Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church

Forgiveness

by Dave Wilkinson

Romans 12:14

July 9, 2000

Leola Starling of Ribrock, Tenn., had a serious telephone problem.

The brand-new $10 million Ribrock Plaza Motel opened nearby and had acquired almost the same telephone number as Leola.

From the moment the motel opened, Leola was besieged by calls for the Plaza. Since she had the same phone number for years, she felt that she had a case to persuade the motel management to change its number.

Naturally, the management refused claiming that it could not change its stationary. The phone company was not helpful either. After her pleas fell on deaf ears, Leola decided to take matters into her own hands.

At 9:00 the phone rang. Someone from Memphis was calling the motel and asked for a room for the following Tuesday. Leola said, "No problem. How many nights?"

A few hours later Dallas checked in. A secretary wanted a suite with two bedrooms for a week. Emboldened, Leola said the Presidential Suite on the 10^th floor was available for $600 a night, The secretary said that she would take it and asked if the Plaza wanted a deposit. "No, that won't be necessary," Leola said. "We trust you."

The next day was a busy one for Leola. In the morning, she booked an electric appliance

manufacturer's convention for Memorial Day weekend, a college prom and a reunion of the 82^nd Airborne Veterans from World War II. But her biggest challenge came in the afternoon when a mother called to book the ballroom for her daughter's wedding in June.

Leola assured the woman that it would be no problem and asked if she would be providing the flowers or did she want the hotel to take care of it. The mother said that she would prefer the hotel to handle the floral arrangements. Then the question of valet parking came up. Once again, Leola was helpful. "There's no charge for valet parking, but we always recommend that the

client tips the drivers."

Within a few months, the Ribrock Plaza was a disaster area. People kept showing up for weddings, bar mitzvahs, and sweet sixteen parties and were all told there were no such events.

Leola had her final revenge when she read in the local paper that the motel might go bankrupt. Her phone rang, and an executive from Marriott said, "We're prepared to offer you $200,000 for the motel."

Leola replied. "We'll take it But only if you change the telephone number."

Revenge! Sweet revenge. Who here has not fantasized about getting even — even if it's something as petty as showing up at a 25^th High School Reunion to show all those jerks that you made it. Hoping that they are all fat, bald and drive Yugos. In the words of Frederich Nietzche, "Revenge is the greatest instinct in the human race."

In Matthew 18, Peter comes to Jesus with a question "If someone sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as 7 times?"

I don’t think that this is a rhetorical question. I'm betting Peter has his mental ledger open to a particular account. I'm guessing John has interrupted or ignored or insulted Peter for about the

eighth time now, and Peter has had enough! He has smiled and gritted his teeth and been civil long enough and now he is ready to stuff it down his throat. But he comes to Jesus to get permission first.

That's real life isn't it? We want God's blessing when we're cursing somebody, so we can feel righteous about giving them what they deserve. And it is usually somebody you know pretty well. You don't really get mad at people you don't know. Who cares if they ignore you? You can ignore them right back. But when one of your own family or your best friend or someone in your

church crosses you, now that really hurts. You expect better from those people.

I'm betting that when you hear Peter ask about forgiving seven times, some real face pops up in

your mind and you know exactly what Peter is after when he asks this question. He isn't after forgiveness; he's after revenge! He's wanting to know when it's time to lower the boom, when it's acceptable to launch a retaliatory strike. He's wanting to know how much he has to take from these turkeys that surround him.

Jesus, of course, has a different way.

Jesus' best known teaching on this subject is from the Sermon on the Mount. In that sermon, the Lord spoke of those who will persecute Christians, saying: "You have heard that it was said. "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in Heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

We will never be able to do what Christ is saying (and Paul repeats in Romans) unless we understand two things.

First, it is natural to strike back at people who are hurting us. It is natural to wish them harm, to "curse" them, to use Paul's word. Of course, when we do that, we often cause a lot of collateral damage to people who have done us no harm, -- just like Leola did.

The second thing we need to understand, that the only way to overcome our natural tendency to fight back is to work for our persecutors' good. That is, we have to bless and not curse. We are to pray for our enemies, asking God to bless them. put, then, if we are asking God to do good to

them, it is pretty clear that we must also seek every honest means of doing good to them too.

What is the motivation for this? Where is the power? It is the fact that we are forgiven people. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:29: "Forgive just as God in Christ has forgiven you."You will never be required to forgive more than that.

The good news of the gospel is the fact of forgiveness -that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin--that if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That. is a fact that should be liberating to us in our relationship not only with God, but also with ourselves.

But with the great fact of our forgiveness also comes an obligation. This is in the first part of the verse from Ephesians: "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ has forgiven you."

You have been forgiven! Now forgive!

Forgiveness is necessary for at least three reasons.

First, the people God is calling us to forgive are people whom God loves just as much as He loves us. Perhaps the greatest grief a parent can experience is to have children who have nothing but anger for each other. God has brought us together in a family. He desires us to live together in such a way that we demonstrate to the world by our relationships with each other the love God has shown us. Forgiveness is essential to peace, peace is essential to unity and unity is essential to our witness to God in the world.

Forgiveness is also the only way to new beginnings. The trouble with revenge is that it never evens the score because alienated people never keep score by the same mathematics. Enemies never agree on the score. Each feels the wounds he receives differently from the wounds he gives. How many Beruits can ever equal a holocaust? How many of her put downs equals his insults?

We cannot get even. This is the inner futility of all revenge.

But forgiveness takes us off of the escalator of revenge so that both of us can break the chain of wrong. We start over.

And third, we need to forgive because forgiveness is essential to our own well being. The trouble with holding a person down in the gutter is that you can't do it without climbing into the gutter yourself and staying there. For every measure of revenge you take on another by a refusal to extend forgiveness, you take an equal amount of revenge on yourself. It cuts both ways. Anger

and bitterness are quite capable of consuming us from the inside out. The anger that leads to an unwillingness to forgive is just as potent as the guilt of actually offending or hurting another.

You can't hold a person in the gutter of guilt without living in the gutter of grudges yourself. That is just too expensive a way to live. Extending forgiveness is essential to our own well being.

You see resentments and anger put the whole physical and mental system on a war basis instead of a peace basis. An outstanding medical doctor, Walter Alvarez, writes, "I often tell my patients that they cannot afford to carry grudges or maintain hates. Such things can make them ill and can certainly tire them out." He writes, "I once saw a man kill himself inch by inch simply by thinking of nothing but hatred of a relative who had sued him. Within a year or two he was dead."

When we say of another, 'he burns me up' that's true. He really does. You want to bum him up and all you succeed in doing is burning yourself up. When you say, 'I blow up' it's true. You do. Again, you really want to blow up the other guy, but you only succeed in blowing up yourself.

When you forgive, you do not change the past. But you do change the future.

One thing we can do to change the future is to realize that in this world in which we live, all of us at times are going to be treated unjustly, and we are going to be hurt. Count on it. We aren't living in heaven, and all of us are not perfect. At times we hurt others, and we treat others unfairly and they sometimes treat us that way. This fact means that we do not need to take easy offense or wear our hearts on our sleeves. We need to learn to make allowances for one another. That includes husbands and wives, parents and children, and church members. We must always be eager to forgive if we have a difference with anyone. If we have already made up our minds to allow others to slip a bit in their relationships with us, if we are not going to demand perfection from one another, and if we are already prepared in our minds and hearts to forgive a person when they slip, then it's going to be hard to hold resentment very long in our relationships.

The story is told about the man who met an old college friend downtown one night. They sat in the lobby of the hotel and began to talk over old times. They lost track of time. Before they realized it, it was past midnight and they went on home, but both of them were just a little concerned about what their wives would say about them coming in so late. The next day they met

again, and one asked, "How did your wife react to your coming in so late?" "Oh," the other one replied, "I explained it to her and apologized for worrying her by not calling. It was OK, she understood. What about your wife?" He said, "When I came in my wife got historical.""Don't you mean hysterical?" "No, I mean historical. She brought up everything that has happened

in the past thirty years."

The woman who became "Historical" had not forgotten 30 years of slights. I've had people say to me, as I am sure you have, "I can forgive so and so, but I'll never forget." The thing here is that when a person comes to us in confession and repentance, if we don't forget, we really haven't forgiven.

Now don't get me wrong. We need to draw an important distinction here. God does not call us to be either stupid or masochistic. He doesn't call us to be doormats. There is an important word we need to remember on the subject of forgiving and forgetting. Remember how Peter asked Jesus, "If my brother sins against me and repents, how many times do I forgive him as many as seven times? Jesus says, "No, seventy times seven."

Did you note ~ important word The word is repentance. The Bible draws an important distinction between those who sin and repent and those who do not.

We also need to draw that distinction. For example, if you come to my house and steal my silverware and then come to me, confess the wrong and return the silverware -- maybe polish it up a bit -- I am commanded not only to forgive you but to forget the behavior. I need to invite you over to dinner and not watch you like a hawk the whole time. If, on the other hand, a person steals my silverware and does not repent, now I will still forgive that person for my own well being if not for his but I won't trust him in my house.

But for the one who repents we need to open ourselves in trust. And even. if there is no repentance, we still need to let go of the anger -- if not the caution. Dr. Lewis Smedes of Fuller Seminary said in an interview: "If you say that someone has to repent before you forgive, you are making your future happiness, your future freedom, hostage to that person. You are letting that person decide for you whether you can be healed of your resentment and hate. Forgiving is always a risk because it opens you up to the possibility that you will put yourself in the situation where you will be wronged again. But the consequences of not forgiving are so bad that the risk is worth taking."

Of course there's a big question here. Can our minds really allow us to forget? Probably not. The human brain is capable of recording 800 memories per second for over seventy-five years without getting tired. You never really forget anything. You just don't recall it. Everything is on permanent file in the brain.

Because of these facts, we are not talking in the sense of forgetting as an actual erasing from memory. We are speaking instead in the sense of 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul writes: "Love does not take into account a wrong suffered." True forgivers don't keep score.

To what degree or in what way are we to forgive? Paul says that we are to forgive just as we have been forgiven to the same degree and in the same way totally, forgetfully, joyfully, and willingly. To fail to forgive is to court disaster. Every time we pray the Lord's Prayer, we make this agreement with God -- that He forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. We ask God to forgive us to the same degree and in the same way, as we are willing to forgive. For us to be unwilling to forgive, is for us to destroy the very bridge over which we must pass.

Dr. Smedes wrote in Christianity Today: "When it comes down to it, anyone who forgives can hardly tell the difference between feeling forgiven and doing the forgiving. We are such a mixture of sinners and sinned against, we cannot forgive people who offend us without feeling that we are set free ourselves...To forgive is to put down a 50-pound pack after a 10-mile climb up a mountain: To forgive is to fall in a chair after a 15-mile marathon. To forgive is to set a

prisoner free and then to discover that the prisoner was you."