Sunday sermon review - Put on Forgiveness

I think the sermon I preached yesterday could possibly have been the worst delivered sermon I have given since my first sermon way back in 1994. Nothing could beat that horrific delivery. I am still embarrassed by it…

Anyway, yesterday was quite disastrous for one very important reason: I don’t think I was clear about a VERY important point on forgiveness. I know that I cannot roll back time and fix it, but I do hope I can add to what I said yesterday to help us going forward.

The main point from Colossians 3:13 is that the way we deal with irritations and outright, sinful conflict is by following the example of Jesus. I know that sounds like such a trite Sunday school answer, but that is EXACTLY what the text says…

bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

I was trying to explain what that phrase means biblically by answering the implied question, “How exactly has the Lord forgiven us?” I was using a great definition of forgiveness by Chris Brauns in his book, Unpacking Forgiveness. His definition of forgiveness is:

Forgiveness is the 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.

From his definition I focused on five key words or concepts to explain.

A. Commitment - Forgiveness is more than a feeling

B. Gracious pardon - Forgiveness is given freely

C. Repentant offender - Forgiveness is conditional

D. Reconciliation - Forgiveness is the means to an end... reconciliation

E. Consequences may remain - Forgiveness does not automatically alleviate some of the results of past offenses

I think most of the points I made were fairly clear and understood to be biblical. The third point about conditional forgiveness is the one I fear may be unclear.

The statement I made about conditional forgiveness was very blunt, and intentionally so, in order to snap our heads around to force us to look closely at the truth of the Bible. I meant to jar our senses challenging our previous thoughts on forgiveness, and then I wanted to massage the pain away by showing the clarity of the Bible. I think I did a really good job on the snapping and jarring, but may have failed miserably on the massaging part.

What I said was, “There is no forgiveness without repentance.” In a clarifying statement a little later I said, “That means that we don’t just forgive anyone, anytime, for anything… the offender must repent of the offense before forgiveness is given.”

There are two biblical reasons I made this point about repentance and forgiveness.

1. I believe this to be the biblical truth Jesus is teaching in Luke 17:3-4:

Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him."

Jesus is laying out the same type of response to interpersonal sin that He gives in Matthew 18. The key point for us in both passages is that forgiveness must be preceded by repentance on the part of the offender which must be preceded by a gentle, loving rebuke of that sin by the offended. In this passage Jesus is also extending this forgiveness indefinitely based on the continual repentance of the offender.

2. We forgive as the Lord forgave us, and He only forgives us when we are repentant.

The other passage I used in my sermon to explain this point is the parable of Matthew 18:21-35. In this story a servant is forgiven an unimaginably large debt because he pleads for mercy from his master. After the master forgives the servant, this servant is confronted by another servant who owed him a MUCH smaller debt. This fellow pleaded for mercy but was not forgiven by the first servant. When the master found out he threw the first servant in jail to be tortured. Jesus makes the application for us and says, “so also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

The problem for the servant was not just that he did not forgive the other servant. Yes, that was the fruit of his sin. The deeper issue is that he did not repent of his sin. If he had truly repented of his sin, his heart would have changed. Once his heart changed, he would have forgiven his fellow servant. He was not forgiven by his master because deep down he had not repented.

So, we know that God does not forgive our sins if we do not repent. And we are supposed to forgive as he forgave us, meaning we forgive those who repent of their sins against us.

Well, after heads were snapped around and necks were stinging in pain I offered this massage in order to give biblical clarity: Not forgiving someone who has sinned against us does not mean that we do not love people who have offended us. That does not mean that we do not extend kindness and mercy toward them. What it does mean is that we cannot be fully reconciled with people who are unrepentant for their sins toward us. Of course we love them. We are commanded to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44).

I thought that would be sufficient. I think now that I was not clear enough.

Let me say this a different way…

We should always have a “forgiving” nature toward those who injure us. We should always deal with people in a way that says we are ready to forgive and reconcile our relationship with them.

That means that even if people are unrepentant over the sins they committed against us, we still graciously call them to repentance remembering that it is the kindness of God that leads people to repent (Romans 2:4).

If someone is either unrepentant or just has not come to repent yet, that does not mean that we act unloving towards them. It just means that we cannot be fully reconciled with them. We still love them the same way Jesus loves the whole world. We extend mercy and kindness. We proclaim the gospel.

Forgiveness is a unique aspect of God’s grace. It is meant to be the tool that restores relationships after sin has injured them. In order for those relationships to be healed properly the sin that impaled one party must be removed. That requires repentance. It is not enough to merely say, “Ooooo, I’m sorry that hurt you. Now, let me get back to throwing spears at you.” No, God expects the offender to say, “I am sorry that I hurt you. I will not do that again because I love you and I want to be Christlike toward you.” That kind of confession and repentance is what Jesus is teaching in Luke 17:3-4.

I think it is difficult for many of us to hear that forgiveness is conditional upon repentance because that means we will have to call people to account over their sin. And most of us HATE confrontation and the rest of us think confronting sin is being judgmental, so we don’t really mind if people do not repent of their sins. We just want it to go away.

The (sometimes) painful reality is that we Christians are called to hold each other accountable for our sins, especially the ones that damage our relationships with each other. If we want to have God-honoring, biblical relationships then we need to understand forgiveness properly. And forgiveness requires repentance which requires us to lovingly confront sin.

Let me try to summarize…

God forgave us in order to reconcile us to Himself. That forgiveness is conditioned upon repentance. God’s forgiveness must require our repentance of sin so that upon being reconciled we will live and love Him in righteousness and no longer in our sin. We forgive as the Lord forgave us, which means we forgive in order to reconcile relationships. However, forgiveness is only one aspect of grace which is necessary for reconciliation. We must call people to repent of their sins against us in order for this one aspect of grace to be extended. If an offender will not or has not yet repented then we still extend every other aspect of grace toward him because we are commanded to love our enemies. Our relationship to the unrepentant offender is not fully reconciled but still identified by love. A love that displays the grace of God in calling them to repentance and faith in Christ… just as we would any lost person.

God’s grace is deep. When we remember what He has forgiven us, it should lead us to forgive others. But we still have to forgive in a biblical way.