Today, at Middlefield, we traveled down the road of forgiveness. We've been looking at how being in the Kingdom of God can be a little Upside-down, and forgiveness is definitely one of those upside-down acts.
After the Cival War, President Lincoln said, "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" These were powerful words for our country and Lincoln did amazing things in his time. We can be inspired by Lincoln's words, not to destroy our enemies, but to end the cycle of retalliation. To rise above our human instinct to get completely even and see with different eyes is a huge step in forgiveness. Often, it is one of the most difficult things for us to do!
To understand all of the depths of injustice and forgiveness is a deep and winding road. Our scripture on Sunday pushes us one step closer to understanding this upside-down perspective.
In our scripture today we focused are thoughts on Matthew 18:23-35, the parable of the unmerciful servant... A servant is forgiven of his enormous debt by a king but the servant will not forgive someone's debt to him, which is minor in comparison. The writer tells us that if we can not forgive, then we will not be forgiven as well.
This parable is a difficult one to reconcile with the larger picture of the Christian journey. We learn of the forgiveness on the cross and we understand that our journey is to accept, trust and surrender to this forgiveness. However, in this parable, we hear a nuance to this forgiveness. We are told that we must, taken action ourselves, to forgive others, in order to receive this forgiveness.
At first glance, we are pushed to look at forgiveness with a transactional mindset. We must make the first step before we can receive forgiveness from God. It feels like God is only taking action when we firstly take the step of forgiveness.
It seems like God is being conditional with forgiveness.
But something else is going on.
Tasting the fruits of forgivness from God, when we really do this, is an experience like none other. When we believe and have trust in our savior, we relinquish the burdens of our iniquities, our failures. We learn that Jesus has let go of our failures and we rest, truly finding peace from our pain.
Once this forgiveness is tasted, and truly indwelt, what happens next? Often this is a huge question for many new believers and it is one that has many layers. The main emphasis, still, is for us to live a Christ like life. We are to model our lives like Christ, praying, meditating and learning about how that looks.
So, if we are taking after Jesus, how can we not forgive ourselves? God has washed us with such a heavenly blessing of freedom in His grace, how can we do anything else than free others as we were freed?
If we are lacking forgiveness in our own hearts, holding onto the pains of this life like a hammer over another, than are we truly following Christ?
More than anything, I see Jesus pointing us to a deeper conviction of what it means to follow Him. The journey for Jesus was amazing, forgiving people like Judas must have been difficult. Still, by living into the love of Jesus, we can let our burdens go. We can forgive.
Often, pain filled moments like abuse, betrayal, neglect and oppression seem like insurmountable moments to our forgiveness. We want justice for such horrible moments. But God is calling us to something else...something so much more beautiful with a justice infused by God.
Imagine what it would have been like if Lincoln would have held every person of the South accountable for the trials of the Civil War. What if we would have been blinded to forgiveness, allowing his pain to fester and over ride his decision making? Without forgiveness, would our country have ever been able to make it past such dire moments?
We are challenged by Matthew 18. In our world, it is so easy to get caught up in a perspective of equality of pain, getting even wherever we can. Jesus points in another direction and our journey is to walk down that path.
Grace and Peace,
Micah
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I'm involved in a small group study and we are in the middle of a study on forgiveness. We are using a book by Philip Yancy, titled "What's So Amazing About Grace?" Well, I'll tell you. It's more than amazing! His grace is there for anyone who wants it. His arms are opened wide and ready to embrace you with His Almighty Grace. That's the easy part - running into His arms. What we're learning in our group is, the hard part is being able to forgive those who have wronged us, hurt us, and angered us. We have shared many personal experiences about forgiveness. My own story on forgiveness is about forgiving someone close in my family who hurt me very deeply. She still, to this day (8 years later) has never asked for forgiveness or has even said she was sorry. I forgave her a couple years ago at a family get together. (I was at the beginning of my journey with God then, and I knew it was a big step I needed to take in order to continue the journey without this big obstacle in my way.) All I did was, instead of saying good-bye to her when I was leaving, I hugged her and said "I love you". What a difference it has made in my life and all those around me. I beleive she knows I've forgiven her, even though nothing has been said. But even if she never acknowledged "it", it wouldn't matter to me. Yancy say's in his book, "How can we not forgive each other in light of all God has forgiven us?" I'm a sinner and I am so AMAZINGLY thankful for HIS Grace!. Thanks for letting me share. Kar.
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