Give Forgiveness

This is the 4th Sunday in our 30-day experiment called “Live Like You Were Dying.” Here is the question we have been wrestling with during this series, “If I only had 30 days to live, how would I spend my time?” How would I change? What would I start doing that I haven’t been doing?

Our topic this Sunday might be the most difficult of any messages during this series. Today we are going to talk about forgiveness.

As soon as I say that word, for some of us the adrenalin and the emotions begin to surge. We have all heard the old adage that “time heals all wounds.” But, it just isn’t true. For some, even though it has been years, the wounds are still raw, fresh, and real. Isn’t it amazing how God has wired us up? Life’s greatest joys and life’s most agonizing wounds both come from the same place. They come from relationships. God has made us with the capacity to love deeply, but he has also made us with the capacity to hurt deeply.

This struggle with forgiveness is a challenge for all of us, because all of us have relationships. And, somewhere along the way, we will get hurt, wounded, betrayed, or abandoned. The truth is, we all know what it is to carry around a rock of unforgiveness.

Now, let us dig into this issue of forgiveness
1. We've been released from God’s judgment…CELEBRATE
One of my fears is that we have lost the sense of this in the modern church. We keep trying to give ourselves a makeover.

But underneath the surface, there is ugliness and darkness inside every one of us that the Bible calls sin. If you are a big fan of the pop psychology book “I’m OK, You’re OK,” you are not going to be thrilled with this message. I am thinking about writing my own book and calling it “I’m not ok, and you’re really messed up.”
The Bible doesn’t pull any punches as it discusses the nature of man. In the Old Testament, we read that the heart is desperately wicked. Romans 3:10 (NLT) says, "No one is good—not even one.

In Ephesians 2:4 (NIV), we read, “we were by nature objects of wrath”—according to the Bible, you did not come into the world innocent, and with a moral blank slate. You arrived here with a heart tainted and poisoned by sin.

Just look at every two year-old you know. You don’t have to teach them to be selfish, or to lie, or to fight, or to throw a fit when they don’t get their way. No, they come factory installed with a sin nature.

Listen to the words of the Bible as the apostle Paul describes our condition. Colossians 1:21 (TEV) says, “At one time you were far away from God and were his enemies because of the evil things you did and thought.” Did you get that? We were the ENEMIES of God. To go back to our story, we have an enormous debt that we can never pay. We are helpless and hopeless to bring any solution to the table. Our debt was so serious that the only solution was for the perfect son of God, Jesus Christ, to come and die on the cross.

The death of Jesus was God’s declaration “paid in full.” I deserved punishment. I got pardoned. I deserved judgment. I got Jesus. I deserved eternal condemnation. I got eternal salvation. I deserved hell. I got heaven.

Every year, as I journey through Holy Week, I am reminded again the size of my debt and the sweetness of my pardon. It also helps me remember the price of my forgiveness.

So, before we go any further, I want to make sure that you have received the gift of God’s forgiveness and know what it is to be pardoned of the enormous debt of your sin. If you really only had thirty days to live, nothing would be more important than getting this settled. Where you spend eternity is at stake. Jesus has already paid the price and God offers salvation to you as a gift.

It is yours to simply receive. Right now, today, you can cross the line of faith and receive the wonderful gift of eternal life. Once and for all, you can have your debt forgiven. So, don’t wait.

Here is a truth I want you to get. There is a direct connection between your sense of being forgiven and your ability to grant forgiveness. In other words, when I feel forgiven, I am more forgiving. Let me say that again. When I feel forgiven, I am more forgiving. So, today, God’s forgiveness of our enormous debt is the starting place in our discussion about forgiving others.

Listen carefully to these words from Ephesians 4:32 (NLT) “Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” The basis of us forgiving one another is God’s forgiveness of us. So, the starting place is to choose to celebrate how much we have been forgiven. Then, based on the size of my debt before God…

2. So we can release others from your judgment…LIBERATE

That statement is not meant to minimize anything that you might have been through or how much someone might have hurt you. Rather, according to this story in Scripture, compared to what we have been forgiven by God, every other debt is small. This much I do know. You will never have to forgive someone more than what God has forgiven you.

But, let’s be honest. Forgiving is not easy. Extending grace doesn’t come natural. We want justice. We want people to get what they deserve. There is something sadistically satisfying about “pay backs".

Now, admit it. You’ve wanted to do that. Letting people off the hook isn’t easy.
But, we have been commanded to forgive. I want to be really clear. Forgiveness is a choice. Every time you are offended or hurt, you have a choice to make. Will you choose resentment and bitterness or will you choose forgiveness?

How many of you here today know what TIVO is? It is a device that allows you to record your favorite programs or games. Then, you can watch the show whenever you want. You can play it back as many times as you want. I know some people who have TIVO’d their hurts. They have recorded them and they play them back time after time.
It reminds me of the guy who was telling his friend that he and his wife had a fight the night before. He said, “Yeah, my wife was so upset she went historical.” His friend said “Don’t you mean hysterical?” “No, I mean historical… she brought up everything I had ever done wrong.” We have an amazing ability to hang on to our hurts.

You need to realize that you have a choice.

What are some clues that you need to choose to forgive?
· You feel resentment toward somebody. In fact, their name may have just come to mind.
· When their name comes up, you are instantly critical.
· You can’t stop thinking about the hurt. You keep pushing rewind and rehearsing a hurtful incident in your past.

So, what does it mean to forgive? Does it mean to forget? NO. You can’t do some kind of mental gymnastics and erase the hurt from your memory bank.

It doesn’t mean minimizing the hurt or justifying the other person’s actions.
Nor does forgiveness mean to pretend the hurt didn’t happen.

Forgiveness is relinquishing my right to hurt you for hurting me. It is releasing you from my judgment and releasing you to God’s justice. It is making the choice to let the person off the hook, to not charge the offense to their account. It is letting go of my RIGHT to get even. Letting it go is primarily an act of the will, not a warm feeling! Letting it go means giving up the right to relish the memory! Letting it go means releasing the offender from any obligation! I must learn to release, not re-live my hurts.

Colossians 3:13 (NLT) says, “Make allowance for each other's faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”
I know that right now some of you are thinking, “No way. You don’t realize what they’ve done and the hurt they’ve caused.” Maybe it was a friend who deliberately hurt you and left you feeling violated. Maybe it was a friend at school who verbally stabbed you in the back.

It could be a relative who physically abused you or sexually abused you. Maybe it’s an ex-spouse who walked out on you and you still haven’t recovered. And, in this moment, everything in your spirit recoils at the thought of “giving them a free pass” or releasing them from your judgment.

You have a choice. You can carry it to your grave. But, I want to beg you, let it go. Life is too short. It is poisoning your soul. Step back and choose to let it go.
Now, I know for some of you, this feels like the hardest thing you have ever been asked to do. But, today, I am going to take the risk of asking you to go one step further. Let it go.

When we are forgiving and choose to pray for those who have hurt us, we can expect God’s blessing on our life.

So, how about it? First, will you choose to celebrate how much you have been forgiven? Then, will you choose to liberate those who have hurt you?
Now, before we wrap this up, I want to leave you with a word of warning that also comes from our story. If you don’t forgive, you…

3 Release yourself from the prison of unforgiveness…DEVASTATE

Go back to this story from Matthew 18. Listen to these harsh words. Matthew 18:32-34 (NLT), “Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. [33] Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ [34] Then the angry king sent the man to prison until he had paid every penny.”

The master says, “You evil servant.” The NIV says, “You wicked servant.”

I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. I forgave an avalanche of your debt. Shouldn’t you have given the same forgiveness I gave you?

Then he hands this guy over to be imprisoned… and Jesus concludes the story in verse 35 with these words: “That's what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters in your heart.” Matthew 18:35 (NLT)

I just want to pause for a moment and let those sobering words sink in. These are what I think are some of the most troubling words in the Bible. There are a lot of people who don’t take Jesus’ words seriously.

Harboring bitterness and embracing resentment is like taking cancer into your body. It always hurts you more than the person you are bitter towards. Your resentment will not change the past and will not solve the problem of today. It will rob you of joy and allows the other person to continue to control you. Unforgiveness tears you up on the inside. We all know people who are tortured by their unforgiving spirit.
Bitterness will cause your heart to shrivel and grow hard. It can make you negative and critical. And for some, it can become all-consuming.

Someone has to break the cycle. Someone has to have the courage to say ENOUGH. Stop the insanity and destruction. All we will gain is bitterness toward each other.
It is time for some of you to speak up and to say “ENOUGH.” To utter the words “I forgive you.” “I release you from my judgment.” It is time to put down the rock.
In light of how much we have been forgiven, how can we do anything else?