BACKGROUND:
The Jewish people had the privilege of being God’s chosen nation to whom he had given his covenant promises (Deuteronomy 7:6). One of the signs of his covenant was circumcision. God required circumcision as a sign of obedience to him, as a sign of belonging to his covenant people because once circumcised, the man would be identified as a Jew forever, and as a symbol of “cutting off” the old life of sin, purifying one’s heart, and dedicating oneself to God.
More than any other practice, circumcision separated God’s people from their Egyptian and Canaanite neighbors.Pious Jews considered all Gentiles to be outsiders because they were uncircumcised. The Jews erred in being proud of their circumcision and believing that circumcision was sufficient to make them godly without the necessity of inner renewal; in other words, it affected only their bodies and not their hearts. In this section in Ephesians, Paul focused on the Gentiles, calling the Gentile Christians not to forget their former condition.
Compared to the Jews, the Gentiles had five distinct disadvantages:
They were living apart from Christ, having had no expectation of a Messiah to save them. They were excluded from God’s people, Israel. Gentiles could never fully partake of the spiritual privileges promised to Israel, God’s chosen people. While Gentiles could become Jews after an extensive training period, followed by circumcision and baptism, the sense of “exclusion” was never fully removed. Gentiles could never truly be citizens of Israel.
They did not know the promises God had made to Israel. For Paul, the covenant promises were the basis for Israel’s distinctive. The Gentiles were “foreigners,” meaning that they had no share or part in the promises. They were without God. The Gentiles had many gods, but they were without the one true God. They lived entirely and only in this evil world. Without God, the world was all they had.
They were without hope. There was no hope for the Gentiles to find the one true God or to obtain anything beyond physical life in this world. The pagan philosophers’ theories about life after death were at best vague and supplied no way to atone for evil committed during a person’s life. They had no “divine promise” and, thus, no basis for hope. This was a bleak description indeed. Fortunately, it does not end here, for God himself intervened.
The two little words "but now" reveal God’s intervention from heaven to earth and the entire story of redemption. The words far and near describe the position of Gentiles and Jews in relation to God. To take those who were far away and bring them near to him could only happen because of the blood of Christ. Salvation could come only through Jesus’ death. “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22).
SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have read today?)
Here are four words that probably define grace better than any other phrase -- God is for us. God is not just with us. God is not just by us. If you've invited Christ into your life, He's not just in us, but the Bible says He's for us. And God has so many reasons to be against us because of our sin, but because of Jesus, God is for us. Isn’t that an awesome thought??
Today I want us to look at GRACE THAT FORGIVES. The Bible says that God didn't just intend for you to receive God’s forgiveness. He wants you to pass it on. If you have been blessed by God, He wants you to bless others. If you have been cared for by God, He wants you to care for others. If you've been forgiven by God, He wants you to forgive others.
Jesus said it like this in Matthew 10:8 - "Give as freely as you have received." Whatever you've been given by God you are to offer to others. Today, I want us to think in particular about forgiveness because we've received that more than anything else. How do we give forgiveness to other people?
Lets start by taking a little test. Write down, true or false, what you believe about these statements.
1. A person should not be forgiven until he asks for it.
True or false.
2. Forgiveness includes minimizing the offense and minimizing the pain caused.
True or false
3. Forgiveness includes restoring trust and reuniting a relationship.
True or false.
4. You haven't really forgiven until you've forgotten the offense.
True or false.
If you were to take the word of God and you were to particularly read through the Gospels and read what Jesus said about forgiveness, you would come to the conclusion that all four of these statements are false. We're going to look today at what forgiveness really is. But before we can look at that, we need to look at what it isn't. Four things that forgiveness is not.
#1. Forgiveness is not conditional. The Bible says that genuine forgiveness is unconditional. It is not something you earn. It is not something you deserve. It is not something you buy or bargain for. It is unconditional.
When you tell the person, "I will forgive you if..." that's not forgiveness. You're bargaining, not forgiving. Genuine forgiveness is unconditional. It's offered even if it's not asked for. When Jesus hung on the cross, He prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." At that point, nobody had asked for forgiveness. Certainly nobody deserved it. It was an unconditional offer of pardon. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Genuine forgiveness is unconditional.
#2. It isn't minimizing the seriousness of the offense. Real forgiveness is not minimizing the seriousness of the offense. It's not saying, "It's no big deal. It really didn't hurt. Don't worry about it. The truth is, it did cause pain and you don't need to minimize it. Genuine forgiveness is saying, "Yes, it did hurt. Yes, it did cause pain in my life. But I'm going to let it go. I'm not going to hold it against you."
#3. Forgiveness is not resuming a relationship without change. Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation. They're two different issues. Forgiveness is not the same thing as rebuilding or restoring a relationship. Forgiveness is instant, but trust has to be rebuilt over time.
There's a big difference between forgiving a person and trusting a person. Forgiveness simply takes care of the damage, it's letting the person off the hook. But it does not guarantee that the future relationship goes back to the way it was. It takes more than forgiveness for reconciliation. If you want to have a restored relationship with someone, first comes forgiveness -- that's your part if you've been hurt. But on their part it takes three other things:
1) repentance, demonstrating that you have turned away from the lifestyle that caused the pain and hurt. 2) restitution where and when possible. That simply means making a person whole. 3) rebuilding trust. Rebuilding trust takes time. In a relationship that has been harmed or damaged, if you've been hurt, forgiveness is the part you do. But they have to show some other things to show that repentance and restoration has taken place.
For instance, if you have been in a relationship where you were married to an alcoholic, abusive spouse and they really hurt you repeatedly over and over, and that person comes home and says, "I'm sorry will you forgive me," you say, "Yes, I forgive you" because God commands you to forgive.
Forgiveness is instant. But if they say, "Now, will you let me back in the house" you say, "That's a different issue. We need to have some progress here first. You need to get some counseling. You need to develop a track record to show there's some genuine change." You are not obligated to instantly trust them and act like everything's fine and they can come home and things go on as they have in the past. It isn't resuming a relationship without change.
#4. Real forgiveness is not forgetting what happened. I know you've heard this cliche because it's very popular in America -- forgive and forget. That's so sweet and nice! There's only one problem with that. You can't do it. It doesn't work. It's impossible for you to forget everything that's happened. The more painful something is, the less likely it is that you're going to forget it.
Some of you think that's the ultimate of Christian maturity. When am I going to get to the point that I'm so grown up in Christ that I forget the painful things in my life? When am I going to be so mature that I forget the things I feel guilty over and the thing that other people have done to me? The truth is, you may never forget them.
But there's something better than forgetting. Remembering but not feeling the pain. Remembering, and seeing how God brought good out of bad, how you grew in character, how it made you sensitive to the hurts and needs of other people, how it changed the direction at a crucial point in your life, how things you have today would have not happened if it hadn't been for that event. There's something far better than forgetting.
It's remembering and realizing the sovereign grace of God is working as in Romans 8:28 "... all things work together for good." And folks, that's way better than just forgetting. Because when I forget something, I don't thank God or praise God. When I remember something and I remember what God has done in spite of that, then I really thank God and I praise God.
WHAT IS REAL FORGIVENESS? The Bible says real forgiveness is four things.
#1. REMEMBERING HOW MUCH I'VE BEEN FORGIVEN.
Remembering how much I've already been forgiven, how much grace I've received from Christ. Ephesians 4:32 says "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you." You're not forgiven because you earned it. You're not forgiven because you deserved it. You're not forgiven because you've promised never to sin again. You're forgiven because you've put your faith in Christ.
This is the starting point for genuine forgiveness. If you don't feel forgiven you don't want to forgive anybody else. You don't want them to feel it, that's for sure. If you're hard on yourself, you're going to be hard on others. But the more grace you receive from God the more gracious you're going to be to others. The more forgiven you feel by God, the more forgiving you're going to tend to be toward others.
#2. RELINQUISHING MY RIGHT TO GET EVEN
That's the heart of genuine forgiveness -- relinquishing my right to get even. Romans 12:19 says "Never avenge yourselves. Leave that to God for He has said that He will repay those who deserve it." Notice He says don't try to get even, don't try to retaliate, don't seek revenge. Leave that up to God.
You say, "If I forgive them that means I give up all my right to get even." That's exactly what forgiveness is. You give up your right to get even. You absorb the pain yourself without having to retaliate. "But that's unfair!" Who said forgiveness is fair? There's a word for fairness. It's called justice. Justice is fair. Forgiveness is grace.
Aren't you glad God doesn't give you everything you deserve? None of us would be here if that were true. We always want justice in everybody else's life. But we don't want it in our own. God is gracious to us and He wants us to be gracious to others. So you say you give up your right to get even. You trust God that one day He’s going to settle the score. One day God is going to balance the ledger. He's going to even the odds. He's going to right the wrongs that we see. And by the way, let me ask you, who can dole out better justice - you or God? God says, you just relax and let Me fill you with My grace and let Me put your heart at peace."
#3. RESPONDING TO EVIL WITH GOOD
Genuine forgiveness is responding to evil with good. Luke 6:27-28 says "Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you." How can you tell when you've really released somebody who has hurt you? How can you tell when you've genuinely forgiven them?
You can pray for God to bless them. When you come to the point when you can actually pray, "Bless that person who hurt me," you'll know forgiveness is complete in your heart. When you can look at their hurt and not just your own.
Folks, people who hurt inside tend to hurt other people. If somebody hurts you, it's most likely they're hurting on the inside. When you have genuinely forgiven a person, you can look past the ways that they've hurt you and see how they're hurting and how that hurt is part of the reason they've chosen to hurt you.
You say, “that's impossible.” I couldn't do good to that person who's hurt me." You can't unless you do one thing. Allow the love of God to penetrate every fiber of your life. Only the love of God could cause you to do something like that.
There's a fourth thing that's a part of genuine forgiveness.
#4. REPEATING THE PROCESS AS LONG AS NECESSARY
Forgiveness is not a one shot event. How long do you have to keep forgiving a person? You do it as long as the feeling of revenge keeps coming back. Peter asked that question of Jesus in Matthew 18. "Peter asked, `Lord, how often should I forgive somebody who sins against me? Seven times?'" Peter's thinking he's being really magnanimous here. The Jewish law said you had to forgive a person three times. He doubles it and throws one in for good measure. Jesus says, "Not quite. How about seventy x seven."
Peter being the fisherman he was is trying to add and all that up. 490 times Lord? No. The point is for as long as it takes. Until you let it go. You have to keep forgiving that person until the pain stops and the desire to get revenge goes away. You know you can come to the service or you can pray in a quiet time and say, "Dear Jesus, I know this bitterness is bad for me. I know I need to forgive them. Lord, I forgive that person," and five minutes later you want to kill them again.
But, when the memory comes back, and the anger is right there you say it again. You just keep forgiving until the pain goes away. If they really hurt you it's going to take more than once. Because the memory is going to keep coming back. You have to repeat the process as long as necessary. It's got to be continual. It's a process. Put these foundational truths into practice this week.
I love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay the course.
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