Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Peter asked the question so many of us are still asking today. What do we mean by forgiveness? Stewart Briscoe sets out to answer the question on today's Telling the Truth. If you've ever struggled with the pain of betrayal or the weight of resentment, you're not alone. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things we're called to do, but it's also one of the most freeing. That's why we want to send you Freed by Forgiveness, a four message compilation from Stewart and Jill as our thanks for your gift today. In it, you'll discover how you can break free from bitterness and step into the healing and freedom Jesus offers.

So request your copy of Freed by Forgiveness when you give today, knowing your support helps more people around the world experience freedom in Christ, many for the very first time as they hear God's truth thanks to you. Call now at 282-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks again for listening and for your support today. Now here's Stewart with the answer to the question, what do we mean by forgiveness?

Stuart Briscoe: I would submit to you that probably most of us empathize with Peter at this point. We struggle with forgiveness. In fact, if we were to look into our relationships, we may discover that the root of many of the difficulties that we're experiencing is simply an unforgiving spirit. And so Peter was quite right to ask Jesus about this subject, and his request has come down to us down through the centuries, and we should be grateful because the way Jesus handled it was immensely beneficial to him and will be to us. I want to identify three things about forgiveness for you from a number of passages of scripture.

The first thing is what I would call the demands of forgiveness. It is clearly stated in scripture that one of the hallmarks, one of the characteristics of those who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ is that they are forgiving people. And that this is presented to us not as an optional extra for those who have a sweet spirit, but this is presented to us as one of the fundamental aspects of our discipleship, that we are to exercise forgiveness. And it is presented in such a way that clearly it is presented as a demand. Now having said that, we must hurriedly point out that the second point is the difficulties of forgiveness.

For anybody who's ever tried it knows that it is not the easiest thing in the world to do. And so we will look realistically at some of these difficulties, but then we'll finish on an up note talking about the delights of forgiveness. The demands, the difficulties, and the delights of forgiveness. Have you ever wondered where Peter got this idea that seven times would be enough? That if he forgave his brother seven times, perhaps that would do. As you remember that Jesus' answer was 70 times seven. Now we have a little problem here with the original languages.

It could mean 77 or it could mean 70 times seven, which if my mathematics is correct is 490 times. We won't quibble about that because God isn't really into statistics. What he's really pointing out to us is that there is the necessity for ongoing forgiveness. But where did Peter get this idea from? Let me refer you to a very interesting passage in Luke's Gospel, chapter 17. Here Jesus is teaching his disciples and he said this, things that cause people to sin are bound to come. But woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.

So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times comes back to you and says, I repent, forgive him. So that's where Peter got the idea from. Clearly the Lord Jesus had been teaching the absolute necessity for being forgiving, even to the point of suggesting that if you forgave somebody seven times in a day and they kept coming back, you forgive them seven times. The first thing that comes to rather clearly is that Jesus is acknowledging that relationships are full of problems, full of difficulties.

Let me read you his words so you'll see it. Things that cause people to sin are bound to come. In relationships, there will be things happening that cause people to sin by their reactions. Now think about that for a moment. Can you think of any relationship in which you are engaged, which you're apart, where things have been done to you and your reaction to that thing has been such that it would be classified as sin? You see, it's easier for us to look at our relationships and think in terms of what people did to us that were sin.

That's not primarily what he's talking about. What he's talking about is the possibility of our reactions to what people have done to us being sinful. Now he goes on to say, and this is good. He says now, the person who causes you to have a sinful reaction woe betide him. It were better for him that a millstone be hung around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than to cause somebody else to sin by their reaction. Now which of us would not recognize a potential in our hearts and lives for deep-rooted anger, ongoing resentment, unresolved bitterness, a commitment to getting even and making people pay for the real or imaginary things that people have done to us.

I'm sure all of us can think that in somewhere or another, in some shape or form, we have reacted in that way. Jesus said, that's fundamentally wrong. And the way to cope with that kind of reaction that is fundamentally wrong is to begin to generate a forgiving spirit. Now he says this, what you should do is go to the brother who sins against you, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. And be willing to generate an ongoing forgiving spirit. The steps are go to the person concerned. As you go to the person concerned, rebuke them.

That means bring the thing out on the table, confront them with the issue, but bearing in mind that as you confront them with the issue, you're not just pointing out what they have done wrong, you're pointing out that you have done wrong in your reaction to their wrong action. That gives the possibility of a hearing. If you go in confrontation with your finger pointing and start the sentence with you, you, you, you, you, you're wasting your time and making it worse. If you go in confrontation and you say I, I, I have done something wrong, my attitude towards you is one of resentment and bitterness and anger, and I have come to deal with you about it because you have got to understand that it was your action that precipitated my reaction and you and I in the same boat because you sinned and I sinned in return and we've got to get this thing dealt with.

The Lord Jesus tells us that we go, we rebuke them and we look for repentance. Now that is a very heavy demand that he places on us. Notice however two things. The apostles' response to this was increase our faith. Good night they said. You really are laying it on us. We we're going to need we I don't know what we're going to need, but we you better increase our faith to believe this in the first place. But more than that, you better increase our faith so that we can sort of lay hold on you and be strengthened to do this impossible thing of forgiving like that.

The Lord Jesus answers this. If you got faith as a grain of mustard seed, then you could say to this mulberry bush, be removed and it would obey you. Now that's another ludicrous illustration, comical illustration, but it gets the point across. It's not how big your faith is. Faith is a grain of mustard seed, the smallest seed known to man at that time. It's all that it takes. It's not the size of your faith, it's what you put your faith in that matters. And tiny faith in a magnificent God will give you the resources to begin to generate a forgiving spirit.

There is such a thing as duty and you don't gripe and you don't complain. You do your duty understanding that at the best you're an unprofitable servant. Now what's the point here? The point here is this, that we are going to get around to generating a forgiving spirit when number one we begin to draw by faith on the grace that God gives us to forgive. And number two, when we recognize that forgiving is not an optional extra, it is a duty laid upon Christ's disciples. It is a duty laid upon Christ's disciples. Now that is the unequivocal point that Jesus is making here.

And it was this that prompted Peter to ask his question. Notice however that it wasn't just Christ's teaching that laid demands on us. It was Christ's example as well. But then there's the demands of Christ's analogy. And here we come to Matthew 18. Here the Lord Jesus links forgiving and being forgiven. We've got to recognize this linkage. This seems to be the main thrust of his teaching at this point. There is a linkage between being forgiven and being forgiving. The parable that Jesus told very striking. The man is brought before the king owing millions of dollars and he is freely forgiven.

The debt is wiped out. He is released from obligation. Somebody else picks up the tab. All wonderful pictures of forgiveness. He is released from the whole thing and off he goes on his way rejoicing, thrilled and filled with gratitude until he meets his friend who owes him $15.98. And when he meets his friend who owes him $15.98, we discover how deeply thrilled he is with grace and being forgiven because he freely forgives his friend who owes him $15.98, right? Wrong. He grabs him, he chokes him, etc., etc., does all kinds of dreadful things to him and clearly demonstrates that he has not understood there is linkage between being forgiven and being forgiving.

This is the thing that the Lord Jesus presents to those of us who profess to be his disciples. He tells us in effect to receive forgiveness, but not to give forgiveness is fundamentally immoral. That's his point. To receive forgiveness but not to give forgiveness is fundamentally immoral. So by his teaching the Lord Jesus shows us that forgiveness is normative for his disciples. By his example, he shows that concern and compassion for those who have done wrong to such an extent that we will release them from their wrong doing is part of our delightful duty. But in addition to that, he shows that there is a linkage between being forgiven and being forgiving.

And we must not forget it. Now the logic of the whole thing is this, if I understand the immensity of man's debt to God and the wonder of God's grace to man, I shouldn't have too much difficulty understanding that relatively speaking what man has done to me is much smaller. And therefore I should have the ability to forgive because God in his grace has forgiven infinitely more. That's the point. So we put all this together. And what do we discover? We discover that in Christ's teaching he fully understands the problem with relationships. He knows that we'll do bad things to each other.

He knows that this will precipitate sinful reactions, but he also recognizes that these sinful reactions are sinful nevertheless. The person who did the sinful action is responsible, but so also is the sinful reactor. How far often in divorces do we hear people come and complain bitterly about the bad thing their spouse has done. It's true. It's understandable. It's horrendous. It's heartbreaking. But what those people so often need to understand is this, that their reaction now has become sinful in itself. How often do we hear people talking about the bad things their parents did to them?

And there's so much emphasis on looking at all the bad things that our parents have done, but we need to equally emphasize that if our resentment and anger and bitterness is continuing, we are sinning against those who sinned against us. We have got to recognize that this needs to be brought out and it needs to be forgiven as Christ forgave. And the reason for it is this, there's an inextricable linkage, there's an inextricable bond between being forgiven and being forgiving. Now let's move on quickly to the difficulties of forgiveness. We'll touch on these rather quickly because I'm sure we're all aware of them.

One of the obvious difficulties of forgiveness is experiencing it ourselves. Now I may be talking to somebody here and your problem with forgiveness is accepting it, receiving it from God for one of two reasons. Either you think you're so good you don't need it or you're so bad you don't deserve it. Either way it's offered. But probably more of us are more concerned with the difficulty of offering forgiveness than receiving it. Why would this be? I am increasingly convinced of this, that the major difficulty we have in offering forgiveness is our inadequate understanding of divine forgiveness.

There's another problem as well and that is that we often confuse forgiving and forgetting. Well we just have to forgive and forget, won't we? That that is a cliché we hear all the time. We just have to forgive and forget. The problem is that you can tell your mind to forget, but your mind has a mind of its own. And your mind has the remarkable ability of bringing back onto the screen of its computer things that you didn't even know were stored in its memory, right? So what do we do? Well I don't think for a minute that you can ask people to forget things that have happened to them because there will be all kinds of things that will trigger the memory totally outside their control.

But we can ask them to forgive the things that they can't forget. But finally the delights of forgiveness. What are the delights of forgiveness? Well I would suggest two very simple and obvious delights. One is the delight of being a blessing, the delight of being a blessing. Just imagine where there's somebody and you have been making them pay for years, making them pay for years for what they did. And now God has got through to you. You understand divine forgiveness. You understand the duty of the disciple. You're going to move out and you say God increased my faith and he says you don't need more faith, just put it in me and do your duty.

And so you've gone to that person, you've laid it on the table. They have responded. There have been many tears. There's been deep reconciliation and that person looks at you and says, what a relief to be free. I haven't slept in years. Can you imagine what a joy it is to you to walk away from that situation and know you've been a blessing? You've freed somebody up to live again. Not only that, somebody who doubted if they were loved at all because they have become embittered has been freed up to accept love again. You have been a blessing.

And one of the obvious delights of forgiveness is the delight of being a means of blessing to somebody else. So what's the other delight? The other delight is the delight of being blessed yourself because make no bones about it. Unforgiving people are at root miserable people, people who bear grudges are miserable people. People are looking out to make people pay and get even are miserable people. But when you come to the point of refusing to carry that anymore, when you come to the point of letting it go, there's tremendous blessing in your own life. The blessing of spiritual uplift.

You know you've done what the Lord told you to do. You've proved again his grace in enabling you to do what you never dreamt you could do. There's the emotional release as well. What a delight it is not to have to insist on being mad anymore. What an emotional release it is not to have to be scheming of how to avoid them or how to hurt them or how to let them know you're mad anymore. What an emotional release not to have to be into that at all. Oh and by the way, there's physical help too and you should talk to your physician about this because it may be that if you actually got around to forgiving, it would do more for your stress and your blood pressure than all your dieting and jogging put together.

What I advocate is forgiving, dieting, and jogging, not necessarily in that order. What do we mean by forgiveness? We mean that we begin to model that which God has so lavishly offered to us, to no longer hold us accountable, to set us free, to deal generously with us, and make us what we never were. And as we begin to model it and reflect it, we begin to demonstrate that we truly are Christ's disciples. Forgiveness.

Guest (Male): Stewart, tell us about a time in your life when you had to have a forgiving spirit.

Stuart Briscoe: I don't know that there's any uh particular incident that I want to talk about in in this regard. Uh simply to say this, uh that to have a forgiving spirit uh makes sense uh because I know my own frailties, I know my own failings. I know that very very often I do things that I not to have done and I leave undone the things that I ought to do. Uh so because I know myself uh I cannot expect other people to live at a standard higher than I live myself. And if that is true, I hope that people will understand that I'm frail, that I fail, and that they will be forgiving towards me.

That is an expectation that I have. That is something I hope for. It is something I almost assume. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do. If that being the case, then it's pretty obvious to me uh I should at least be willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. And I know perfectly well that there's great blessing in being able to release people from responsibility for their failings as well.

Guest (Male): Why is it so important to forgive others?

Stuart Briscoe: It is important to forgive other people for a number of reasons, not least uh because God uh has made it very very clear that our own experience of forgiveness is going to be directly related to our own willingness to forgive. Uh the it's it's literally complicated this, but you remember in the the Lord's Prayer that we pray uh about that the Lord will forgive as our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us. Um I I think what that means is this, that God is willing to forgive. In fact, in Christ he is already made it possible forgiveness to be uh extended to us.

It's it is a gift that's out there. He is reaching out to us on the basis of what Christ has done. He is ready and willing and eager to forgive. But uh because he reaches out to us with forgiveness, we need to reach out with an open hand. But if we have an unforgiving spirit, that's like reaching out to receive a gift with a clenched fist. You can't do it. And very very often because we have such an unforgiving spirit, we're not in a position to receive the forgiveness that God alone forgives. If for no other reason, that's why we should forgive others and there are lots of other reasons.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to Telling the Truth today. We're so glad you've joined us and want to encourage you further with a powerful resource from Stewart and Jill Briscoe. But first, Carol in California wrote us and said, I love the Briscoes' teaching and this can mean that so many more will get to know them and through the way they teach and share their lives with grace and truth, those people like so many of us will come to know and love the Lord in one of the best possible ways that I have ever experienced. If you've ever struggled with the pain of betrayal or the weight of resentment, you're not alone.

Forgiveness is one of the hardest things we're called to do, but it 's also one of the most freeing. That's why we want to send you Freed by Forgiveness, a four message compilation from Stewart and Jill as our thanks for your gift today. In it, you'll discover how you can break free from bitterness and step into the healing and freedom Jesus offers. So request your copy of Freed by Forgiveness when you give today, knowing your support helps more people around the world experience freedom in Christ, many for the very first time as they hear God's truth thanks to you.

Call now at 282-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks again for listening and for your support today. We're so glad you've joined us today. Come back again as the Briscoes share more powerful truth from God's word. Listen in and experience life next time on Telling the Truth.