Forget Unforgiveness, Part 2

Use your imagination with me for just a minute and let’s pretend that you are about to go on a trip.  You don’t know exactly where you are going or for how long you will be gone but you know that every day your food and lodging will be taken care of.  What do you bring and what do you not need?

You might bring a pocket knife, your driver’s license, a good pair of shoes, a compass, flashlight, etc.  Now, what do you not need on this trip?  Do you need to tote along this fine-looking burden of anger?  (Pull out longhorn horns) No, you don’t need that, do you?

How about these cartons of regret?  (Pull out cartons of eggs) Are these regrets going to help you on your trip?  No, they are only going to hinder you, aren’t they?  I know.  How about these filthy rags of bad habits?  Will these help you get where you want to go?  I know what you need when you go on a long hike.  You need this big old TV of worry, right?  That’ll help you get there.

None of these are going to help you get where you are going, are they?  In fact, most of them will be real hindrances to going where you are supposed to go.  Anger, regret, bad habits and worry are all huge hindrances when God says in Isaiah 43:18-19 that we should forget about the past because He is making a way for us in the desert and in the wasteland.

Let’s look at that once again.  Turn to Isaiah 43:18-19 as we continue our series starting out the new year by forgetting the former things.  Isaiah 43:18-19 says,

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.”

Now, if God is preparing a way for us, doing a new thing by taking us on a trip as individuals and as a church to places we have never been, we know we can trust Him, right?  He promises to take care of us and to protect and provide for us but we must let go of all the things that would hinder us so we can be, go and do all that He wants us to.  The problem is, though, that we want to hang on to some of our old baggage although none of it is going to help us on our trip.

None of it is any more of a hindrance than our chains…of unforgiveness.  (Pull out big bucket of chains.)  Yea, this is what you need.  This will really help you be, go and do what God wants.  See, when you haul this around, it teaches the other guy a lesson, doesn’t it?  It teaches him you’re crazy maybe because all you have to do is let go and forget it and don’t dwell on it.  But it’s hard.  I know it is.  But it’s possible and we are going to see how today.

Last week we looked at why we should forgive and this week we are going to see how.  Do you remember why we should forgive from last week?  We should forgive because we have been forgiven and because it is a command.  Unforgiveness is a sin that puts a barrier between us and God just like any other sin.  But unforgiveness doesn’t just poison us.  It poisons our family and friends and our church and Jesus said in Matthew 6:15 that if we don’t forgive our brother, then the Father won’t forgive us.

That’s serious.  So, let’s look this week at some practical ways we can learn to forgive people that have hurt us by starting out in Luke chapter 17 and let’s read verses 1-6.  As we do, I want you to put yourselves in the place of the disciples that Jesus is teaching here.  They have been following Jesus for a while and almost every day it seems He tells them some other difficult saying or teaching.

Today is no different.  Let’s read Luke 17:1-6.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. ² It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. ³ So watch yourselves.

“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. ⁴ Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

⁵ The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

⁶ He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.

I think one of these days I’m going to write a commentary and in my commentary I will spend very little time explaining all the wonderful minutiae regarding the number “7” in this passage.  I’m going to spend very little time and ink explaining all there is to know about just how small a mustard seed is and even less time and space about how the vast roots of a mulberry tree grow.  Do you know why? Because it doesn’t matter.

You don’t have to know how many milligrams a mustard seed weighs.  Don’t get bogged down on the trivia especially when the big idea of passages like this are so incredible and life-changing.  The apostles didn’t get bogged down with it.  When Jesus mentioned the number “7”, what did they say?  “Well, now Andrew, you know that the number “7” is the perfect number, used by the perfect man to symbolize completeness…”

No!  They said, “Increase our faith!”  What they were saying was, “Jesus, we believe you but we don’t feel like we are able to do that.  Would you please help us?”  And in the saying of that they proved to be right where they needed to be.  This is the absolute best thing they could have said.  It was similar to when Jesus asked Peter who Peter thought Jesus was in Matthew 16 and Peter wisely answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” and Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by My Father in heaven.”

I believe the words, “Increase our faith” were also revealed by God because that is not human nature.  Human nature would have been to first get bogged down talking about what exactly “7” meant but then to say, “Lord, increase our hope” or maybe “Increase our love” or even “Increase our revenge” but the disciples understood that the only way they were ever going to be able to do something so extreme as to forgive someone over and over again was through faith.

Martin Luther said, “God our Father has made all things depend on faith so that whoever has faith will have everything, and whoever does not have faith will have nothing.”  You sure won’t have true forgiveness time after time without faith.

So, I hope you feel just like the apostles did about forgiveness.  I hope you feel overwhelmed by the thought of truly forgiving that person who has hurt you and I hope you will rely on your faith in Jesus to help you because it is your faith in Him that God has given you that will allow you to truly forgive.

But there is more to it than just saying, “God, I can’t forgive them.  Please do it.”  Just like there is more to it than just saying, “God, I can’t lose weight.  Please help me” while you sit on the couch eating bon-bons.  Just like there is more to it than just saying s, “God, I can’t memorize scripture.  Please help me” while you sit there and watch TV.  We have a part to play in forgiveness.  In fact, we have three parts.

The first part is mental, the next is physical and the other is spiritual.  Mentally, we have to know why to forgive, like we talked about last week.  We also need to know what forgiveness is and how to know when we have done it.  To know what forgiveness is, we have to know why it is ever needed.  Forgiveness is needed because somebody owes you a debt.  Maybe the debt is mental or physical or financial.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s still a debt.

Whether I steal from you or gossip about you or punch you in the mouth, I owe you a debt, don’t I?  Now, the easiest way that works out is if I come to you and apologize and ask for your forgiveness.  In verse 3, Jesus says to rebuke the person who owes you a debt.  “Rebuke” means to exert pressure upon or to find fault or to charge someone just like Jesus rebuked the winds and they stopped blowing.

Jesus says to go to that person and tell them how you feel, what you want, how you see the facts.  Tell them they owe you a debt.  It means to get it out in the open.  Don’t keep it in but sure don’t go tell somebody else about it.  We are also told to speak the truth in love and we know that the goal of this is to restore the relationship.  It’s not about embarrassing them or shaming them.  That’s not love.  Then, if done correctly, and that person asks for forgiveness, then you give it.  You cancel the debt.  You erase it.  Gone forever.

So, that’s all you have to do.  It’s real easy.  Just forgive.  Now, thanks for coming out.  See ya later.  Right?  Don’t you wish it were always that easy?  Sometimes it works that way but what about when the other person won’t talk to you or when they have hurt you terribly and then moved or even died?  What if they don’t care if they hurt you or don’t care if you ever forgive them?

Ooh, here’s where we get to the good stuff.  I looked up the word “forgive” in my big Bible concordance.  I started not to because we all know what the word means, right?  But I thought it might be interesting to see how Jesus was using it and at first I thought I might have looked up the wrong word.  That’s easy to do in some concordances.  It said the word means to leave, let alone or lay aside; to desert, omit, or leave behind like a dying companion; to leave destitute.  That’s fascinating to me.

Notice, though, that it doesn’t say anything about forgetting.  Linking forgiveness with forgetting is a mistake; a mistake that Satan loves for you to make because Satan prowls around like a roaring lion looking to see who he can devour and if God won’t allow Satan to devour you, Satan will gladly accept you being devoured by the sin and the cancer that is unforgiveness.  Satan’s okay with that.  In fact, it will do the job for him if we choose to let it.

So, here’s how to truly forgive.  Based on everything we have read in scripture the last two weeks, if you want to choose forgiveness; if you want to truly forget the former things and not dwell on the past so that you are ready, willing and able to go, do and be what God wants for you this year, here is how you forgive.

You first have to make the choice and decide that you want to.  I told you there is a mental part and a spiritual part and this is all mental. That’s hard enough sometimes but we now know that unforgiveness is a sin that puts a real barrier between us and God so we have decided to let it go.  We decide to forgive because we have been forgiven by God a much greater debt – a debt we could never pay.  So we choose to forgive those who owe us debts as well.

This is not saying that it was okay that they did what they did or that it didn’t really hurt.  You aren’t saying that you have forgotten it.  You are just saying that the debt is forgiven, erased and gone forever.

If possible, go to the person and lovingly talk about the debt that is owed and if they agree then you forgive and the relationship is restored.  Easy peasy.  But if that’s not possible, here’s what you do.  You have decided you want to forgive that person and if you can’t talk to them about it, you still need to clarify what the debt is.  So, write it down.  That’s the physical part.  I’m serious.  Write down what happened and why you are owed this debt.

Now, read it.  Speak it out.  Say it out loud.  I recommend doing this by yourself or maybe with a close friend but this is important.  Read it out loud and let it all out.  Spill all the gory details if you want and then once you have read it – do you remember the definition of forgive?  To leave, let alone or lay aside; to desert, omit, or leave behind like a dying companion. 

I recommend burning it.  Maybe you want to take it to the gun range and blow holes all through it until nothing is left.  You can bury it, drown it in the lake but whatever you do, leave it like the dying companion that it is.  Leave it alone.  Never go back.  Do you know why this is so important?  This is important because Satan is going to come to you later and try to tell you that you didn’t really forgive.  You didn’t do it right or didn’t do it enough or that there is still some kind of debt.

“Excuse me, father of lies, but I don’t know what you are talking about.  Did you not see me shoot that thing to smithereens?  I burned it and buried it and I never went back for its remains.  There is no debt.  That has been forgiven.  I made the choice mentally and physically to forgive that debt and it no longer exists.  Bye now.”

Those are the mental and physical parts that we have to do to forgive.  Now let’s end with the spiritual part of it.  Because even after all that, you are still going to wake up in the middle of the night and start remembering what happened, letting it replay in your mind and it’s going to start robbing you of your peace and joy.  This will happen because you can’t just forget history.  None of this is about forgetting.  It doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt or that it is okay what the other person did.  All you can do is forgive the debt.

But you can’t even do that by yourself, not when the hurt is so deep.  So, this is where you come to Jesus just like the apostles did and you say, “Lord, I believe you but I don’t feel like I am able to do that.  Would you please help me?” 

“Lord, I come to you with all the faith I can manage.  It’s not much but my faith is in You.  I have faith that you will give me the gift of joy and peace and allow me to truly forgive this person, not because of anything I have done but because I have this relationship with you and based on what you have done in the past through the Old Testament and into the New Testament and into my life, would you please continue to work out this forgiveness?  I can’t do it without You.”

That’s just what Jesus wants to hear and what He wants to do in your life.  Who do you need to forgive today?

Invitation / Prayer

One last thing about forgiveness:  while you are praying for God’s help to forgive, start asking Him to help you pray for that person who hurt you.  You may not be able to pray anything except God help them get run over by a bus.  But that’s not what you want to pray.  Ask God to help you.  Start out by praying for wisdom for that person.  Every time you think of them say a prayer for them.  Then see if God doesn’t help you with that forgiveness.