Top Ten Reasons to Forgive

Delivered September 19, 2010

Matthew 18:21-35; Ephesians 4:25-32

The Late Show with David Letterman has a regular feature called the Top Ten List. One of them was “The Top Ten Signs Your Kid Had A Bad First Day At School.” They included things like:

10. Already voted "Least Likely to Succeed."
9. His class schedule includes daily beatings from bullies, teachers, and the custodial staff.
8. Lunch was whatever he could scrape off the bottom of his desk.
7. His school bus driver made him ride on the outside of the bus.
6. Got tackled twice in gym class--three times in algebra.
5. He comes home pledging loyalty to fearless leader Kim Jong-Il
4. When you ask how his day went he tells you to direct all further questions to his attorney.
3. Homework on the first day: try not to be such a loser.
2. You know the kid everyone picks on? He got picked on by that kid.

Today I am going to give the top ten reasons to forgive people. We can come up with a hundred reasons not to forgive people. We are really good at thinking up reasons to hold onto a grudge, anger, and resentment. “They don’t deserve it, it’s not fair, it is not right for them to get off the hook, they will just do it again, it will encourage bad behavior…” You know all the reasons. Well today I want to give you some reasons to forgive. 

But before I begin the countdown I need to preface it with the basis of all forgiveness, which is God’s forgiveness of us. We can’t give what we don’t have. We can’t pass on to others what you haven’t received ourselves. That is why the forgiveness of sins that we have in Jesus Christ is the foundation of all I have to say today. I will come back to this again at the end of the message, but I wanted to also put it out there right up front, so you know the theological basis of all I will say today. Now to the list of top ten reasons to forgive. 

# 10. The number ten reason to forgive is because Christ commands us to forgive. Jesus said, “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him….” (Mk 11:25) To forgive is a command of Jesus Christ. “Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (Mt 18:21-22) Jesus told us to forgive over and over and over again. This should be reason enough to forgive. If Jesus told us to do it, we ought to do it. As Christians we are to be obedient to the one we call Lord. If we aren’t doing what he says, is he really our Lord? 

# 9 The ninth reason to forgive is so we will be forgiven. This is one of the difficult teachings of Jesus. In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses (debts, sins) as we forgive those who trespass againt us.” Then immediately after the Lord’s Prayer Jesus adds a word of explanation. He says, “¹⁴ “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Wow! Mark 11:25-26 “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. ²⁶ But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

 For our Gospel Lesson today we heard a story of Jesus about a servant who was forgiven by a king. But the man then turned around and refused to forgive a fellow servant. “³² Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. ³³ Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ ³⁴ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. ³⁵ “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” This is a hard teaching. It is one of those teachings that people try to water down and explain away so they won’t have to forgive. But the teaching is clear. Forgiven people forgive. 

The nature of forgiveness is such that if we have it, we will give it. We let it flow from God through us to others. Do not misunderstand Jesus teaching. We do not earn the forgiveness of God by forgiving others. Forgiveness is always a free gift. He is teaching that if we receive it, it will flow through us. Near my last church in Western Pennsylvania was a clogged culvert that went under a major road Route 65, which follows the Ohio river north out of Pittsburgh. The culvert was clogged, so the drainage water couldn’t flow under the road. So it backed up and caused a sinkhole that ate one restaurant and slowly expanded over the months and destroyed the whole area, threatening Pizza Hut and GetGo and the highway. All because no one wanted to pay the price of unclogging it. The property owners wouldn’t do it and the town wouldn’t do it and the county wouldn’t do it and the state wouldn’t do it. The sinkhole got bigger and bigger until it started to eat the highway. Then finally the state fixed it. Unforgiveness in our lives becomes a sinkhole that will swallow up our lives if we do not deal with it and pay the price to unclog it and allow the forgiveness of God to flow though our lives to others. 

# 8 We should forgive for our own emotional health. Don’t do it for the person who sinned against you. Do it for yourself. Do it for selfish reasons. To be quite honest this is the reason that really made a difference in my life. I am basically a selfish person, and I bet I am not the only one in this room. One day I realized that the person I was hurting the most by my unforgiveness was me. It wasn’t hurting those who hurt me; my anger and resentment and bitterness was destroying my peace of mind. So I decided to stop hurting myself and forgave. 

This is probably a good place to remind you what forgiveness is and what it is not. Forgiveness is not saying no harm was done. It is saying that great harm was done, but you are going to let it go. Forgiveness is not letting someone off the hook. It is giving over the responsibility to punish sin to God. Forgiveness is not reconciliation. Reconciliation may follow forgiveness if there is there is confession and repentance on the part of the one who sinned. But even then, the relationship will likely not be restored to its former state, because the trust is gone. Forgiveness is something you do inside yourself. You can forgive without the person you forgive even knowing. It is a transaction between just you and God. The word forgiveness means literally to let go. It means to stop holding on to something. Stop clinging, stop thinking about it. Just drop it. Do it for your own emotional health.

#7 Do it for your physical health. There is a lot of medical evidence now that stress is bad for your health. Unforgiveness, resentment, unresolved anger, bitterness is stress. It will literally make you sick – emotionally, physically, mentally. Stress is linked to everything from hypertension to depression to heart disease and cancer. Unforgiveness will literally shorten your life. Ask yourself: Is it worth it? 

#6 Do it for your family’s sake. We all know the phenomena of the person who has a bad day at work and takes it out on the family when he or she comes home. You can’t take it out on your boss or your co-worker or your costumer that you are mad at. You need the job! So you bottle it up and bring it home with you and release it there. The worker who comes home after a bad day at the office and kicks the dog, or the furniture or yells at his (or her) spouse or kids. Parents take it out on their children. Kids take it out on their parents. Husbands and wives take it out on each other. Then the home suffers and the marriage suffers. How many marriages have been destroyed by unforgiveness? 

Again let me explain what forgiveness is not. It is not allowing yourself to be hurt again and again. That is masochism. That is unhealthy and dangerous. Forgiveness does not allow an abuser to keep abusing. Forgiveness protects yourself and others emotionally, spiritually and physically. Forgiveness does not let yourself or anyone else get hurt. Forgiveness is letting go of thoughts of revenge or retaliation so you can think clearly and act wisely. Forgiveness will help you and your family and loved ones.

 #5 Forgive for the sake of your own spiritual growth. I have never known a mature growing Christian who holds resentments and anger. I have known people who have spiritually grown to a certain point and then had some traumatic event happened which they could not let go of. At that point they stopped growing spiritually. I don’t know what hurtful things have happened to you. But I know that every one of us here have been hurt – some of us very badly. Someone has hurt someone that you love and you will not forgive. Someone has done something that you will not forget. You will not let that person off the hook. I am telling you this morning that you are the one on the hook. Your relationship with God is on the hook. It will go no further than your ability to forgive. 

It could be something terrible that happened to you like physical violence and abuse. It could be emotional abuse from years of a bad marriage that ended in divorce or a bad relationship with a parent or child that ended in estrangement. The person who sinned against you may be even dead and gone, but your bitterness is still alive and is slowly killing you. You may have not seen or spoken to that person in years, but you still think about that person and what they did. You replay the hurt and the pain like a videotape that is stuck in an endless loop. Let it go. Release it. When it comes back to your mind again release it again and again 70 times 7 times. Forgiveness is not a one time event usually; it is a process. You usually can’t do it once and it’s over. Sometimes by the grace of God we can. But more often it takes many times. Unforgiveness is a habit that needs to be broken. But every time you let it go it’s grip on your soul will be less, until one day you realize that it no longer has power over you.

# 4 Forgive for the offender’s sake. This is tough. That is why it is high on the list. That person who sinned against you may not confess and repent, and may not even think they did anything wrong. They may have even thought they were doing good when they hurt you. Jesus talks about a time in the last days when those who persecute Christians will believe they are doing a service to God. We should not be surprised when people are clueless that they have sinned against God by what they did to us. If you told them that you forgive them, they would be offended that you even thought they did something wrong. That is why Jesus prayed from the cross for his crucifiers, saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

# 3 Forgive for other people’s sakes – as a witness to others of the power of God. The ability to forgive is the most powerful testimony that any Christian has. Christ forgave over and over again, and it was a powerful witness to the power of God in his ministry. Those who heard and saw him forgive - often his enemies – exclaimed “Who has the power to forgive but God alone?” People know that to forgive is divine. Forgiveness attracts people to the gospel. It attracts people to Jesus. On the other hand Christians who are petty, bitter, angry, resentful and hold grudges are a terrible testimony. How many people have been turned away from Christ because of the bad behavior of those who call themselves Christians? How many people will have nothing to do with the church or Christianity because Christians would not forgive those who sinned against them? Jesus told us that we are to be his witnesses. To forgive is the most powerful testimony you can give.

# 2. Forgive because you can. You have the ability and power to forgive. You might be listening to this sermon and thinking, “I know I should forgive. I want to forgive. I know it would be best for me and end a lot of this inner suffering if I forgive. But I just can’t. I have tried but I can’t forgive.” The Bible says you can - that God gave you the power to forgive. On Easter Sunday evening Jesus appeared to his disciples gathered in the upper room. John 20 says, “²¹ So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” ²² And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Jesus gave us the power of the Holy Spirit to forgive the sins of any! God the Holy Spirit dwells within you – if you have given your life to him. He can forgive through you. All you have to do is get out of the way, and let God forgive in and through your life. 

God said through the prophet Ezekiel “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” We are new creatures in Christ and it is the nature of that new creature to forgive. As it is the nature of birds to sing, and rivers to flow and flowers to bloom, so it is the nature of those born of the Spirit to forgive by the power of the Spirit. 

#1 the number one reason to forgive those who do not deserve it is because God has forgiven us when we did not deserve it. Eph 4: ³¹ Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. ³² And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Colossians 3:12 “¹² Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; ¹³ bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.” 

Christ forgave us. How can we not forgive? God so loved us. Can we not love as he loved? In Luke 7 there is a story about a woman who fell at Jesus feet weeping in gratitude and love for the forgiveness he had given her. Jesus said to those gathered and were offended at her display of gratitude and love, “Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” You have been loved much and forgiven much by Jesus. Therefore forgive much.