Dover Assembly of God
Today we’re going to talk about Forgiveness and Forgiving.
We covered forgiveness as a result of anger in our last Wednesday evening discussion.
Teachings on forgiveness are very familiar to Christians. The Bible is filled with verses dealing with being forgiving, for example:
Ephesians 4:31-32 NLT
Proverbs 24:17 NLT
Proverbs 24:28-29 NLT
Definition of Forgive according to Merriam Webster
to cease to feel resentment against an offender; to give up resentment of or claim to something given in return, compensation, or retaliation; to grant relief from payment of
We, as Christians most often use the first and second definitions.
Let’s look at a few examples of forgiveness.
Do you remember the story of Jacob and Esau? What did Jacob do to Esau? He stole his birthright through deceit, right?
Jacob’s mother made him run away to escape Esau’s anger, and Jacob had that hanging over him for a long time.
What happened? You will see that Esau finally forgave Jacob
Genesis 33:4 NLT
Now look at Joseph forgiving his brothers . . .
Genesis 45:5-15 NLT
The final example is Jesus forgiving His enemies . . .
Luke 23:34 NLT
The Bible addresses forgiving in a simple fashion, but gives us very human examples.
So what happens when someone wrongs you or I?
Ephesians 4:31-32 NLT
1 Peter 3:9-12 NLT
It sounds like human nature isn’t very forgiving, and scripture is addressing it by telling us what NOT to do. It also infers that unforgiveness is evil.
What is our first instinct when we’re wronged; anger and a desire to get even, right? What about if it’s something serious, like murder, or divorce? What then? It gets a little more complicated then, doesn’t it?
Here’s an example of not being able to forgive.
There was once a man considered a prophet of the Lord:
· He knew God.
· He spoke with God.
· He lived under the Laws of Moses.
· He followed very closely the religious traditions of his day.
· He was well respected by other godly people.
· But he did not understand forgiveness.
· He refused to offer forgiveness to a certain group of people who lived in Nineveh.
· His name was Jonah.
We're not going to read the whole story from the Bible, but let’s look at one part of it . . .
Jonah 4:5-11 NLT
There’re a couple life lessons to learn from this scripture.
First, many of us are like the prophet Jonah. We would rather see a whole city destroyed than deal with forgiveness. We would rather have judgment come upon those who hurt us, than to ever offer forgiveness.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. There have been people in each of our lives that have knowingly hurt us, and we have never forgotten what they did, or forgiven them…!
Many of us can become very angry with certain people from our past. None of us can understand all of the pain these people have caused, and we hide this secret deep in our hearts, but, guess who sees it?
Do you think that’s God’s plan for a Christian’s life? I don’t believe it is.
And then, as if it’s not hard enough, we come to what Jesus says in Mark 11 . . .
Mark 11:25-26 NKJV
So basically, Jesus is saying that if you can’t forgive, your sins won’t be forgiven, and if your sins can’t be forgiven, that’s a BIG problem, isn’t it?
So let’s look at how we forgive. Is forgiveness a choice or an emotion? I think it is a decision of our will, so it’s a choice! It’s motivated because God gives us the command to forgive. Look at Colossians 3 . . .
Colossians 3:13 NLT
What if we don’t feel like it? Sometimes we like to wallow in our victimhood, don’t we? It almost feels good to be angry at someone and, if we can convince ourselves its righteous anger, we have a readymade excuse, provided by our adversary, the devil.
The problem is that lack of forgiveness is like a tumor in us. It can make us physically sick and mentally ill. Look at what happened to Jonah. The example of the worm, in my opinion, also represents what the lack of forgiveness was doing to Jonah.
When we do forgive, it’s like having that tumor disappear.
So, if we don’t feel like it, we do it by faith! Since forgiveness is often against our nature, we must forgive by faith, whether we feel like it or not.
We have to be obedient and trust that God will accomplish the work of forgiveness in us. After all what is faith?
Hebrews 11:1 KJV
So what happens in us when we do make the decision and have the faith?
Well, God honors that and gradually changes our heart.
If we continue to do our job and forgive by faith, God does his job and completes the change of heart in us.
Philippians 1:6 NLT
Now here’s the second difficult part of all this. What if the person that needs to be forgiven is a non-believer?
Well, let’s look at what Jesus says in Matthew 5 . . .
Matthew 5:43-48 NLT
The secret that we learn in this scripture is PRAYER.
As we begin to pray for the person or persons, God changes our heart and we see them in a new light.
We see them with His eyes. It’s hard to stay angry with someone if you can see them the way God does!
Lastly, how do we know if we have forgiven someone?
Forgiveness is a process and it seldom happens instantly. Look, we’re the ones who suffer when we don’t forgive.
Not only does scripture point that out, but look at the way you feel when there is unforgiveness in your heart. When we feel the freedom and release from those feelings, we’ll know.
Essentially, Jesus was saying, keep on forgiving until you experience the freedom of forgiveness. Forgiveness may require a lifetime of forgiving, but it is important to the Lord.
We must continue forgiving until the matter has been settled in our heart...