FORGIVENESS
By
Shelby G.
Floyd
Alexander Pope is credited with this
statement, “To err is human; to forgive
is divine.” All of us know as human beings we make mistakes; we offend people;
we sin against God; we hurt people’s feeling. We realize that. Often we do not
realize the larger act of courage and faith is to be able to ignore the offense
and to cultivate a spirit of forgiveness toward those who do us wrong.
Esau Was
Forgiving
To err is human; to forgive is divine.
When we go back into the Old Testament we see that people even in the very
beginning of time learned to cultivate this spirit. We all remember the story
of Jacob and Esau. Esau was the firstborn. He was weak in many respects. He
sold his birthright for a bowl of stew. Later on, Jacob left his home and
family and went to his uncle Laban to find a wife. He worked about twenty-one
years before he left his uncle. He was afraid to go back home and see his
brother Esau because of the way he had treated him. He expected his brother
Esau would try to kill him. In many ways he deserved it. He deceived and
deluded his own brother. His mother was just like him. Esau had learned to
cultivate a spirit of forgiveness toward Jacob. Jacob urged him to take a large
gift of animals. Esau didn’t want to take the gift but Jacob said, “God has
blessed me; please take these animals.” Esau had forgiven his brother Jacob.
Joseph Was
Forgiving
Then we have the story of Joseph. Joseph
was the son born in the old age of his father Jacob. Joseph dreamed and the
dreams were about his brothers bowing down to him. They realized he was
interpreting the dreams in such a way that he was making himself greater than
them; that they would bow down to him. Finally they had about all they could
stand and they sold him into slavery to a band of Ishmaelite or Midianite
merchantmen that were traveling down to
Joseph had many ups and downs in his
life. One moment he was in prison and a few months later he was the Prime
Minister of Egypt. Joseph was a forgiving person. He forgave the butler and the
baker who forgot him when he interpreted their dreams. They left him to
languish in prison.
Later on, the great famine came down into
He put on a pretty good act for a while.
He treated them roughly. Finally, he revealed himself to them and brought them
down into
Stephen Was
Forgiving
When we come to the New Testament, we
think about men like Stephen in Acts 7. Stephen preached a wonderful sermon
about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Before he went into
the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he gave a brief synopsis of
the glorious history of the Jewish people, the Israelite nation.
They listened very intently while he was
recounting their history. But when he came to the part of his subject that dealt
with Jesus Christ, his death, his burial, his resurrection, the Bible says they
gnashed on him with their teeth. They closed up their ears. They cried out
against him as loudly as they could. The Scriptures tell us that Stephen saw
Heaven opened and the angels of God and the Son of Man standing on the right
hand of God. They wouldn’t hear it. They considered it blasphemy. They picked
up stones to put him to death.
Too many times that is the spirit we have
today. We like to pick up stones and cast them at people with whom we disagree
or people who have made mistakes. Stephen had a forgiving spirit. He said,
“Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” While he was saying that, his spirit
was leaving his body.
Where did Stephen learn that wonderful
spirit, the spirit of forgiveness? Did he not learn it from the Lord himself?
What did Jesus say as one of his very last statements on the Cross? “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The
prayer of Christ was answered about fifty days later on the Day of Pentecost
when those great multitudes cried out, having been convicted of their sins, “Men
and brethren, what shall we do?” They were told what to do and they did
what they were told to do and the prayer of Christ was answered, “Father
forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
We have to cultivate the same spirit of
forgiveness that Esau, Joseph, Stephen and Jesus Christ practiced in their
lives toward their fellowmen, and sometimes even members of their families.
“To
err is human; to forgive is divine.” Shakespeare said in his writings, “He who from crimes would pardoned be, in
mercy should set others free.” George Herbert has said, “He who cannot forgive others breaks the
bridge over which he must pass himself.” “Little vicious minds abound with anger and revenge and are incapable
of feeling the pleasure of forgiving their enemies,” said Lord
Chesterfield.
Those are just a few of the statements
that the literary giants of the world have penned. All men who have any
excellence in their nature recognize the superior value and virtue of learning
to forgive others of the wrongs that have been committed against them and their
friends.
Forgiveness
Defined
What does it mean to forgive? Webster defines
the word “forgive,” “To give up claim to
requite from an offender; to pardon, as to forgive one’s enemies; to give up
resentment or claim to requital on account of an offense; to remit the penalty
of, as to forgive a wrong.” The Bible teaches not only in the examples we
have recited already, but also in explicit statements that God wants us,
requires us, and commands us to forgive one another.
In Proverbs
In Mark 11:25-26, Jesus said, “And
when you stand praying, forgive if you have ought against any, that your Father
also which is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not
forgive, neither will your Father which is in Heaven forgive your trespasses.”
So, if we do not forgive trespasses against us, God will not forgive us our
trespasses against him. Somebody said one time, “I never forgive.” The reply
came, “Then I pray that you may never offend.” Since we do all sin and fall
short of the glory of God, then we must all forgive. Jesus said if we do not
forgive others, God would not forgive us. It is just that simple.
Fixing Faults
In Matthew 18, Jesus talked to the apostles
about how to deal with people who offend. We describe that as “the three
steps.” Go to them alone. If that doesn’t take care of the matter, take one or
two more with you. If that doesn’t take care of the matter, bring it before the
Church. Having pointed that out as the proper procedure in dealing with the
idea of fixing faults, Jesus then launched into a lesson on finding
forgiveness. We fix the faults. We like to do that. It is easy to do that. It
doesn’t take much talent, intellect or wisdom to do that. We are not as keen on
finding forgiveness.
The reason Jesus taught a lesson about
forgiveness is because the apostle Peter spoke up. He was always quick to speak
his mind. Peter said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I
forgive him, until seven times?” Jesus said, “I say not unto you seven
times, but until seventy times seventy.” Some translations say until
seventy—seven times. Regardless of how that is to be translated, the idea is to
forgive indefinitely. It is a figure of speech called “hyperbole,” where
something is exaggerated to make a point. It is not likely that someone will
offend up to four hundred ninety times, if that be the proper interpretation of
the words. It is not even likely that someone will offend us seventy—seven
times. Peter thought he was being magnanimous in his spirit because the Jewish
Talmud taught that you should forgive someone three times and on the fourth
time you didn’t have to forgive them.
Peter thought, “Well, I’ll be magnanimous in spirit, I’ll double it.
Three times two is six and I’ll throw in one for extra measure. Seven times,
Lord?” Jesus said, “You missed the point. You should be willing to forgive your
brother if he comes to you seven times in a day.” If he says “I repent,” Jesus
says forgive him seven times a day. You can multiply that times three hundred
sixty-five days a year and you will still come up with a vast number. So the
idea is an exaggeration, a hyperbole, to make the point. So, the idea is to
cultivate the spirit of forgiveness any time a person needs to be forgiven.
Finding
Forgiveness
Then Jesus launched into a lesson, having
pointed out to Peter that we can’t forgive a certain number of times and then
stop forgiving. We must have the spirit of forgiveness; the willingness to
forgive; the desire to want to forgive and not hold a grudge, resentment and
retaliation against others.
Then he launched into a parable of
forgiveness in Matthew 18. “The
We should be afraid of debt. There are
times when I have read this story and I have thought I wish I could get someone
to loan me $15,000,000. Occasionally we read in the paper about people and
businesses going bankrupt. I always look at the debts and the assets and I
can’t believe that sometimes their assets are just a few thousand dollars, and
they owe anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000. I always wonder how they got
anyone to loan them that much money. But here is a man whose master had trusted
him and he had gotten into debt up to his ears, $15,000,000. He hadn’t been
making his payments. He hadn’t been able to keep his contract.
His master called the man before him and
he said, “I am going to sell you into slavery. I am going to sell your wife and
your children.” You see, they had debtor’s prisons back then. “You are going to
prison; you are going into slavery until you pay me every last dime you owe me.
But the man knew there was no way that will ever happen. He would be a slave or
in a debtor’s prison for as long as he lived.
He got down on his knees and begged and
pleaded for mercy, for kindness, for compassion. “Lord, have compassion on me;
have mercy on me. Don’t sell me and my wife and my children. Be patient with me
and I will have a stroke of luck, my fortunes will change, and I will pay you
all I owe you.”
The king, the master, was moved with
compassion. He felt sorry for this man and had mercy and pity on him. He was
pitiful. The king forgave the man of all
that debt he owed him, $15,000,000. He wiped the slate clean. “You can start
all over; you don’t owe me a dime. I forgive you of all that debt.”
Can’t you imagine what a load off that
man’s mind that was? He was free! He had no mental torment; he had no emotional
turmoil; he didn’t owe the man anything because he had been forgiven of that
debt.
So he went back out on the job and to his
social activities. One day he happened to see a man that owed him some money.
If you will look up the tables, the man owed him about $15. He said, “By the
way, you owe me $15—it’s pay-up time. Write me a check; open your wallet; give
me my $15.” The man got down on his knees, just as he had done, and pleaded
with him and begged him. “Show mercy to me; be patient and I will pay you the
$15. You will get every penny of it.” But the man would not hear him. He closed
up his heart of compassion toward him and grabbed him by the throat, then sent
him away without any mercy or compassion at all.
Now when you do things like that, other
people will hear about them. When you treat people right, people will hear and
tell others about it. When you treat people wrong, people will hear and tell
others about it. People will know what you really are when you say and do
things that are not loving, compassionate, merciful, tender—hearted, and
forgiving.
The man’s peers heard about it. They went
back to that king who had forgiven the $15,000,000 debt and said, “Do you
remember that fellow that owed you so much money? You acquitted him of all that
debt. You wouldn’t believe what he has done. He found someone who owed him $15
and he had no mercy on him. He sold him and his family into slavery until he is
paid the measly $15.”
The king became angry. He said, “We’ll
just see about this. Bring the rascal before me.” They brought him back before the
king. He said, “You treated someone like this after the way I dealt with you? I
forgave you $15,000,000 and you would not forgive someone $15? I have changed
my mind; I am an “Indian Giver.” But after seeing the movie “Geronimo,” I don’t
think the Indian is the one who changed his mind. I think it was the white man,
the “White Eyes” as they called them, who kept changing their promises to the
Indians. He said, “I am changing my mind. I am recalling your debt. You are
going to be put in prison and be tormented until you pay me every penny of that
$15,000,000. That was just and that was right because the man didn’t even
appreciate what had been done for him. If he had, he would not have treated his
fellowman in such a vile way.
Now, what is the point of that story? It
just isn’t a story to fill up space or to make interesting reading. The
So God can forgive us of our sins and
they are like the $15,000,000. The little things that we do to rub each other
the wrong way; the offenses we commit against each other; the things that we
say that hurt peoples’ feelings; these are like the $15 that someone owes us
that we are not willing to forgive. Yet, how many times do we see that spirit
in the Church. How many times do we see that spirit between a husband and a
wife; among children in a family; and our relatives? Yes, we do see that spirit
and it creates problems, hard feelings, alienation and separations. That is not
good.
Now I think we can begin to see what
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and in many other places taught concerning
forgiving one another. We do not have to forgive someone who will not repent of
a wrong they have committed against us. Sometimes people think we have to do
that. We should always have a forgiving attitude and spirit and desire to
forgive. But in Luke 17: 3-4 Jesus said, “Take heed to yourselves.
If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive
him. If he trespass against thee seven times a day and
seven times a day turn again to thee saying “I repent”, thou shalt forgive him.”
So, you really cannot forgive a wrong
unless there is repentance. God does not
forgive us of any sin unless we repent. When we do wrong to people, we should
be sorry for it and repent and turn from it. But whether a person repents or
not, we must have the attitude of forgiveness toward that person, and in a
sense we cannot hold it against them. It will do us more harm than it will them. The spirit of forgiveness and the act of
forgiveness are things that we should cultivate in our lives as children of
God.
I want to close the lesson this morning
by reading the passage that was read previously:
Ephesians 4:29-32,
“Do not let unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is
helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit
those who listen. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were
sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger,
brawling and slander along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate
to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.”
As we stand now to sing the song of
encouragement and invitation, I hold out to you the forgiveness that God has
available and is ready to give to anyone and everyone of you, who in your
hearts would turn from your sinful lives. Turn and give your lives to him in
obedience, consecration, dedication and service. Will you do that as together
we stand and sing.*
*Shelby G.
Floyd delivered this sermon
Shelby G. Floyd