Having already had several conversations with many of you who were at Almond Valley this morning on this topic of forgiveness, I did some digging into notes I’ve taken in the past on the topic. I wish I could tell you exactly where all of the ideas came from. I certainly cannot claim them all as my own. Some sources I know I’ve leaned on in the past on this topic include:
- Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace
- Lewis Smeeds, Forgive and Forget and The Art of Forgiving
- L. Gregory Jones, Embodying Forgiveness
- Ken Sande, The Peace Maker
- Seminary class notes from Dr. Ronald Feenstra
- Some of my own life expereince and personal reflections on the topic
That’s just a few of many good things written on the topic. Every time I’ve preached on this topic it seems to have stirred up a lot of stuff that worth embracing. I hope some of these notes are helpful as we work through some messy parts of our lives. And know too that I’m glad to be a resource to you.
Are some sins “unforgivable”?
Hard as it may be for those who have been so horribly violated by another, the answer is “no.” If the murder of the Son of God was “forgivable” for those who sought forgiveness, then all sins can be forgiven by God. What man cannot forgive, God can. The cross can repair the irreparable.
That being said, if you are ever tempted to think that God takes sin lightly, you need to look more carefully at Calvary. “Lighten up” are NOT words we can tell God. God’s holiness demands infinite penalty for sin. And although God forgives us because of Christ, it is neither His job nor His obligation to do so. He forgives because of undeserved mercy toward us whose just punishment is hell. And the cross is the bridge of redeeming love. If you don’t understand this, you don’t understand the gospel.
Should we pray for those who do not ask for our forgiveness?
Yes, Jesus prayed for His enemies before they became His friends. We don’t know the future response of those for whom we pray, but we pray anyway. Jesus commanded his disciples to pray for those who persecuted them.
In human relationships, when forgiveness is requested, reconciliation is never certain. And yet the goal of forgiveness is reconciliation—reconciliation with God and with the wrongdoer”. It does a couple of things:
1) First, forgiving someone who has sinned against us helps in the process of healing and will bring us closer to God. When we are wronged, it is natural to respond to that injury with anger. And if that anger is not washed away by forgiveness, it will turn to bitterness and eventually pull us away from God.
And when we refuse to forgive we become not only victims of the original wrong, but also spiritual victims of our own anger and bitterness. Only forgiveness can help us heal and move us closer to God.
2) Not only will forgiveness help up heal and grow closer to God, but it will also help us lead toward eventual reconciliation with the person who sinned against us—at least as much as is possible.
Forgiveness means we are willing to enter a new, grace-filled relationship with the wrongdoer;
~it does NOT mean re-entering the same hurtful situation.
~It certainly DOES NOT mean picking up where we left off the day before things went wrong.
So, a victim of physical abuse who forgives, and is open to reconciliation with her abuser may decide not to return to a dating or marriage relationship where that abuse occurred.
And sometimes, perhaps because that person has died or continues to pose a threat, the only realistic hope for reconciliation is on the other side of the grave.
A lot depends on whether the wrongdoer is repentant. Forgiveness does not depend on repentance; but reconciliation usually does. Someone who genuinely repents will commit to being a new person—not the same old person. You will know whether someone has truly repented when you see a change in their life. So we need to carefully allow opportunities for that person to demonstrate that—to show himself or herself trustworthy. Then we can hope for a relationship with that person that is as deep as or possibly even deeper than the previous one.
This is the goal of forgiveness! It may not always be possible but we must at the very least make this our desire.
Lewis Smedes captures it this way: he says four things will happen when you forgive
1) You surrender your right to get even.
2) You revise your picture of that person (you give that person their humanity back)
3) You get the freedom to wish that person well.
4) You are willing to be open to what God wills in that relationship—part of the process of reconciliation.
Should we forgive those who ask for forgiveness even when we doubt their sincerity or cannot trust their motives?
The short answer is YES. We cannot see into the depths of the human heart. We have got to be willing to forgive if we are going to be able to understand Christ’s forgiveness. Grace isn’t fair. Philip Yancey correctly concludes that is the hardest thing about it—that it is unfair.
It is unreasonable to expect a Polish Jew to forgive a Nazi soldier for participating in slaughtering a group of people because of their ethnicity.
It is unreasonable for some of us to even think about forgiving a parent for years of abuse.
It is unreasonable to even think about forgiving someone who has so deeply hurt us in some way or another.
Certainly any one of us can think of an example of how unreasonable it might be to forgive someone. But grace isn’t about fairness.
Friends, you could hear a hundred sermons on forgiveness and we still won’t find forgiveness easy to do or accept. It is always harder than the best sermon makes it out to be. But that does not change the fact that Jesus’ words are pretty clear as to what we must do.
Forgiveness is an act of faith. It is trusting that God is a better justice-maker than I am. It is releasing my right to get even and leave all the issues of fairness for God to work out—trusting that God’s scales of justice and mercy are more accurate than ours.
Although God’s forgiveness should move us to forgive, forgiving often comes slowly. When we’ve been wronged, it hurts—especially when that person is close to us. It usually takes time to overcome the anger (which is a pretty healthy reaction to being wronged) and forgive the person.
And on the flip side, when we hurt others, we need to realize that it may take time for them to forgive us too.
Yet those who have been forgiven by God will be working toward forgiveness—if nothing else praying that God will give us a willingness to forgive.
It’s not fair. Thank God! Grace isn’t fair!
