Creating Your Roadmap to Forgiveness
Destination Forgiveness
Preached at the Laurel Church of Christ
On January 5, 2003
Introduction:
I. “Not long before she died in 1988, in a moment of surprising candor in television, Marghanita Laski, one of our best-known secular humanists and novelists, said, “What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me.” John Stott in the Contemporary Christian
A. One of the greatest blessings that we have as faithful people of God is his significant capability to forgive.
B. Before the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." – Jesus (Luke 23:34)
C. How is it that Jesus so freely asks for the forgiveness of those mocking, beating, stealing his clothes, and nailing him to the cross?
II. Of course, I understand that he is God, but I have got to believe that we are capable of forgiving just as he does.
A. She was crazy. Everyone knew it because she had the habit of talking to herself in public and it was known that she believed she even talked to Jesus – and was spoken back to. A new preacher came to town and hearing of the crazy woman, thought that he might be able to make her face reality.
1. One day, as he saw her walking down the street he spoke to her and eventually got around to asking, “I hear you talk to Jesus.”
2. “Yes,” she replied. “Jesus and I talk for just hours and hours.”
B. “Would you do me a favor?” The minister asked. “Could you ask Him something for me?”
1. “Why of course,” the old woman responded.
2. “Would you ask Jesus what the last sin was that I confessed to Him?”
3. “Certainly,” she replied.
C. The next day, the preacher saw the crazy woman just down the street and so he approached her and asked, “Well, did you talk to Jesus last night?”
1. “Why, I surely did,” she squealed.
2. “What did He say was the last sin was that I confessed to Him?” the preacher coyly asked.
3. “Why, He said He didn’t remember.”
D. Hebrews 10:17 "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more."
III. “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” – Marianne Williamson
A. It is true we have a Lord that forgives and forgets.
B. But, is it true that we as Christians have the same abilities?
C. Matthew 6:14-15 “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
D. Whether you answered yes or no to the previous question, Jesus tells us that if we are to receive forgiveness we must forgive our offenders also.
IV. Today, we begin a journey.
A. Destination: Forgiveness
B. Our goal today is to create a personal roadmap to forgiveness.
C. To successfully plot a course to this destination we have got to understand three important factors to true forgiveness.
1. We need a desired destination.
2. We must find the best route.
3. We need to place the planned stops appropriately.
Body:
I. The Desired Destination – A Healthy Desire for Forgiveness
A. Maybe the real key to finding true forgiveness is from where you begin your journey
1. It has always been said that motivation is half of the battle and positive motivation will bring positive results.
2. Many forces may motivate us…
a. The desire to free of anger, revenge and hostility
b. The desire to show gratitude to God for forgiving us
c. Pride
d. Love for the offender and desire for a restored relationship
e. Fear of the offender
f. The desire to protect our own health
g. Concern for the welfare of the offender
h. The desire to be obedient to parents
i. The desire to avoid violence
3. So from where does your motivation originate? It will come via three different routes.
B. Role-Expected Forgiveness
1. It is motivated by the expectations of others or God.
a. It is not that this necessarily a bad thing, but your motivation begins by the authority of others. Others being the motivation.
b. This is a place to start with forgiveness, but it is not a place to finish.
2. People with high role-expected motivations are more likely to have hostile feelings and less likely to have positive feelings, communicate with or help someone who hurt them.
3. Does real forgiveness occurs or is there bitter emotions hidden and held behind closed doors?
4. If this is where you are at you may respond true to the following questions
a. Forgiveness is my best revenge?
b. By rising above the hurt, I could show _______ that I was still “on top.”
c. By forgiveness I can show that I am morally superior.
d. I felt that ________ was no longer worth my attention, upset and anger.
C. Expedient Forgiveness
1. It is forgiveness in order to get something.
2. People with expedient motivations are more likely to hold a grudge and experience negative feelings and less likely to forgive, help or communicate goodwill to someone who hurt them.
3. You might answer true to the following questions:
a. I am the kind of person who never harbors resentment against someone who hurts me.
b. I feel I am mostly to blame and therefore should forgive immediately.
c. I feared that others would look down on me as bitter and resentful if I didn’t forgive.
d. Persons I look up to (minister, coach) told me I should.
e. I felt that I should make myself forgive since God expects me to.
D. Intrinsic Forgiveness
1. It is a free decision to change hostile attitudes, thoughts and feelings on the conviction that forgiveness itself is important.
a. Intrinsic forgiveness flows from the heart.
b. May 13, 1981 – St. Peter’s square.
1.) Televised images played the Pope being shot by an assassin’s bullet.
2.) The Pope would survive the attack, but the most intriguing part of the story is what happened a few years later.
3.) In 1983, the same two men met again. When the pope arrived in his cell, Agca was dressed in a blue crew-neck sweater, jeans and blue and white running shoes from which the laces had been removed. He was unshaved.
4.) “Do you speak Italian?” the pope asked. Agca nodded. The two men seated themselves, close together, on molded plastic hairs in the corner of the cell, out of earshot. At times it looked almost as if the pope were hearing the confession of Agca, a Turkish Muslim.
5.) At those moments, John Paul leaned forward from the waist in priestly posture, his head bowed and forehead tightly clasped in his hand as the younger man spoke. The pope had come to speak words of forgiveness
2. You might answer true to the following questions:
a. I felt compassion toward _________ when I realized how much he/she had suffered.
b. I didn’t want hard feelings between us anymore. I wanted to be friends again.
c. I realized that _________ is human like me. We all make mistakes.
3. Role-expected and expedient forgiveness are motivations to avoid the pain of unforgiveness.
a. Underneath expedient and role-expected are feelings like, “I would like to keep hating and despising you but my minister said I have to forgive you.”
b. Underneath it all is scorn, resentment and other emotions that are not positive in any respect. You still are left with emotional baggage.
II. The Best Route – The importance for empathy
A. Jesus & the sinful woman (John 8:1-11)
1. What is empathy? Empathy is an emotional response that matches the subjective experience of another person.
2. Sure this woman had committed a sin, but Jesus empathized with her situation and forgave her on the grounds that she would change.
3. All of us have life stories. All of us have loved ones. We all have peer pressure. When we can see the oppressor as a person it helps the process of healing.
B. How to empathize – The four step process
1. Recognize our common identity.
a. This will affirm that every person has inherent values that merit respect.
b. No matter gender, race, religion all men have values that are worth of respect.
c. We then can recognize that we stand in the same condition as our offenders.
2. Recognize our own tendency to hurt others.
a. Regardless of how we have been hurt, we hurt others.
b. “We always feel like innocent lambs when someone hurts us unfairly. But we are never as pure as we feel.”
3. Revise your story about the offender
a. A story of an oppressive teacher
1.) We have all had teachers that we thought were personally against us passing a class.
2.) The looked at us differently. They were harder on us than any other student. And we began to think that he was against all students striving to be engineers.
3.) Before long we ourselves had a grudge against the person. Whether or not the person really had those feelings it did not matter. We had our take on the situation.
4.) Now stand back and put empathy into the equation.
b. Ask the important questions of life.
1.) I wonder what his family life is like? I hear he was going through a divorce. I wonder how his parents treated him.
2.) Do you think he struggled with Chemistry?
3.) Does he like his job?
4.) I wonder when the last time he has had time off.
c. Before you are aware of it, you are no longer viewing the oppressor as an inflictor of pain, but someone who has feelings, desires and motivations himself.
d. You have empathized with them.
4. Recognize the potential influence of spirituality
a. As Christians we must understand the verse of Scripture from the Sermon on the Mount.
b. If we forgive others God will forgive us, but if we do not, he will not.
c. On top of that we believe in a forgiving God that we are striving to be more like.
d. So to empathize you may ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?”
III. Planned stops – Our life story
A. There are four types of stories that can be developed.
1. The first is one of comedy.
a. Not one filled with humor, but one about a hero uniting people together.
b. An example might be a dream that two people who do not know each other will someday find each other.
2. The second is one of romance.
a. The plot of romance is adventure or successful quest.
b. Indiana Jones is an example of romance.
c. All the stories that you know that the good character wins is a romantic story.
3. The third is one of tragedy.
a. A good example of tragedy is Romeo and Juliet.
b. The hero is destined for a tragic ending.
4. The fourth is one of irony.
a. Ironic stories speak to the mysterious and chaotic forces of life.
b. Life is seen as a puzzle with double meanings that cannot be completely solved.
B. These themes become a part of our very personal fabric.
1. Some people live life like tragic martyrs that will one day suffer a horrible fate. Others find hope in the toughest moments in life because they know there is a better destination for them.
2. What happens is, that certain events of unforgiveness become life-changing events that mold our personalities.
3. A young child was chubby and slow in the third grade and it was time for the annual physical education exam.
a. We all remember what that was like. You have to so many push-ups, pull-ups and run the mile or half-mile in so much time.
b. This young boy was the last person to finish and the most popular girl in the class yelled out that he was so slow that all of the girls beat him.
c. Years later he was having trouble committing in relationships with girls. He later found out that he held back the bitterness.
4. Similar things happen in all of our lives.
a. Divorce, loss of a loved one, sudden loss
b. The list goes on and on and before you know it you are living life as a tragic martyr.
C. As we plan our trips to the destination of forgiveness.
1. It is essential for you to find these unneeded life stories and fixing them for the better so that you forgiving ability will be fully operational.
2. Plan now to make those stops.
3. What did Jesus say, “If you forgive others than God will forgive you.”
4. The root of the problem is that you have not forgiven someone.
Conclusion:
I. “Forgiveness doesn’t make the other person right, it makes you free.” – Stormie Omartian
A. Your journey to real forgiveness begins with your motivation.
B. Intrinsic forgiveness begins with you empathizing with the oppressor, and ridding yourself of unnecessary baggage.
C. A recent Reader’s digest has an article entitled “How letting go of Grudges can Improve Your health.” It states that forgiveness is indeed divine, but not necessarily easy. It’s also very beneficial to physical and mental health states the article. People who forgive show less depression, anger and stress and show more hopefulness.
II. Jesus has made it easy for you to be eternally forgiven, and maybe that is the story you are hanging onto today.
A. You can rid yourself of the weight of your guilt by simply obeying him.
B. He has asked you to change your life by following him.
C. By following him you are led to the foot of the cross and are brought to a decision.
D. You know the outcome though, because if you choose to die to self you will be raised from the grave of baptism to be a new creature in the Lord forgiven of every wrongdoing.
Much of this sermon’s meat came from Michael E. McCullough, Steven J. Sandage, Everett L. Worthington Jr., To Forgive is Human: How to Put Your Past in the Past, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 1997. I would recommend this book to anyone seriously studying forgiving others.
