Discover The Word

Wednesday, April 13, 2011, Part 3

“Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4).

IDEA: To forgive, we need to be clear about what sin is and what it isn’t.

PURPOSE: To have listeners realize that not all offenses they feel are necessarily sin.

In Luke 17:3-4, Jesus says, “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.”

When we deal with sin and forgiveness, we deal with a painful subject.

When we talk about sin and forgiveness, does this bring any episode to your mind where someone sinned against you and you had to forgive that person?

What exactly is involved in sin and forgiveness?

It is helpful to notice that Jesus talks about brothers (or sisters) who have sinned “against.” It is not simply someone who has sinned—though that may be involved in Matthew 18:15.

I. You can forgive only people. They alone can be held accountable for what they do to hurt you.

We cannot forgive nature, even though nature can treat us in a savage manner. We can trust in God’s purposes behind nature’s perverse ways. We forgive only people.

We cannot forgive systems. Do systems cause pain? Political, economic, corporate systems can imprison people and lock them in despair. We can’t forgive systems. We forgive only people.

II. You cannot forgive people who have not hurt you.

You may confront people who are sinning and seek to restore them, but you have no right to forgive them. Only those they have hurt have that right.

III. You cannot forgive people who may have hurt you, but they didn’t  sin against you.

Lewis Smedes in Forgive and Forget writes:

“There once was a person in my life who did outrageous things to me. She screamed at me all through dinner; she made me jump to her service any time, day or night, no matter how busy I was with other things; now and then she would urinate on my slacks! To make matters worse, she got acutely sick and drove me mad because she did not tell me what was wrong. There were moments when I felt like whacking her. But I never felt an impulse to forgive her. She was my six-month-old baby, and I did not feel the need to forgive the outrageous things she did to me, because she didn’t hurt me wrongfully.”

People hurt us when we deserve it.

The fact that we feel hurt doesn’t mean that we have been sinned against.

Do you think that the Pharisees and religious leaders were upset at Jesus because of what He said to them?

Could the Pharisees offer Jesus forgiveness?

Do you think Peter could have taken offense and felt hurt when he was publicly rebuked by Paul?

Could Peter offer Paul forgiveness?

People hurt us with their good intentions.

An investment in business goes wrong. I am hurt by the loss, and I feel it. The hurt is in me, but not in the intention of the one who did it, No rebuke or forgiveness is necessary or even possible.

People hurt us when we feel slighted.

Slights hurt because we’re not noticed or our name was left off the program by mistake.

Slights need to be shrugged off, not forgiven.

We trivialize forgiveness and make it cheap and commonplace if we are not clear about what we mean by sin and forgiveness.