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THE ART OF FORGIVING AND LEARNING
Don't repay
evil for evil. Don't retaliate when people say unkind things about you. Instead,
pay them back with a blessing. That is what God wants you to do, and he will
bless you for it.
I Peter 3:9
New Living
Translation
I wanted to
begin my sermon today with this article written about one of the most forgiving
creatures on earth, a dog. Listen to
this…
IF A DOG WERE YOUR TEACHER
you would learn stuff like:
When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
When it's in your best interest - practice obedience.
Let others know when they've invaded your territory.
Take naps and stretch before rising.
Run, romp, and play daily.
Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
Avoid biting, when a simple growl will do.
On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.
On hot days, drink lots of water and lay under a shady tree.
When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body
No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and
pout...run right back and make friends.
Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Stop when you have had enough.
Be loyal.
Never pretend to be something you're not.
If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them
gently.
Author Unknown
38
"You have heard that
it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' 39 But
I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right
cheek, turn to him the other also.
40
And if someone wants to sue
you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
41If
someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
43
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your
enemy.'
44
But I tell you: Love your
enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45
that you may be sons of
your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and
sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
46
If you love those who love
you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
47
And if you greet only your
brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
48
Be perfect, therefore, as
your heavenly Father is perfect.
Through our
lives we’ve heard phrases like, “Let bygones be bygones,” and "To err
is human, to forgive is divine” and “Forgive and forget.”
Today I want
us to consider ways to learn from past and heal the memories through the power
of Jesus’ forgiveness.
Forgiveness
is a misunderstood subject. I do not
want to be glib or walk through this too quickly.
Forgiveness is not a duty that we have to do.
It is not condoning others or pretending something didn’t happen.
Forgiveness is WHO we are as Christians.
It is the law of Christ. It
is a process and a lifestyle that we live everyday.
This morning
I would like us to consider four stages of forgiveness to set us free in our
relationships with people, God and ourselves.
Forgiveness had more to do with YOU than the person who hurt you.
And, as we travel through this process of forgiveness we can be
reconciled and come to healing. I do
not want these four stages to sound over-simplistic.
But please take them into consideration as we share in this moment this
morning.
I am indebted
to Lewis Smedes, professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in his book Forgive
and Forget for the idea of the four stages of forgiveness.
The first
stage of forgiveness is HURT. We are
good at feeling hurt, aren’t we? If
you live long enough you will either hurt someone or be hurt by someone.
It will fester and grow until your joy is gone.
Are you feeling the hurt of a relationship that has gone sour?
I’m not talking about little annoyances.
I mean betrayal, disloyalty and brutal acts toward you.
Maybe stole your money in a business deal.
Another may have been abused as a child.
You may feel the pain of abandonment today.
Sometimes well-meaning people hurt us.
We must face our hurts and not deny them.
We can’t tell ourselves they don’t exist.
We must acknowledge the hurt and that is the beginning of the process of
reaching forgiveness in our lives. For,
id we don’t forgive, we may become like the very person whom we can not
forgive.
Stage two is
HATE. This may sound like a strong
word but our emotions become tied up in the act of the hurt.
Hate is a real feeling. We
may push it down but it will come up later in ways we are not expecting.
Hate is an instinctive backlash against the one who hurts us.
There is passive hatred. We
don’t say too much but we do not want to see that person have too much
success. Or aggressive hatred.
You do wish bad for that person and talk about them over and over. Hate
is an emotion that drives us apart.
Nelson Mandela, in prison
for twenty-seven years under the system of apartheid in
“Resentment is like
drinking poison and waiting for it to kill your enemy.”
The moment you resent of
hate someone you become their slave. As
Jesus quoted in Matthew 5, “An eye for an eye”
In a sick way we draw
energy from this anger out of control. It
feeds us!
“All is well”, when
it isn’t. Forgiveness has to do
with us. When we hate someone we
give them power over our lives. Like
a weight around our necks. We must
release the hurt and hate—the offender to God.
Get off the escalator of revenge.
Acknowledging the hurt
and hate, we come to stage three,
We must HEAL and allow
God to perform spiritual surgery on our souls.
It is like a child who grasps a butterfly in her hands and releases it
into the sky.
In HEALING, I want to
talk with you about unexamined memories. Unexamined
memories color every relationship in our lives.
We need our memories to be healed by the power of Jesus’.
That’s why I love that we have Holy Communion every Sunday.
Each Sunday, as I Corinthians 11 says, we are to examine our hearts.
It is at the cross that the healing of our memories begins.
The memory no longer has power over us.
And there is destructive memory and redemptive memory.
One o the best stories in the Bible about this principle is when Moses
lead the children of
Forgiveness is about our
healing. Reframing the hurt and hate
into God’s healing on the cross for you.
So, God’s healing leads
us to the fourth stage, WHOLENESS.
The essence of this idea
is found in the Lord’s Prayer,
“Forgive us our sins as
we forgive those who sin against us.”
Forgiving is tough.
It doesn’t always come in one big bag. It
is a daily process. The person you
desire to forgive may be gone. Moves
away. So many times we are expecting
a
Corrie Ten Boom provided us perhaps the
best and most widely-used illustration of this. Corrie was imprisoned during the
war years in a concentration camp, humiliated and degraded, subjected to strip
searches, and forced to shower before the ogling eyes of leering guards. Her
dear father died at the hands of the Nazis, as did her beloved sister Betsy.
Corrie miraculously survived the holocaust, and after the war she became a
roving missionary for Christ. She preached and shared the Scripture all over the
world. Then on day, she was speaking in
Her hand froze by her side. She could not
forgive. She thought she had forgiven, but she suddenly realized she could not
forgive this particular guard, standing there in solid flesh before her. She
sent up a silent, urgent prayer, "Lord, forgive me, I cannot forgive."
Her hand was suddenly unfrozen. The ice of hatred melted. Her hand went out. She
forgave as she had been forgiven.
Forgiveness.
It is not something we wake up one morning and it just happens.
Each one of us needs to be forgiven and a forgiving person.
Forgive and forget—Forgive and learn.
That the memory has no power over you.
Forgiveness is about YOU.
As Lewis Smedes wrote,
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and
discover that the prisoner was you.”
Forgiveness is about the cross and God’s mercy.