There was a married couple that had many disagreements and heated arguments, but somehow the wife always stayed cool, calm and collected. One day her husband brought this to light and stated “When I get mad you, how come you never fight back, how do you control your anger so well?”
The wife said: “Easy I work it off by cleaning the toilet.”
The husband asked: “How does that help?”
She said: “It’s pretty simple really, I just use your toothbrush!”
Our subject today is forgiveness. How many times must I forgive someone who has hurt me, abused me, or exploited me? That is Peter’s question. How many times? Would seven times be enough? Peter thought that he was being generous. After all, the rabbis of his day taught that only three times were required. They said, “Forgive three times, but not the fourth.” Peter was taking what the rabbis commanded, multiplying it by two, and adding one more for good measure! Seven times, Peter thought, should be plenty enough forgiveness.
But it was not enough for Jesus. In answer to how many times we should forgive Jesus said, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” I know what some of you are thinking, 490 times then at 491 POW Straight to the moon, No that’s not what he means. What Jesus is saying is that forgiveness is limitless.
I think that sometimes we miss the point that Jesus was making. The point that Jesus was trying to make is that there should be no limit to our forgiveness. You see forgiveness is at the heart of our Christian faith. We aren’t supposed to hold grudges, carry resentments or harbor bitterness. It’s a tough teaching, but it is one of the most important teachings that Jesus gave us. Forgiveness is at the center of everything we believe about Christ. Our salvation revolves around the fact that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and with that death we are able to receive forgiveness for whatever it is we have done.
One of the first things we need to realize is that refusing to forgive has terrible consequences. Have you ever thought about what happens when we refuse to forgive? When we refuse to forgive we keep that issue or problem inside, to refuse to forgive is to choose to carry around those feelings of bitterness, resentment, and hate. Why would anybody want to carry that garbage around? Why would we do that to ourselves?
Someone once said that harboring resentments is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Someone else has said that letting hatred simmer within us, eating at our emotions and our body, is like burning down our house to get rid of rats. Why would you want to carry these feelings around all your life, usually we sit and stew and roll it over in our minds and the other person is out dancing and having a good time. When we refuse to forgive, who do we hurt most of all? Ourselves!!
Ever hear of the famous Brink’s robbery? It happened in Boston, Massachusetts in January 1950. The robbery netted nearly $3 million, an extraordinary amount of money in those days. Do you know how the robbers were finally caught? Some of the guys involved and had a falling out. Eleven days before the statute of limitations was to expire on the robbery, one of the robbers confessed and turned states evidence. His motive? Anger, he was mad and wanted revenge. The other members of the gang had let him down and this was his way of payback.
Eleven days before the statute of limitations was to expire! Boy, I guess he showed them. Of course, he was punished right along with his buddies, he didn’t stay in jail as long but he still spent 4 years in prison. Why? He couldn’t forgive, he couldn’t let it go.
When we carry anger and resentment toward someone else, who do we really hurt? The person we really hurt is ourselves. “We need to learn to forgive not merely to fulfill some higher law of morality; we need to forgive in order to gain peace and joy for ourselves.
I was raised by my mother and stepfather, for whatever reason I never heard much from my real dad he never called, never came around, didn’t pay child support, no Christmas visits, no holidays, no birthdays, nothing at all. So you see Jeff wasn’t really my dad at all, I really didn’t even know him. So at the ripe old age of 12 I was adopted by my stepfather. Before the adoption hearing I spent two weeks with Jeff and my family in Monroe, most of my time spent there was with my grandmother and my stepmother and stepbrother because Jeff was always at work. The adoption hearing was scheduled and Jeff and my stepmom came to the hearing and the adoption went through, and I never saw or heard from Jeff again until much later in my life. I built walls brick by brick, board by board of resentment, anger, and solitude. Because I couldn’t let go of the fact that I wasn’t loved by my father, any young boy might have had these feelings. I kept my feelings bottled up I kept that spirit of forgiveness with me through my teen years. It caused me to be a loner an angry teenager that seemed to give no love because I didn’t want to face the disappointment of loving and receiving none in return. I had burdens and responsibilities on my shoulders as a teenager that no one should have to bare let alone a teenager, and all the while forgiveness and everything attached to it simmered away inside.
When I was around twenty four years old my wife and mother sort of forced me back into contact with Jeff. I wanted no part of this I had been disappointed before and I didn’t want it to happen again. Reluctantly I agreed to a meeting with him, and you know things started working out we began mending fences I was on my way to a recovery of a life of non forgiveness we began a good relationship and became friends My daughter got to know her popee as she called him he didn’t try to be my dad because we both knew that he could never be that but he did become a great friend and he became a good grandfather for Kayla. We had a great time for about twelve years, then I got a call about 2 a.m. one morning it was my stepmother Jeff had died of a heart attack. We went to Monroe that morning with heavy hearts and sadness I had finally developed a relationship with my natural father and now he was gone. Well he had no insurance and no money saved. My stepmother nor my family in Monroe were able to pay the funeral cost. So Becky and I discussed it and I drew the money out of a retirement account I had and paid a hefty penalty but we managed to pay for the funeral. We were fortunate that a family owned Christian based funeral home took care of the arrangements and held a check till my money arrived and my stepmother’s dad had an extra burial plot that he gave us.
Love was being shown to us but I was too blind to see it through all the resentment and anger that flooded back in. You see that spirit of un-forgiveness was still there I had just learned to cope with it while things were good, I had never really forgiven my father at all.
The good times weren’t remembered any more Here It is all over again He never did anything for me and here I am having to give up a part of my Future all this money to bury him because of his irresponsibility, the same irresponsibility I saw as a child. I hated life and I couldn’t forgive him for his irresponsibility, Well later on when I recommitted my life to Christ I struggled with this anger and hate brought on by an unforgiving heart. Oh I put on a good show I seemed like I had everything under control But deep in my heart I had a spirit of unforgiveness and I just couldn’t let it go I couldn’t forgive him for ruining my life . I couldn’t forgive Jeff for the heartache he caused in my life I couldn’t forgive him or anyone else for the misery I felt in my life.
And you know something I had doubts about my forgiveness from Christ. I knew I was a Christian. I knew I was saved by the blood of Christ but always it came up that old devil would whisper “Michael are you truly forgiven? Are you truly a child of God?” And I had doubts. Well one weekend Becky & I went to a spiritual retreat and I realized something that weekend. I had a lot of time to pray and get in touch with Christ and I realized something. I realized That not only did I have to truly forgive Jeff and everyone else that I felt had wronged me, I also needed to forgive myself for all the resentment that I had carried all those years, and the way I treated those who cared for and loved me. I realized when I truly gave forgiveness then I could truly and wholly accept the forgiveness that Christ had given me.
You see we can’t really accept the magnitude of Christ forgiveness until we have attained that forgiving spirit. We can’t truly accept our forgiveness until we learn to forgive others. We can’t experience true joy until we establish a forgiving nature. God has forgiven us for every indiscretion no matter how large or how small, why is it so hard to forgive others?
Forgiveness is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves. Do you understand that? I fear sometimes that we regard forgiveness as something we do for God, or something we do because it is the nice thing to do. All of that is true, of course. But forgiveness is ultimately a gift we give ourselves. We need to purge ourselves of our negative feelings toward a co-worker, toward a family member, toward an ex-spouse who has hurt us. We don’t do it for them. We have to do this for our own well-being.
FORGIVENESS IS A CHOICE. You do not have to carry around feelings of bitterness, resentment, anger. It’s your choice. You have to choose to forgive.
The important thing to remember is that we always have a choice
The truth is this, we just need to realize it is possible to forgive another person. People do it every day. You and I need to see that we can choose to forgive. The damage that we do to ourselves through an unforgiving heart that brings about unresolved anger and resentment is far more deadly than any damage we are likely to inflict on one who has hurt us. Why keep hammering away at yourself?
The Bible says, “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye” (Col. 3:13).
Jesus told a parable about a man who owed his king ten thousand talents. That’s about the equivalent of ten million dollars. The king was ready to have the man, his wife, their children and all their possessions sold to satisfy the debt. The man came begging on his knees to the king to ask for more time. The Scriptures tell us that the king was moved with compassion and completely forgave the man his debt. What relief! What joy! But wait . . . That same man had someone who owed him some money about twenty dollars. He seized this man by the throat and told him to pay up. And when the fellow did not, this man who had been forgiven his debt of ten million dollars had the fellow thrown into prison for failing to pay his debt of twenty dollars. Then the king heard about this and called the man in again. “Here I forgave your debt,” he exclaimed with rage, “should you not have forgiven the debt that was owed to you?”
And Jesus asks the same question of us today. “Forgive us our debts,” he taught us to pray, “As we forgive our debtors.” Forgiveness can be a hard teaching for many people. Sometimes our hurt can go so deep, we feel we cannot let go of it. But we can and we must for our own well-being. With much prayer and a clear commitment to it, we can forgive as we have been forgiven.
If this message is for you today If this message has made you think, if there’s someone you need to forgive do it not for there sake but for your own . Do it so you can have that joy and peace that God has given you. Don’t wait another day, free yourself, forgive those you need to But most of all forgive yourself allow yourself to accept the forgiveness that Jesus Christ has given us.
“How many times may my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?” asked Peter. “As many as seven times?” Jesus answered him, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.”
