The Loving Act of Church Discipline, Part 3:
The Freedom of Forgiveness
I was talking with a friend of mine recently who was telling me of just an incredible run of adversity that he had been going through. He and his wife were arguing about a new house and not talking. He was having problems with the pastor at church. His boss was making him work overtime, and through lunch hours and not paying him for it. He found out in the mail that he was being audited by the tax department. His best friend called him out at a softball game when everyone knew he was safe, including his friend. I’ll never forget what he said next. The worst part is that my spiritual life is being effected. I pray and God doesn’t answer my prayers. When I asked him what he was praying for he said he wanted a more forgiving spirit. I looked at him and said "God is answering your prayers. How can you have a more forgiving spirit, if there is nothing to forgive?"
One of the most difficult issues to deal with in the restoration of a fallen brother or sister is the issue of forgiveness. Forgiveness goes against our natural tendencies. When someone has hurt us, we want to retaliate, to make the person who has hurt us, hurt just as much, possibly even more. A case of church discipline is even more frustrating because the person who has hurt us, or made us angry, is our own brother or sister in Christ. It’s like the old saying: "To dwell above with saints we love, Oh, that will be glory. But to dwell below with saints we know, Well, that’s another story"
In some ways I believe we want to hold back our forgiveness, and use it as a means of punishment for the individual. The Scriptures are very clear however, that this is not the domain in which we, as Christians, live. Romans 12:17-19, gives the Christian mandate to walk in a totally opposite direction than vengeance. James tell us in James 2:12,13. That mercy will always triumph over judgement. This is why forgiveness is in the Christian community an indispensable ingredient among those who identify themselves as followers of Jesus Christ.
As much as it is essential, it is also one of the hardest things to do. There was a man who loved dogs. He served as a speaker in various civic clubs to benefit the SPCA. He was known far and wide as a dog lover. One day his neighbor observed as he poured a new sidewalk from his house out to the street. About the time he smoothed out the last square foot of cement a large dog strayed across his sidewalk leaving footprints in his wake. The man muttered something under his breath and smoothed out the footprints. He went inside to get some twine to string up around the sidewalk only to discover dog tracks in two directions on his new sidewalk. He smoothed those out and put up the twine. About five minutes later he looked out and the footprints indicated that the dog had cleared the fence, landed on his sidewalk and proceeded as he desired. The man was mad now. He trowelled the wet concrete smooth again. As he got back to the porch he saw the dog come over and sit right in the middle of his sidewalk. He went inside got his gun and came out and shot the dog dead. The neighbor rushed over, "Why did you do that?" he inquired, "I thought you loved dogs." The man responded as he cradled his gun in the crook of his arm. "I do, I do like dogs. But that’s in the abstract. I hate dogs in the concrete." I wonder if it might not be the same with forgiveness. We love it in the abstract, but when we really have something to forgive, we hate it in the concrete.
Finding forgiveness for others is difficult, but finding forgiveness for ourselves is almost impossible. One of the hardest things for some people to understand is that God could love them enough to send His son to die for them. Think of the person in a jail cell, guilty of some terrible crime such as murder, who receives a visit from the victim’s parents, and instead of hearing words of condemnation, hears "I forgive you".
You see forgiveness is uniquely designed by God to give release to the forgiver first and also the person forgiven, if the person forgiven can forgive themselves as well. Forgiveness was designed by God to be the successful conclusion of a hard time in our lives. It could be something simple such as a husband & wife argument over who does the dishes (thank goodness I can now load the dishwasher ), or it could be something as significant as the restoration of a marriage or relationship with the Lord.
Today we look at a parable that Jesus used to answer a question posed to him by Peter. In the parable Jesus’ description of the enormous debt that we as sinners owe, and the limitless gift of grace that He offers us in salvation. We find in this parable, the key elements that must be found in forgiveness which are compassion and love. We also find in this passage that Jesus teaches that the forgiveness that we have been given, must also be given to others. He teaches that the forgiveness of others is not an option, and that there are consequences should we choose not to forgive.
POINT ONE: A WORKING DEFINITION OF FORGIVENESS
In order for us to be able to forgive, we must first know what true forgiveness is. In his book "Forgive and Forget, by Lewis Smedes he states: "We hurt, we hate, we heal. We hurt; that is, we allow ourselves to feel the depth of an injury that has been dealt to us ~ we don’t minimize it, or try to sweep it under the rug. We hate; that is, we blame the one who has hurt us ~we don’t condone or excuse the offense. Finally, when we are ready, we heal; we let go of the pain that is binding us to the past, and move on. That is how we human beings forgive."
I believe there are several components to forgiveness:
1. Forgiveness is not a natural quality, and therefore, it always originates from God. "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Eph 4:31-32. The only forgiveness that we can offer, comes from the fact that as Christians, God forgave us our sins on the cross. The greatest example of forgiveness ever recorded is in Luke 23:33-34.
2. Our forgiveness comes from letting go, and releasing the burden we have of carrying our hurt, anger, pain, and any negative feelings that came from when we were hurt.
3. We must see the other person in a new light. One of the things my wife is trying to teach me is that there are two sides to every story, and I need to look at the other side. We need to see the person who offended us in a new light. Repentance always comes before forgiveness, and if there is repentance then there must be forgiveness (Luke 17:3-4).
4. If there is repentance, then you must make the conscious decision to forgive. Notice I did not say forgive and forget. Only God has the power to forget. Jer 31:34 …for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Ps 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
5. Forgiveness is not something that we can use to continue in our sin. If this is the case there has been no repentance. Jesus told the woman at the well, and the woman caught in adultery, "Go and sin no more".
6. If we do not forgive, then there is no release. Lack of forgiveness will leave us chained to our pain. It will torture us continually till we can let it go! We are commanded in Scripture to let go of the things that we hold onto if we don’t forgive. Eph. 4:31-32 states: "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Eph 4:31-32
Physically there can be actual illness - colon trouble, arthritis, tension and anxiety, nervous disorders, headaches. They CAN come from lack of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is also vital for the sake of the community. Where there is no forgiveness, there can be no renewed relationships. Where there are no renewed relationships, the body of Christ is broken. Where the body of Christ is broken, there can be no communion. Forgiveness Promotes Friendship: Proverbs 17:9; 1 Peter 4:8
Forgiveness then involves the conscious decision to release the negative feelings that we have
when we are offended, not to be enslaved to our past, but through the power of God, and to see the offender in a new light. It is to see ourselves as forgiven by God, and to pass that forgiveness on to others. Forgiveness takes you out of the equation and passes the burden of judgement over to the only righteous judge.
POINT TWO: THE PARABLE
In this parable, Peter comes to Jesus full of pride and asks Jesus how many times should I forgive my brother? He suggests the answer seven times. In his culture this number would have been an extreme example of mercy. The rabbi’s taught that you only needed to forgive three times. They misapplied some Bible verses. In the Old Testament book of Amos. God condemns several nations for their evil practices. God’sjudgments are stated in a poetic fashion, like the following example: This is what the LORD says: "For three sins of Damascus, even four, I will not turn back
my wrath …" Amos 1:3 (NIV) Also see 1:6; 1:9; 1:11; 1:13; 2:1; 2:4; and 2:6. The rabbis took this to mean that God did not forgive after the third offense. Since God is good, they concluded we shouldn’t try to be better and forgive a fourth time.
In answering Peter, Jesus also quotes from the Old Testament, but his answer was not what Peter wanted to hear. The very first book of the Bible, Genesis, gives us theaccount in v.23-24. There we find the infamous boasting of a man named Lamech. "I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times." Avenged - getting even, taking back, make ’em pay...... seventy-seven times. Jesus says to Peter, "I want you to do the opposite of that..... 77 times!" No avenging. Instead - Forgiveness!
Let me give you some numbers before going into the parable. To put this into perspective, 1 talent is approximately 200 pounds of gold. 10,000 talents equals two million pounds of gold and would be worth $8,467,200,000 on today’s market (that is almost 8.5 billion dollars). A good days wage was would be 1 denarii. A denarii was .1375 ounces of silver or the equivalent of 62 cents of silver. A servant would doubtfully get that much. The master ordered the man and his wife and children sold into slavery to pay off the debt. If that isn’t hopeless enough, compare the ancient daily wage to today’s. Their average daily wage was 62 cents. The national average annual income in America in 1999 was $30,500 or $173 a day. If you put the days wage 2,000 years ago on an even scale today, the equal debt this servant owed would be $1,600,300,800,000 in today’s dollar
value. That is over 1 ½ trillion dollars in debt. If they were credited at the daily wage rate, they would have to server 37,415,820 years to pay it off.
Jesus then went on with the parable. A king was owed 10,000 talents by a man and he ordered the repayment of the debt. The man could not and the king ordered he, and his family, and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
This is an indication of the scale of our sin. God, the King of kings, comes to us asking that we find some way ourselves to pay for our sin and earn salvation. The response of the man indicates that our sin debt is so great that there is nothing we can do to repay it.
The servant fell to his knees, admitted his debt and guilt that he could not pay it, and as a result the master cancelled his debt and let him go.
This is what Jesus does for us. When we go to Him admitting that we are sinners, repentingf of our sin, and realizing that there is nothing we can do to pay that debt, He in His love tells us that the debt is cancelled. The debt is paid in full by the cross.
The remaining part of the parable, does teach us that with that forgiveness that we have through Christ is to be passed on to others. A fellow servant owed the first servant 100 denarii. This is just a few dollars, no real amount at all. When he asked for payment, his fellow servant could not and so the servant had the man cast into prison until he could pay the debt. When the king heard he recalled the servant and punished him for his action.
POINT THREE: APPLICATION
We all stand in need of forgiveness from oour great King. Our debt is too heavy and for each of us it is the same. We are all indebted and enslaved to sin, and we can’t do anything about it. As God has given us our freedom and release, so too, we must grant others release through forgivenss. Forgiveness is the defining mark of the Christian.
But you may ask the question what if forgiveness is sought and not given, then what. John Calvin offers two suggestions on forgiveness:
1. The first is the kind where the person who did the wrong admits it, comes to you asking forgiveness, you grant it and the relationship is restored. That’s the best kind. That’s the ideal. There is confession, forgiveness, reconciliation and healing.
2. You can forgive in the sense that you let go of the rope of anger and bitterness and refuse to let the hurt dominate your own life. True, the relationship remains broken. It may never be healed. But you can choose not to remember the sins of others. You can choose to wipe the slate clean so that your life is free from bitterness.
CONCLUSION:
Our church needs to be a forgiving church. It needs to have the reputation of a forgiving church where we care about each other and love each other enough to forgive as God forgave us.
I was once told of a congregation that split apart over an unfortunate business incident which occurred between two families. Members and friends of one family sat on one side of the congregation on Sunday morning and members and friends of the other family sat on the other side. The tension between the two factions was palpable.
It was the custom of this congregation to celebrate the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper on the first Sunday of each month. On this first Sunday, the pastor moved through the first part of the service and then, when it came time to begin the Sacrament, she looked out and say a divided and hostile congregation before her. "Wait." She said, "We are not ready to celebrate this meal. It would be a travesty, a clear violation of scripture to come to this table when there is so much hostility between us."
The congregation did not celebrate the sacrament for six months. Finally there came a Sunday when one person from one family rose and confessed his sin and forgave the other side. Then someone from the other family rose and did likewise. That day, when the congregation moved to the Lord’s Table, they moved with tears. All said that Christ was present as never before and from that day on they knew what being a real church was all about.(9) There is freedom in forgiveness.
Ernest Hemingway wrote a story about a father and his teenage son. In the story, the relationship had become somewhat strained, and the teenage son ran away from home. His father began a journey in search of that rebellious son.
Finally, in Madrid, Spain, in a last desperate attempt to find the boy, the father put an ad in the local newspaper. The ad read: "Dear Paco, Meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you. Your father." The next day, in front of the newspaper office, eight hundred Pacos showed up. They were all seeking forgiveness. They were all seeking the love of their father.
There may be some Pacos in our service and community today. God help our church to be a forgiving church.
