Relationships That Give Life

Forgiveness

The foundation of our relationship with God is not getting everything right so He will accept us but being forgiven every time we get it wrong. No matter how badly wrong we get it He will never leave us or forsake us. We rejoice in this amazing grace towards us and we have many songs of praise to God celebrating it. It is however a common experience to rejoice in our forgiveness with God while at the same time be struggling with unforgiveness against someone else. Unforgiveness with its accompanying bitterness and resentment has been the downfall of many a Christian life. The question is, how do we make forgiveness our first response to someone’s sin against us rather than our somewhat unwilling last response? The answer can be found by seeking to understand how God forgives then we will be able to truly forgive from the heart like He does.

Forgiveness is an Attitude Before it Becomes an Action

A shallow look at forgiveness leads us to think that it is just something we have to do when someone sins against us. We see it related to specific issues at a particular point in time. We are brought up on a diet of being told to say sorry to someone when we have wronged them. This is a very small part of the divine concept of forgiveness. The action of forgiveness over a specific issue is really the result of an already existing attitude of forgiveness towards everyone all the time when no specific issues are involved. This fact is revealed in the parable of the prodigal son Luke 15:11- 51. This parable should really be called ‘the parable of the Father’s heart’. Jesus told this story to draw our attention to the Father’s attitude towards the son rather than the experiences and behaviour of the son. The father in the story could only behave towards his son the way he did when he came home because he already had an attitude of forgiveness in his heart towards him before he left home. The father’s response to every sinful action of the son was to forgive him so there was no wrong attitude in his heart when he actually met him again. His attitude produced his action. The action of forgiveness does not create the attitude. The message of this parable shows us that it is God’s nature to forgive.

Ps 86:5 For You Lord are good and ready to forgive
Ps 130:4 For there is forgiveness with You
Dan 9:9 to the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness
2 Peter 3:9 but is longsuffering towards us not willing that any should perish

When we marvel at the forgiveness Jesus extended to the soldiers who crucified Him Lk 23:34Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. He was only doing what came naturally. He couldn’t do anything else. When we ask the question ‘how can God go on forgiving me when I keep failing?’ The answer is ‘it is His nature’. We need to appreciate that the Gospel did not put forgiveness into the heart of a God who really wanted to judge people for their sin. It was the forgiveness in the heart of God that produced the Gospel. God’s first response to the sin of Adam and Eve was not to judge them but to offer a way to forgive them and restore to them what they had lost. Gen 3:15And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”.

We live in a world of fallible sinful human beings and this condition of the people in our life means that we are vulnerable to genuine mistakes and deliberate sins committed against us. If we do not manifest the divine forgiveness that lives inside us we will be constantly at odds with people, being manipulative, taking offence and getting resentful at every little thing. God did not wait for us to want to be forgiven. He provided our forgiveness before we were even born, before anyone had been born, before Man and Woman had been created. Forgiveness not sin came first which turns our normal approach to this subject on its head. Sin first then forgive the sin is how we normally look at it. The problem with this way is that it leaves us more vulnerable to the hurt when we are sinned against. We need to have the forgiving attitude already in place so our hearts are protected before the issue happens. The forgiving attitude does more than protect us it enables the one sinning to be able to be released from their sin whereas our unforgiveness with its bitterness and resentment holds them in the prison of their sin. When we eventually arrived here on the planet we arrived already forgiven, already released from sins power. Jesus is the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. When we responded to the Gospel message which told us of our forgiven position we experienced the release from sin and death that was already ours. The people who reject the Gospel hold themselves in the prison of their own sin. The consequences of sin that the world continually suffers is the direct result of its rejection of the Gospel.

Having this permanent forgiving attitude towards each other also means that it is much more difficult for our disagreements to divide us. It is the foundation of our ability to be reconciled to each other and find solutions to our issues. When our judgment is not clouded by hurt and its consequent bitterness and resentment we are in a position to hear God for the solution to our issue with a willingness to obey His way of reconciliation. This does not mean that there will not be consequences and discipline given to those who sin but our attitude is one of reconciliation not punishment. Gal 6:1Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself..

What About Justice

The great stumbling block to our progress in living the forgiving lifestyle is the injustice and unfairness of forgiveness. We take sin against us personally so we see other people’s bad behaviour or attitude towards us as a personal attack against us. They must be made to pay for it. After all, we are in the right and they are in the wrong. We see ourselves as the innocent victim. We have no fault so we have nothing to put right. It is all the other person’s fault so they must acknowledge they are in the wrong and be sorry before we will forgive. This, we believe, satisfies our need to get justice.

When someone sins against you, it hurts and it is that hurt and sense of being violated and wronged that rises up and demands justice which sometimes spills over into revenge. Justice demands that the person who has done something against us pays the penalty for what they have done and that is fair. This is the real problem we have to overcome because we are right in seeing it this way. We should not have been treated like that. Our whole system of human rights is based on making sure our treatment of each other is just and fair. Forgiveness appears at first to deny us justice or make it more difficult to obtain. Our problem is revealed in the parable of the unforgiving servant. Mat 18:21-35. When the unforgiving servant had to forgive he had changed places with the master who had forgiven him because now it was his turn to do the forgiving but he was unwilling to act like his master. When we receive forgiveness we are in the position of the servant who was let off his enormous debt but when we have to do the forgiving we have changed places and are now in the position of the master. In other words to forgive we have to act like God and to do this we have to use the same resources that God used when He forgave us.

We might say, if God is so forgiving why doesn’t He just forgive. His problem is that He can’t just forgive because the demands of His justice won’t let Him until it has been satisfied. It might surprise us that forgiveness cannot be given until justice has been satisfied. The cross not only reveals to us the loving heart of God for His children it also shows that before forgiveness can be given and received justice must be satisfied. Justice requires the price to be paid by the guilty party not the innocent victim so forgiveness can only be given or received on the grounds that justice has been settled. We now have a revelation of just what God’s love is really like. God desired to forgive so much that when He couldn’t find anyone else to pay the price He said OK I’ll pay the price Myself. 2 Cor 5:19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself not imputing their trespasses to them. We are only able to be forgiven because He has paid the price demanded by His justice. Here we have the mind blowing truth that God the innocent victim paid the price that you should have paid so you could go free. God became everything that was opposite to His Holy nature so that you could become everything that He is.

The Cross, Our Power to Forgive

Jesus didn’t only pay the price for the sins that we have committed against God, He paid the price for the sins we commit against each other. This means that the price our need for justice demands that the person who has sinned against us should pay has already been paid by Jesus. The grounds on which I forgive you are the same grounds on which God forgives me; the work of His Son on the cross. All matters of injustice between us have been settled by Jesus death on the cross. His resurrection is proof that the payment has been accepted. When Jesus said ‘it is finished’, it encompassed all sin, including yours and the sins of those who sin against you. Grasping this truth with our hearts will enable the attitude of the forgiveness of God that lives in us by the indwelling Holy Spirit to flow through us towards each other. This is the power behind every act of forgiveness we are required to make over every specific issue. The reason why God takes such a serious view of unforgiveness is because we are saying that what you have committed against me is outside the scope of the cross of Christ and that is blasphemy. This also solves the problem of self-forgiveness. People try to punish themselves for the things they have done wrong – they feel guilty – they feel that they should suffer for it – they are trying to pay the price themselves – they can’t, it’s already been paid by Jesus and they are free. If we sow the fruit of what happened to us into our lives we will reap the consequences of what happened to us but if we sow salvation into what happened to us we will reap the consequences of salvation and be set free from what happened.

What we have said about forgiveness so far is for you, the victim of another’s behaviour, whatever that behaviour is. It is to set you free from your hurt and pain. Only forgiveness will bring the healing you long for, justice alone will never bring you your healing or free you from your pain. The real challenge of this message is that God has no other solution to sin and He views unforgiveness as such a serious issue that to continue in it puts you in danger of a lost eternity. The end of the parable of the unforgiving servant contains a serious warning. “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

The Place of Justice and Law

What we have said so far does not mean that evil cannot be restrained and controlled by use of the legal system. People have to be protected from the violent and unscrupulous behaviour of others. Action has to be taken against people who practice evil and they and their actions have to be restrained for the sake of the innocent and their physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. This might even include taking recourse to the legal system in certain abusive or negligent situations and particular cases where people’s lives are in danger or have been ruined. However, God still requires us to take such action in a spirit of forgiveness and without resentment, bitterness or revenge. All action against law breakers is to attempt rehabilitation rather than punishment because all sin has been punished in Jesus.

The Place of Repentance

Repentance works with forgiveness to bring about reconciliation and all the benefits of a restored relationship. If the son had stayed in the far off land he would still have been forgiven but he would not have been able to enjoy a restored fellowship with his father and family. Even though we are forgiven by God because of the work of Jesus, we are not able to be reconciled to Him and have fellowship with Him until we repent. Repentance does not produce or earn forgiveness it just allows us to enjoy the forgiveness we have already been given. That is why Jesus first words of the Gospel message was, “Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:15. We can only have a restored relationship with a person who has sinned against us when they repent of what they have done but we are still required to forgive them and behave towards them as we should whether they repent or not. Jesus words in Matthew 5:44-48But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. where He tells us to bless those who persecute us reveals this.

The point of this message is to reveal how to practice forgiveness as a way of life and avoid the serious consequences of not doing so. I preached this message at a meeting and unbeknown to me there was a woman in the congregation who had had a longstanding pain in her shoulder. She had had much prayer for this problem but it still persisted. The meeting finished without any ministry to anyone so we all went home. The next day the friend who I was staying with and who had arranged the meeting got a phone call from this woman who said that when she had woken up in the morning her shoulder was healed. She also added that the evening before she had dealt with some issues of unforgiveness based on what I had shared. Unforgiveness can hinder our lives in areas that don’t seem to us to be related to it. Hurt people hurt other people and they often manifest in their own lives the very behaviour of the person who sinned against them. Abused children sometimes end up abusing their own children. We become what we focus on. We are not asked to forgive in our own strength, just allow the forgiveness of God to flow through us by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Even if the person who hurt you is dead we still need to forgive them. Unforgiveness allows the dead to control the living because it is your unforgiveness that keeps the effects of the person’s sin alive in you, not whether the perpetrator is alive or dead. It is not their sin that is our problem but the bitterness and resentment from the hurt inside which allows the consequences of their sin to continue to affect our lives. You are not responsible for their sin neither is their sin your fault but your response to their sin against you is your responsibility. What has been done has been done and cannot be undone but we can destroy the consequences of what has been done and live free from it.

The following statement is provided to assist you to put into words your act of forgiveness if you have any situation that you may need to deal with.

I ACCEPT THAT THE PRICE JESUS PAID ON THE CROSS IS SUFFICIENT PAYMENT FOR THE SINS THAT—————————–HAS COMMITTED AGAINST ME AND SETTLES ALL MATTERS OF INJUSTICE BETWEEN US. ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST MY SAVIOUR I FORGIVE—————————–AND I RELEASE THE FORGIVENESS OF GOD TOWARDS THEM.