“The Other Side Of Total Forgiveness”
Text: Matthew 5:21-26
9-22-2024
Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, thus far we’ve spent 3 Sundays learning about forgiveness. Hopefully, along the way you gained a new perspective on how God forgives us and how He wants us to forgive one another. When we practice this all-important doctrine as Christians it brings unbelievable peace and joy. But it dawned on me that all of those sermons dealt with how God wants us to forgive others. In other words, we talked about the times when we were the victim, that is, the injured party. But we never flipped the coin over and looked at the opposite side. What about when we are the ones who have done the harm? What does God have to say about the times when we need to ask for forgiveness?
It’s true, learning how to forgive others is important. But learning how to ask for forgiveness is equally important. In fact, this may be harder thing to do. The reason why it’s so difficult is quite simple: our sinful human pride. Before you can go to someone that you’ve hurt and ask them to forgive you it requires you to first humble yourself. That’s not easy nor is it natural. This old world has taught us that we must protect ourselves. If you go around groveling at people’s feet like a whipped dog, admitting you were wrong and begging for forgiveness, well, you’re just asking for trouble. People will perceive that as weakness and take advantage of you. You’ll be a wimp! That’s what the world thinks of asking for forgiveness. And I suspect that’s why people so rarely do it.
God obviously has a different take on all this. He wants us to set aside our pride and ask to be forgiven when we’ve hurt or offended someone. Wait. Rewind that. He doesn’t just want us to do this, He commands us to. Listen again to what Jesus says in our Gospel reading about this: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” In other words, before we can come into God’s presence and offer our worship and praise, we have to first apologize to the people we’ve hurt. More importantly, before we can ask God to forgive us, we have to ask others to forgive us. That doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? And yet, that’s what God commands.
Jesus is teaching that if we don’t seek forgiveness from the people we’ve hurt it will interfere with our worship and our communion with God. St. Peter makes a similar point in his first Epistle. Even though he’s talking to husbands about how they are to treat their wives, this principle carries over into all of our relationships. It says: “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” (3:7) Did you catch that? If we do something that hurts and offends our spouse and we leave that hurt there, it will hinder our prayers from being heard. If we link that up with what Jesus says, you can see that it’s the same principle. We are required to seek forgiveness when we’ve hurt someone. If we refuse to, it will mess up our prayer life and our communication with God that we so desperately need. That’s not something we want to trifle with.
Look at it this way. What if I discover that the septic tank at my house is backed up? I get the tank pumped out, but that doesn’t fix it. With more investigation we find that the line from the house to the tank is plugged and needs to be cleared. If I ignored that step the problem would’ve remained and things would have kept backing up in the house. Well, if we ignore the step of seeking forgiveness from the people we’ve hurt then the problem of our sin is going to back up into our lives and create a mess far worse than a sewer issue. Putting it off only makes it harder to deal with. It’s best to address the problem and ask for forgiveness as soon as possible.
I know this raises some difficult questions. Such as: What happens if you go to someone, confess that you were wrong, and they refuse to forgive you? It’s going to happen. It happened to me. When I was in the Army, I did something really stupid. Well, actually, I did a whole bunch of stupid things but that’s a story for another day. Anyway, there was a sergeant that I didn’t like. One day I was standing with my buddy at the guard post at the front gate and guess who had parked his car just outside the fence? Don’t ask me why, but we decided to lob a few rocks over the fence and put some chips in his nice paint job. Now you need to know the fact that it was really hot out that day and this was a black car. I pitched a rock or two and missed. The next rock I threw was perfect. It went up and over the 8-foot fence in a perfect arc. But instead of hitting the paint, it grazed the passenger window. The heat inside that car literally made that glass explode! Now what’ll we do?!? Naturally we made a pact to keep the secret. But it didn’t take long before my conscience got the best of me. So, I went to the sergeant and confessed. I asked him to forgive me and I promised to pay for the damage. Well, to make a long story short, he accepted my money but he refused to forgive me. He kept bringing it up over and over.
So let me ask you, was it a waste of time for me to have gone and ask him for forgiveness since he refused? Absolutely not! The only thing that Jesus calls us to do is to seek forgiveness, regardless of how the other person responds. He never puts a disclaimer on it. If that other person will not forgive you then the guilt is off your shoulders and on theirs. God will deal with them. St. Paul says in Romans 12:18 “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”
Thankfully, not everyone will act like that sergeant. Especially between Christians, asking for and granting forgiveness ought to flow freely. And it will bring healing for the emotional wounds we inflict on one another. A Pastor once said, “Healing will come with vulnerable confession.” That’s so true. When we go to someone and humbly ask for their forgiveness, it makes us vulnerable. But, making ourselves vulnerable opens the door for healing. It shows the sincerity of our confession. And a true Christian won’t take advantage of that vulnerability.
Let me also add that when we seek forgiveness from someone we’ve hurt, that should be our sole purpose. Don’t use it as an opportunity to rationalize why you did what you did. Like with that sergeant, I could have rattled off a list of reasons for why I broke his window. But then my purpose would not have been to seek forgiveness. Rather, I would have been trying to justify my actions and that’s not a sincere confession of wrong. If you’ve lashed out at your spouse, your kids, or a friend, don’t try to rationalize it. Don’t say, “I’m really sorry, but you just make me so angry when you... (fill in the blank) So that’s why I said those nasty things.” Don’t rationalize your actions! Not to them, not in your own mind, and certainly not to God.
But what if someone is acting like they are hurt and for the life of you, you can’t think of anything you did wrong? Do you still need to go to them and ask for forgiveness? As uncomfortable as it may make you, the answer is, yes. What does it hurt to go to them and say, “I’ve got a feeling that I might have hurt you in some way. I’m not sure what it is, but I’d still like to ask you to forgive me.” Chances are, that person will tell you how they were offended by something you didn’t even know you had done. It may not seem like a big deal to you but evidently it was to them. Don’t start thinking petty thoughts about the person. Rise above it. Be the more mature Christian and ask to be forgiven. After all, when we come before God and ask for forgiveness there are sins that we’ve committed that we’re unaware of. And yet we confess them all anyway.
The best part of doing this between Christians is that it quite often will start a chain reaction. Sometimes, your honest and vulnerable confession will soften that other person and they will acknowledge wrongs that they have done. Like I said before, that must not be your main purpose in going to ask for forgiveness. But it can often prime the pump, so-to-speak. In the same way that violence begets violence, forgiveness begets forgiveness. It may inspire that person to go and ask forgiveness of another person and that person may then ask another and so on. What a beautiful thing to be a part of.
One more thing. As I said before, please don’t put this off. Quite literally, if you pass up an opportunity to ask someone for forgiveness, you may never have the chance again. I witnessed this with an elderly man who regularly had been verbally abusive to his wife and, in the past, physically abusive. He eventually ended up in the nursing home with the end of his life drawing near. He finally took the time and effort to ask her to forgive him. A few days later, he died. See, you don’t want to risk leaving that kind of apology hanging until the last minute because you may not have another chance. And if the shoe is on the other foot, you also may not have the chance to ask them to forgive you before they are called home to heaven. Trust me, you don’t want to live with that regret.
Just like those other 3 sermons on forgiveness, I want you to know that there is an enormous blessing in this for you personally. Maybe you’ve already figured it out. Or maybe you’ve already experienced it. But when you go and ask someone to forgive you, it lifts a heavy burden off your mind and soul. It might sound selfish, but if for no other reason you should seek forgiveness for your own benefit. Your conscience will be clear. And the inner peace you will gain is worth the effort of setting aside your pride and humbling yourself. It’s worth the risk of making yourself vulnerable to the person you’ve hurt. This blessing is yours regardless of whether that other person forgives you or not. God sees and God knows. He’s pleased when we seek forgiveness from others. Because when we do, then we’re able to come to Him and ask for His divine forgiveness. And we have the firm confidence that God will indeed forgive us whenever we ask it in Jesus’ name. He died on the cross so that we could have this free gift which He will never withhold from us. May God bless us with humble hearts that are willing to ask for forgiveness from one another and humble hearts that receive God’s forgiveness with eternal gratefulness. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria