Forgiveness & Forgiven-ness

Forgiveness & Forgiven-ness
Adam Hamilton recently used these statistics in a sermon at Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City….In a survey done of married couples and couples whose marriages didn’t last that there were 3 words spoken twice as often with the married couples than the ones who didn’t last…Think about what those 3 words might be, but here’s another hint…In a study done by the University of Michigan Health Care system, they instructed their doctors to say these same 3 words in certain situations and what they found was the letters of intent to sue for malpractice declined 50% and the legal fees declined from 3 million dollars to 1 million dollars…Can you think of what those 3 words are? (Wait) I am sorry…Those are the 3 words that were said twice as often with married couples and also that caused letters of intent to sue for malpractice to decline 50%...
I am sorry…Now for sometimes and some situations, those words are easy to say…Sometimes we say them without really thinking about it…Like the last time that you had your foot stepped on, did you say that you were sorry to the person who stepped on your foot? But then there are those times when saying “I’m sorry” just isn’t that easy…
Peter approaches Jesus and asks him how often he should forgive if someone does something against him…Peter comes up with the number 7…not completely arbitrarily…He was actually being very generous. It was in the Jewish laws that one needed to forgive another 3 times…So, Peter more than doubled that and asked if 7 times was enough to forgive someone…Because certainly if 3 times was good, then 7 must be even better! And Jesus comes back with saying, that seven isn’t enough, but forgiveness should be offered 70 times 7 times…Now that’s not an exact equation from Jesus that we forgive someone 490 times, but it’s such a large number that we don’t even keep track of how many times we forgive…Can you imagine how life would be if we only had a limited number of times we could forgive? And even though it seems absurd to have such a limited number of times to forgive, aren’t there times when we refuse forgiveness?
Now there are all kinds of justifications that we can give as to why we don’t forgive… “But you just don’t understand, what they did was terrible!” “Well, I only won’t forgive them because they won’t say that they’re wrong.” Or you can put your own reason in there…We have justifications as to why we can’t or don’t forgive someone…
Now, I want to acknowledge that there are situations for some that are incredibly difficult to forgive—there are times and circumstances that I can’t even begin to imagine how one would forgive… Forgiveness doesn’t always mean saying that what happened was okay because there are certainly some situations and circumstances that it is not about saying that what happened was okay. If you have been abused, raped, molested, or physically hurt—those things are not okay and it is not acceptable to say that what someone did was okay…If those are situations that you are dealing with right now, know that it is not okay for someone to tell you that you just need to forgive and all will be okay.
Even if we ask for forgiveness or give forgiveness, there are still consequences for our actions. Like if you get into a car accident with someone else’s car, they may forgive what happened, but won’t let you borrow their car again…Or if you betrayed someone’s confidences by telling a secret, they may forgive you, but won’t trust you with anything personal again. If you have been physically harmed by someone, you may forgive them but can’t ever be in the same room with them again. Our actions do have consequences…
Last week, our passage from Matthew talked about reconciliation…Forgiveness is a step into reconciliation. It takes acknowledging that what happened was wrong and that someone feels badly about it…I admit that I did something wrong and ask for forgiveness…a step in the reconciliation process…
In asking for forgiveness, we should always admit what we did that was wrong…Without any excuses—none of the, “I’m sorry, but…” Admitting what we did that was wrong or hurtful…and promising to try and not be hurtful again…then, ask what we can do to help the reconciliation process…How can we make up for what we did…
When we grant forgiveness, we acknowledge that hurt that has been done to us and as we grant forgiveness, we promise not to hold it against the offender…So, if an argument happens two years after you’ve granted forgiveness, you can’t bring it back up…
Sometimes forgiveness is hard…it almost seems impossible at times…And yet, we know it means to be forgiven ourselves…Can we pass that forgiveness on to others or are we like the debt collector that Jesus talks about whose debts were forgiven, but turned around and treated another harshly…Do we forgive trespasses as our trespasses have been forgiven? We pray that every week…Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…Do you really want to be forgiven the way that you have forgiven?
There are stories of forgiveness that seem so extraordinary…Like stories of families whose children were murdered and they forgive the murder…Or the stories from the Amish community who cared for the gunman’s family after their children were brutally murdered…Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…
Steven Curtis Chapman is an award winning Christian singer. He and his wife Mary Beth have three biological children, Emily, Caleb, and Will Franklin and have adopted three girls from China—Shohannah Hope, Stevey Joy, and Maria Sue. On May 21, seventeen year old Will Franklin was driving his SUV in the driveway when Maria Sue ran to greet him. He didn’t see Maria and hit her with his car…As the Chapman family reacted to what happened, and called 911 and held on to their 5 year old daughter as she struggled to live…As the ambulance took Maria Sue to the hospital, Will in anguish tried to run from what happened when his older brother Caleb tackled him and held him to the ground and just held him…As Steven Curtis Chapman followed the ambulance to the hospital, he made the driver stop as he shouted out the window… “Will Franklin! Your dad loves you! Will Franklin! Your dad loves you!” Maria Sue died from this tragic accident…As the family continues to grieve the loss of the youngest child and come to grips with what happened…Will Franklin struggles to forgive himself. At Maria’s funeral, Caleb share that God healed Maria in ways that the family didn’t really like, but Caleb knew that God was going to heal Will in ways that everyone would really like…Mary Beth & Steven Curtis Chapman said in an interview that not once did they ever blame Will or do they hold what happened against him…They called it a tragic accident…Will has talked about his journey to find peace in what has happened and it is a journey that will last for a long time.
Sometimes it’s not someone else that we need to forgive, but it’s ourselves…We are our own worst critic at times…We are harder on ourselves than others are…Sometimes it may be deserved and other times, it’s more than we really deserve…As Jesus shared what he considered to be the greatest commandments—Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as you love yourself…If you don’t love yourself enough to forgive yourself—how are you going to be able to love someone else enough to forgive them?
Why is forgiveness so hard? Why is it something that we deny to others or deny to ourselves? Why does it make the stories like the Chapman family seem so extraordinary? There are really lots of reasons why…Sometimes the circumstances are just so extraordinary…Sometimes the people are extraordinary…Most times it’s because the grace of God flows freely…Forgiveness is given freely to us…It only seems right that it should flow freely from us…
There may be something or someone that you are thinking about right now that you need to forgive…Maybe you’re not ready to admit what you have done wrong or what you’d like to do to make amends…Maybe you’re not quite ready to repent…You can say that…But studies have shown that people who forgive more often are usually healthier…less heart problems, less stress…The longer that you hold on to that forgiveness, the more it eats you up inside…Forgiveness is as much for you to let go as it is for the other person to be forgiven…
Or maybe you’re thinking about someone that you need to ask for forgiveness…Someone that you have hurt in some way…And you might be thinking that too much time has passed or you don’t know how to get in touch with that person…Those are really good excuses…About a year ago I went to lunch with a friend and as we caught up on life, I shared with her that I thought that I may have hurt her in a particular situation and they only reason that I thought that I may have caused her that pain was because I had felt it myself…As we recounted the situation that had happened almost five years earlier, I apologized for any hurt that I may have caused her. She said that there was none, but she appreciated the apology…I could have not said anything and I could have not offered apology…But I can’t tell you how much better I felt to have known how she felt and that we could be honest…An apology can come at anytime…
So, how many times should one forgive? 3 times? 7 times? 490? How many times have you been forgiven? 3 times? 7 times? 490? As you have confessed your sins to God, God hears your prayers and in the name of Jesus Christ you are forgiven…Thanks be to God…You have been forgiven freely…Freely give…