Forgiveness

A sermon preached by Paul Woodbridge on Sunday 6 June. Paul wanted me to acknowledge that some of his material originated with John Piper (www.desiringgod.org)
(Note, 'X' = 'that')

This July will see the 5th anniversary of the terrible atrocity when 4 fanatical suicide bombers blew themselves up on the London undergrd and a bus, killg many innocent people.

Since that horrendous evening, many stories have emerged of bravery and suffering. But one which was reported in a number of national papers was of a vicar in Bristol, the Rev’d Julie Nicholson, whose 24 year old daughter Jenny was killed in the Edgware Road attack. In March 2006, 8 months after Jenny had died, it was reported she had resigned her post because she found it too hard to forgive the murderers, and couldn’t reconcile her feelings of unforgiveness with her position as a minister.

She said, ‘Forgiving another human being for violating your child is almost beyond human capabilities. It is very difficult for me to stand behind an altar and celebrate the Eucharist and lead people in words of peace and reconciliation and forgiveness when I feel very far from that myself’.

What do you think of her action? Do you think she did the right thing? You have to, don’t you, feel both the greatest sympathy for her as well as real admiration for the transparent integrity she showed in her decision to resign.

Because this whole matter of forgiveness is a very serious thing. Consider some of the words Jesus spoke on this matter:


Mth. 6:12, 14-15: ‘Forgive us our sins as we also have forgiven those who sin against us…for if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your sins’.

Somewhat sobering verses, aren’t they? C.H. Spurgeon said ‘Unless you forgive others, you sign your own death warrant when you pray the Lord’s prayer’. Someone once said to John Wesley, ‘I shall never forgive’. Wesley replied, ‘Then I hope you never sin’.

But these are very hard words to pray, aren’t they? Indeed, before we can honestly pray this bit of the Lord’s Prayer, we have to realise that we NEED to pray it. That is, before we can pray this petition, we must have a sense of sin.

And of course we see very quickly from the Scriptures that we are all sinners, we’ve offended God and broken his laws, and are in urgent need of his forgiveness. Perhaps that’s almost too obvious to say in a church like this – people at Crockenhill Baptist church know all about sin!

We might note that the Bible uses a number of different words for sin, and a brief look at just one of them helps us to see what we are really like.

The most common word is hamartia. This was originally a shooting word and means a missg of the target. So sin is the failure to be what we might have been and could have been, a failure to reach God’s perfect standards.

There was once a man called Samuel Le Grice. He was a brilliant youth who never fulfilled his promise. One writer on him says X there were 3 stages in his career: there was a time when people said, ‘He will do smthg’. Then there was a time when people said, ‘He could do smthg if he would’. Then there was a time when people said, ‘He might have done smthg if he had liked’.

Someone once said, ‘After a certain age, all of us, good and bad, are grief stricken because of powers within us which have never been realised: because, in other words, we are not what we shd be’.

That is really what hamartia is; and X is precisely the situation in which we are all involved. Are we as good husbands or wives as we cd be? Are we as good sons and daughters as we cd be? Are we as good students as we cd be? Is there anyone who will dare to claim X he or she is all they might have been, and has done all they cd have done? When we realise X sin means the failure to hit the target, the failure to be all X we might have been and cd have been, then it is clear X everyone of us is a sinner.

And Scripture is clear X sin is falling short of God’s target, which is to be like He is, as good as it is possible to be. And because God is perfect and wants our sins to be forgiven, he sent his Son, J.C., to be our Saviour, to die in our place, to take the punishment we deserved, so X we cd be forgiven and have eternal life.

Yet the verses we read a few moments ago in Matt. 6 say X we will not be forgiven by God if we hold fast to an unforgiving spirit. If we continue on that way, then we will not go to Heaven, because Heaven is the dwellg place of forgiven people.

Think also of our reading in Matt. 18, where Jesus told a parable to illustrate this point. Peter asks the question in v. 21, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to 7 times?’ And Peter wd have considered X excessive and extremely generous! But Jesus’ reply wd have stunned him: ‘I tell you, not 7 times, but 70 times 7’, that is, times without number! Our forgiveness of another person is to be unlimited, says Jesus.

Then he tells a parable abt a king who forgave his servant a million pound debt. That servant went out from the king and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a relatively small amount, but he refused his desperate pleas for mercy and had him thrown in prison. When the king heard abt it, he called / servant and said (vv. 32-35):

‘You wicked servant, I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow-servant just as I had on you?’ In anger, his master handed him over to the jailors to be tortured, until he shd pay back all he owed. And then a punch line which takes away our breath: This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive a brother or sister from your heart.

So the point of Matt.6:15 and 18:35 is X if we hold fast to an unforgiving spirit, then we will not be forgiven by our heavenly Father. And the reason for that is not because we can earn heaven or merit heaven by forgivg others, but because holding fast to an unforgivg spirit proves X we do not trust Xt. If we trust him, we will not spurn his way of life. If we trust him, we will not be able to take forgiveness from his hand for our million pounds debt and withhold it from our £10 debtor.

So there is a clear connection b/w between our forgivg and being forgiven by God. Forgiveness cannot be a one way process. Like all God’s gifts, it brings responsibility; it must be passed on. If we are to open our hands to receive his gracious pardon, we cannot keep our fists tightly clenched against those who have wronged us.

Jesus expects forgiveness of his people, and he assures them X such forgiveness means X the forgiveness of God is certain. ‘It is not X the act of forgivg deserves an eternal reward, but rather it is evidence X the grace of God is at work in the forgivg person and X that same grace will bring that person forgiveness in due course’.

Paul said in Eph. 4:32, Forgive each other, just as God in Xt has forgiven you. In other words, God’s forgiveness is underneath ours and creates it and supports it. So X if we don’t give it to others – if we go on in an unforgivg spirit – what we show is X God is not there in our lives. We are not trustg him. And not trustg him will keep us out of heaven, and cause us to be handed over to the tormentors, as Jesus puts it.

But perhaps we need to ask the question, What is forgiveness? What does it look like? We have heard from Jesus X it is essential. It is not icing on the cake of Xty. If we don’t experience it and offer it to others, we will perish in our sins, says Jesus. So it is tremendously NB to know what this is X is so essential to our eternal life.

May I give you a definition of forgiveness X comes from a writer called Thomas Watson abt 300 years ago. He wrote a book on the Lord’s Prayer, and when he comes to that phrase ‘Forgive us our sins as we also forgive those who sin against us’, he asks the question, When do we forgive others? And he answers:

‘When we strive against all thts of revenge; when we will not do our enemies mischief, but wish well to them, grieve at their calamities, pray for them, seek reconciliation with them, and show ourselves ready on all occasions to relieve them’. [T. Watson, Body of Divinity, p.581]

I think X’s a very good definition of forgiveness. Each part of it comes from a passage of Scripture:

1)Resist thts of revenge. Rom. 12:19, Do not take revenge, my dear friends,, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay”, says the Lord. By forgiving someone, I am trusting that God is a better justice-maker than I am. By forgiving, I release my own right to get even and leave all issues of fairness for God to work out.

2)Don’t seek to do them mischief: 1Thess. 5:15 – Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong.

3)Wish well to them: Lk. 6:28 – Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

4)Grieve at their calamities: Prov. 24:17 – Do not gloat when your enemies fall, when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice.

5)Pray for them: Mth. 5:44 – But I tell you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.

6)Seek reconciliation with them: Rom. 12:18 – If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

7)Be always willg to come to their relief, a principle enshrined in Ex. 23:4 – If you come across your enemy’s ox or his donkey wanderg away, be sure to return it.

Here is forgiveness: when you feel X someone is your enemy or when you simply feel X you or someone you care abt has been wronged, forgiveness means,

Resistg revenge; not returng evil for evil; wishg them well; grievg at their calamities; prayg for their welfare; seekg reconciliation so far as it depends on you; and coming to their aid in distress.

All these point to a forgivg heart. And the heart is all NB, as Jesus said in Mth. 18:35, Unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.


I think of a former student at Oak Hill called Nick Banda whose cousin was shot dead durg a robbery at a newsagent’s shop 10 years ago. His story got into the national press and also featured on ‘Songs of Praise’. And what made it noteworthy and what amazed the reporters was the fact that Nick forgave the man who killed his cousin. Listen to some extracts from these reports.

Read extract from Daily Mail of 5-2-97:

‘A committed Xian told how he has forgiven the drug addict who shot his cousin dead. Nick Banda said he tht he wd never get over his cousin’s killing during a robbery at a newsagent’s shop. ‘You always feel emotions like the desire for revenge, X’s quite ordinary’, he said. But being a Xian means trying to be extraordinary.

Mr Banda’s cousin Nath was blasted to death after being robbed of just 26p by Avie Andrews. After Andrews was convicted, Mr Banda met him in his prison cell and told him, ‘I love you’.

Mr Banda said, ‘Nath was more than my cousin, he was my best friend. But I forgave Avie completely. It was unconditional. I believe he will benefit from the fact that he is forgiven. Certainly, it has given his family peace of mind’.


But perhaps it’s important also to think abt what forgiveness is NOT:

1)Forgiveness is not the absence of anger at sin. It is not feelg good abt what was bad.

I read recently abt a pastor who told of a woman in his church who never came to Communion. He probed and found X 15 years earlier she had been separated from her husband because he repeatedly beat her and sexually abused their children. She said X every time she came to Communion, she wd remember what he had done and feel so angry at what it cost her children X she felt unworthy to take the bread and wine.

This pastor said to her, ‘You are not expected to feel good abt what happened. Anger against sin and its horrible consequences is fittg at least up to a point. But you don’t need to hold on to that in a vindictive way X desires harm for your husband. You can hand it over to him who judges justly (1 Pet. 2:23) again and again, and pray for the transformation of your husband. Forgiveness is not feelg good abt horrible thgs’. And he encouraged her to forgive him in this way, and to take communion as she handed her anger over to God and prayed for her husband.

2)Forgiveness is not the absence of serious consequences for sin. In other words, sendg a person to jail does not mean X you are unforgivg to that person. The pastor just mentioned has had a part in puttg 2 of his members in prison for sexual misconduct. Can you imagine the stress on that congregation as they tried to come to terms with what forgiveness is!

We may discipline a child in the home, or a person in the church, or a criminal in society. We may prescribe painful consequences in each case, and yet have a forgivg spirit.

Take eg the book of Hebrews. On the one hand, this book teaches X all Xians are forgiven for their sins; but on the other hand, it teaches X our heavenly Father disciplines us, sometimes quite severely. In Heb. 8:12, it says, I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

Then in Heb. 12:6, 10, we read: The Lord disciplines those he loves, and he chasens everyone he accepts as his child…our parents disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines for our good, in order X we may share his holiness.

So our sins are forgiven and forgotten in the sense X they no longer bring down the anger of a judge, but not in the sense X they no longer bring down the rebuke and correction of a Father.

Or we might think of the life of David, / man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14). He committed adultery and killed Uriah, the woman’s husband. Nathan the prophet came with stinging words to him in 2 Sam. 12:9 –
Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your own.

David was broken by this condemnation, and says (13), I have sinned v. the Lord. To which Nathan replies on behalf of God: The Lord has taken away your sin; you are not going to die. But even though God had forgiven him – his sin is taken away – Nathan says (14), However because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.

So there was forgiveness for David’s sin, but there were sad consequences also.

Numbers 14: Joshua and Caleb tell the people of Israel X they can indeed go up and possess the promised land. Yet the people are angry and want to stone them and go back to Egypt. God intervenes and says to Moses X he is abt to wipe out this ungrateful people and make him a nation greater and mightier than they (12).

But Moses pleads with God for their forgiveness (19): In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.

So the Lord responds (20-23): I have forgiven them as you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live, and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills / whole earth, not one of those who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert but who disobeyed me and tested me 10 times – not one of them will ever see the land I promised to their ancestors.

They were forgiven, but the consequence of their sin was that they wd not see the promised land.

3)Forgiveness of an unrepentant person doesn’t look the same as forgiveness of a repentant person.

Jesus says in Lk. 17:3-4, Watch yourselves! If a brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them, and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you 7 times in a day, and 7 times come back to you sayg, ‘I repent’, you must forgive them.

So there’s a sense in which full forgiveness is only possible in response to repentance.

But even when a person does not repent, we are commanded to love our enemy and pray for those who persecute us, and do good to those who hate us (Lk. 6:27). Remember how Jesus prayed from the cross: ‘Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing’. The people who crucified Jesus had not repented, yet Jesus prayed for their forgiveness.

Maybe the difference is X when a person who wronged us does not repent with sorrow and turng from their sin, that person cuts off the full work of forgiveness. We can still lay down our ill will; we can hand over our anger to God; we can seek to do them good; but we cannot be reconciled to them.

Thomas Watson said: “We are not bound to trust an enemy, but we are bound to forgive him”.

You can actually look someone in the face and say, “I forgive you, but I don’t trust you”. That is what the woman whose husband abused her children had to say.

But isn’t the heart crucial here. What wd make X an unforgivg thg to say is if you were thinkg this: What’s more, I don’t care abt ever trustg you again; and I won’t accept any of your efforts to try to establish trust again; in fact, I hope nobody ever trusts you again, and I don’t care if your life is totally ruined. That is not a forgivg spirit. And Jesus wd not accept that.


I think one of the most challenging yet most encouraging thing I have read abt forgiveness is in the book What’s so amazg abt grace? by Philip Yancey. Part 2 is devoted to our need to forgive. Let me conclude with this extract:

‘We do not forgive easily, nor find ourselves easily forgiven. Forgiveness, we discover, is always harder than the sermons make it out to be. We nurse sores, go to elaborate lengths to rationalise our behaviour, perpetuate family feuds, punish ourselves, punish others – all to avoid this most unnatural act.

Charles Williams has said of the Lord’s Prayer, ‘No word in English carries a greater possibility of terror than the little word ‘as’ in that clause – ‘Forgive us our sins AS we forgive those who sin against us’. What makes the ‘as’ so terrifying? The fact that Jesus so plainly links our forgiven-ness by the Father with our forgiving-ness of fellow human beings.

Jesus requires – no, demands – a response of forgiveness. So urgent is the need for forgiveness that it takes precedence over ‘religious duties’: Matt.5:23-24 – ‘If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to that person, and then come and offer your gift’.

I never find forgiveness easy, and rarely do I find it completely satisfying. Nagging injustices remain, and the wounds still cause pain. I have to approach God again and again, yielding to him the residue of what I thought I had committed to him long ago. I do so because the Gospels make clear the connection: God forgives my debts as I forgive my debtors. The reverse is also true: only by living in the stream of God’s grace will I find the strength to respond with grace towards others’.

In 1994, Lesley Belinda’s husband, Charles, was one of the victims of the Rwandan genocide. 10 years later, Lesley returned to Rwanda to discover the truth about his death. When she met the men who may have been involved in the murder of her husband, she had to make the difficult choice of whether or not to forgive them, and try to answer the question, ‘What does it mean to truly forgive?’

Lesley has addressed audiences around the world on the subject of forgiveness. Drawing on her personal experience, she knows that being willing to forgive is a huge challenge, but, with God’s grace, can be possible. ‘I have wrestled long and hard in the past decade with issues of forgiveness and reconciliation. It is easy to talk of forgiveness, but much harder to put it into practice’.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, ‘When you forgive, you let go. It sets you free’. When you forgive, it shows you have received the grace of God.

LET US PRAY: Let’s us examine ourselves in the light of Jesus’ words and as we rejoice in the wonder of God’s grace and forgiveness, let’s also realise afresh how Jesus requires us to forgive. If someone has smthg against us, or we have somethg against another person, then Jesus says we should do something about it. We need first to be reconciled, and then come with cleansed and reconciled hearts to receive God’s forgiveness. So a few moments of quiet for us to examine ourselves.

‘Forgive one another, just as God in Xt has forgiven you’. Lord God, our loving heavenly Father, we give you praise and thanks that you do not deal with us as our sins deserve, but have dealt with our sins through the all-sufficient sacrifice of Jesus. As we rejoice in that fact, we acknowledge that your forgiveness has placed upon us the duty and responsibility to forgive others. We need the help of your Holy Spirit to do this, and so pray that he will give us the strength we need to obey you in this vital matter. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
(With thanks to John Piper)