Genuine Peace (Part 1) Sermon SHORT
“Genuine Peace”
Colossians 3:13
May 25, 2008
Genuine Peace involves
I. Full Forgiveness
Context:
• A New Focus - :1-4
“If” should be understood as “since”, speaking to believers, and Paul says, “since you’ve been raised with Christ from the death that bound you, you need to replace the old focus you had with a new one: set your eyes on Jesus.” There’s nothing that ails us as Christians that can’t be fixed by our doing that one thing: “look at Jesus
• A New Attitude - :5-9
All this stuff that came so naturally to you before? Put it to death! Suffice it to say that the things that we once wanted and walked in, we can no more as believers, as followers of Jesus. Why? Because God has given us
• A New Life - :10-11
We want to put people into groups. Blacks and whites. Rich and poor. Republicans and Democrats. Bulldogs and Yellow Jackets. Nothing’s changed; they were doing that in Jesus’ day. Greeks hated Jews, and circumcised Jews stuck their noses in the air around uncircumcised Gentiles. But transcending it all is Jesus, and Jesus gives us life, and binds us together, for He is all, and He is in all of those who are His people.
With that as our context, let’s look at full forgiveness; first,
A. The Priority
• Misconceptions about forgiveness
o It entails forgetting
Should we “forgive and forget”? I can’t simply will myself to forget. Now, once something is forgiven, I’ll think differently about it, and hopefully a lot less about it, but the simple fact that an event may remain in my memory doesn’t in and of itself mean that I’ve not forgiven it. Rather, it is my attitude toward that event that determines whether or not it’s been forgiven. But doesn’t the Bible say that “God remembers our sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25)? It’s not that God cannot remember our sins, but that He will not remember them, in the sense of holding them against us. I don’t believe in a God with a faulty memory, but rather a God with a heart so big that I cannot out-sin His ability to forgive! 2nd misconception:
o Forgiveness is primarily a feeling
We might say, “he doesn’t deserve my forgiveness”, and that might be the way it feels to us, but forgiveness isn’t a feeling. It is something I am called to do regardless of what I think or feel about it.
o Forgiveness means excusing the wrong done
We’re not talking about engaging in a fictional flight of fantasy, acting as though something doesn’t matter when down inside we know that it does. In fact, the very act of forgiveness takes place when there is an offense committed; that’s the very context of forgiveness. And because true forgiveness deals honestly with sin, it provides a freedom to the one forgiven that no slip-sliding around the truth of things ever could!
o It includes an immediate & complete restoration of trust
It should include a real desire to regain and rebuild trust, a willingness to take the other person at his word, a benefit-of-the-doubt approach, but the truth is that trust is earned over time on the basis of behavior.
• Forgiveness is a choice – not “can I”, but “will I”?
Charizomai is the Greek word here, and it means to bestow favor freely or unconditionally. Forgiveness isn’t something earned or deserved; it is something freely given. Another word used elsewhere in Scripture, such as the words of the Lord in Matthew 6, is the Greek aphiemi, which means to let go, release, or remit, often referring to debts that have been paid or cancelled in full.
When you forgive, you make a fresh choice every time the matter comes to mind.
• You fight against the painful memories
• You speak gracious words when you’d like to tell her off
• You extend a measure of trust when you don’t really want to
B. The Precedent
Matthew 6:14-15 – “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
“As the Lord forgave you”, the Scripture says, so you must forgive. How did God forgive us?
• Completely – Psalm 103:8-12
The God of the universe, against Whom every one of us have sinned repeatedly and totally, deigns not to hold any sin against us whatever, if we are His children. Zero. None. That’s how God forgives us; He completely removes our sin.
• Unconditionally
God doesn’t place conditions upon His forgiveness; He doesn’t say, “you will remain forgiven as long as you do this or that”.
• Apart from any merit of our own
It’s called “grace”, and God grants it to us apart from us deserving it. And the person who’s offended you? He may not “deserve” forgiveness, and you might say that fairness would dictate he not be forgiven. Get over it; you don’t deserve it either
• Out of His great love
No person is beyond the reach of God’s love and forgiveness.
C. The Process
Ken Sande defines forgiveness as a decision to make 4 promises:
• “I will not dwell on this incident.”
• “I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you.”
• “I will not talk to others about this incident.”
• “I will not let this incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.”
So how do we approach this thing of “forgiveness”? Where does the person’s repentant spirit play into the equation? Does it matter?
• An attitude independent of repentance
Stephen in the midst of being stoned to death: “falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against the.’” (Acts 7:60). Jesus said that, when you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone else, forgive that person (Mark 11:25. You are loving the other person, standing ready to extend active forgiveness at the first opportunity, guarding your own heart against turning bitter and resentful, even if it takes the other person a long time to repent. I begin with an attitude that says, “you are forgiven, before you ask for it”; in doing so, I make the first of the four promises: “I will not dwell on this incident”.
• An action dependent on repentance
Granting forgiveness is conditional upon repentance on the part of the offender. Here’s where it gets personal, and here’s where I keep the other three promises of forgiveness, not to bring up the incident again, nor to talk to others about it, nor to allow it to come between yourself and the other person. Until repentance is forthcoming, we can’t make these promises, for we may need to do the first two, and the third is already in play (there’s a breached relationship already). Once a person repents, though, real forgiveness will entail making and keeping these promises!
And note that Jesus lived this out: on the cross, He cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing”, and then, on the Day of Pentecost, with some of the very people there who called out for Jesus’ blood, Peter preached, they repented, and God forgave their sin and added thousands to the church that very day. Jesus’ attitude was one of forgiveness; upon repentance, God’s action was one of forgiveness!
D. The Power – Philippians 4:13
“I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me”.
God not only commands us to forgive; He also provides for us the ability to do that through Jesus.
