The Difficulty of Forgiveness

Matthew 6:12-15

INTRODUCTION

A few months ago a friend of ours was in a nursing home. This lady has suffered greatly in her life and is not strong emotionally or physically. One night she got out of bed to go to the bathroom, something she has to do often. Her roommate was irritated and cursed her.

Our friend was so upset by the hostility of her roommate that she didn’t come back to bed but went and sat in the library.

The night nurse saw her there and asked her what was the matter.

Our friend told her why she was so upset.

The nurse said very kindly and gently: “You know, Jesus said that we must forgive our enemies and pray for them. That’s what he did on the cross.”

These words took root in our friend’s heart and she began to see things in a new light. She had never read her Bible much, but now, she said, “I began to read the Bible seriously.”

She did pray for her roommate and tried to love her, and it seemed to work because when she left the nursing home to go to assisted living, her roommate gave her a hug.

This is what Jesus told his disciples, as recorded in Luke 6:27-28:

“I say to you that hear, Love your enemies do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

And now we turn to Luke 23:33

“And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”  

Today I want to talk about forgiveness, because Jesus says that for us who are Christian believers, refusing to forgive is not an option.

Listen to these words that we say often:

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

I. Why does Jesus say that forgiveness is so important that if we can’t forgive we can’t be forgiven? Because that is what Jesus is saying in this passage.

A. Whenever we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are—if we are honest—letting go of all our grudges.

Isn’t it odd that Jesus didn’t say, “Forgive us our trespasses because we truly repent and come to you for forgiveness”?

That’s a good and necessary prayer—but it isn’t the reason Jesus gives in the Lord’s Prayer.

Everything else in the prayer is directed toward God. But suddenly Jesus puts in a promise we are to make to God: “…as we forgive those who sin against us.”

B. Jesus tells us to pray, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” because he wants us to remind ourselves, every time we pray that prayer, that if we are to be forgiven, we must be forgiving.

It’s more important to pass on the forgiveness we have received than it is to show remorse and sorrow for our sins.

Because I have received grace, God expects me to be gracious. To bear a grudge reveals that I am not sharing God’s attitude toward sinners. God loves sinners. That is why I must pray continually for a forgiving heart.

II. Forgiveness is something that all of us struggle with—or should struggle with—because forgiveness is a lot more complicated and difficult than most people suppose.

A. Forgiveness is complicated because there are really two kinds of forgiveness:

Sometimes someone wrongs us, and they feel guilty and come and ask for forgiveness. Then forgiveness is not so difficult.

When the person creating the offense repents and makes amends, we can be friends again. This is called “reconciliation.”

This is what happens when God forgives us. We repent, our hearts are changed, and we become friends with our Father in heaven.

I read once about a Christian man who was so gracious and so  forgiving of those who wronged him, that it was said of him: “The way to have that man as a friend for life is to do him an injustice”!

B. But usually the person who has hurt you doesn’t feel guilty and doesn’t care.

Maybe the person who has wronged you doesn’t realize his or her offense. Maybe he sinned with a clear conscience.

We are all blind to many of our sins. We all need to be forgiven by those we have wronged.

Maybe the person who has hurt you holds a grudge against you.

He thinks you are to blame and are the one who needs to ask for forgiveness.

You can’t just say, “That’s okay. Let’s be friends.”

Friendship may be impossible, but that doesn’t excuse us from forgiving.

This is the kind of forgiveness Jesus prayed for his enemies on the cross.

Those who crucified Jesus did what they did with a clear conscience.

Jesus said, “…they know not what they do.”

Jesus isn’t excusing them. They could have known. They still needed to repent of their sin.

And we know from the Book of Acts that some of them did repent and accept forgiveness. Jesus’s prayer was answered, at least in part, because on the Day of Pentecost, many of these people came to faith.

III. Let’s talk about forgiving someone who shows no remorse and isn’t even interested in our forgiveness. Because it’s with these that we have our main problems with forgiveness.

A. Maybe there’s someone in your life who has wronged you and continues to wrong you. You can forgive and let it go. You can do kindnesses for that person and maybe win him or her over. That is Christlike.

It may be that you will have to avoid that person so that he or she won’t keep hurting you. You may need to keep your distance. But you can still pray for him or her—and let go of vengeful feelings…

It’s not necessary to tell a person: “I forgive you.” What’s necessary is to replace the hate in your heart with love and goodwill. That’s what the Bible means when it says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).

B. All of us have been hurt by people in our past. Some of them are far away now. Some of the people who have wronged you have died.

Philip Yancey tells of a conversation he had with an immigrant rabbi from Nazi Germany. The rabbi said, “Before coming to America, I had to forgive Hitler.”

“Why?” Yancey asked.

The rabbi’s answer; “I didn’t want to bring Hitler inside me to my new country.”

When we carry resentment in our minds we are giving that wrongdoer a home in our mind and the power to make us miserable.

I once helped an old woman who was so eaten up with memories of the ingratitude of people and their offenses against her that she constantly spoke of them. She made herself miserable and made everyone around her miserable. She couldn’t appreciate the kindnesses people did for her because of her constant dwelling on her disappointing past.

Perhaps there is someone in your past who has wronged you, and every time you think of that person, the hurt comes back.

C. S. Lewis was sent to a boarding school as a little boy—a school that was run by a sadistic, cruel old man. He made life miserable for the little child.

Years later, as an adult, Lewis became a Christian. He knew that he must forgive that man who had tormented him as a child. But every time he thought of that cruel man, the bitter feelings returned. So he would again say a little prayer forgiving him once again.

He said, “When Jesus said to forgive a person 7 times 70 times, he didn’t necessarily mean for 490 offenses—maybe 490 times for the same offence.

Lewis said that finally—when he was past middle age—he realized that he had finally forgiven that the man who had tormented him. He had kept forgiving until his anger was gone.

When I refuse to forgive and let go of a grudge, I am allowing that person to live in my head and to continue to torment me. So when I forgive, I’m not doing my enemy a favor; I am doing myself a favor. And when I hold onto a grudge, I am hurting only myself.

Maybe you are still hurting from some injustice in your past.

I won’t ask you to do it now, but perhaps when you go to bed tonight you will feel led to speak to God about the person who did the evil thing and forgive him or her from your heart.

It may be a hard thing to do.

But then you will be able to pray the Lord’s Prayer as it ought to be prayed.

CONCLUSION

I will tell you a true story that may inspire you as it did me. I found this story in Christian Century Magazine a few years ago.

The pastor of a Methodist Church in Providence, Rhode Island, received a letter from a man who was a stranger to him. It was from a man named Orelander Love.

Love explained that although he knew about Christians and had heard stories about Jesus for many years, he did not believe in the gospel because he had never met a Christian. That is, he had never met a Christian until he met a lady named Jeanette Aldred.

Love met Aldred under unusual circumstances—he was robbing her home. Ms. Aldred was 88 at the time, and Love thought the house was empty. But when he discovered Aldred in bed, he panicked and hit her over the head. She startled him by responding with words of forgiveness and offered him a blessing. That enraged Love even more.

He wrote that Ms. Aldred said this to him as he beat her: “Jesus loves you. I forgive you. God bless you.”

He wrote, “She said these things even as I beat her, kicked, robbed and cursed her. She did not deserve it, but she did as Christ did.”

Love got away but the next day found himself haunted by Ms. Aldred’s words, “I forgive you.” Still he went back to work robbing two more houses before he was arrested. The police investigators asked if he had been involved in other burglaries in that neighborhood. Then they mentioned Jeanette Aldred’s name, and Love began to cry.

Love was sentenced to a prison term, and found himself still thinking about Aldred and her words, “I forgive you.”

He wrote in his letter to her pastor: “I was not saved from prison. She saved me from hell. After that dark criminal night in Ms. Aldred’s home on Providence Road, I have never been the same.“

“God punished me spiritually beyond anything man could do, with weeping day and night in jail with such pain you cannot imagine, until I begged for forgiveness.

“I do not now care about the years I will spend in prison or the media or the church screaming for vengeance. It was God with the rod that I feared. Ms. Aldred wanted no vengeance. She wanted me saved. Well…I have been saved for six years. Her words, ‘Jesus loves you, I forgive, I’ll pray for you,’ never left my heart. I go to church regularly. I do Bible study. I praise God to every inmate who will hear. I thank God for Ms. Aldred.”

Orelander Love wrote the letter to the church out of his sadness after reading her obituary. She had died at the age of 95. Love had hoped someday to be able to speak to her and tell her how much she had changed his life. Now he wouldn’t have that opportunity. So he wrote a letter to the church instead.

The chaplain at Orelander’s correctional facility told the pastor who received the letter that Love’s letter is an honest confession, not simply a plea for sympathy. Love has been a model prisoner. His earliest scheduled release is 2018, so the letter was not a preface to a parole appeal.

In his letter, Love concludes by saying, “I won’t be released from this prison on earth anytime soon. But I’ll be with Jesus and Ms. Aldred in heaven, and we’re going to sing and dance together.”

(from an article in Christian Century, 9-20-03)