Let’s start off with a little survey. By show of hands, how many of you have ever been mad at someone? That would be all of us, right?
Let me ask a few deeper questions. Just answer to yourself. Have you ever held a grudge? Have you ever been hurt? Have you ever been bitter or resentful? Have you ever had trouble forgiving?
If we were to go around the room and each share we would discover that all of us have a story of hurt and anger to tell.
I’ll be honest. In my life I have been hurt, let down, talked about, slandered, lied to. And I don’t tell you that so that you feel sorry for me. I tell you that to say that what we’re going to talk about today has radically transformed my life and my relationships. And I think it will do the same for you as well.
Today we’re going to talk about the word forgive. And here’s what I think: Today’s content has the potential to set many of you free. Many of you are consumed and enslaved by bitterness and hurt and anger. Some of you may even feel like it is eating you up inside and killing you on the inside.
And so today we’re going to look at a couple of verses out of Ephesians 4 that have the potential to set you free.
Paul start off by giving us some strange instructions.
Ephesians 4:31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
Got it? Here’s the advice for the day. Get rid of all these things. Just stop it.
“Thanks Paul. This isn’t all that helpful.”
Paul would make a terrible counselor, wouldn’t he? Because he’d say, “Just get rid of that.”
Literally, what Paul means is to rid yourself completely of all these things. And he basically covers every relational base. Anything that would cause problems in a relationship we need to get rid of. Anything that gets between you and another person we’re to get rid of that.
To which we say, “Umm, I hear you, and that sounds nice and all, but I don’t know how, or I don’t know if I want to.”
Before we answer those questions I want us to figure out: Why should we take Paul seriously here? I mean, if you paid for a counseling session and this is what you’re counselor said you’d be like, “I want my money back.” So, why should we take him seriously?
First, the reason we should take him seriously is that he’s not writing this from Cancun. He’s writing this from a Roman prison. And the reason he’s there is because his close Jewish friends turned their backs on him. He’d been arrested by the Romans, held illegally without a trial by the Romans, and on top of that it was as if God had abandoned him. I mean if there was ever a guy who could be mad, who had permission to be a bit angry, it was Paul. So here he is in prison, with every reason to be angry, bitter and hostile, and he writes to the church in Ephesus, if you are angry or bitter then just stop it.
The other reason we should take him seriously is that for some reason he thinks we can actually get rid of this stuff. Some of you have doubted that you can get rid of it. By Paul saying to get rid of it he must actually think that you can get rid of it. See, Paul thinks we can be rid of all of that bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. And he tells us how.
32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
He says that we get rid of anger and bitterness and malice by forgiving each other. You don’t get rid of it by ignoring the people and the problem. You get rid of it by forgiving one another.
Do you know what forgiveness is? We think of forgiveness as, “I’ve forgiven her, I don’t ever want to see her again. Or, I’ve forgiven him. Don’t mention his name in my presence ever again.” But that’s not forgiveness. Forgiveness is 2 things.
Forgiveness is a decision. It doesn’t happen when we feel like it or when we’re ready for it or when we’re in the right emotional state to forgive. No, forgiveness is a decision that we make.
Second, forgiveness is making the decision that somebody doesn’t owe you anymore. Let me try and explain it. Every time you’ve been hurt there’s a sense that there has been something that’s been taken away from you. Let me give you some examples:
My dad left my mom and he stole from me the opportunity to grow up with two parents at home. My ex-wife stole from me the opportunity to end my life with the person that I began my marriage with. He stole from me my reputation. She stole from me my opportunity to make a lot of money. It can be tangible or intangible.
Every time you’ve ever been hurt it means that someone stole something from you and this creates a sense that they owe you something. Forgiveness is the decision to cancel that debt.
We don’t wait for them to apologize. We don’t wait for them to come to us. We make the decision: You don’t owe me anymore. I’m canceling the debt. That’s what forgiveness is.
The Greek word that Paul uses here for forgive paints the picture of giving a gift, which means that we should constantly be giving the gift of forgiveness. You hurt me, here’s some forgiveness. You did something to me, here’s some forgiveness. You took advantage of me, here’s some forgiveness. You messed up my marriage, here’s some forgiveness. The habit of our lives should be to dispense forgiveness, to say, “You don’t owe me anymore. Debt canceled.”
But let’s be honest. This is so hard. This is easy to talk about and hard to do. And the reason it is so hard is because the person who hurt you doesn’t deserve it. And if you were to forgive them then in a sense you would be letting them off the hook. It’s like you’d be rewarding them for what they did to you. And you’re wondering, “Why in the world would I give them this gift of forgiveness? That doesn’t make any sense.”
And you know what? You’re right forgiveness doesn’t make any sense. Forgiveness doesn’t make any sense unless you are a forgiven person. There’s no reason to forgive, unless you’re a forgiven person.
The degree to which you understand how you have been forgiven is the degree to which you will be freed up to forgive the people who hurt you. And if you are a Christian and you have trouble forgiving others then maybe you’ve lost sight of how you’ve been forgiven. Maybe you’ve forgotten how God has forgiven you.
Because forgiveness doesn’t make any sense unless you’ve been forgiven.
Look how Paul finishes the verse: 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
We don’t forgive because they deserve to be forgiven. We forgive because we have been forgiven. We let them off the hook because our heavenly father let us off the hook. We say “you don’t owe me anymore”, because you remember that from the cross God looked at us and said, “You don’t owe me anymore.” We say, “Debt canceled” because our heavenly father looked at all of our sin and inconsistency and said, “Debt canceled.”
We can forgive because we’ve been forgiven.
If we start to focus on what Jesus’ death did for us on the cross then it will open the door to forgive those people who hurt us. We owed a debt we could not pay and God said, “Debt cancelled.” Forgive. Make the decision that you don’t owe me anymore.
So, how do you forgive? Let me give you three practical helps for you.
First: Identify the people you’re angry with. This is the easiest one, isn’t it? Do you know how I identify the people I’m angry with? It’s with the imaginary conversations I have with people. If I’m angry with someone then I catch myself having these imaginary conversations with people and I’m just tearing them down. And if I’m really mad at them then there’s usually a crowd watching. Do you ever do that? That is an indicator. Identify the people you are angry with. That’s step one.
Second: This is the step most of us skip and this is why many of us struggle with forgiving people. You have to determine what they owe you. This is so important because you can’t forgive a debt you haven’t defined. One of the best things you can do is to spend some time making a list of the people you’re mad at and why you’re mad at them. Writing down what they owe you. And this will take some time. And this will be hard. But you’ve got to figure out: What did they take from you? What do they owe you? You have to define what’s been taken from you because only then can you cancel the debt.
I made a list of some things:
- Maybe somebody stole your childhood.
- Maybe, if you’re divorced or separated, it’s that your ex stole from you the opportunity to put your kids to be at night.
- Maybe somebody stole your sexual innocence through assault or abuse.
- Maybe someone stole your job when they fired you.
Forgiveness doesn’t try to settle who’s to blame or who’s at fault. Forgiveness says, “I’m going to figure out what was taken from me and I’m going to cancel that debt. I’m going to decide, you don’t owe me anymore.”
And then the third one. Cancel the debt. Make the decision that they don’t owe you anymore.
And maybe what might help you with this is for you to write all of this out and making a list of all the things that have been taken from you. You need to write out all that’s been stolen from you and what people owe you. And it might take you a few days or a few weeks, but you need to write it out. Get it all on paper. And then you need to fold that piece of paper and put it in an envelope and then you need to draw a big cross on it. And then you need to do something as a personal reminder that as of this day, I am canceling all of these debts. I’m deciding that you don’t owe me anymore. Maybe you need to bury the envelope. Maybe you need to burn it.
You know what will happen if you do that? I would be lying if I said, “You’ll never think of it again.” You’ll think of it again. Those memories and emotions will creep back in again, but when they do you can say to yourself, “They don’t owe me anymore.”
And in that moment, if you’ll switch your thoughts from that person to your heavenly father who forgave you, it will change you, and it will lead you to a place of gratitude for what God has done for you.
Because we don’t forgive because people deserve to be forgiven. We forgive because we’ve been forgiven.
So here’s what I want you to do.
Memorize Ephesians 4:32 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Go through the three steps.
But I think there are some of you here today who would admit that the reason you’re having trouble forgiving the people in your life is because you’ve never been forgiven yourself. If you think what they did to you is a big deal, then think of what your sin did to God. Your sin killed Jesus. That’s how bad it was. But God looks at you and me and says, “Debt cancelled.” And some of you need to accept that forgiveness for the first time today.
