Pastor Jeff Williams: February 13, 2011 Living Debt-Free, Part II, "What Is Forgiveness?" We're starting a new series, as you can see from the image behind me and on the wall over here. It's called, "Living Debt Free." We're not talking financially. It's not a financial seminar. We are talking about debt in the sense of the words of Christ when He said in His prayer, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." This is the moral debt that you and I incur in our lifetime. When we transgress, when we sin, there is moral debt that we owe. We wrong one another in life. People have wronged you, so what do we do with this debt? Do we allow it to accumulate, or do we remove it? If we remove it, how do we go about that? The way we remove it is through forgiveness. Before we actually get into the Scripture and start talking about forgiveness and what it is, I thought it would be good to try to see it first. I think if you can see it, then it enables you to receive the teaching better because there is a clear visual that you can focus in on. One of my favorite actors is Liam Neeson. I don't know if you like him or not, but he's probably my favorite actor. He played the part of Oskar Schindler in "Schindler's List." He plays the voice of Aslan in "The Chronicles of Narnia." He was in "Star Wars." He did a film called "Les Misérables." You may have read the book "Less Miserables," (Pastor pronouncing it phonically). In "Les Misérables," he is an ex-convict who is on the path to redemption. In this particular scene, he seeks shelter and food at the home of a bishop. He is appreciative; but at the same time, he has no money. He knows he can't stay there forever, so it looks like he's going to enter back into a life of crime. That's all he knows. It's what he wants to do. He wants to be a good person. He wants to be a new man, but because he has no job, because he's alone, all he knows how to do is steal. It looks like he's about to return to a life of crime. Let's go ahead and watch this clip from the movie, "Les Misérables," and then we'll talk about forgiveness: (link can be found here: http://www.wingclips.com/movie-clips/les-miserables/back-to-god). That is pretty powerful stuff: "I've ransomed you from fear and hatred, and now I give you back to God. With this silver, I have bought your soul." This is an act of forgiveness, an act of grace. Biblically, you've heard a lot of definitions for forgiveness over the years. I want to give you a very simple, easy-to-remember definition of forgiveness. The word forgive in the Scripture literally means to let go, to release. In releasing Jean Valjean, he was forgiving him. He was giving him a new start. He was sending him on the path to redemption. He was saying, "You're past is gone. You have a fresh start. You're going to be a different person." Have you been following the news about Egypt? It's been riveting television. I happened to catch a couple key moments. You're watching revolution right before your eyes. I saw the clashes of the demonstrators with the police and how horrific that was. I saw the loss of life there. It was just gut-wrenching to watch. The people basically said, "We're not going to leave. We are going to topple this dictator, so we're going to clog up the streets of the biggest city in our country. We're going to leave our jobs and basically bring the economy to a halt. This number is going to keep growing and growing until you step down." Then when he refused to step down, rather than retaliating in violence and looting, they began to shout chants of peace. They also began saying to him, "Get out! Get out! We're not leaving! You leave!" Then he finally stepped down, and the military took over. The first thing they say-I don't know if you caught that story or not-is "you need to forgive the police. You need to respect the police and forgive the police. We are one country. We are one people, and we want a new start. We can't have a new start if we're fighting each other." The police were doing their jobs. They were taking orders, but now there will be a new government in place, and "you need to respect the police." I checked the news today, this morning before I came, and it showed the police and the protestors hand in hand, hugging each other, and shouting, "We are one! We are one people!" That's amazing! That's forgiveness in action. They said, "We're going to let go!" It's not saying they aren't going to go after Mubarak for justice, but they were saying, "We're going to forgive these events of the past because we want a new start!" Therefore, to forgive means to let go. I want to read a couple of Scriptures. I'm not going to talk about them per se, but I just want to read them at this point. I'd like us to turn in our Bibles to Ephesians 4:31-32 (page 1159 of pew Bibles). Paul writes and says, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger…" Let it go. "…brawling and slander, along with every form of malice." Release those things. How do you do that? "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you." In Matthew 6:14-15 (page 960), we read the Lord's Prayer, but seldom do we read the Verses that came immediately after Jesus' teaching on prayer. Verse 14 says, "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." So, having read those two Passages, let's talk about some of the attributes of forgiveness. We define forgiveness as letting go, releasing. What does that look like? What are the attributes and characteristics involved? What are we doing when we engage in forgiveness? What I'm going to do is take the word forgive and assign a word to each letter as a memory device to help us remember these facets of forgiveness. Of course, we're going to start with F which stands for Freedom. Notice the image (put up on screen), the exuberance of this individual. This individual acts as if he/she is being set free, like he or she is liberated or a load has been lifted-quite the opposite of the image we were using in the last series that we went through. This is a person who feels a new sense of life. Notice the green color there. It stands for a newness of life, for a new start that forgiveness can bring to an individual or to a relationship. As I contemplate this series, my mind keeps going back to an event that happened about five years ago when a lone gunman walked into an Amish schoolhouse. He made the little boys leave. Then because he was angry that God had taken his young child from him years ago, he took that anger against God out on those innocent little children and began shooting them. He killed many of them in cold blood. The nation was shocked with that story. Who would do such a thing? What kind of a demon could do something like that? The news began spreading quickly, but the response from the Amish also shocked the world as well. Do you recall what they did? They showed up at the home of the widow and offered her forgiveness. They said, "We forgive your husband, and we're here for you. We can't imagine how difficult it was for you to lose your husband, to lose the father of your children. We're praying for you, we love you, and we want to support you." The world could not believe what they were seeing. When the funeral (for the murderer) came a few days later, not many people showed up-the wife, the children, and just a handful of people. Then, literally while the funeral was getting set to begin, on foot, over the hill in mass came the Amish community. Like the cavalry coming over the hill, they came hand-in-hand to support that widow and her family and to show forgiveness. One of the things you couldn't see that was behind the scenes was a family [that had lost a daughter, a sister] that was really struggling. The wife was struggling; the daughter was struggling, and she was angry with her dad because she saw his forgiveness as a betrayal to her little sister. She said, "How could you forgive him, Daddy? He took my sister! He killed my sister! How can we forgive him? I hate him! I hate him, Daddy!" The father put his arm around the little girl and said, "Honey, how does that hate inside of you feel? How does it feel?" She said, "It doesn't feel good! I don't like it, Daddy! It doesn't feel good!" He was trying to describe what hate and unforgiveness do to a person, and he gave this little girl a word picture, which is as profound for us adults as I think it would be for a little child. He said, "Hate is like a monster that lives inside of you with sharp teeth. It will eat away at your heart until there is no room left for love." How is that for a vivid word picture of hate? It's like a monster living inside of you with sharp teeth that will eat away at your heart until there is no room left for love. What this father was trying to do was liberate his family from bitterness and hate. He wanted her to experience the freedom that we see portrayed in this image on the wall. Paul is saying, "I don't want you to be burdened by bitterness and malice hatred, slander and rage." He said, "That's going to destroy you. That's going to kill you." Paul is saying, "Let it go. Get rid of it. I want you to be free. If you have had a heart that has been dark and cold because of hatred, bitterness, and unresolved anger, and you are able to release that, there is a freedom that is there." I am not debt-free. I hope to be debt-free someday. I hope to say, "Someday I will own my house free and clear. I don't have a loan in the world." I'm not there yet. If you're there now, we don't want to see your hands because we will all hate you, and then we'll have to practice forgiveness against you; so don't raise your hand if you're a show-off. "I have no debts!" We don't want to hear about it. But…how about the joy of the soul who is debt-free in the spiritual sense-who knows, number one, his or her sins are forgiven and covered by the grace of God? And, number two, they have forgiven those who have wronged them. What kind of a joy and a freedom is there to say you are living a debt-free life? "I am forgiven, and I have forgiven." Just like being financially debt-free, being morally debt-free is a place we would all like to be, right? So I think we're in the right place. The O in forgiveness stands for Obedience. When Paul gives us the command to forgive in Ephesians 4, it's in what is called the imperative mood. It's always in the imperative mood. In the Greek, the imperative mood means this is a command. It's not a suggestion. God doesn't say, "It'd be a nice idea if you could forgive. If you get around to it-if you have some time-would you consider taking this step? We don't want to tell you what to do. I don't want to be pushy, but I think it would be kinda nice if you could maybe forgive somebody." That's not what God is saying. God is issuing a command that we either obey or disobey. We have to make a choice. Oftentimes, that choice is inconsistent with our feelings. Is it not? You might say, "Well, I feel like if I make a choice that's against my feelings, I'm going to be a hypocrite." Well, maybe you didn't feel like coming to church this morning, but you're here. Maybe you felt like sleeping in. Maybe when the alarm rings tomorrow and it's time to go to work, you won't feel like going; but you're going to go, right? When you get to work, there probably won't be anyone who is going to call you a hypocrite for having done so because you have a job to do. You have responsibilities, and the consequence for missing work is that you could lose your job. If you lose your job, you'll lose your income. If you lose your income, bad things will happen to you. Pretty soon, you won't have a roof over your head or food to eat. You, therefore, make a choice contrary to your feelings. That is what forgiveness is-it's an act of obedience. It is an act of our will. It doesn't mean our feelings aren't important or that we shouldn't address our feelings. We'll talk about that in a while, but understand that forgiveness is commanded of God. It is not optional for us. It is His expectation of us, so we are to be kind and forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. That reminds me of the R. The R stands for Reciprocal. Do you notice when it talks about forgiveness in the Scripture, it's always reciprocal? You can forgive because God has forgiven you. "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." It's reciprocal. In Matthew's Parable 18, "The Unforgiving Servant," he chooses not to forgive. The King, who stands for God in the Parable, says to him, "I forgave you of so much. Shouldn't you have forgiven this man here? Ephesians 4:31-32, that we just read, "Forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven you." Our ability to forgive is because God has forgiven us. It is reciprocal. It's a mutual thing. Understand because you have received grace, God expects you to extend grace as well; so forgiveness is reciprocal. Fourthly, G-it's a Gift. Forgiveness is a Gift. When Jean Valjean received the candlesticks and the silverware from the bishop, that act was more than a monetary, material gift. It was a spiritual gift. It was the opportunity for a new start. When the Amish extended forgiveness to this woman and her family, it was a gift. She remarked to them, "Your forgiveness is not only changing my family. Your forgiveness is going to change the world. It is a gift." When God forgives you, it is a gift. It is not something you've deserved or earned. It is because of His grace. You and I have the opportunity to give the gift of forgiveness to those who have wronged us. In fact, we are obligated to do so-the gift of forgiveness. We have the opportunity in return to receive that gift and complete that gift for others. Let's talk about the I in Forgiveness for a moment. The I stands for Imitate. You are never more like your Father in Heaven than when you forgive. Paul says, "As God in Christ has forgiven you…" When you forgive, you are imitating the Lord. You are imitating His nature, His character. Sometimes you and I get angry if a stranger bumps into us in the grocery store. He may say, "Excuse me," but you get a little miffed and think, "Well, you're clumsy. Watch where you're going!" Well, how about Jesus? He looked down from the cross at the people who deliberately pulled out His beard, put a crown of thorns on His head, spit on Him and beat Him. They'd stretched out His arms, nailed His hands, and nailed His feet to a cross. They lifted it to the ground and continued to mock, jeer, ridicule, and scorn; and what was His response? "Father, I hate them! Father, destroy them for what they've done!" Is that what Jesus says? The heart of the Savior, even on the cross, was one of forgiveness. He said, "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do." So when you and I forgive, we are imitating our Father. That's what we're called to do as Christians. We're called to walk as He walked; so as believers in Christ, we're called to be imitators of our Heavenly Father. We do that when we forgive. The V stands for Vital. This is Vital. Let's look at Matthew 6:14 (page 960) again for a moment. Let's read that Scripture one more time, "For if you forgive men when they sin against you…" Notice he says when. It's not a matter of if they will sin against us. "…your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." That's a pretty ominous Scripture, isn't it? Isn't that a rather scary Scripture if you are in the process of digging in your heals and saying, "I choose not to forgive. I choose to hold on to my anger and my bitterness and hatred. I like it. I'm going to keep it." At the same token, you expect God to impart His grace to you? Jesus says it doesn't work that way. He's saying, "Listen, the most important relationship you have is your relationship with your Heavenly Father whether you realize it or not." It determines where you spend eternity. It determines your moral state, your spiritual condition. Jesus says if you want to have a healthy relationship with the Lord, if you want to be morally debt-free, then you need to forgive others as He's forgiven you. This is absolutely vital, it's absolutely essential to your spiritual well-being. That's why we're not having a one-time shot in this series. We're not saying, "Okay, I'm going to preach on it one Sunday, and then we'll be done." Actually, this series is going to bring us into spring. Doesn't that sound good? It will bring us into spring. We're going to spend a lot of time talking about this subject and trying to look at it from various angles. We're going to go deep into the subject. The goal is not to accumulate head knowledge. The goal is that it will rejuvenate our relationships, but most importantly, it will bring us closer to the Lord. That's what we all want. He says, "It is vital that you understand this. Do you want to be forgiven? Do you want God's grace?" It's not "I want grace for me and I want justice for you." It doesn't work that way. This is vital for us to understand. I want to spend some time on this last point, on the E, because I think sometimes this is an area of teaching on forgiveness that is overlooked. The E stands for Emotional. To forgive is emotional. Look at what Paul is telling us to release. He says, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, and malice." What do each of those words conjure up? Strong emotions. When you talk about rage, have you ever been filled with rage before? I'm sure those parents, as they began to deal with what happened to their children, were filled with rage. When the police were beating the people in Egypt for simply wanting freedom, when Mubarak refused to step down, there was rage. Some of them shouted, "We hate you! We hate you!" in unison and rage, anger, and bitterness. Bitterness is anger that's been seething, brewing, and boiling for a while. We are talking deep-seeded emotions here. We are talking emotions and feelings that don't easily go away, do they? They don't easily go away. Sometimes I think because in the church we teach, and rightly so, that forgiveness is a decision, an act of the will, that we oftentimes bypass emotions that need to be addressed. I believe forgiveness is a process we go through. I think when the Amish said to the widow, "We forgive you," that what they were saying was, "We are beginning the process of forgiveness." It's like when you set a bone in place. You broke a bone. Does that heal it when you set it? No, but it aligns the bone so that healing can take place. I believe when there has been an egregious act that has been committed against us, and we say the words, "I forgive you," we are saying, "I'm entering into the process." Friends, forgiveness can be messy, and it can be hard. If you suppress the emotions that you have, then you are doing so to your own determent. What I'm suggesting to you is not that we allow emotions to dictate our actions and dictate our decisions. What I'm saying to you is those emotions need to be acknowledged, they need to be expressed, and they need to be worked through. That is part of the forgiving process. Sometimes I think Christians aren't allowed to be angry. We're not allowed to grieve. The offense happens, and some think instantaneously we should say, "Okay, I forgive you. I'm going to forget about it and put it out of my mind." In the meantime, all of these emotions are underneath the surface just churning away. I would like to recite for you the example of our Lord and how He dealt with emotions concerning the Passion Week. We're not going to be looking at the Scripture right now. I'm just going to be telling you the story. It's a story you're familiar with. He takes Peter, James, and John into the Garden. He goes deep into the Garden, and He says, "Pray with Me. My soul is deeply distressed and troubled to the point of death." He says, "I am just heavy of soul right now. I am heavy of Spirit right now." He understands that in a few short moments, He is going to bear sin. Evil is going to be placed upon Him. He understands He is going to go through immense physical, mental, spiritual torment and anguish. He tells the Disciples, "Pray with Me." When the Disciples fail to pray with Him, He is disappointed. He really feels rejected by them, and what does He say? Does He play mind games with them? Does He give them the silent treatment so they then have to ask Him, "What's wrong, Jesus?" or "You know…" No, He tells them straightforward, "You've really let Me down. Couldn't you pray with Me for one hour?" Then He goes and speaks to His Father. He says, "Father, if there be another way, let this cup pass from Me." What is He feeling? He's feeling some anxiety, some apprehension. There is fear of this cross that He has to bear. "I've known My whole life that I have to bear this cross, but now I'm at that moment. Father, is there another way?" And He was so anxious that He questioned the Father three times with the same prayer. He expresses that to the Lord. On the cross, He feels abandonment. He says, "My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" He feels alone in His time of greatest need. He cries out to the Father, "Why hast thou forsaken Me?" I'm quoting the Scripture of Psalm 22, the prophetic Messianic Psalm. How do we know the emotions that Jesus experienced during that Passion Week? How do we know them? They are recorded for us. Why are they recorded for us? Because He expressed them. He expressed His anger; He expressed His disappointment; He expressed His fear; He expressed His anxiety; He expressed His distress. Did He allow those emotions to keep Him from going to the cross? No. Did He allow those emotions to come down from the cross? No. He stayed the course; He finished the work that God had given Him to do. He went to the cross, He endured the suffering, and He died. He accomplished the mission. At the same token, there were emotions that He had to acknowledge, express, and deal with. He did not allow those emotions to detour Him from His mission. He made the correct choices in spite of His emotions and feelings; yet, He acknowledged those and dealt with those. His decision to offer forgiveness to those who were destroying His life-was that an emotion or was that a decision? Friends, what I'm saying to you is I think one of the most unhealthy things we could do when somebody has really hurt us, would be for us to just robotically say, "I forgive you. Forget about it. Move on." That is doing a disservice to you, and it is doing a disservice to the process of forgiveness. Forgiveness is work; forgiveness is hard. It's hard because there are a lot of emotions and memories that surface that we have to deal with in this process. It's messy. If you're sitting out there and saying, "Boy, they have an easy time forgiving. Why is it so hard for me?" Sometimes it's such a struggle. Some of those feelings of anger come back, and some of those memories come back, "I'm starting to feel some of the same emotions. What's wrong with me?" I'd say, "What's right with you? You're doing it correctly. If it's hard, you're doing it correctly because you're fighting that." If you give into those feelings and emotions and allow the bitterness and rage to take you, I'm not saying you're doing it correctly; but if you find those thoughts, feelings, and emotions begin to resurface and you have to again start to work through this forgiveness process, I'd say to you, "You're doing things right." We acknowledge those. Forgiveness is emotional. Is it an act of the will? Yes. Is it obedience? Yes. But because we are human beings, there is a lot we have to sort through and work through. That's part of the process, and that's what we're going to be doing in the weeks ahead-talking about what it is and next week, we're going to start talking about, I believe, how you do it-the nuts and bolts of it and how we can get to that point of being able to release those who have wronged us. Eventually, we're going to get to the point where we talk about reconciliation which is quite different. It's related to the topic, but it's quite different in how it is expressed; so if that sounds like a plan, we'll plan on meeting here again next week. Deal? Same time, same place. Let's pray: Father, we thank You for what Your Word says about forgiveness. I am not making up what I've said. It is not my opinion. I am conveying to this congregation what You have said about forgiveness, why it is important, and what it is. I pray that we, as a body, would commit to learning all we can about this subject, but that, Lord, there will be some changes in our lives. There are going to be some people who we forgive. There are going to be some people who we confess to. There is going to be some reconciliation when it is healthy and right to do so. I pray that would be the fruit of our time together, but most importantly, we can enter into "Debt-Free Living." We will know our sins are forgiven, we have forgiven those who have sinned against us, and that, Lord, our relationship with You is unhindered. We can have that freedom of soul and spirit. We commit ourselves to that end. In Jesus' name, Amen. F-Freedom O-Obedience R-Reciprocal G-Gift I-Imitate V-Vital E-Emotional