient for the forgiveness of sins. But what Jesus suggests is much, much more. In fact, the image He gives in his story is that of a master who has forgiven a whole lot. The word he uses to describe the amount is murioi, which means “too much to count.”
So when Jesus tells us to ask God to forgive us in the same manner that we forgive those who sin against us, he reminds us of how much we’ve been forgiven. But he also warns us by saying (Matt 6:14-15), 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 you.
This is why forgiveness is a big deal. Because we all have murioi to be forgiven, and God puts a condition on our forgiveness! But it’s not all about God being mean and sticking it to us. It’s about God protecting us and having our best interest in mind. You see, forgiveness is all about relationship. When Genesis says we were made in God’s image, God is always Trinity: Father, Son, Spirit, in perfect relationship with one another. And we, in God’s image, were made for relationship. So forgiveness is all about relationship!
If the forgiveness we receive is contingent on the measure by which we forgive others, then we’ve got a lot to learn. Here’s the rub: Dr. Larry Crabb says this: “Highly trained theologians, zealously compassionate pastors, strongly committed businessmen, remarkably talented women can all continue for years in their Christian life without seriously examining the sinfulness in their style of relating. It’s possible to be competent in theology, and, at the same time, blind to the central message of Christianity: we’ve been called into relationship with God so we may relate more deeply with others.”
A lot of this goes back to our discussion on our emotional health: if we are not emotionally healthy, then we cannot receive or give God’s love to others. If we are withholding forgiveness, then we are practicing a sinful style of relating. We have to deal with our own brokenness before we’re able to adequately deal with forgiving someone else. To get right with God, we have to repent. Including of our unhealthy relational patterns and our unwillingness to forgive others. Just because you’ve accepted Jesus’ free gift of salvation doesn’t mean you’ve got it right in the way you relate to other people.
I know this first-hand. I’ve been hurt pretty badly in the past. I know how it feels to have someone act as if they just don’t care how they’ve hurt me; in fact, in cases they’ve pretty much seemed to lord it over me. It can be hard to even want to forgive. But 9Repentance is a turning away from sin that’s made possible by God’s willingness to forgive us. It’s a gift from God. Just like our daily bread. And really, if God wasn’t willing to forgive us, it wouldn’t make any sense to even try to forgive others. Unfortunately, we often don’t even try to forgive. We try other things. Inside Out, Dr. Larry Crabb “Unnecessary problems can sometimes be relieved by changing circumstances, soothing heartache, and doing right things, but such change will not lead to a realization of our potential to powerfully love people. We will genuinely love only as we deal with the sin in our heart.”
What this means is that we can make ourselves feel better, but that does nothing toward reconciling broken relationships, and when we fail to reconcile broken relationships, we fail to love. And when we fail to love, we break the most important commandments: to love God with heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But once we understand the concept of relational sin, we repent by radically shifting our motivation and direction from self-preservation to trust on the basis of the belief that Christ has given and is preserving our life.
You see, withholding forgiveness is a means of self-preservation. Instead of working toward reconciliation, we shut ourselves off, so as not to get hurt again. But unfortunately withholding forgiveness is also a symptom of a greater evil: a lack of trust in God. In fact, withholding forgiveness demonstrates that you don’t believe that God is just. If God isn’t just, then we ourselves have to exact payment.
That just doesn’t work. We end up carrying the burden of the lack of forgiveness: it’s like carrying a 200# pack on your back. Meanwhile, that jerk who wronged you? He’s fine. He doesn’t care. It’s not bothering him at all. And it’s killing us. But when we’re on the brink of personal collapse that we’re best able to shift the direction of our soul from self-protection to trusting love. When we trust God and accept that He is just, we can begin to love. The more deeply we enter into the reality that life without God is sheer desolation, the more fully we can turn toward Him. If you still need work on that, your cell group is a good place to start. Another is going back over the Emotionally Healthy sermon series (you can look at my archives - just click by keyword on the left - or the church web site for those messages).
We often don’t get to the forgiveness stage of dealing with other people’s sins. In fact, here are several ways we deal with that pain: 1. We hold back. Instead of speaking encouragingly or prophetically, we shut up. Instead of offering creative input, we hold back. We withhold ourselves. We withhold blessing. Some ways that we withhold forgiveness are the “Flood or famine” style, where we forgive someone but exclude someone else. This is kind of like how Isaac Isaac blessed Jacob and had no blessing for Esau. We do this when we tend to overlook or forgive one person’s faults but we never forgive someone else. Some of you have been the recipients of that kind of forgiveness. Or lack thereof.
Sometimes we give “race track rabbit” forgiveness: we hold forgiveness just out of reach. Much like this is the conditional blessing, in which you have to accomplish something in order to receive forgiveness.
Another way we deal with pain is making lists & labels. This is where we start saying things like “these people are this.” We stereotype based on a certain bad experience. Maybe that experience is general: it’s easy to stereotype: politicians are blood sucking leeches. Or maybe the experience was personal: maybe someone in a church, maybe even this church, gossiped and said horrible things about you or to you, so you think: all church people are jerks. Or you were bullied by a popular athlete when you were in school, so you think all athletes are bullies.
A third way we deal with pain is revenge. We decide we’re going to do something about it; we won’t take it lying down. Sometimes we argue and fight, but the most common kind of revenge is gossip. Since someone hurt us, we feel justified, even required to tell someone about it. Of course we shine the most unfavorable kind of light on what they did and never admit any culpability of our own… why should we? I mean, they were the ones who did this.
Really, all gossip does is cause trouble. Even if you are just “telling the news” “so you can pray.” Again and again I have heard stories of people who have been hurt by the church. How have they been hurt? By people spreading gossip about them. It doesn’t matter if it happens to be true: if you wouldn’t say it to their face, don’t say it behind their back. Period. Proverbs 16:28 A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends. The book of Romans describes gossip as a result of people thinking that it’s not worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. So if you are a gossip, STOP. NOW. Matthew 18 tells the steps to go through if someone wrongs you: go to them individually. If that doesn’t work, bring 2 or 3 witnesses with you. If that still doesn’t work, bring a church leader with you. And if that doesn’t work, stay away from them.
So, how are we supposed to forgive? I’ll tell you this: it isn’t easy. Honestly, there is no place for sugarcoating in the life of a serious Christian.
The first step to forgiveness is wanting to want to forgive. You don’t start by wanting to forgive; you most likely don’t want to forgive. But if you are going to forgive someone, you’re going to have to start somewhere. I remember a painful time in a previous church, and after I’d left there, I had nightmares about that church every week for over a year and a half. During Lent, I decided to do a prayer journal where I wrote my prayers every day. One day I realized that I was carrying around all of this anger, resentment, and pain from that experience. I knew intellectually that I needed to forgive the ones who had wronged me. But really I didn’t want to. So I started praying, asking God to help me to want to forgive. It was kind of like in Mark 9:22-24, where a man came to Jesus. His son was possessed by an evil spirit. He said to Jesus, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” “’If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
The result of this conversation and the man’s request: Jesus healed his son. And I believe that if we come to Him with our desire to be made whole, to give out forgiveness, He will be faithful to us. Everything is possible for him who believes. Do you believe that God can create in you the desire to forgive?
This, too, is a gift. Just like the ability to obey God, to thus “hallow” his name and do his will here on earth, just like it’s done in heaven. Just like the daily bread He gives us: physical sustenance and spiritual nourishment through Jesus Christ, the bread of life.
He also gives us a supernatural ability. The ability to forgive, even to forgive our enemies.
Before I get to the brutal path to forgiveness, let’s quickly look at what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not forgetting. When God forgives, He throws our sins as far from us as east is removed from west. Because of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross, He wipes our slates clean. We aren’t God. And we aren’t meant to forget. We’re not doormats, just waiting to be walked all over. Titus 3:10 instructs us to Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him.
Indeed, forgiveness does not mean that your relationship with the person who wronged you just goes back to how it used to be. A beautiful proverb tells us that As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. If you just jump right back to where your relationship was without learning and growing from the situation, you are just going to get burned again.
This goes hand-in-hand with the third example of what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness does not mean going without boundaries. There is such a thing as wisely deciding to establish boundaries; I devoted an entire message to the subject of Receiving the Gift of Boundaries and Limitations & you can look it up on the web site. Realistically, forgiveness requires some boundaries. If someone has abused you, you can’t just walk right back into their lives. Some of you have suffered through divorce, and you’ve remarried, and now Jesus is telling you to forgive your ex. Yes, he is. But that doesn’t mean you have to move back in together! Boundaries! I have a friend who was estranged from his father for years. Recently his father came back into his life. Because the father was down on his luck for a while, my friend let dad move in with him. It didn’t work out. My friend told me he had a choice: his father or his family. So he kicked his dad out. Boundaries. In Genesis 33, Jacob and Esau had a beautiful reconciliation with one another. Remember that Jacob had tricked their father into giving him the blessing that was rightfully Esau’s, and Esau was hunting his brother down to kill him. Now they’ve reconciled. But interestingly enough, in verse 16, we read this: So that day Esau started on his way back to Seir. Jacob, however, went to Succoth… They didn’t stay together. They got their own places. They set up boundaries.
Forgiveness is also not ignoring reality. It’s not pretending that you were never hurt in the first place. When someone asks you for forgiveness, don’t ever say, “Oh, it was nothing.” It wasn’t! You can tell someone “I forgive you” or “I’m working on it” but the truth is, it was painful and it wasn’t “nothing.”
So what does forgiveness look like? Let me warn you: Jesus Christ’s pattern of forgiveness is brutal and painful. We’ve been handed something painful; what do we do with it?
Jesus’ pattern is one of death and resurrection. We absorb the pain, letting it infiltrate us. This death leads to resurrection. In Luke 23:34, when Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” it’s an honest reminder of how much forgiveness really hurts.
Here is how we follow Jesus’ example. First, we name the pain or the hurt. We can’t adequately grow from the experience if we don’t know how we were hurt. This might involve some serious looking beneath the surface to adequately name the pain someone has caused you. It might help to journal on it. I know that when I’ve been serious about writing in my journal, some pain surfaced, pain that I didn’t even realize that I was still carrying around.
Once we’ve named the pain, accept it. Accept that it is indeed reality. But also, accept the parts that might be true or might be your fault. One of the most painful events in my life revolved around the first time the United Methodist Church moved me. Going into the details doesn’t help things, but suffice it to say, I was extremely hurt. I already told you that I had nightmares for 1½ years after that move, almost all of which involved the couple of parties who wronged me. But part of accepting the pain was realizing such things as: as the associate pastor, I wasn’t a good fit with that senior pastor. The worst part of forgiving is when someone says something really ugly about you… and some of it is true. Or when you brought it on yourself.
The next step is to absorb the pain. Take it as a part of who you are. This is the opposite of forgive and forget – it’s all about leading from a place of vulnerability and brokenness. We cannot come to a place of true compassion if we do not realize and accept our own brokenness. But instead of suffering the life-long nasty death of bitterness and cynicism, leading from vulnerability and brokenness, absorbing the pain, leads to resurrection.
This transforms pain from a destructive impulse to a creative power. Now you have all of life to live, and you have the creative power to do something positive with it. To share love. To encourage. To uplift.
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
Therefore the Kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him millions of dollars was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. “Be patient with me,” he begged, “and I will pay back everything.” The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt, and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a few dollars. He grabbed him and began to choke him. “Pay back what you owe me!” he demanded.
His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.”
But he refused. Instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
Then the master called the servant in. “You wicked servant,” he said, “I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.
Matthew 18:21-35
Today's message centers on Matthew 6:12: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Pre-forgiven. Life comes at you fast (that’s a registered trademark by the way). But when you come to Nationwide Insurance (also registered), you can be forgiven before anything even happens. For your first accident, your premium won’t go up – not a penny.
*accident forgiveness only applies to customers that have purchased the additional coverage option and does not come standard with a Nationwide policy.
What a great concept – instead of having to wait until you’ve done anything wrong, you can get pre-forgiven. This kind of loses the whole point of forgiveness, though, doesn’t it? Because it’s not true forgiveness, because it’s so limited. You’re limited to one “accident” (why don’t they just call it a crash), and you have to pay extra to get it.
This doesn’t sound like the forgiveness that we’re talking about today. We’re in our 4th message in the series on the Lord’s Prayer, and today we’re looking at Jesus’ instruction on forgiveness. We’re to ask God to forgive us our debts/trespasses/sins as we forgive our debtors/those who trespass/sin against us. In the scripture I read earlier, Peter asked Jesus a pointed question: how many times do I have to forgive my brother who sins against me? That Peter suggests 7 times is extravagant; the Rabbis considered 3 times sufficient for the forgiveness of sins. But what Jesus suggests is much, much more. In fact, the image He gives in his story is that of a master who has forgiven a whole lot. The word he uses to describe the amount is murioi, which means “too much to count.”
So when Jesus tells us to ask God to forgive us in the same manner that we forgive those who sin against us, he reminds us of how much we’ve been forgiven. But he also warns us by saying (Matt 6:14-15), 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 you.
This is why forgiveness is a big deal. Because we all have murioi to be forgiven, and God puts a condition on our forgiveness! But it’s not all about God being mean and sticking it to us. It’s about God protecting us and having our best interest in mind. You see, forgiveness is all about relationship. When Genesis says we were made in God’s image, God is always Trinity: Father, Son, Spirit, in perfect relationship with one another. And we, in God’s image, were made for relationship. So forgiveness is all about relationship!
If the forgiveness we receive is contingent on the measure by which we forgive others, then we’ve got a lot to learn. Here’s the rub: Dr. Larry Crabb says this: “Highly trained theologians, zealously compassionate pastors, strongly committed businessmen, remarkably talented women can all continue for years in their Christian life without seriously examining the sinfulness in their style of relating. It’s possible to be competent in theology, and, at the same time, blind to the central message of Christianity: we’ve been called into relationship with God so we may relate more deeply with others.”
A lot of this goes back to our discussion on our emotional health: if we are not emotionally healthy, then we cannot receive or give God’s love to others. If we are withholding forgiveness, then we are practicing a sinful style of relating. We have to deal with our own brokenness before we’re able to adequately deal with forgiving someone else. To get right with God, we have to repent. Including of our unhealthy relational patterns and our unwillingness to forgive others. Just because you’ve accepted Jesus’ free gift of salvation doesn’t mean you’ve got it right in the way you relate to other people.
I know this first-hand. I’ve been hurt pretty badly in the past. I know how it feels to have someone act as if they just don’t care how they’ve hurt me; in fact, in cases they’ve pretty much seemed to lord it over me. It can be hard to even want to forgive. But 9Repentance is a turning away from sin that’s made possible by God’s willingness to forgive us. It’s a gift from God. Just like our daily bread. And really, if God wasn’t willing to forgive us, it wouldn’t make any sense to even try to forgive others. Unfortunately, we often don’t even try to forgive. We try other things. Inside Out, Dr. Larry Crabb “Unnecessary problems can sometimes be relieved by changing circumstances, soothing heartache, and doing right things, but such change will not lead to a realization of our potential to powerfully love people. We will genuinely love only as we deal with the sin in our heart.”
What this means is that we can make ourselves feel better, but that does nothing toward reconciling broken relationships, and when we fail to reconcile broken relationships, we fail to love. And when we fail to love, we break the most important commandments: to love God with heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But once we understand the concept of relational sin, we repent by radically shifting our motivation and direction from self-preservation to trust on the basis of the belief that Christ has given and is preserving our life.
You see, withholding forgiveness is a means of self-preservation. Instead of working toward reconciliation, we shut ourselves off, so as not to get hurt again. But unfortunately withholding forgiveness is also a symptom of a greater evil: a lack of trust in God. In fact, withholding forgiveness demonstrates that you don’t believe that God is just. If God isn’t just, then we ourselves have to exact payment.
That just doesn’t work. We end up carrying the burden of the lack of forgiveness: it’s like carrying a 200# pack on your back. Meanwhile, that jerk who wronged you? He’s fine. He doesn’t care. It’s not bothering him at all. And it’s killing us. But when we’re on the brink of personal collapse that we’re best able to shift the direction of our soul from self-protection to trusting love. When we trust God and accept that He is just, we can begin to love. The more deeply we enter into the reality that life without God is sheer desolation, the more fully we can turn toward Him. If you still need work on that, your cell group is a good place to start. Another is going back over the Emotionally Healthy sermon series (you can look at my archives - just click by keyword on the left - or the church web site for those messages).
We often don’t get to the forgiveness stage of dealing with other people’s sins. In fact, here are several ways we deal with that pain: 1. We hold back. Instead of speaking encouragingly or prophetically, we shut up. Instead of offering creative input, we hold back. We withhold ourselves. We withhold blessing. Some ways that we withhold forgiveness are the “Flood or famine” style, where we forgive someone but exclude someone else. This is kind of like how Isaac Isaac blessed Jacob and had no blessing for Esau. We do this when we tend to overlook or forgive one person’s faults but we never forgive someone else. Some of you have been the recipients of that kind of forgiveness. Or lack thereof.
Sometimes we give “race track rabbit” forgiveness: we hold forgiveness just out of reach. Much like this is the conditional blessing, in which you have to accomplish something in order to receive forgiveness.
Another way we deal with pain is making lists & labels. This is where we start saying things like “these people are this.” We stereotype based on a certain bad experience. Maybe that experience is general: it’s easy to stereotype: politicians are blood sucking leeches. Or maybe the experience was personal: maybe someone in a church, maybe even this church, gossiped and said horrible things about you or to you, so you think: all church people are jerks. Or you were bullied by a popular athlete when you were in school, so you think all athletes are bullies.
A third way we deal with pain is revenge. We decide we’re going to do something about it; we won’t take it lying down. Sometimes we argue and fight, but the most common kind of revenge is gossip. Since someone hurt us, we feel justified, even required to tell someone about it. Of course we shine the most unfavorable kind of light on what they did and never admit any culpability of our own… why should we? I mean, they were the ones who did this.
Really, all gossip does is cause trouble. Even if you are just “telling the news” “so you can pray.” Again and again I have heard stories of people who have been hurt by the church. How have they been hurt? By people spreading gossip about them. It doesn’t matter if it happens to be true: if you wouldn’t say it to their face, don’t say it behind their back. Period. Proverbs 16:28 A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends. The book of Romans describes gossip as a result of people thinking that it’s not worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. So if you are a gossip, STOP. NOW. Matthew 18 tells the steps to go through if someone wrongs you: go to them individually. If that doesn’t work, bring 2 or 3 witnesses with you. If that still doesn’t work, bring a church leader with you. And if that doesn’t work, stay away from them.
So, how are we supposed to forgive? I’ll tell you this: it isn’t easy. Honestly, there is no place for sugarcoating in the life of a serious Christian.
The first step to forgiveness is wanting to want to forgive. You don’t start by wanting to forgive; you most likely don’t want to forgive. But if you are going to forgive someone, you’re going to have to start somewhere. I remember a painful time in a previous church, and after I’d left there, I had nightmares about that church every week for over a year and a half. During Lent, I decided to do a prayer journal where I wrote my prayers every day. One day I realized that I was carrying around all of this anger, resentment, and pain from that experience. I knew intellectually that I needed to forgive the ones who had wronged me. But really I didn’t want to. So I started praying, asking God to help me to want to forgive. It was kind of like in Mark 9:22-24, where a man came to Jesus. His son was possessed by an evil spirit. He said to Jesus, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” “’If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
The result of this conversation and the man’s request: Jesus healed his son. And I believe that if we come to Him with our desire to be made whole, to give out forgiveness, He will be faithful to us. Everything is possible for him who believes. Do you believe that God can create in you the desire to forgive?
This, too, is a gift. Just like the ability to obey God, to thus “hallow” his name and do his will here on earth, just like it’s done in heaven. Just like the daily bread He gives us: physical sustenance and spiritual nourishment through Jesus Christ, the bread of life.
He also gives us a supernatural ability. The ability to forgive, even to forgive our enemies.
Before I get to the brutal path to forgiveness, let’s quickly look at what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not forgetting. When God forgives, He throws our sins as far from us as east is removed from west. Because of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross, He wipes our slates clean. We aren’t God. And we aren’t meant to forget. We’re not doormats, just waiting to be walked all over. Titus 3:10 instructs us to Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him.
Indeed, forgiveness does not mean that your relationship with the person who wronged you just goes back to how it used to be. A beautiful proverb tells us that As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. If you just jump right back to where your relationship was without learning and growing from the situation, you are just going to get burned again.
This goes hand-in-hand with the third example of what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness does not mean going without boundaries. There is such a thing as wisely deciding to establish boundaries; I devoted an entire message to the subject of Receiving the Gift of Boundaries and Limitations & you can look it up on the web site. Realistically, forgiveness requires some boundaries. If someone has abused you, you can’t just walk right back into their lives. Some of you have suffered through divorce, and you’ve remarried, and now Jesus is telling you to forgive your ex. Yes, he is. But that doesn’t mean you have to move back in together! Boundaries! I have a friend who was estranged from his father for years. Recently his father came back into his life. Because the father was down on his luck for a while, my friend let dad move in with him. It didn’t work out. My friend told me he had a choice: his father or his family. So he kicked his dad out. Boundaries. In Genesis 33, Jacob and Esau had a beautiful reconciliation with one another. Remember that Jacob had tricked their father into giving him the blessing that was rightfully Esau’s, and Esau was hunting his brother down to kill him. Now they’ve reconciled. But interestingly enough, in verse 16, we read this: So that day Esau started on his way back to Seir. Jacob, however, went to Succoth… They didn’t stay together. They got their own places. They set up boundaries.
Forgiveness is also not ignoring reality. It’s not pretending that you were never hurt in the first place. When someone asks you for forgiveness, don’t ever say, “Oh, it was nothing.” It wasn’t! You can tell someone “I forgive you” or “I’m working on it” but the truth is, it was painful and it wasn’t “nothing.”
So what does forgiveness look like? Let me warn you: Jesus Christ’s pattern of forgiveness is brutal and painful. We’ve been handed something painful; what do we do with it?
Jesus’ pattern is one of death and resurrection. We absorb the pain, letting it infiltrate us. This death leads to resurrection. In Luke 23:34, when Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” it’s an honest reminder of how much forgiveness really hurts.
Here is how we follow Jesus’ example. First, we name the pain or the hurt. We can’t adequately grow from the experience if we don’t know how we were hurt. This might involve some serious looking beneath the surface to adequately name the pain someone has caused you. It might help to journal on it. I know that when I’ve been serious about writing in my journal, some pain surfaced, pain that I didn’t even realize that I was still carrying around.
Once we’ve named the pain, accept it. Accept that it is indeed reality. But also, accept the parts that might be true or might be your fault. One of the most painful events in my life revolved around the first time the United Methodist Church moved me. Going into the details doesn’t help things, but suffice it to say, I was extremely hurt. I already told you that I had nightmares for 1½ years after that move, almost all of which involved the couple of parties who wronged me. But part of accepting the pain was realizing such things as: as the associate pastor, I wasn’t a good fit with that senior pastor. The worst part of forgiving is when someone says something really ugly about you… and some of it is true. Or when you brought it on yourself.
The next step is to absorb the pain. Take it as a part of who you are. This is the opposite of forgive and forget – it’s all about leading from a place of vulnerability and brokenness. We cannot come to a place of true compassion if we do not realize and accept our own brokenness. But instead of suffering the life-long nasty death of bitterness and cynicism, leading from vulnerability and brokenness, absorbing the pain, leads to resurrection.
This transforms pain from a destructive impulse to a creative power. Now you have all of life to live, and you have the creative power to do something positive with it. To share love. To encourage. To uplift.
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