In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: We have no right to be unforgiving. Now, the other person may not respond to our forgiving spirit. You and I can't make somebody else change, but we can be forgiving no matter what. It is the will of God that you and I be forgiving toward those who wrong us, toward those who say things or act toward us in a way that is unchristlike. We cannot justify an ungodly spirit. Now, the question comes, why is it that you and I fail to forgive other people when they wrong us?

Guest (Male): What is humanity's greatest need? Peace? Economic stability? Maybe something more like basic food or shelter? Welcome to In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Today's lesson shows us how God meets our deepest need through Christ. Stay with us and learn how to receive and give the gift of forgiveness.

Dr. Charles Stanley: When someone wrongs you either by some slanderous statement or by some action, what is your response? Maybe what of these two responses best fit you? Well, you get angry and your first response is, "How can I retaliate?" or "How can I get back at them?" Or would your response be, "What gift could I give that person?" What is the biblical response to those who wrong us? The biblical response is the second one, that is, what gift can I give to that other person?

So, what I want to talk about in this message is the gift of forgiveness. I want you to turn, if you will, to Ephesians chapter four. Paul, in this Ephesians chapter, is talking about some things that do not fit who we are as believers. In fact, in the first three chapters, he's talking about who we are in Christ and what our position is in him. And then in the last three chapters, he's talking about how we ought to behave, that is, how we ought to practice who we are in Christ Jesus.

I want you to begin, if you will, in the 29th verse. One of the things he says here, he says, "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear." And then he makes a statement that most of us know this one by heart. He says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."

Then here's what he says. "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." Now, if our first response to someone who wrongs us is anger and bitterness and hostility, then what he says here, "Let all bitterness," that is a feeling of intense animosity toward someone, "bitterness."

Then he says "wrath," that is, that's anger with real aggressiveness. And anger and clamor with real loud protest toward someone. Slander, that is with the desire or intention to really injure someone else. He says let all that be put away from you with all malice, that is statements that you intend to damage someone's reputation or their occupation or whatever it might be. So he says none of these things fit who we are as believers.

And then he takes the very opposite. He says, "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven you." Well, when I think about God, I think about this truth. That is, that forgiveness is the gift of God to every single person. And if you'll think about it for a moment, the Bible says over and over again in different ways that when you and I sin against God, that's exactly who we sin against. We sin against God.

Now, we may sin against someone else by something we do or something we say, but in essence, we sin against God. You and I cannot sin against someone else without sinning against God. And so the Bible says that he's given us the decree that the soul that sinneth it shall die. You say, "Well, that looks like to me that was awfully difficult and awfully hard for God to make such a decree as that."

But what we have to ask is, "What was his goal?" His goal was to create a kingdom of holy people. And therefore he says, "Be ye holy, even as I am holy." And therefore he laid down the law immediately that because sin is against God, there is an awesome penalty for sin. And therefore God in his love, motivated by his love, he says that he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

Motivated by love and knowing that all of us have sinned against him, he says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's none righteous, no, not one." All of us have indebted ourselves to God because of our sin. That is, we have sinned against Almighty God. We have violated his law and therefore we have to be dealt with. And so either we will pay the penalty of our sin, which he says ultimately is eternal death, or someone else will pay that penalty.

Well, God in his wonderful loving forgiving spirit chose not to make all of us pay the penalty. The cross is God's statement to the world that in our sinfulness against him, in our obligation to repay this debt to him, he has chosen to pay this debt in our behalf by sending his only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The moment a person receives Christ as their Savior, the Bible says that debt has been canceled and we are from that moment on free from the penalty of our sin.

And therefore God no longer holds it against us. He doesn't hold our sin against us any longer. He sets us free. He liberates us from the penalty of it. He liberates us from the power of it so that you and I can feel accepted in the eyes of God. Now, whether we feel accepted or not is not even the issue. The issue is we are. What makes it acceptable? Even though we have sinned against him, we are indebted to him.

He says, "I have canceled that debt through the death of my Son, the Lord Jesus." And so therefore, you and I have the privilege of saying and knowing that we're accepted in the eyes of God not on the basis of behavior, but on the basis of what Jesus Christ did at Calvary. And so the question is, "How do we respond when people wrong us?" Well, how did God respond to you and me?

He responded to us by saying that he's given his only begotten Son and that Son's blood would atone for all of our sin: past, present, and future. Which means that now you and I serve a God who says forgiven, forgiven, forgiven. And one of the difficulties some people have with that is they think, "Well, now, you just can't say, 'Well, God forgive me and I'm sorry and therefore I'm forgiven.'"

They look at the awfulness of their sin and then they say, "Well, I've got to do more than just ask God to forgive me." Well, what you look at is once you look at your sin, the next thing you look at is what? What is the next thing you look at after you look at your sin? The cross. Then you understand why God can say forgiven. Not forgiven if, not forgiven when, not forgiven when you do the following things, but forgiven by the grace of God. God's goodness and kindness toward us.

Therefore, forgiveness is God's gift and his offer to anyone and everyone who's willing to receive it. The second question is this: "Then what is my gift to those who wrong me?" The only legitimate gift I can give, the only legitimate response to those who wrong me is to be forgiving toward them even as God has forgiven us. Now, listen to what he said in this verse, 32.

He says, "And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other. How? Just as God. How? In Christ Jesus through the cross also has forgiven you." So what I want us to look at here is how we're to respond to those who wrong us. And as the gift of forgiveness given by God is given to all of us, the only legitimate response I can have toward those who wrong me is to give the gift of forgiveness toward them even as he has forgiven me.

Now, you think about this. You say, "Well, I can be forgiving up to a point." What point did God stop forgiving us? There is no point. You see, the truth is there are no limitations. I can't say, "I'm willing to forgive you except. I'm willing to forgive you when. I'm willing to forgive you but. I'm willing to forgive you if." None of those fit the life of the believer who is indwelt with the person of Jesus Christ in whom we are following.

Everybody gets hurt at some point in their life and sometimes those hurts are very, very painful and sometimes they go on a long time and sometimes they become intense. And oftentimes you and I can look at someone else and say, "Well, I don't know why you're not forgiving." And often if we walked in their shoes, we'd understand why it may be that that person, maybe in their spiritual walk at this point in their life, maybe in their sense of maturity, where they are in their spiritual life, maybe they don't understand the Word of God.

They don't understand the fact that Jesus is living on the inside of them and so they wrestle and they struggle being able to be forgiving. And so for them, it's very difficult sometimes. There are no limitations on what you and I must forgive. And so God doesn't say to you and me, "Now, when you if you'll spend the next 20 years of your life serving me and if you'll give so much money each year, then at the end of those 20 years you'll be forgiven."

God makes no requirement of work on your part and my part. That is, God nowhere says pay me back. Now, listen to this. If you withhold forgiveness from anyone for anything, what you are saying is, "I'll forgive you when you pay me back." That is absolutely totally unscriptural. Forgiveness is being willing to free that person, release them from whatever they've done to you, no matter what, no conditions.

Because you see, some people are not going to ever come to you and say, "I'm sorry." Some people are not going to ever come to you and say, "I need to ask you for forgiveness." Some folks will never say, "I wronged you." Some people will never be able to do that. And so what you have to decide is this, "Am I going to live with this something in my heart toward that person because they don't pay me back?"

So, a payback is not forgiveness. That's not real forgiveness. That is requiring someone to earn your forgiveness. That is not giving them the gift of forgiveness. You say, "Well, but you don't know how I've been mistreated." You know what I've discovered? That no matter how much you and I may feel we've been mistreated, there are other folks out there who've been treated a whole lot worse than we have. A whole lot worse than we have.

There is no way to justify an unforgiving spirit. And yet, many Christians do that all the time. We have no right to be unforgiving. Now, the other person may not respond to our forgiving spirit. You and I can't make somebody else change, but we can be forgiving no matter what. It is the will of God that you and I be forgiving toward those who wrong us, toward those who say things or act toward us in a way that is unbecoming, unchristlike.

We cannot justify an ungodly spirit. Now, the question comes, why is it that you and I fail to forgive other people when they wrong us? Why do we fail to do it? You say, "Well, it's because of what they did." No, not really. That's not the real reason. One of the reasons we are not willing to release that other person, don't hold it against them anymore, one of the primary reasons is pride on our part. "You did that to me, you owe me back."

Isn't it interesting that God never said that? This is why this phrase is so important: "just as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven you." He didn't ask for a payback. And therefore, I don't have a right to ask for a payback. A second reason I think people are unforgiving is because something happens in their life and somehow in that situation, they get stuck.

They think it's so bad or it's so evil or it's so unkind, somehow it's like they get stuck. They just can't get out of it. And what happens is the more they think about it, the worse it becomes and the more stuck they feel. And after a while, they just can't move. They're just stuck in the sense of bitterness: this intense anger, this intense animosity, these feelings.

And you see, all of us can take any anthill and build a Mount Everest out of it if we want to. If we choose to feel that way toward other people. But he says, "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven us." And so some people get stuck. A third reason I think people are unforgiving is they can't look ahead.

They're always looking back, always counting the things that have been done to them, always evaluating, weighing how people have treated them. And somehow they can't make that 180-degree turn and look ahead to think about what does God think of me? You see, the truth is, no matter what somebody thinks of us, no matter what someone does to us, the issue is, "What does God think of us?"

He loves us. How does he treat us? He loves us. Why does he allow these things to happen to us? Because he sees that in allowing these things to happen, he's going to build character. He's going to mold us. He's going to work into our lives those character traits that he's looking for in life. And so even the things that God allows that are hurtful and painful and sometimes shameful to us, what is God doing?

He is molding and sanding and sifting and working in our life those things that he knows will make us Christlike. One of the reasons some people can't forgive is because they don't deal with it early enough. Now, we said in the very beginning, it would be easy for us to say to someone who maybe has wronged us that we don't know about, they come to us and say, "I need to ask you to forgive me for what I've done, what I've said, so forth."

Now, if we didn't feel the hurt, it's real easy. But now suppose we do feel the hurt. Suppose it's extremely painful. I mean, it just penetrates all the way down to the depths of our sense of worth and being and appreciation for ourselves and I mean, it just hits us on the blind side hard. Then how do we respond? Well, if we don't go to God immediately, if we don't respond immediately, here's what's going to happen.

That little bit of hurt is going to develop into some anger. And the more that anger sets there and lodges there, the more like bitterness it's going to smell. And before long, that anger is going to become bitterness. And if we don't deal with it, before long that bitterness is going to get very aggressive and it's going to become hostility. And before long that hostility is going to begin to express itself in some form of vengeance toward the other person, to take something out on them or in some way to injure the other person.

And this is why it's so very important when our children grow up that we keep dealing with those situations and circumstances in life. Because if we don't deal with them the best we know how and say, "Well, look, if I've wronged you, if I've done this or I did do this, please forgive me here," whatever it might be, they grow up. And they grow up seething on the inside of them, this bitterness, this anxiety, this turmoil on the inside.

So they're miserable and they make everybody else miserable. Why? Because there's something they either don't know how to deal with or don't want to deal with. My friend, there's not a single one of us who has the right to make somebody else pay the price. We cannot do it. No matter how they respond, we can't make them pay the price.

That becomes hatred. And the two forms of hatred: passive hatred, which says, "I don't want to be around you. I don't like you. Stay out of my way." And then there's that aggressive hatred that says, "I'm going to get you one way or the other. I'm going to pay you back." And that's what this nation is full of, angry people who want to pay somebody back.

And that's where the whole legal system is making billions and billions and billions of dollars. Why? People want to get somebody to pay them back. Wanting to make them pay somehow. But he said, "Be ye kind, tenderhearted one toward another, forgiving each other even as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven us." There are lots of reasons that people live with this molten volcano of anger and bitterness and hostility brewing on the inside of them.

And you know what happens? After a while, if a person doesn't deal with it, after a while, here's what happens. They become—now watch this word—they become so comfortable at first. Some people get comfortable. Some people become so acclimated to that atmosphere within themselves, they don't even want to change. It's not that they like it, they just don't want to change because it's what they have become accustomed to.

Waking up feeling angry, living their life feeling angry, expressing their bitterness on people. And you'll hear people say, "Well, you know, I just have a temper, that's the way God made me." No, he didn't. Don't blame God for that. God didn't make us bitter, he didn't make us resentful, and he didn't give us this hot-tempered attitude. God doesn't do any of those things. He says, "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven us."

So when I look at that passage and ask the question, how is it that a person can say, "Yes, I know that I ought to be forgiving, but I'm here to tell you you don't know what's happened to me." The truth is, listen, when somebody tells you that, it doesn't make any difference. No person has the right to hold, demand, require payment back for wrong done to them if that person is a believer. They cannot make that requirement.

And here's the tragedy oftentimes. When we may say something to someone or do something that really isn't really all that harsh or bad, it may be a mistake or something we say off the cuff, sometimes their response toward us, they're not responding to you and me. They're responding to some other incident someone else in their life that they can't get to.

Maybe they've already died. Maybe somebody lives somewhere else, moved away. They can't get to them. They never settled it while they could get to them. And so what happens? They're going to express it on someone else. And this is the tragedy. This is the tragedy of growing up in a home, for example. Let's say a father or a mother were terribly mistreated.

The children come along and the parents mistreat that child, not because of what the child does, but because they can't get back to their parents who've already died. And so what do they do? They project on these innocent children their venom, their anger, their hostility, their bitterness, their resentment because the way they were treated, the way they were mistreated back there, the way they were abused.

And so these kids grow up thinking, "Why do you treat me this way?" Then they get angry. So their parents die. So what do they do? They come along and do the same thing to their children. And so generation after generation of children grow up angry and bitter and hostile and acting out ways that we think, "What in the world is going on inside of them?" because it was handed down. And friend, we can hand it down unless we shut it down somewhere in our life.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. The cycle of bitterness, anger, and unforgiveness can be broken. And if you're a Christian, it can begin with you. A look at the cross reminds us that we have no right to harbor an unforgiving spirit. You can hear this message again at Today on Radio on our website, intouch.org, and look around to learn more about God's offer of forgiveness.

If you go to our online store, you can order a copy of today's complete message, The Gift of Forgiveness. Again, that's intouch.org. To call or text, it's 1-800-IN-TOUCH. You can write to us at In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia 30357. Have you ever wondered if you've done something to make God reject you? Today's moment with Charles Stanley is coming up.

There is an inexplicable joy that comes from understanding scripture and learning how to apply it in our own life. The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible includes 30 foundational truths that Dr. Stanley has learned from over 60 years of ministry. It's available in the New King James Version, New International Version, the King James Version, and New American Standard Bible version. To order, call 1-800-IN-TOUCH or go to intouch.org/store.

We've all experienced seasons of loss, times when we are thriving and moments when things seem to fall apart. These stages can often leave us feeling unsure of how to move forward, needing to rebuild. The In Touch Rebuild workbook is a resource that will help you rebuild and form a life of sustaining faith and intimacy with God. Begin your journey today. Visit intouch.org/rebuild.

From the Pastor's Heart is an in-depth teaching letter inspired by the teachings of Dr. Charles Stanley. To receive In Touch's From the Pastor's Heart letter, call 1-800-IN-TOUCH or visit intouch.org/pastorsheart. You're listening to In Touch. The father in the story of the prodigal son in the 15th chapter of Luke illustrates God's unconditional love for his followers. Here's a moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: He was always there waiting and hoping and praying his son would come home. And that's true and I would say that may be where some of you are. You've just had it so bad and you just walked away from God and decided you'd do your own thing. And now you think God's just forgotten you and turned you off and rejected you forever.

Listen to this. You can't make God reject you. If you're a child of God, no matter how wicked you may act, the discipline hand of God's coming and you'll regret it, but it doesn't mean that he's forsaken you. That's the awesome, indescribable, inexplicable love of God that's demonstrated at the cross. When he died on the cross, he paid your sin debt in full and mercy was shed to the whole world.

It's a matter of accepting it or rejecting it. And that's my prayer, that you'd understand that his mercy is there. But if you keep heading in the right direction, all you're doing is intensifying the pain that's coming your way. And I trust that you'll be wise enough not to do that. Let's pray that you won't.

Father, open the heart, open the eyes, open the mind of those who are in rebellion toward you. Probably can't even exactly explain why, but they just know it's there and their heart's all messed up for some reason. I ask that you open their eyes and help them to understand. Your love hasn't stopped, your mercy is still extended, it hasn't stopped.

Your grace is still there. You're waiting for them to repent of their sin, to return to you, ask for forgiveness, and then experience this awesome, wonderful mercy, grace, love, kindness, tenderness, and forgiveness of sin and a new beginning. And that is my prayer, Father, for these in Jesus' name, Amen.

Guest (Male): Learn more about God's indescribable grace at intouch.org. And you'll find the story of the prodigal son in the 15th chapter of Luke. Is there new insight you've received from today's program that helps you grow in your faith? Tell us about it today. Up next on In Touch, maybe you recognize that you have an unforgiving attitude and now you're wondering how to deal with it.

Be back to learn the important steps to truly forgiving others on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.