Text: Galatians 6:1, 7, 9.
- Our text sets the stage for what we want to discuss today.
- Verse 1 places before us the call to forgiveness. This passage actually can be used in a much broader way, but given our immediate context this morning we’re dealing with the way this text applies to restoring a person who has done something that requires our forgiveness.
- Verse 7 reminds us, as relates to forgiving, that if we choose to sow seeds of anger and bitterness, there will be an inevitable harvest of anger and bitterness in our lives. Forgiving is not just about what happens in the other person’s life; it’s also about what happens in our life.
- Verse 9 calls us to not grow weary, to be persistent, to finish the job we’ve begun. It is the call of verse 9 that will be our focus this morning.
- We’ve talked over the past couple of weeks about why to forgive (see “Why In The World Should I Forgive, Anyway?”) and how to forgive (see “How Do I Forgive Him? How Do I Forgive Her?”). This morning we’re going to talk about some of the keys to finishing the task we’ve started.
- Too often someone will have a moment when they are willing to forgive and they speak words of forgiveness, only to be surprised three days or three weeks or three months later when feelings of hurt, anger, and bitterness again well up in their heart. Thinking we’ve done something wrong in the way we forgave, we allow that moment to send us off the path of forgiveness down a dead-end detour.
- We don’t want to find ourselves down a dead-end detour, so this morning we’re going to identify some of the most common ones with the hope that by knowing them you can avoid them and you can finish the job of forgiving.
Dead-End Detours To Avoid:
1. Dead-End Detour: “It only counts if I do it and I’m done with it.”
- We think, “If I say it and I mean it, then I’m done with it.” Thinking that, we’re surprised (and feel a little bit betrayed) when three months later the bitterness has resurfaced. Forgiveness, we figure, has failed. . . and down the dead-end detour we go.
Key To Not Getting Sidetracked: “Forgiveness is a journey, not an event.”
- These are serious injuries we’re talking about. That means that they are not something we can quickly brush off. That means they are things our mind is going to come back to.
- To say in a moment, “I forgive,” is not to finish the job, but to begin the journey.
- You will have to stand by that commitment time and again when the pain resurfaces or when the bitterness wells up again. This is especially true if the person you’re forgiving is a family member or co-worker - someone who you’ll see on a regular basis. Inevitably, sometimes seeing that person is going to cause those old feelings to rise. In those moments, you must again face the bitterness, pain, and anger with the reality: “No, I will not give into those feelings; I have chosen to forgive and I am still choosing to forgive.”
- Forgiveness happens slowly and we need to have a sufficient commitment that we will continue to forgive as the thoughts come to the surface in the future.
- Think of a heavy bell (one like the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia). Like a bell rings out, so we proclaim the hurt we’ve felt to all who will listen to us. We have two choices: we can refuse to forgive and continue to ring out the sound of our pain and bitterness; or we can choose to forgive and let go of the rope that controls the bell. Now, the thing about a heavy bell is that after you let go of the rope, it has sufficient weight and force that it may continue to ring for another ten minutes - more and more slowly, more and more lightly, but ringing nonetheless. When you forgive, you let go of the rope. There is sufficient weight and force to the memory of the injury that it may continue to ring in your mind for another ten months or another ten years - more and more slowly, more and more lightly, but ringing nonetheless. You must choose, each time it
rings, that you are again forgiving.
- So, this morning, don’t get sidetracked by the thought that if the pain recurs then you must not
have really forgiven. You are on a journey. . . and, with God’s help, you will have the power to finish the journey.
2. Dead-End Detour: “It only counts if I forgive and forget.”
- The phrase “forgive and forget” has done untold damage and caused untold unnecessary guilt.
- Repeat after me: “The Bible. . . does not teach. . . forgive. . . and forget.” It just isn’t in there.
Nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to forgive and forget. I’ve read the whole book and it doesn’t appear once.
- In fact, “forgive and forget” actually betrays a misunderstanding of how serious an injury is if it
needs to forgiven. We excuse the small stuff; forgiveness is only for the big stuff.
Key To Not Getting Sidetracked: “If it was small enough that I could forget it, I wouldn’t need to
forgive it.”
- If something is hurtful enough that you need to forgive the injury and the person, that is nothing
that you can just effortlessly put out of your mind. When we see the co-worker or family member who did the wrong, we are inevitably going to have times when the memory of that wrong springs to mind. It’s not something that we want to have happen, it’s just something that does happen. The key is that each time it comes into our minds, we again affirm our
commitment to forgive. We don’t dwell on the pain or the injury, but we again put forward our choice to forgive.
- We can refuse to let an injury control us, we can decide not allow the pain to deaden our souls.
Those are choices within our control. We cannot simply forget it. Even if we want to, we simply
cannot.
- Think of the families of the victims of 9/11 or Oklahoma City, think of the family of a child who is killed by a drunk driver. Do you think they can forget that dead loved one even if they tried? Do you think they should try to forget that loved one? Think of the former co-workers of the CEO who blithely orders their layoffs. Do you think they can forget the 18 years of loyal service they rendered? Do you think they should try?
- We head down this dead-end detour when we cannot forget the wrong and because of that we think we didn’t really forgive. Stay on the path of forgiveness by knowing that forgiving doesn’t
require forgetting; forgiving requires a renewed commitment each time that memory surfaces.
3. Dead-End Detour: “It only counts if I don’t hurt anymore.”
- Some people believe that the moment when forgiveness is spoken should lead directly to the end of the hurt and the pain.
Key To Not Getting Sidetracked: “Forgiveness makes the pain gradually decrease, not magically decrease.”
- I realize that we live in a world where we expect our problems to be solved like on TV - wrapped up neatly and put behind us by the end of the half-hour show. In real life, though, serious hurts take time to heal.
- If this seems less wonderful than the solution you were hoping for, remember that you are stuck with only two options: one is the path of increasing bitterness and anger; one is the path of increasing healing and wholeness. There is no path of an instant fix.
- Over time, healing comes. Three years after the divorce, perhaps a man finds himself genuinely able to wish his ex-wife happiness in her new marriage. Contending with a rebellious daughter for eight years, perhaps a mother finds herself with little anger and great sympathy.
- Gary Sinclair tells a story about his mother-in-law, who was in a car crash back in the days before seat belts. She was thrown against the windshield, resulting in a multitude of tiny pieces of glass being imbedded in her face. The doctors were able to get most of those pieces out and she was mostly able to live without pain. Every now and then, though, another tiny shard of glass would work its way up to the surface of her skin and, painfully, have to be removed. [Source: www.preachingtoday.com] Our hope with forgiveness is that over time those pieces of
glass become fewer and fewer and thus the pain less and less.
4. Dead-End Detour: “It only counts if we’re friends again.”
- Obviously, as we begin the process of forgiving, we hope to restore that broken relationship. We want our offer of forgiveness accepted, we want them to be contrite over their sin, we want to come to place of healing and reconciliation.
- I wish I could say that always happens when you commit to forgiving, but the honest truth is that sometimes there is reconciliation and sometimes there isn’t.
Key To Not Getting Sidetracked: “I am only responsible for the condition of my own heart.”
- Sometimes we have to forgive a parent for the hurt they caused us during our childhood. That parent may have been dead for twenty years. No reconciliation is possible there.
- Sometimes someone commits a crime against us or our property, but that person is never apprehended by the police. There is no reconciliation that can happen there.
- Sometimes the person who has hurt us will not admit that they have done wrong. There is no reconciliation there (at least not yet).
- Sometimes we offer forgiveness and that person laughs in our face. They’re not the least bit sorry for what they did. There is no reconciliation there (at least not yet).
- We commit to the journey of forgiveness hoping for the best, but ultimately knowing that the only person we can control is ourselves. We choose the path of forgiveness anyway, even when reconciliation doesn’t happen, because forgiveness is not just about the other person’s heart; it’s also about our heart and the anger and bitterness that we want to rid ourselves of.
