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Sermon preached by Jeff Huber – May 23-24, 2015

“Forgiving Others”

Theme: Forgiveness Scripture: Matthew 18:15-17 Things I’d like to remember from today’s sermon: _____________________________________________________________________________________________

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Meditation Moments for Monday, May 25 - Read Matthew 5:38-48 - Rewards for friends, revenge on foes are so woven into our cultures that Jesus’ words may seem a recipe for self-destruction. What company, political party or law firm always deals with friends and foes this way? Yet Jesus said this is how God works. And he called us to live out of the same heart: “No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.” (The Message)

• In Jesus’ day, many rabbis quoted Lev. 19:18 (“Love your neighbor as yourself”), and then added, “and hate your enemies.” Jesus said that love to the just and the unjust, to evil and good alike, is God’s way. Do you understand “love” more as a feeling or a set of actions? Can you “love” someone even if you don’t like them?

• John Wesley, Methodism’s founder, said Jesus called us to be “perfect in love,” always growing toward loving with God’s all-inclusive love. He rejected the idea that “perfect” meant never sinning (missing the mark). Does it challenge you more, or less, to see “perfect” as about the state of your heart rather than just your outward actions?

Tuesday, May 26- Read Ephesians 4:25-32- “We are all members of one body,” Paul said. It’s clear he was talking mainly to those in the Christian community. Wow—so even in church it’s quite possible to meet “bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” Even with fellow believers, we need the call to forgive each other just as in Christ God forgave you.

• Being as honest as you can, who are the Christians you know who most often and most deeply “get your goat”? Pray for them, and about them. Ask God to help you to find practical, realistic steps to “be kind and compassionate,” in ways that are healthy for you and for them.

• This passage says that Christians should be “forgiving each other.” Again being as honest as you can, in what ways do you at times see yourself be unloving and hurtful to your brothers and sisters in Christ? What steps can you take to grow in these areas, and to seek relational healing by asking for forgiveness?

Wednesday, May 27- Read Ephesians 2:11-22- Almost all conflict happens because of some kind of difference. As Jesus’ message spread through the Mediterranean world, the early church became more and more diverse. But Jesus pulled off an amazing feat: he “put to death” the hostility of different groups. Our differences still create hostilities today—and Jesus’ power is still at work.


• The main issue the Ephesians faced was the distrust and contempt between Jews and Gentiles. In a global society, what are some of the differences that trigger hostility in your heart? How can Jesus’ forgiveness help make you willing to tackle the hard work of changing long-standing attitudes, feelings and actions?

• “He himself is our peace….through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” Do you see any difference between peace as a solely human effort based on “splitting differences” and balancing interests, and peace based on who Jesus is and who you are in him? Is one more lasting than the other? Why or why not?

Thursday, May 28 - Read John 3:14-21- John said Jesus did not come to condemn the world. What amazing possibilities open before us when we’re told that God does not have a condemning attitude toward us. It frees us to let go of our condemning attitude toward ourselves and others. It’s natural to condemn an enemy. Jesus came to offer us his supernatural way of life.

• How do you understand the meaning of “God so loved the world”? Do you believe God’s love extends to the whole world, or is it limited to a righteous subset of the world’s people? How does your answer affect your own inner responses to those citizens of the world who seem to be “enemies”?

• John was a realist. Though Jesus did not come to condemn, some chose to remain his enemies. “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (v. 19). How do you as Christ’s follower treat those who reject you, or Jesus? What can Jesus’ example teach you?

Friday, May 29 - Read Matthew 18:21-35 - Peter thought he could guess what Jesus would teach. The rabbis said you should forgive three times. Peter stretched it—more than doubled it. And Jesus said, “Not even close.” For Hebrews, the number seven meant completeness. Seventy times seven was vast beyond imagining! Forgiveness is not about counting. It’s a continual way of life.

• Myron Augsburger wrote, “Forgiveness is never easy; it is hard. It is the most difficult thing in the universe.” Forgiving the same person seven times (even three) can seem a great plenty! How many times have you needed God’s forgiveness? How does Jesus’ parable affect your perspective on the issue of forgiving other people?

• At the end of this passage, Jesus said you need to “forgive a brother or sister from your heart.” Think about times when you might find it useful to forgive outwardly, but hold in bitterness or a longing for revenge. How do such buried feelings affect you? What emotional growth steps are needed to help you truly forgive from the heart?

Saturday, May 30 - Read Luke 23:32-46 Jesus taught a lot about forgiveness. We’ve heard too many stories, though, about religious people whose actions don’t match up very well with what they say. Jesus, under the awful stress of the cross, lived the forgiveness he taught. He prayed for those who mocked and tortured him. He offered a bandit, whose only credential was asking to be included, paradise.

• Jesus asked God to forgive those who nailed him to the cross, and insulted him as he hung dying. What do you learn about how Jesus could do this from the words Luke reports: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”? What spiritual and emotional growth do you need to move closer to Jesus’ model of forgiveness? What are the next steps for you in the challenging work of understanding all that is at play in your heart?

Family Activity: Gather your family for a prayer time and treat. Pass around a bag of M&Ms. Invite each person to take a handful. Explain that the colors of the candy will direct your family prayer time. Tell your family members that for each green M&M they chose, they can pray for one friend. For each red M&M, pray for a neighbor. For every orange one, pray for a teacher at school or church. For every yellow one, pray for a family member. For each


blue M&M, pray for a leader in our country or in the world. Pray one color at a time, letting each family member pray for whom he or she chooses. Celebrate by thanking God, and enjoy eating your M&Ms!

Theme: Forgiveness “Forgiving Others”

Sermon preached by Jeff Huber

May 23-24, 2015 at First United Methodist Church, Durango

Scripture: Matthew 18:15-17

15 “If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. 16 But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. 17 If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.

VIDEO Sermon Starter – Week 3

SLIDE Forgiving Others

Today we continue in our sermon series on forgiveness. I invite you to take out of your bulletin your message notes and meditation moments. The meditation moments are a chance for you to read the Bible on your own or the next week and go a bit deeper into what I will talk about today. You will find the Scripture text that we are using at the top of the message notes and a place for you to write things down and my prayer each week is that the Holy Spirit would touch your heart in some way during the service and there is a place for you to write down anything you might feel that is just for you. If you are watching at home or online you can download this resource right off our website but you could also just take out a pen and paper and write down things you would like to remember. Our staff prayed this week that this series of messages would speak to you as we gather for prayer time in the sanctuary because I’m guessing that everyone of us in this room have wrestled with this topic at some point in our lives.

As we begin I want to acknowledge that just about every sermon I preach, at least the ones I find compelling, are ones that I preach to myself first. I find that there are times when I feel like I have forgiven someone for something in the past and I let go, but then something comes up and I realize I still have those same old feelings and I need to forgive. Have you ever had that sensation? If so, then I hope


this sermon is for you and I hope it speaks to you as well is it has to me this week.

Let’s acknowledge up front that the withholding of forgiveness has negative consequences in just about every area of our life. If we are unwilling to offer forgiveness or we don’t know how, it affects our spiritual life and our relationship with God. This is why in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus encourages us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The idea is that if we don’t do this then our relationship with God is harmed. We also know that if we don’t learn how to forgive we can be at odds in our other relationships, both with the person with whom we are angry or bitter and also with others who are affected by the tension between ourselves and someone else.

We also know that withholding forgiveness affects our physical well-being. There have been numerous studies in the past few years which have made the correlation between holding onto bitterness and anger and hate and hurt and what it does to our bodies. It increases our stress levels and it sends more chemicals into the body from the brain than are supposed to be generated. The fight or flight mechanism gets triggered in our brain and it leads to higher blood pressure and cardiovascular problems along with muscular tension and a variety of other symptoms that are not good for our bodies. We can develop depression and anxiety which are physical manifestations of an unwillingness to forgive. This saying that I have reminded you of before is very true.

SLIDE When I am unwilling to forgive it is like drinking poison and hoping the other person gets sick or dies.

We inflict pain upon ourselves when we are unwilling to learn how to let go, which is a good reason, if nothing else, to talk about forgiveness and how we forgive others. Two weeks ago when we began this sermon series I used the metaphor of these stones and how they represent things that we hold onto in our lives, as well as what we try to inflict upon others who of hurt us. We’ve talked about the stones as being smaller and medium size and larger. Each of those represents a category of wound that we have inflicted upon ourselves or upon someone else.

GRAPHIC 0 Jeff and Rock

We are going to look at those categories again as well as the really big stones that become crushing. We can’t even pick them up by ourselves because they are so large. We are going to need help carrying those kinds of stones.

As we do that it will remind you of a word that we look at last week which


we don’t often like to talk about and that is, “sin.” Sin is an important word when we understand what it means. In the Hebrew Bible, the most commonly translated Hebrew word for sin means to stray from the path.

SLIDE sin = “to stray from the path”

SLIDE sin = “to miss the mark”

The Greek New Testament uses the word “hamartia” which is translated, “to miss the mark.” We talked about sin in this way a couple of weeks ago and I want to remind you of this diagram.

GRAPHIC 1 Sin line

Let me give you a simple line drawing of what this looks like. We have this path that is desired represented by this line with an arrow. This is what it means to be authentically human. We love others as we love ourselves and we do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with God and this is what it means to hit the mark or to stay on the path.

GRAPHIC 2 Sin with gap

We begin to stray off of that line in many different ways and as we stray from that path, we find an increasing gap or gulf that exists between the other or God and ourselves. This could happen in our marriages and in our families and in our relationships at work and in our relationship with God.

GRAPHIC 3 Sin with word

The further from that path we stray, we begin to do things that in essence erect a wall and caused the separation between us and God and us and each other.

GRAPHIC 4 Sin with wall

This is why John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, talked about sin is separation from God is separation from each other. We begin to feel that weight of separation over time and it takes a toll on our souls. This idea of separation, of string from the path and missing the mark, is what is meant to be captured with the word, “sin.”

We all sin and fall short when we recognize this definition because all of us stray from the path and missed the mark because we are human. We say things we wish we hadn’t said and we do things we wish we hadn’t done and we hurt others in that process. Sometimes we don’t say something we should have said or


we don’t do something we should have done and in the same way we missed the mark. Sometimes, when things happen which are not too serious, there is just a small gap which happens.

GRAPHIC 5 Small Gap

But then we overreact and we create this huge gap between ourselves and others, just by our reaction to the little things.

GRAPHIC 6 Big Gap

Our pride feels wounded or because we don’t understand where the other person was coming from or for a whole host of reasons, we take things too personally and we blow them out of proportion. We then find that we are the ones creating the separation. We have sinned and strayed from the path because part of the path is showing mercy and grace when it comes to the small stuff. We often make matters worse than they need to be because we can’t let go of the little things and then they become big things.

Let’s name a few of the small things. We get home from work and our spouse is short with us because they had a bad day. They take a tone and then we get wounded and pout or shout or whatever it is we do when we are offended and we make the gulf even worse. Or we recognize that they were having a bad day and it’s really not about us. We either hold onto it and make a big deal of it or we let it go. The choice is up to us.

We are driving down Florida Road, or on Main Avenue on our way to take kids to middle school or the high school, and someone cuts us off. We get all offended and huffy because they should respect the fact that we were on the road first and we need to get to where we need to be as well. They shouldn’t have waited until the last minute to take their kid to school because we would never do that. Isn’t that how it goes?

Most of you know that we have parking challenges on the weekend. Several years ago, one of our regular attending members approached me and said, “Pastor Jeff, you will never guess what happened to me today. I was waiting for a parking space and there was another woman who thought that should be her parking space. We both waited for the person to leave but I was to the right and once that person back out I zipped right in and the other person was mad. They laid into their horn and they gave me the universal sign of peace and goodwill.”


I told her it might’ve been a guest because people in our church know better than to give people “the bird” in the church parking lot and hopefully anywhere else. But I also very lovingly asked, “Why didn’t you just give them the parking space to begin with? Your long time follower of Jesus so why don’t you let them have it and you drive on by and find another place to park and look at it as an opportunity for exercise on a Sunday morning?”

This is the kind of stuff that happens in our daily lives and we liken it to these little rocks. This handful of rocks is like one day’s worth of events when someone at work stubs us or somebody hurts our feelings in some small way. We have to decide what we are going to do with this stuff but I think it’s these kinds of things that Peter was talking about when he asked Jesus a question in Matthew 18.

SLIDE 21 Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”

Can I get rid of seven rocks and hold on to the rest?

SLIDE 22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!”

Jesus is saying that we forgive these smaller things and infinite number of times. Our lives should be characterized by grace. How many of these kinds of sins do we commit on a regular basis, if were honest, and thought, word and deed by things we have done and things we have left undone? How many of these have we gathered by things we have said and left unsaid? If God was to hold all of those things against us, then who could stand?

We often do we live our lives by holding on to this handful of little rocks instead of letting them go. How many of these would I have in a month? I would have a ton of gravel that I was carrying around in my soul if I chose to hold on to every one of them until somebody asked for forgiveness. Many people who do things that hurt us aren’t even aware of what they did. They are not going to even think about asking for forgiveness which means we need to find the capacity to let go. Let me share with you a definition of forgiveness when it comes to these small rocks.

SLIDE Letting go of our right to retribution or revenge for the wrong done to us.

SLIDE Letting go of the right to get even.

There are lots of ways to begin to do this but one of the best I’ve heard is to


begin to RAP. RAP is an acronym for three things.

SLIDE Remember our own struggles

I find that when I’m struggling with forgiveness it’s usually because I have forgotten that I’m not perfect. When I feel that someone has offended me it really helps to pause and ask myself, “How many times have I done that in my life?” You might even make a list of the five things that you do that irritate other people and carry it around with you in your pocket for a while. If you are unsure of what those things are, then ask your spouse or your friends or your kids or your parents because I can guarantee you they will give you the list. It’s harder to be irritated with somebody else when we are aware of our own shortcomings and how we irritate others.

SLIDE Assume the best of the other person

We remember that we are not perfect and then we assume the best about other people. She probably had a tough day. Maybe he was in a hurry to get home because his kids were sick. If we assume the best rather than assuming the worst then we attribute to them the best possible motives for what they’ve done to us and it’s much easier to let things go.

SLIDE Pray for them

Jesus is constantly inviting his disciples to pray for those with whom they struggle. He encourages us in the Lord’s Prayer to pray for others. We can pray to let go of those little things that we are holding onto and we pray to bless them, even those who are wronged us, because it changes our hearts. I think about that great quote by CS Lewis who said.

SLIDE “I don’t pray because it changes God or others, but because it changes me.”

When we do this we find ourselves letting go of animosity and bitterness. When it comes to the bigger things that we often hold against others I would encourage you to add an “S” to the RAP.

SLIDE Seek to understand what shaped them

When we recognize what is shaped other people and why they do what they do it is sometimes much easier to let go of things and realize that is just the way they are and it’s really not that big of a deal.

The truth is that we have to grow in all of these things because they don’t


come naturally. We have to cultivate this attitude of grace and mercy towards other people which is what Jesus calls us to do as we grow in our faith. This is why Jesus tells us that our willingness to offer forgiveness is wrapped up inextricably with our relationship with God. This is what it means to become the presence of Jesus Christ in the world.

I think most of us get this but the hard part is working on it and living it. It becomes really challenging when you add in the medium and larger size rocks. I think about serious betrayals that were painful and we can let go of. I think about affairs and wrongful divorces, stealing and cheating, serious breaches of confidence that may be cost somebody their job. You could come up with many other examples I’m sure of ways that people have hurt you or you have heard others that are not just a little rocks but our medium and sometimes larger because they are serious deals in our lives.

We use this idea of a backpack which represents our soul and that we are carrying these things around inside of us. When somebody wrongs us in one of these ways that are bigger it becomes very harmful and we carry that weight with us for a while. We can’t just let it go when it is something that is so painful because we feel hurt, wounded and angry. But if we are unwilling to ever let go of those things and forgive them we just keep adding things to our backpack until it becomes unbearable and destructive. As we carry them around we realize that every part of our life becomes harder and we become weary. There is less joy we find ourselves winded spiritually, emotionally and physically because of the bitterness and resentment that we carry, hoping one day for satisfaction and maybe even a little bit of revenge.

So how will we let this stuff go? Over the course of my time as a pastor I have discovered there are three questions that are asked most often when it comes to forgiveness. Here’s the first question.

SLIDE Is forgiving the same as condoning?

If we forgive someone does that mean that we are saying that what they did which was wrong is okay? Most of us know the answer to that one intuitively, but we still need to ask the question. The answer to that question is simply, “No.” When we forgive we are simply letting go of the right to retribution or getting even. It doesn’t mean we approve of the behavior or that we let the behavior continue if it is harming us. It is about us setting aside the stones we have been carrying in our lives, but it does not mean we are saying what they did was okay.


It was not okay but we are not going to allow it to continue to affect us from here on out so that we keep carrying this burden. We are not going to hold it against them forever so it just sits in our soul and begins to rot.

The second most asked question is this one.

SLIDE Does forgiving dismiss consequences?

I think we probably know the answer to this question as well which is again, “No.” One of the ways that we talk about helping our children to learn is to experience natural consequences. When we get a ticket for driving too fast or because we run a red light, we are forgiven for that and we continue to be able to drive and have car insurance. However it also will probably mean that our car insurance will go up and we will have points against our license and those are consequences we still have to deal with. If our child decides not to study for a test they may get a bad grade and we can forgive them for that but they still will have to deal with the bad grade and the teacher and the consequences of school. Consequences are important for us to realize that there are boundaries in life. Consequences are often part of our own or the other person’s redemption.

The goal in the end is not punishment or consequences but redemption and restoration of the relationship. We want character to be built and something to be learned from those broken places in those times of sin where we find ourselves separated from God or from each other. The idea is that we would live our lives differently because of what we’ve experienced and it is what helps restore the relationship and bring us back.

There may be times when we give up the consequences. Somebody has wronged us and they are truly remorseful and we understand they may have already paid a price. We might be able to say, “You know what? It’s okay and we’re good. I forgive you and I’m not to worry about you making things right anymore. Let’s just let it go and move on.”

Sometimes that is the most redemptive thing to do but other times the consequences have to be dealt with and that is just life. That is how our criminal justice system works. It may be that somebody has wronged us and we are able to go and stand before the judge and ask for leniency for that person who wronged us. We can tell the judge that we forgive them and we believe they have paid the price and they really get it and we want the judge to go easy on them. The judge may lower the sentence because of that but there often still is some kind of consequence for the action. Showing mercy is not the same as giving up all


consequences.

The final question is maybe the more profound one. This is the question I get most often from people about forgiveness.

SLIDE Do we forgive even if the other person doesn’t ask for forgiveness or think they did anything wrong?

Sometimes they don’t know they did something wrong and sometimes that may have not have done nothing wrong but we just felt hurt. But maybe they did the wrong thing and even knew it and then never once acknowledged it or said they were sorry. What do we do then?

The process of asking for forgiveness best happens in concert with what we call repentance in the Bible. Repentance has four aspects to it.

SLIDE Awareness of the wrong that has been done

We are aware that we hurt someone. There was pain and we want to make things right we see it and we own it.

SLIDE Regret for the pain or harm caused

We personally feel sorry for what we’ve done. We wish we had not done it and we want to turn around and go in a new direction.

SLIDE Confession

I actually go to the person and I say to them, “I know I hurt you in this and I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you and I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I want us to be restored. Please, could you forgive me?”

Most of us get those first three steps but it’s the last one which is the hardest and that is to change.

SLIDE Change

We actually decide we are not going to do that thing again because we know it brought pain to someone else and we will not do it again. Sometimes we change a bit and then we struggle and we go back. It’s like one step forward and two steps back and then four steps forward and then two steps back. In the end, true repentance will show some measure of change towards the goal of hitting the mark and getting back on the path and restoring the relationship.

What happens if someone doesn’t change or there is not true repentance? With the small stones it’s not too challenging, but with the larger stones and the


medium-sized stones it becomes difficult sometimes.

I want to suggest that if someone hasn’t repented and they don’t seem like they will ever repent and ask for forgiveness, in one sense we have to forgive otherwise their lack of repentance continues to punish us. We continue to carry that pain for the rest of our lives. Will we continue to carry the backpack and punish ourselves because the other person hasn’t repented? No, we need to set that free so we can let it go.

But there also is a sense that we don’t extend mercy to a person when they haven’t acknowledged their need for it in some cases. There are really two levels of forgiveness in some ways. The first level happens inside of our heart as we let go of our right for retribution or getting even. We want to let go of the anger and they hate so we no longer carry it with us. It doesn’t happen instantaneously. If we have one of these large stones committed against us, most of us don’t have it in us to immediately let it go. It takes time and prayer. It takes remembering our own shortcomings and an assumption about the other person’s good qualities. It takes prayer and seeking to understand why the other person might’ve done this thing.

Many years ago in my previous church I had a family who had done something I thought was very painful towards me. They didn’t feel the same way at all and really felt like I got what I deserved. They were in worship every week and I had to see them every time I got to preach and it was really challenging to speak about love and grace when I was feeling this anger towards these folks that was creating a wall. I began to think about what I would tell someone if they had asked me what to do if they had this problem. I realized that I would tell them they should pray for that person regularly. What do you pray for in those moments? I didn’t pray for them to become Baptists or to move even though that’s how I felt! I did pray and ask God to help me to love them and let go. I prayed God’s blessings upon them, even though they had hurt me, and when I began to do that I did it with my jaws clenched and I don’t think I really meant it. But I said them anyway in the hopes that what I would say in my head would begin to move to my heart.

I pray for the family every day for months and I prayed twice on Sundays. I pray that God would help me to see them as people in need of care and that I could love them in some way. I asked God to help me let go. I have a confession to make. It didn’t work. I kept carrying that with me and one day I looked at them in worship and I heard God clearly say to me, “It’s time for you to go. You can’t


keep doing this to yourself or to them.”

Not long after that I was asked to move to Durango and I was so ready to leave that place that I was just hoping I could forget about it all and move on. But you know what? It followed me here to. They didn’t follow me here, but my heart did and it was still in not a good place. My blood pressure was still up and even when I was in worship here I would see them sitting there it was crazy. I realized the issue is me and not them and I kept praying for them and then one day, the next June when I was at our annual conference in Denver I saw them in my heart genuinely went out to them, hoping the best. Time and distance helped, but it was prayer and asking God to remove it from my heart that was the most important. I felt something physical in me as that blockage broke open. I could physically feel the fact at that moment and I let go. I would say that is a medium-sized rock compared to the really big ones.

The truth is that if we don’t let those things go then we are the ones still carrying around the backpack and we are the ones that are suffering. We have to forgive in that way or we carry stuff. We forgive so that we can love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength and we can love others. We can’t really love God and love others without forgiving and letting go.

But what about reconciling with others when they refuse to admit they have done wrong? If we forgive them are we reconciled? The answer is, “No.”

On December 1, 1997 Michael Carneal wrapped a shotgun and a rifle in a blanket and took them to Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, passing them off as an art project he was working on. He also carried a loaded Ruger MK II .22-caliber pistol in his backpack. Carneal rode to school with his sister and arrived at approximately 7:45 a.m. When he arrived, he inserted earplugs and took the pistol out of his bag. He fired eight rounds in fast succession at a youth prayer group. Three girls died while hospitalized and five others were wounded.

A member of the prayer group, Benjamin Strong, testified that Carneal dropped the gun of his own accord when he was finished. Carneal placed his pistol on the ground and surrendered to the school principal, Bill Bond. After dropping the gun, Carneal said to Strong: "Kill me, please. I can't believe I did that."

The next day, with the national media spotlight upon them, members of the prayer group gathered again and held up a sign. They wanted to be a witness to what they felt Jesus would do in that situation and their sign read, “Michael,


we forgive you.” At that point Michael had killed three kids in their school and had not asked for forgiveness. He probably had no idea of the magnitude of what he had done and had not even come to grips with the reality of the situation.

Offering him mercy did not help him nor would it help those who were wounded in their healing. Remember that the goal of forgiveness is redemption of the other person. In the end we want to see them redeemed but if we offer mercy before they even understand the need it, then the message that we send is that what they did was not that big of a deal. There are times where, for our own salvation, we need to know that something was a big deal and we need to feel the wall that we created there for a period of time before we initiate going to break it down. At some point, we do have to let it go, especially if they never ask for mercy, but we have to be aware of offering false forgiveness when we offer mercy too soon and it actually keeps them from redemption.

Later at trial it was revealed that Michael suffered from paranoia and schizophrenia and he had been bullied most of high school. In situations like that there are layers of forgiveness and it is a bit more complex than simply holding up a sign, even though it’s done with good intentions.

I grew up in a home with a violent stepfather who was an alcoholic. We had a pattern that we went through in our home where he would get drunk and do all kinds of violent things that included physical and verbal abuse. He would then sober up and he was wonderful when he wasn’t drunk and so we would go back because that’s what Christians do and that’s how mercy works. He seemingly would have repented but a month later we would go to the same pattern again. There was mercy but there was no real change and we became enablers of this destructive pattern in a relationship. We have to recognize that there are places where mercy is extended and it shouldn’t yet be given because it puts people in harm’s way.

There are times where you might give mercy before the person has even asked because that might lead to redemption. The greatest example of that is Jesus, hanging on the cross, and as he looks at the people who put them there he prays, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” We know that story because there was a Roman soldier at the foot of the cross who heard those words and said, “Surely, this was the son of God.” We know that story because that soldier found redemption by receiving mercy before he even knew to ask.


It’s tricky to know when to extend that mercy if someone hasn’t asked for it and how that will lead them to repentance, versus when you hold back because you want to see them come to repentance and they need to feel the weight of their actions.

Jesus speaks to how we are to treat each other when someone hasn’t asked for repentance and we feel like we have been wronged. In these are words that we use here in our church when we talk about resolving conflict. These words also come from Matthew 18.

SLIDE 15 “If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back.

Notice that it doesn’t say to go and tell your whole small group what a terrible person someone is when they do something that causes you hurt. He tells us to go directly to the person who wronged us and talk to them directly instead of being passive-aggressive. Otherwise, we become a gossip and we stray from the path and just make the gap even wider.

Notice it is about redemption and reconciliation because if that person listens and recognizes their part in it there is reconnection. We go directly and we might even assume they didn’t even know or understand what they were doing and how it hurt us, but we are honest that it hurts and we tell them how we feel like we are carrying bricks around ever since that. Then they have hurt us and they didn’t even mean it. Let me give you a phrase that’s really helpful when you are approaching someone about something that they have done which hurts you. At some point in the conversation it’s helpful to use this phrase.

SLIDE Can you help me to understand?

When we go to someone directly like this they can either say, “I am so sorry. I had no idea. Would you please forgive me?” If that happens then there is restoration.

But what do we do if they say, “I don’t care how you feel. I was in the right and you were in the wrong and there’s the door. Don’t let it hit you as you walk out.” If that happens, Jesus goes on to say what we should do next.

SLIDE 16 But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses.


Remember that the church back then was a group of 12 or 20 but certainly not several hundred. We take one or two people with us because the truth is that we may be in the wrong and we can’t even see it and so we get someone else who can hopefully see with different eyes. It’s clear that there is a one person who is really in the wrong and they refuse to see it and they simply say, “I don’t care what anybody else says. Many keep doing this thing and I don’t care who it hurts,” then we go to the next step.

SLIDE 17 If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.

If this person keeps hurting other people and shows no sign of remorse or repentance, even when confronted by a group of people who love and care about them, then you put them out of the church because they are actively hurting other people. This seems rather harsh until you pay close attention to the last few words of verse 17. Here’s the kicker. Notice that Jesus says we should treat them like a pagan or a corrupt tax collector. Who did Jesus spend most of his time with? He spent most of his time with tax collectors and pagans and notorious sinners.

Jesus is not saying that when they have hurt us we put them out of the group and we treat them terribly. He’s saying that we treat them like people who need redemption. We keep loving them but we love them differently because we know they will keep hurting us until they have a change of heart.

Many years ago, when I first started in ministry, I had a friend and colleague who had an inappropriate relationship with a woman in his congregation. When he was confronted by someone he told them it wasn’t a big deal. He was then confronted by several clergy colleagues and finally by the Bishop. He was removed from ministry but we assigned several pastors to keep in contact with him and love him and try to help him find a new career. We did our best to love them but he had lost the privilege of being a pastor, especially because he couldn’t see why this was a problem.

The apostle Paul quotes Proverbs 25 in Romans 12.

SLIDE 17 Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. 18 Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. 19 Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay


them back,” says the Lord.

20 Instead, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.” 21 Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

The old model and the model that most of us live by in today’s world is called lex talionis, the principle or law of retaliation that a punishment inflicted should correspond in degree and kind to the offense of the wrongdoer, as an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; retributive justice. The reason this became the rule of law was to make sure there wasn’t over retaliation, where if someone took out your eye you would try to take off your head. Instead you could only take their eye so things were square and even. You take away my eyesight and then I will take away your eyesight and then will be even.

If we’re honest, that’s what most of us want, isn’t it? We want to be square and even. We want everything to be fair and that means the other person has to experience everything we experience. So what I want to be sure and do is make sure that if you have hurt me that the rocks in your backpack are equal to the ones in my backpack. I want you to carry your weight. We’re going to get even by each one of us carrying a big bag of rocks.

But Jesus said that this kind of rule doesn’t heal anything. We see that with the Palestinians and the Israelis, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If you hurt me that I will hurt you and will be even and will feel better after that. Do we feel better after that? Maybe four-minute we do, but long-term it doesn’t work.

This is why Jesus and the apostle Paul talk about loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us, not being overcome by evil, but overcoming evil with good.

GRAPHIC 0 Jeff and Rock

I wanted to bring that rock in with me as a sermon illustration but it was just too heavy and it would’ve crushed the cart and taken several strong people just to get it in the building. There are things in our lives which happen which are like this and I pray to God they don’t happen to you.

On February 12th, 1993 Mary Johnson’s only son Laramiun was killed by four gunshots, during a gang related altercation. During a police investigation, 16 year old Oshea Isreal, confessed to killing Laramiun. After two years of hearing


and appeals, he was tried as an adult and convicted of 2nd degree murder. Mary addressed him during her impact statement in court.

“I said, ‘You know what, if my son had taken your life, I would expect him to have to pay the cost,’ Mary said. “And then I ended up telling him that I forgave him. The Word says in order to be forgiven, you must forgive. So I said, ‘Okay, I have to tell him.’ But I wanted him locked up, caged, because he was an animal and that is what he deserved.”

Oshea was sentenced to 25 years in prison. “The grieving process, I think it began for me, after the trial,” Mary said, “wave after wave after wave--the tsunami--of just ‘stuff.’ Hatred. Here I am a Christian woman and I hated this 16 year old boy. And I never ever thought I would be put back together.”

After the trial, Mary went through the motions of life. She visited friends and stayed active in her church. But it would be ten long years before her emotional turmoil would end. In 2004, her pastor asked her to teach a class on forgiveness. As the studied the class book, Mary says she took a hard look at her heart.

“I’m hearing, ‘Mary, you need to repent. You need to repent for all these things that you’ve said about this young man. All these feelings that you’ve had for him,’ And, I’m like [puffs] ‘I have a right to have these feelings.’”

“Then I heard, ‘Mary, pray for him like you pray for yourself,’ I’m praying for him!

‘Okay,’ so I prayed for him like I pray for myself. Then I heard, ‘Every time his name comes up, every time you hear it within yourself, say, ‘I choose to forgive.’ So, I repented and I really believe it was a true repentance. It was for real. It was for real.”

As Mary started to change, so did the person she was praying for.

“I started coming into myself,” Oshea Isreal said. “I started maturing. With maturity, I decided that I wanted to hold myself accountable and be responsible for my actions”

In 2005, Mary took another courageous step toward healing. She contacted the department of corrections and requested a face to face meeting with Oshea.

“I have to make sure I have truly forgiven him, that I don’t have all that hatred,”


Mary said.

“I can honestly say that from the moment I walked in the room, the energy level was like, peaceful,” Oshea said.

“We had a conversation; he admitted what he had done. He told me that if he could have communicated that night, things would have been different,” Mary said.

“She asked a lot of questions about myself and my life and it showed that she was interested in getting to know the person,” Oshea said.

“I said ‘Look, I told you in court that I forgave you. But today, from the bottom of my heart I want you to know that I forgive you,’ Mary said. “And he was like, ‘Ma’am how can you do that?’ I said, ‘Because of Who is in me.’”

“I felt like it was a very powerful and moving meeting,” Oshea said. “I felt extremely compelled to ask her, ‘May I give you a hug?’ to show her my genuineness.”

Mary said, “I do remember falling, and he had to hold me. He had to hold me up, until I felt this ‘thing’ leave me. And I instantly knew that all that hatred, the bitterness, the animosity, all that junk I had inside me for 12 years, I knew it was over with. It was done. Instantly, it was gone.”

Mary and Oshea continued to meet and they eventually began speaking in prisons about forgiveness and reconciliation. “The more and more we spoke, the more and more our bond started to grow,” Oshea said. “And, Mary has turned into one of my biggest supporters. She worries about me even when I’m not worried about myself. And that is something a mother does.”

VIDEO Mary and Oshea

Oshea was released from prison in 2010, and Mary arranged his homecoming party. “I walked in and saw all of these people that I didn’t know, w ho only knew of me because of the pain and the hurt I caused. But I walk in and get hugs. I walk in and get smiles,” Oshea said. “That is another part of the forgiveness, the community forgave me, her friends were able to forgive me.”

Today, Oshea and Mary are next door neighbors. They speak all over the country about the power of forgiveness. “I am so grateful for who I am today in God, that I am not that person that I used to be, full of all that junk,” Mary said.

“Being on the other side of forgiveness is important in my life because it


made me free enough to be myself,” Oshea said. “I can really live and enjoy life. I can enjoy people. I can enjoy being home, I can enjoy laughing. Outside of that, I’ve got a huge family now.”

“Unforgiveness is a dangerous thing and I tell you when you allow the Holy Spirit to release you…oh my! What freedom! What freedom there is!” Mary said. “You’ll be amazed at where you’ll be in your life.”

The only way to deal with those big rocks is to chip away at them because they don’t go away in a day or week or month or even years. Little by little, we chip away at the rock one chunk at a time. We pray and we remember that we are not perfect. We pray we try to see them as God sees them.

I’m not sure if you have big rocks like this in your life, but every one of us has hurt someone at some point. They are carrying around rocks in their backpack with our name on them. Can you think of someone from whom we need to ask forgiveness? Would you help them let go of the stones this week? Just write their name down on your meditation moments. Would you pray for that person and ask God to bless and heal them? You might pray for God to give you the right words to express remorse to them and help them to let go of those stones?

Is there someone you need to pray for because you are carrying around their stones and it’s killing you? You’ve got to let go and maybe even go talk to them as Jesus prescribed. Write down their name on your meditation moments. Guessing most of us can think of someone who’s hurt us in the past. Maybe you thought you had dealt with them but you’re still carrying them around. Would you simply pray for God to bless that person right now and help you let go? Ask God to help you to forgive?

All of us have been keeping track of those small stones and it’s time to let them go.

SLIDE Communion

Lord, you know every one of us in this room, you know the places where we have hurt others that we might not even remember. You know those who have hurt us. God, please redeem us and save us. Redeem and save those who have hurt us. Bring healing and reconciliation in our lives. Help us to be set free and to long to set others free, that we might with joy walk the path you have laid before us. In your holy name we pray. Amen.

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