This sermon is based off of a few ideas in Craig Groeshel’s book “The Christian Atheist: Believing in God but Living as if He Doesn’t Exist.” Zondervan, 2010. ISBN: 9780310332220
CHRISTIAN ATHEIST: FORGIVENESS
EPHESIANS 4:31-32
INTRODUCTION… This is (p)
This is Regina. She is 17 and just broke up with her long distance boyfriend whom she met on the internet. She is heartbroken because she feels like this was the first real relationship she ever had. Regina cried her eyes out for a week and in the midst of her sobs she confided in her mother to get advice. After they were done talking, she asked her mom not to tell anyone. Her mom promised. Later than night, she saw on her mother’s facebook page a comment about “my daughter’s broken heart over her lost internet boyfriend.” Regina was devastated and felt utterly betrayed by her mother.
This is Tony. He had a super idea for a business and got together three of his friends to talk about the idea. He wanted some feedback. He wanted to know if they thought he should pursue it. After talking it over, Tony and his three friends decided to get together, pool their money, and make a go of the new store. They would all make a killing. Tony had the most money available and was willing put down all the non-refundable deposits to get things moving. A week after he paid the deposits, they had another meeting to finalize their plans. All three friends backed out at the last minute. Tony had now spent all his savings and even charged some things on his credit cards for a promising business deal and a venture that would never happen. Tony left the meeting cheated, bitter, angry, and friendless.
This is Tom and Kate; they met on a cruise their families had taken. It was love at first sight. Once they met, they spent every waking moment together. It was true love. They shared all about their lives and shared every secret. It was like to halves of a perfect heart coming together. Eight weeks after they met they were engaged. They excitedly went together to get their marriage license before their wedding the next month. They stood in line gazing lovingly at each other, holding hands, and prompting several people in line to jest “get a room.” Once to the counter, the employee puts down the form for them to sign and Kate starts crying and weeping. She looks at Tom and almost becomes unhinged with betrayal. She points at the license which states Tom had been married twice before and listed a woman named Mimi and another woman named Nicole. This had never come up. Kate ran out of the courthouse crushed.
This is Juan, a senior in high school, who is more than excited because he just got his acceptance letter to college. His parents told him that if he worked hard that they would pay his way through college. Juan sacrificed and worked hard and put in hours of studying and it all paid off. He got into his #1 choice for college. He was ecstatic. Then his parents sat him down. They sat Juan down and explained that they were getting a divorce and they had to take his college fund and divide it among them so they could have separate houses and cars and he was just out of luck. They didn’t love each other anymore. Sorry. Juan sat there stunned. Not only were his parents being selfish, but his plans and hard work seem to be blowing up in his face.
This is you. This is the part of the sermon where you insert your story of heart break, hurt, anger, frustration, or deep resentment. We all have those episodes and stories in our lives:
Some of us have hurts that can lead to bitterness.
Some of us have rage at being abused or mistreated by those we felt we should have been able to trust.
Some of us deal with anger at decisions we have made that tanked and ruined our lives.
Some of us endure arguments that break friendships and family relationships that end up as open wounds.
Some of us have been on the receiving end of slander, lies, or unfortunate events that were unfair.
Some of us feel malice towards someone who betrayed our trust.
Some of us are still angry at a person who died and left us alone.
When you think about bitterness, rage, anger, arguing, malice, I do not know exactly what story or memory is conjured in your mind and in your heart, but I know something is there because you are a normal human being. Life is difficult and these hurts exists. On the other side of these hurts (which is where we are spending most of our time today) is the festering process of forgiveness.
Forgiveness, according to the Mayo Clinic, is “a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge and can even lead to feelings of understanding, empathy, and compassion.” Forgiveness also means to “wipe the slate clean, to pardon, or to cancel a debt” (allaboutgod.com). When the Bible uses the word forgiveness in the Old Testament and the New Testament, the best definition which fits is usually one word: “pardon.”
I thought it was interesting that the word “forgive” and all the words related to it occur 143 times in the Old and New Testaments in the Bible. The word “unforgiving” occurs only once in 2 Timothy 3:3 and is in a list of descriptions of how wicked people can be to one another. The word “unforgiving” is defined simply in the Bible as “irreconcilable mercilessness” (Barclay-Newman Greek Dictionary).
“We all know that Christians are supposed to forgive. But many of us Christian Atheists think that there are exceptions to this rule. Sure, we should forgive most of the time – maybe even almost all the time” (page 114), but certainly not all the time and definitely not those people who have cut us deepest in our lives… they deserve our unforgiveness. You see, forgiveness is one of those areas where we often say that we believe in God, but live as if He doesn’t exist or hasn’t spoken specifically on the matter.
This morning I would like to move through a couple of key thoughts about forgiveness and then my hope is to be encouraging and quite practical when it comes to working through unforgiving attitudes in our lives.
I. GOD HATH SAID TO FORGIVE: DO IT
The Bible mentions forgiveness and forgiving 143 times in the Old and New Testaments in the Bible. It is an important life topic that is talked about. Forgiveness comes up because it is a way of life God expects of His people! Briefly I would like to remind us of some specific passages about forgiveness because I believe the Bible is expressly important in our lives and maps for us who God wants us to be:
Matthew 6:14-15: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Mark 11:25: “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."
Ephesians 4:32: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (we’ll come back to this verse a little later)
Colossians 3:13: “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
As I read Scripture, forgiveness for those who follow God is not an option. Forgiveness is a way of life for those who have already been forgiven by God through Jesus Christ. The Bible often frames forgiveness in terms that “we have already been forgiven therefore we forgive.” Jesus even tells the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant in Matthew 18 to illustrate that very Truth. God is not asking us to do anything that He has not already done. Our God has already forgiven us, sent His Son to die for us, paid the penalty for sin, and given us much grace when it comes to our betrayal of Him.
Forgiveness is give to us by God.
We then should also forgive.
ILLUSTRATION… Forgiveness Part 1 (p)
Forgiveness is not something that is easy for any of us, especially if we have been hurt or betrayed in a significant way.. In my own life, I have struggled to forgive. Before I came to NBCC nine years ago, I spent four years in a church that had been hurt mightily by a minister in the past. As a result, anyone who was in the position of minister was mistrusted, treated poorly, and abused. I was mistrusted, treated poorly, and abused. After four years, I decided to leave which was a good decision for me and for the church as well. After I had been at NBCC for a few years, I was asked to go back and participate in an ordination service for one of the young men in the church. I came face-to-face with the reality that I had NOT actually forgiven any of the people who had cursed me, mistreated me, made me doubt my calling, and a whole host of other issues. I had held onto bitterness. I had held onto an unforgiving attitude that colored all of my memories of that place. Once I accepted the invitation to go back and especially on the Sunday when I stepped through the doors of the church once again, I knew that I had to have forgiven because that is what God has done for me in the past, does for me now, and will continue to do for me in the future.
II. ROOT OF UNFORGIVENESS: MY RIGHTS
The opposite of forgiveness is unforgiveness. The opposite of grace is grudge. The opposite of pardon is vengeance. We have seen from the Scriptures that forgiveness is the way of life that God commands for His people. Forgiveness is one of those life areas where we often say that we believe in God, but live as if He doesn’t exist. We confess Jesus Christ as Lord and we accept His forgiveness in our lives, but we fail to forgive those in our lives who have wronged us. We hold onto unforgiveness, grudges, and vengeance and feel justified in doing so.
Why? Why do we feel justified in holding onto the pains of the past?
The basic reason we feel justified in our unforgiving attitudes is because we feel like we have the right to do so. When someone mistreats us, wrongs us, betrays our trust, cheats us, slaps our confidence to the ground, or pounds our reputation to pulp we immediately feel like we have certain rights in the situation as the party who has been wronged.
We feel like we have the right:
… the right to feel wronged
… the right to exact a penalty and make them suffer
… the right to be happy about their misfortune
… the right to be angry which often leads to bitterness
… the right to see people get what they deserve
… the right to forgive if and when I am good and ready
There is an issue when it comes to all these rights that we feel that we have when we are wronged. Do you know what the issue is? The issue is that they are all sinful. Every single one of these “my rights” attitudes that we may harbor in our hearts is a sin that leads to wrecking our lives and often worse sin.
We feel like we have the right:
… the right to feel wronged which leads to sinful anger and acting like victim all the time
… the right to exact a penalty and make them suffer which takes vengeance into our own hands.
… the right to be happy about their misfortune which is despicable.
… the right to be angry which often leads to bitterness which ravages our hearts and is a sin.
… the right to see people get what they deserve makes us judge, jury, and executioner and removes God.
… the right to forgive if and when I am good and ready removes what God would do in our lives and in theirs.
Unforgiveness is a sin.
Putting our supposed rights before what God would have us do is a sin because when we do that we make ourselves, our desires, and our will most important and God less important. The bottom line is that unforgiveness is a placing of our will, what we feel is right, what we feel is punishment, we, we, we over God. This is sin.
ILLUSTRATION… Forgiveness Part 2 (p)
I have to tell you that when I when I was sitting on the airplane headed out of Florida a few days before the ordination service I was struggling to forgive. The unforgiveness that I held in my heart has smacked me in the face. I thought I had dealt with it all, but I really hadn’t.
Unforgiveness fuels my rationalized anger.
Unforgiveness makes me feel powerful in a powerless situation.
I knew that by the time I walked into the church on Sunday, forgiveness had to be the situation in my heart. When I stood before the congregation to help with the ordination, I could not harbor irreconcilable mercilessness in my heart. Forgiveness seemed wrong somehow. It seemed wrong because of my rights. I felt that it was right and good for me to be angry about how I was treated. I would have loved to walk into the church and see that there were ten people in the congregation. I would have loved to walk into the church and have a meeting with the leadership in which they begged for my forgiveness because of how I was treated. I felt like I would forgive when I was good and ready. Every single one of those thoughts and feelings I was having was a sin that was separating me from God and separating me from actually forgiving.
Unforgiveness is a sin.
Unforgiveness is not the way of life for someone who is authentically trying to have a personal relationship with God. Someone who is a believer in Jesus Christ has received forgiveness from God the Father and has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within them… this calls us to forgive as a way of life.
III. PROCESS OF FORGIVING: ONE STEP AT A TIME
ILLUSTRATION… Forgiveness Part 3 (p)
So what do you think? When I arrived at the church for the ordination service all those years ago, did I have a right and clean heart before God? As I stood there and looked out over the congregation and prayed, spoke a few words about ordination into the ministry, and fellowshipped with the people, had I forgiven them? Did I meet my goal of forgiveness?
I will be completely honest with you and let you know I failed. I got to that place and saw the faces and I realized that I had not completely forgiven. I hadn’t. I suppose I should tell the story differently, but that would be lying to you and completely not helpful. What I would like to do is share with you what I went through after I returned from my trip. You see, the Truth remained that I needed to forgive.
How does forgiveness happen?
I personally believe that true forgiveness is often a process and is not a one time decision or a one time declaration. True God-honoring forgiveness is a process whereby we make a permanent decision to let go of bitterness and resentment and pardon a person which leads to feelings of peace for ourselves and compassion for the other person.
This type of God-honoring forgiveness is described in a passage that we read earlier. In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul describes moving from unforgiveness and all the physical, emotional, and spiritual results of that in our lives to forgiveness. He commands us to “get rid” which seems to me to be an act of the will. He then describes the results of unforgiveness that can take root in our lives. He then commands us to forgive.
READ Ephesians 4:31-32
“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
Again, I believe forgiveness is at times a process for us. What are the steps we need to take? I would like to share with you what I see as the steps of forgiveness based on my own experience.
Process of Forgiveness:
#1 Recognize your issue
You first need to realize that unforgiveness has taken root in your heart before you can do anything about it. In Ephesians 4:31, the Apostle Paul describes some characteristics of our lives that may indicate we are harboring unforgiveness. If you are dealing with bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, or malice… unforgiveness may have a piece of your heart.
#2 Give up your sinful rights
We secondly need to give up our right to be wronged. We must give up our right to exact revenge. We must give up our right to see the other person get what is coming to them. These sinful rights that we feel seem right to us, but in the end they are selfish and breed unforgiveness. We must give up these self-serving rights and adopt the right to forgive given to us by Jesus Christ.
#3 Begin by praying for a miracle in your heart
The only way we will forgive someone who has hurt us deeply is by praying for God to work a miracle. I honestly believe that forgiveness is not our normal nature. I personally struggle with forgiveness. Therefore, I see an essential step in forgiveness is asking God to do a miracle I our hearts in giving us the capacity to forgive. Ask God to help you forgive.
Forgiving someone who abused you is a miracle.
Forgiving someone who ruined your life is a miracle.
Forgiving someone who doesn’t deserve it and never asked for it is a miracle.
#4 Continue by praying for them
I firmly believe forgiveness is a matter of prayer. An important ingredient in forgiving someone is prayer in which we honestly pray for the other person. Now these are not prayers of “I pray they get hit by a truck,” but rather honest simple prayers for their well-being. You can pray:
“God please work in their life”
“God please help us mend our relationship”
“God please bless the work of their hands”
#5 Decide to forgive
At some point, a decision needs to be made. In Ephesians 4:31 when it says, “get rid” I read into that a personal decision is made. You and I must move from recognizing our unforgiveness, giving up our sinful rights, and praying about forgiveness to actually forgiving. Forgiveness is a decision. We must decide…
… not to seek revenge
… not to allow bitterness to rule us
… not to be angry when we see them or hear their name
… not to argue and fight over the issue
… not to disparage their name or reputation when they are mentioned
… to let it go
#6 Work on forgiveness as a permanent state of your heart
I believe that once you have made the decision to forgive someone, that this is an active decision. What I mean by “active decision” is that this is a decision of the will that must be kept up. If we get lax in our willingness to forgive, we may let resentment creep back into our lives. Forgiveness is a decision that must be a constant state of who we are and we must be vigilant against falling back into unforgiveness.
APPLICATION
I want to invite you today to begin the process of forgiveness by starting with #1. Would you examine yourself this morning and try and recognize if you have unforgiveness in your heart. Are you dealing with bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, or malice?
I am going to do something different today because I want us to honestly move towards forgiveness. I also want to invite you to do something else today if you feel it would help you break free from unforgiveness. If you have someone to forgive, I would like you to come up front this morning and just sit in the front pews. I am not going to ask you to say anything or confess anything, but when the song is over, I’d like to pray a special prayer over you as we move on from today.
CONCLUSION
