Love Does: Love Does Forgiveness

One of my favorite golfing memories comes from when Courtney was about 6 years old.  As a family we went to this eighteen hole putting golf course.  The greens were shaped like fairways with rough around the edges.  We all rented putters and balls.  Becky got a pencil and scorecard and we went to the first tee.  We proceeded to putt our way around the course. I remember one hole where Kayla actually made about a twenty foot sliding downhill putt and we all celebrated.  This was fun. Then we got to the end of the round and Becky added up the scores.  And as Becky read off the scores, she got to Courtney’s score. She had the highest score.  And hearing that Courtney got all excited.  “I won, I won, I got the highest score!” But then I could see what was coming and I tried to stop her, but Becky was too quick for me.  She said, “No Courtney, in golf, it’s the lowest score that wins.”  And of course she immediately broke into tears.  But then I did something with that scorecard. I threw it away.  Now no one knows what those scores were.

Funny thing is that it seem like there is always someone keeping score, not just in golf but in life:  “You didn’t call me when you said you would.” “What you said the other day, hurt my feelings.”  “I still remember that day you lost your temper with me.”  “You still blame me for what happened with our kids.”  And the list goes on and on until there’s such a record of wrongs that you feel like you can’t do anything right, no matter how hard you try.

Sound familiar?  Do you have a record keeper in your life?  Someone who keeps a scorecard of every time you blow it?  I remember the first time this happened to me.  I’d been in full time Youth Ministry for about two years when my Pastor called me into his office.  There was a family in the church who had been keeping a list of my faults, my wrongs, my inconsistencies.  They had been compiling a list of my wrongs since the day I started, and it had now grown to about twenty offenses.  So, I guess they figured they had enough ammunition to shoot me down and run me out of town.  However, they didn’t have the guts to do it themselves.  So they took the list to the Pastor.  I was appalled when he shared the list with me.  For one, I couldn’t believe anyone would compile such a list, after all, if I watched your life for two years, I’m pretty sure I could find 20 things about you that didn’t quite measure up. And two,I couldn’t believe that my Pastor even shared this list with me.  He violated Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 18 that says, “If your brother orsistersins against you,go and point out their fault, just between the two of you.”Matthew 18:15.  What my Pastor should have done was to ask them if they ever approached me with any of these things.  He should have seen through their list, and seen what they were up too with this, but he didn’t.  So I was appalled at my Pastor’s poor judgment.  But let’s go back to the list.  What these parent’s had done was not just wrong; it was one of the most unloving things I’ve ever experienced.  It’s sickening to think that there are people who keep track of your wrongs so they can use them against you.

But think about this for a moment.  Do we ever do this?  We may not write down in a list.  But we know when we’ve been wronged…  So what do we do? Do we hold on to our list so at the appropriate time we can use our list against them?  If so, then this message is for us.  Because love never does that. What does love do?  According to 1 Corinthians 13:5, “Love keeps no record of wrongs” Let me explain what that phrase means.  The wording Paul uses here consists of two thoughts.  1) The first has to do with a wrong suffered.  The word is actually “evil suffered” and refers to a general evil which has attacked you.  2) The second is an accounting term meaning: “to take into account” or “to calculate.” We might say it this way: Love does not spend time calculating the evil done to me as to “getting even” or “exacting revenge.”Instead, love lets it go.  In other words, Love Does Forgiveness.

FORGIVENESS may be the most powerful force of love God has ever given. For with forgiveness we can overcome any hurt, offense or any evil thrown at us.  For it’s the kind of love Jesus gave us as he hung on the cross and said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”Luke 23:34  He saw past the evil done to him, refused to get even and simply let it go.

This is what Jesus did for you on the cross. All the anger, all the hurt, the hatred… all the selfish and destructive thoughts or things you’ve ever had or done – Jesus took upon Himself on the cross.  He took our worst, refused to judge us and instead He simply let it all go…  Why? Because that’s what love does.  The picture here in 1 Corinthians 13:5 is this same love: This is the kind of love that sees past the evil done to me, refuses to get even and simply lets it go.

But you say, wait a second.  You don’t know my pain; you don’t know the injustice done to me. “He was cruel.  She hurt me. He robbed me of my innocence.  She told lies about me.  He ruined my life.  How can I ever let him get away with what he’s done?  I cannot let it go.  It’s too hard…” And the truth is, it can be very difficult to forgive. You want justice.  You want the offender to feel the hurt you feel.  So you calculate the crime.  She needs to know what it’s like to walk in your shoes.  He should pay.  And for some of you those feelings are still as raw and real today as when you were originally hurt.  In fact, you know you should forgive, but you are having a hard time letting go.  So before we talk about letting go, there’s a couple question we need to answer, and the first is this:

What Keeps Me From Letting Go of the Wrong I’ve Suffered? Four phrases:

“I don’t feel like forgiving” When you’ve been wronged, one of the most natural responses is this emotional one: You don’t feel like forgiving.  You feel an injustice has been done.  And now you want the offender to feel how you feel. You want to get even.  Your wounded soul wants to be judge, jury and executioner of the one who hurt you.  And you want the world to know it.  So, let your feelings rule you.  And in the process you take on a new skill: you become an expert at holding a grudge.  And when that happens, not only do you hold on to anger against the offender, but you begin to recruit others who will agree with you, to tell you that you should get revenge.  And as long as you listen to the voices that say “make him pay,” or “she deserves what’s coming to her” then you probably won’t forgive. However, forgiveness is not about feelings, it’s about choosing to love.You see, if you allow love to rule your heart, love will overpower your feelings.  Because love by nature, is not a feeling, but a choice, an act of the will – a choosing to let the wrong suffered go, and not pick it up again.  That’s why we need the love of Christ to rule in our hearts.  For without the love of Christ we let our feelings will rule us, and we never let it go.  So you’ve gotta ask yourself:  what are you going to let rule your heart?  The love of Jesus, or your feelings.

“I can’t forget” Now this seems like a legitimate reason to not forgive. It may be that every time you hear anger in a man’s voice, you remember abuse you suffered from your dad.  Perhaps every time you hear a wedding announcement, you remember your failed marriage.  There are many triggers that can force us to remember the hurts we’ve suffered.  So yes, it can be difficult to forget.  But that doesn’t mean you can’t go ahead and forgive.  The Bible says that God forgives and forgets. “I will forgive their wickedness and will never again remember their sins.”  Jeremiah 31:34  This is where it is hard for us. We are not God.  He has the ability to forget, but we don’t.  And yet, God has given us the ability to forgive.  And sometimes that means every time you are triggered to remember a wrong suffered, you will need to forgive… again and again.

Here’s another one: “I can’t pretend nothing bad happened” This one plays into our sense of justice.  And we say, well if I forgive him, then its like I’m telling him its okay to act evil.  But forgiving someone doesn’t mean you pretend that nothing happened.  Forgiveness says this, “I know what you did, but even though it was wrong, I will not be defined by your evil.  Rather I choose to forgive you.  I choose to love you this way because this is what Jesus did this for me. He forgave me so He could heal our relationship.  That’s why I choose to forgive you.” This is how love can heal even the most damaged of relationships.  It doesn’t pretend something bad never happened, it simply chooses to remove the offense so that the chance of reconciliation becomes possible.

And finally: “The hurt is too great” This may be the toughest one. The betrayal of adultery, being physically abused, suffering sexual abuse – these are some of the most hurtful sins we can experience.  The pain is real. It’s sometimes so debilitating that the pain is almost unbearable – but it is not impossible to forgive.  Right now, maybe you can’t forgive because it hurts too much.  But God can.  Here’s where we must remember what God did for us at the cross: He forgave us all our sins,having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross.Colossians 2:13-14    We offended God by denying Him His rightful place in our lives.  We treated Him with contempt when we turned our backs on Him.  Our sin rejected God’s love.  And I can’t imagine how much that hurt the very one who gave us life.  But here’s the forgiveness God gave us in Christ: God no longer holds onto your record of wrongs because of what Jesus did on the cross.  God threw away the scorecard.  Every wrong, every evil, every sin, every hurtful and destructive thing you have ever done has been taken away.  And if you have doubt about that, listen to what Micah 7:19 says about God’s forgiveness,“You hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.”  The good news is that God will never go fishing to dredge up our sins to use them against us.  God let them all go. Our record of wrongs were wiped clean by the blood of Jesus the moment you believed. That’s the beauty of God’s love: There is no hurt is too great that love cannot overcome.  So if God can forgive you, He can help you forgive anyone who has hurt you.  Love Does Forgiveness!  Now lets, look at our second question:

What Happens If I Choose to Hold Onto the Hurts?A couple of things: First,If I use my energy seeking revenge,I debase myself; even worse, I can become like the person I despise.  In fact, those who study the effects of revenge made this discovery:  people who got revenge thought they would feel better, but they felt the opposite, they felt worse about themselves.  They debased themselves.

Second, if I hold a grudge, I allow a rootof bitterness to poison my soul  What happens is this:  Bitterness works like a cancer that slowly neutralizes your heart.

Bitterness literally shrivels your soul.  It’s like Lewis Smedes, in his book, Forgive and Forget, says this about forgiveness: “When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life. You set a prisoner free, but you discover that the real prisoner was yourself.”

Glen Mack Harden, a prominent psychologist says this: “Forgiveness not only heightens the potential for reconciliation, but also releases the offended from prolonged anger, rage, and stress that have been linked to physiological problems, such as cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, hypertension, cancer and other psychosomatic illness.” The wonder of forgiveness is that the person who benefits most is you.  I wonder. Have you allowed a root of bitterness it grow in you?  If you have maybe it’s time to forgive.  Because when you forgive, you’re not just freeing someone else, you are freeing yourself. Maybe it’s time to let it go, so you can start living again.  Love does forgiveness.  And part of that love is loving yourself.   Stop holding onto the hurt and let it go. That’s what happens when you forgive – you free yourself…  But that’s not the only thing that happens – there are a number of other good things that happen when you choose to forgive:

What Happens When I Choose to Forgive? Allow me to read this profound Scripture from Ephesians 5  Therefore be imitatorsof God, as dearly beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant offering.  Ephesians 5:1-2

When I forgive I am living out the Gospel   I’m walking in love.  For when I forgive I lay the groundwork for the restoration of a relationship, just like Jesus did for us.  He forgave us so we could be reconciled to God.  He took away the barrier that separated us from God, so that nothing stood between us…  And every time you forgive another person you do the same thing. You do for them what they can’t do for themselves.   They cannot remove their offense.  But you can. When you forgive you remove it. You release the offender from his guilt, and now reconciliation can take place. Now its up to the offender to receive your forgiveness.  And in almost every case, the offender will be so grateful that their offense is removed, that your relationship will be even better than it was before.  When we forgive we live out the gospel.  We walk in love.  That’s one thing that happens when we forgive. Here’s another:

When I forgive I am worshiping God  When Jesus loved us and gave himself up for us, his act is described as an act of worship – an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant offering.  Perhaps you’ve never seen forgiveness in this light. But when you choose to forgive, you do the same thing – you are making a fragrant offering to God.  You are giving glory to God, and so you are worshiping God. Pretty cool.

And finally,When I forgive I love like The Father loves us When you forgive, you are imitating God.  And the best way you can imitate God is by forgiving the one who does not deserve it.  As one person said, “You are never more like God than when you love, and you are never more like the love of God, than when you forgive.”

That’s the story of the Prodigal Son.  You know the story?  A father had two sons, and one day the younger son came and demanded his inheritance.  Do you know what he was telling his father with his demand?  He was saying, “I wish you were dead so I can have what’s coming to me?”  Can there be a more offensive and hurtful thing than that to wish someone dead?  I don’t think so.  But the father grants his request.  Then the son goes and throws his inheritance away with wild living. And then when he’s at his lowest, eating the food reserved for pigs, he comes to his senses.  Let me pick up the story there (Read Luke 15:17-24…  “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.” Luke 15:22-24

You see forgiveness is more than just the removal of the offense, it’s more than just forgetting the wrong suffered; forgiveness opens the door to complete restoration.  That is how the Father loves us, and that is how the Father would have us love.  The Father welcomes prodigals home, restores them as family, and throws a party!…          Is there someone God would have you love like this?  Is there someone you’re ready to forgive?  If so, you may be asking, how do I do this act of love?

How does love do forgiveness?  1) Pray for the offender Instead of brooding over the hurt he’s caused, ask God to help you love this person with the love of Jesus.  Ask God to heal the hurt in his or her life that caused them to wrong you.  Ask Jesus to help you forgive this person the way Jesus forgave you.

2) Step out in Faith Take a step of faith and let go of the offense you’ve been holding onto. Let go of your need for justice. Let go of the bitterness you’ve been holding onto.  Choose to give this person what they don’t deserve.  And give them your forgiveness and let it all go. Then give him/her to Jesus and trust God for the results.

For this is what love does.  Love does forgiveness.  So make the choice to love.  Step out in faith and forgive the person God wants you to forgive. Then throw away the scorecard and leave the rest to God. Let’s pray.