Relational Generosity

Grab those message notes and let's dive into the topic. This week, let's talk about relational generosity. There are all kinds of relational generosity. Giving people the benefit of the doubt, smiling, paying attention to people, looking at them in the eyes, affirming them, encouraging them. But I want to just look at one aspect of relational generosity this morning, and that's forgiveness.

I honestly do not know a more important topic right now than that word. Because we live in a world right now that is absolutely being destroyed by conflict. We live in a country that is being destroyed by conflict, and maybe in some of your own homes. There's something going on, there's unforgiveness in your heart, and maybe you have tried to forgive, and it just does not seem to work.

Here's what is often the problem. That word may be one of the most misunderstood words in our culture. It's misunderstood, it's misapplied, sometimes in harmful ways, many times in ineffective ways. We all know we're supposed to forgive, but what does it really mean? Well, this morning I want to look at what real forgiveness is not on page one of your notes, and then on page two and three, what it is and how to do it.

So on the message notes that are in your bulletins when you came in, it starts with a little true or false quiz that was written by a pastor in Southern California named Rick Warren that you might have heard of. Don't say your answer out loud, but in your mind, answer these questions. True or false? A person shouldn't be forgiven until they ask for it. And I said, "Don't say it out loud. I forgive you for that, but don't say it out loud. Don't do that again."

True or false? Forgiving includes minimizing the offense, saying, "That's okay, it's no big deal. That's part of forgiveness." True or false? Forgiveness always includes restoring trust and restoring the relationship. True or false? You haven't really forgiven until you've forgotten. And finally, true or false? When I see a hurt, it is always my duty to forgive whatever hurts I see.

Now, when you look at the Bible and you see what God has to say about forgiveness and really study the Bible, and don't just go on what you've heard the Bible says, you'll see that actually the answer to every single one of these questions is false.

Now, how can I say that every one of these is false biblically? Well, very quickly, let's look at each one, what forgiveness is not. First, it isn't conditional. You offer it to somebody whether they ask for it or not, as we will see in just a couple of minutes in this morning's verses. People don't have to earn it, they don't deserve it, that's why it's called forgiveness. They don't have to bargain for it, it's a gift.

Next, it isn't minimizing the offense. This is very important. Forgiveness is not pretending you weren't hurt. Forgiveness does not mean that you sidestep justice, because if you try to minimize the offense, it's just going to delay your own healing. And more on that in a minute.

And third, it isn't resuming a relationship without any changes. Forgiveness and resuming a relationship are two different things, because forgiveness and trust are two different things. You have to forgive, in the Bible that's a command, you do not have to trust. In fact, you shouldn't trust unless someone is trustworthy. How do you know if they're trustworthy? You watch their actions and make a wise choice.

You know, if a con man comes up to you and cons you, you have to say, "I forgive you," but you don't say, "I forgive you, now please keep conning me." God does not expect you to be an idiot, all right? It is not resuming a relationship without absolutely any changes, and then it is not forgetting what happened.

You hear this phrase over and over, "Forgive and forget." There's only one problem with that, it's impossible. You can't really forget a major hurt, and I would argue that there's something better than forgiving and forgetting. You know what it is? Forgiving and remembering and seeing the good that God brought out of it.

Forgiving and remembering this terrible thing that happened to you, and then seeing how like a phoenix rising from the ashes with his resurrection power, God can bring good even from something that's definitely bad. And forgiveness isn't my right when I wasn't the one hurt. Let me explain this, keep your pages on that page for just a second because I really want to explain this.

Only the victim has the right to forgive. You can't forgive people who didn't hurt you, and it's kind of offensive if you do. For example, let's say there's a school shooting, and as you often see, the next morning, teenagers in the school put a big sign on the fence that says, "We forgive you." I know they mean well, but the fact is, it's not their right to forgive. They didn't lose a friend or a son or a daughter or a grandchild.

So if that is what forgiveness isn't, then what is it biblically, and how do I forgive? Page two. Every week in this series, we're looking at a different passage from the Gospel of Luke. Today, we are just going to zero in on about three verses because they are packed with stuff that you and I need to know. We're going to look at Luke 17:3–5.

If you have your Bibles with you, crack them open to these verses. You can also see them right there in your notes. I'm going to put them on the screen starting in verse three of Luke 17. You know what? Let's read these out loud together. There's not a lot of verses here, and I want us to all read the Word of God together. This is Jesus talking to his disciples. He's walking to Jerusalem. This is the last week of his earthly ministry. He knows he's going to leave these disciples soon, so he is downloading very essential stuff for the survival of the early Christian church.

And here's what he says. Let's read it together. "So watch yourselves. If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them, and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day, and seven times come back to you saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive them." And the apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith."

Don't you love that response? If you go through this phrase by phrase today, you're going to see five principles there about how do I forgive somebody and what forgiveness really is. But listen, we could go through this. It could all be academic, right? But I want you to see that this is not just hypothetical. I want you to see what everything we're going to talk about looks like in real life from a surprising source. CBS News.

Watch the screen. We end tonight with one of the most potent powers on earth. It can change lives in an instant. Everyone has it. It's the power to forgive. Watch it now in action in Steve Hartman's "Assignment America."

In a small apartment building in North Minneapolis, a 59-year-old teacher's aide sings praise to God for no seemingly apparent reason. Indeed, if anyone was to have issues with the Lord, it would be Mary Johnson. For all you've done for me. He never had a chance. In February 1993, Mary's son, Loramion Byrd, was shot to death during an argument at a party. He was 20 and Mary's only child. My son was gone.

The killer was a 16-year-old kid named O'Shea Israel. I wanted justice. He was an animal. He deserved to be caged. And he was. Tried as an adult and sentenced to 25 and a half years, O'Shea served 17 before being recently released. He now lives back in the old neighborhood, close to Mary. This close. He lives next door.

Next door. How a convicted murderer ended up living a door jam away from his victim's mother is a story not of horrible misfortune, as you might expect, but of remarkable mercy. A few years ago, Mary asked if she could meet O'Shea here at Minnesota's Stillwater State Prison. As a devout Christian, she felt compelled to see if there was some way, if somehow she could forgive her son's killer.

What'd she say to you? I believe the first thing she said was, "Look, you don't know me. I don't know you. Let's just start with right now." And I was befuddled myself. O'Shea says they met regularly after that. When he got out, she introduced him to her landlord, who, with Mary's blessing, invited O'Shea to move into the building. Today, they don't just live close. They are close.

Clearly, Mary was able to forgive. Unforgiveness is like cancer. It will eat you from the inside out. It's not about that other person. Me forgiving him does not diminish what he's done. Yes, he murdered my son. But the forgiveness is for me. It's for me.

For O'Shea, it hasn't been that easy. I haven't totally forgiven myself yet. I'm learning how to forgive myself, and I'm still growing towards, you know, trying to forgive myself and what it is I've done. To that end, O'Shea is now busy proving himself to himself. He works at a recycling plant by day and goes to college by night. He says he's determined to pay back Mary's clemency by contributing to society.

In fact, he's already working on it, singing the praises of God and forgiveness at prisons, churches, to large audiences everywhere. Forgiveness is a powerful thing. Which explains why Mary can sing her praise of thanks to her audience of one. Steve Hartman, CBS News, Minneapolis.

Wow. Isn't that powerful? I mean, how in the world do you move on from something like that? Well, I want you to see that in that brief report, you actually see all five of the principles that we're going to tease out of these three verses. You need this. You're going to need this. I need this. So jot these down.

Watch this. Number one, first I need to realize the danger of unforgiveness. Realize the danger of unforgiveness, of bearing a grudge. Like Mary Johnson said, did you notice? She said, "Unforgiveness is like cancer. It will eat you up from the inside out." And she said, "Forgiving doesn't diminish what he did. The forgiveness is for me because it's like poison." And this is why Jesus said, "So watch yourselves. Watch out. Beware." Because unforgiveness is so subtle, it's so insidious, but it can ruin whole congregations, whole communities.

The Bible also says in Hebrews, "Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many." That is a well-chosen phrase, a poisonous root of bitterness. Did you know it is literally poison? Research shows bitterness, resentment leads to higher blood pressure, higher rates of heart attacks, and you become colder and harder and angrier.

Now you might say, "Well, actually, this verse isn't for me because I don't think I have bitterness." I mean, if you think of bitterness as kind of always sitting around wanting to wreak vengeance and ruin somebody's life, that's not me. Bitterness is sneaky. Here are some of the passive-aggressive forms that bitterness can take. There's the silent treatment, where you just disappear, maybe emotionally, maybe verbally, or maybe actually physically. You just vanish to show how offended you are. That's a sign of bitterness. Watch yourself.

Or what about gossiping, "warning" people, right? In quotes. I don't really want to say anything bad, but you need to know what they're like. A little knife in their back. What about punishing by cutting or controlling or demanding? You cut them down all the time, even if you never say it out loud, even if it's only in your own mind. Have you ever noticed how when you are mad at somebody, you become a wordsmith on par with Shakespeare, right? And sometimes you even think, in a moment of weakness, I've done this myself, "You know, that is such a good turn of phrase. The whole world needs to hear that turn of phrase." And so you text it or you post it. It's so easy to communicate when angry, and it is so dangerous.

In another form, bitterness can take replaying the hurt to keep it fresh. I just want to feel the pain. I want to feel the anger. Like they're getting away with something if you do not feel the pain. They're not getting away with anything. That's poison to yourself. So Jesus says, "Watch yourself." It's self-deceptive.

Listen. Some of you are allowing people who hurt you 10, 20, 30 years ago, some of these people are dead, and you're allowing them to keep hurting you. They can't touch you anymore. But as long as you keep replaying the pain, they're going to keep on hurting and hurting and hurting and hurting and hurting you. So Jesus says, "Watch out." So that's the warning. How do I do it? Well, that's the rest of these points.

Number two, refuse to caricature them. Identify with them. Refuse to caricature them. Identify with them. Did you notice in these verses, Jesus does not say, "If some guy offends you, some jerk," he says, "If you're what?" Your brother or sister. Here's the thing. Watch this. When somebody wrongs you, the first thing we tend to emphasize are the discontinuities, right? Like, "They're the bad guy, and I'm the good guy," right? Like, if somebody lies to you, they are a liar. If you lie, well, it's complicated, you know? It's nuanced, right? If you lie, there's always some reason justifying it, right? But if somebody else lies, then they're a cartoon villain.

Jesus says, "No, you're in the common faith family, or at least you're in the common humanity family." There's a famous scholar named Miroslav Volf. First of all, is that not a great name? Miroslav Volf. He's a professor at Yale University, and he grew up under communism in the Eastern Bloc of Europe. His family was Christian, and they were persecuted. His father was sent to a labor camp just for his beliefs. And yet, even though this is a guy who might feel a lot of grudges, he talks about how he has forgiven the people who personally oppressed his family and his faith.

And he has a great quote. Look at this. "Forgiveness flounders when I exclude my enemy from the community of humanity, and I exclude myself from the community of sinners." Isn't that good? I saw this face-to-face one year. Our family went to Africa. I was speaking at a conference there. And one night, we went to this restaurant right on the shores of a lake. It was a wood-fired pizza place. Lori's cousin lives there and said, "You gotta go to this place. It's super good." So we went.

And then her cousin said, "You've gotta meet the owner." The proprietor of this place is a woman named Goretti. She's Rwandan. She's married to this Dutch diplomat in town. You gotta meet her. So she comes out. We chat. Well, it came out that Goretti was visiting her in-laws in Europe when the Rwandan genocidal war broke out. And I don't know if you remember that. It was the Hutu tribe versus the Tutsi tribe, and they were fighting one another, trying to wipe each other out, or one tribe was trying to wipe out the other tribe. And then there were horrible countermeasures, and it just, the whole country lapsed into these spasms of violence, hundreds of thousands killed.

When Goretti was able to get back from her European family home to Rwanda, after the violence subsided, she found that not one, not two, not three, but 63 of her family members had been killed. 63. And I asked her, I said, "How do you move on from something like that?" And she said a phrase I'll never forget. She said, "Well, you must forgive, or your life is over." You must forgive, or your life is over.

And then we went on talking about it, and in a long conversation, the gist of it is that she told us that the root of the genocide in Rwanda was the dehumanizing of the other tribe. So, she said, "I refuse to participate in that. I will not demonize them. I will not caricature them. I will not villainize them as the evil other. They are just like me, and I have the germ of that violence in me, in myself." She said, "You have to see the other as a brother or a sister, not just as those evil people out there who are completely different than me. Or you're just going to lapse into the same thing and just perpetuate that cycle."

So how do I do that? Well, that's the third point, and this may be the hardest point of all to apply this morning. Respond to evil with good. Take proactive measures and respond to evil with good. Like Mary Johnson, who helped O'Shea, when he was homeless, get the apartment next to hers. I need to respond to evil with good. What does Jesus say in these verses? Well, he says, "Rebuke them, and if they repent, forgive them." Now, some of you are looking at this verse saying, "Oh, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Jesus says, 'Rebuke them.' So it is okay if I yell at them, if I get in their face and on their case." Rebuke does not mean yell.

Rebuke doesn't mean you just vent. What rebuke means is you don't ignore wrongs. Rebuke means that you still point out toxic behavior. Rebuke means you still seek justice. Rebuke is not, you know, forgiveness is not allowing injustice and toxic behavior to continue. So you've got to always ask yourself, "Why am I rebuking this person?" If it's just to make them feel bad, well, that's not rebuke. That's just bitterness. Rebuke is actually teaching. It's careful, it's strategic, it's for the purpose of correction. Rebuke looks like Mary Johnson teaching a released O'Shea how to live the second half of his life.

Now, you might say, "Okay, well, what about the 'if he repents' clause?" "I don't have to forgive them unless they actually repent, as defined by me," says so right there. Is that really what you think it means? Let me teach you a couple of things. Some Bible study methodology, when you come across a verse in the Bible and you can't figure out for sure what it means. I wish somebody had taught me these two things when I was a younger Christian.

You always do two things when you come to a verse that you're like, "Not sure what it means. Could go this way, could go that way." Number one, you ask yourself, "How did Jesus apply this? What did Jesus do?" Right? How did Jesus forgive people? When they were kneeling into the cross, long before anybody had repented of that, he said, "Father, forgive them." They don't even know what they're doing. They were the experts on crucifixion, those Roman soldiers. Yet he says, "Father, forgive them." And if I claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, then that's the example that I follow. They have not repented at all yet.

And then second, another principle of understanding the Bible is this. To understand what a difficult verse means, watch this now. You look at other verses that are clear on the same topic. Does that make sense? Like, since that verse is on forgiveness, you go, "Well, what else does the Bible say about forgiveness?" Well, it's pretty clear. Let me just show you a couple of cross-references. Mark 11:25. Jesus said, "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him." It doesn't say, "Wait for them to say they're sorry." He just says, "Just do it." And then there's Matthew 5:44. Jesus said, "But I tell you, love your enemies, not your repentant enemies, and pray for those who persecute you."

Now, why does he command us to pray for them? One reason. Resentment villainizes. Prayer humanizes. Do you get that? What I want to do is keep my emotional distance so I can villainize them. But the minute you really start to pray for them, pray for their families, pray that they will come to know Christ as their Savior, it humanizes them. So what does this verse mean? What Jesus means when he says, "If they repent," remember the context is, "If seven times in one day they hurt you, and each time they come and say, 'I'm so sorry, here's another dig,' seven times in a row, you still forgive." So what he's saying here clearly is, even if their repentance is apparently not genuine, he's not saying, "Only forgive if they repent." He's saying, "Always forgive even if their repentance seems insincere."

In other words, point four, repeat as necessary. Repeat as necessary. He says, "Even if they sin against you seven times in a day, seven times come back saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive them." And I would say it also applies this way, even if seven times a day you remember how they hurt you, seven times a day you release those feelings of bitterness and you trust God to deal with them. The point is, forgiveness takes repetition.

Now this was tough again even for the disciples. There's an interesting parallel passage to this in Matthew 8. Jesus is teaching this to his disciples, and Peter says, "I get what you're talking about, Jesus. So you're saying," watch this everybody, watch how well I understand what Jesus is saying, "You're saying that if I forgive this person seven times a day, then I'm a good person, but the eighth time all bets are off." That's what you're saying, it's seven times? And Jesus answers, "I tell you, not seven times, 77 times." What he's saying is never stop forgiving.

Now let me just say something kind of obvious. You need to start with the first time before you can get to the 77th time, right? So how do you start? Really you start with the final step. You remember God forgave you. Remember God forgave you. Did you notice the song that Mary Johnson was singing in that CBS report? "I thank you, Lord, I thank you. Yes, I'm so grateful for all you've done for me." That is where she gets her power. She has bathed herself in the grace of God.

Back in that parallel passage in Matthew 8, Jesus says, "Peter, you got to... I'm talking about 77 times a day." And then he tells a story. He goes, "It's like this." He says, "There was a servant who owed 10,000 bags of gold to his master. He couldn't have repaid it in a million lifetimes. And the master, instead of selling the servant into slavery, excuse me, and everything he has in his family, the master says, 'I tell you what, I'm going to be gracious to you. I'm going to forgive your whole debt.' The servant says, 'Thank you, master. Thank you, master.' And immediately he leaves the master's presence. He's walking down the aisle outside the palace and he sees a fellow servant who owes him like a few pennies.

And he rushes over and he starts to choke the guy almost to death as he says, 'Repay what you owe me.' The guy says, 'I don't have the money.' And he says, 'Then into debtor's prison you go.' And the master hears about this, summons the unforgiving servant, and he says this, 'Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you?' And the point is, of course, do you treat people like that? Emotionally, is that a picture of your soul when you think of certain people in your life?

Think of what Jesus did for you on the cross then. How on the cross, every sin you ever committed, past and future, he bore the punishment cosmically for that, for all the sins of humanity. And he made it possible for you to be adopted into the family of God. He showed you that the creator of the universe unconditionally loves you. Now how can remembering that help you with the challenge of forgiveness? I love this from Tim Keller. If you know God's love and forgiveness, then there's a limit to how deeply another person can hurt you. He or she can't touch your real identity and wealth and significance.

The more you rejoice in your own forgiveness, the quicker you will be to forgive others because you are rooted in emotional wealth. I love that. Generosity. When you understand God's generosity to you, then you are going to be relationally generous to others. And so my question is, have you ever accepted God's offer of forgiveness? Do you know that by the grace of God you are forgiven? Do you know that for sure? Because if you don't, then this dynamic will be happening in your psyche. I'm not at peace, so I don't want them to be at peace.

But if you allow yourself to soak in God's grace, then you're going to extend grace. And follow me here as we wrap this up. The cool thing is that when Jesus died for us on the cross and rose again, he didn't just forgive our sins. The Bible says we rose with him to newness of life, and we now have the resurrection power of Jesus inside of us. And that's the answer to the question on page 3, how do I get the power to do this?

See, some of you are still going, "René, I'm still back at verse 5 when the apostles heard Jesus and said, 'Man, increase our faith. Like, you've got to be kidding me, right, Jesus? There's no way I can forgive like you're asking me to forgive in my own strength.'" And you're exactly right. There is no way in your own power you can do this. You've got to have your faith increased, faith in the power of Christ in you. You have power far beyond any individual human's power to forgive. It is supernatural power.

And I know it's real because I have seen it in the eyes of a woman from Rwanda who owns a restaurant in Africa. And you and I just saw in that report from CBS about a woman named Mary Johnson. And we've seen it in people like Lynn and Dan Wagner here at Twin Lakes Church, and I've experienced it in my own life. And I want you to experience it. But to do it, we need to start practicing forgiveness, quite literally.

And so I'm going to give you a phrase to say to practice forgiveness this week. When somebody hurts you, somebody offends you, somebody crosses you, three-word phrase, you can memorize it right now, "Here's my chance." Say that with me. Say it out loud. "Here's my chance." Say it with more meaning. "Here's my chance." This week, look up here for a second. This week, you're going to be driving on Highway 1. And you're going to look in your rearview mirror. There's somebody driving crazy and just going to make you mad, and they're going to slip right in front of you. You're going to have to jam on your brakes. It's your responsibility to act that way so that this person doesn't get in an accident.

You're going to be so mad that it could obsess you for the rest of the day, but instead, you're going to say out loud what? "Here's my chance to pray for Mark Spurlock and the way he's driving." Look up here. Look up here. This week, somebody might say something to you that's a little bit hurtful, maybe even unintentionally, and left to your own devices, depending on your personality. You're either going to want to be sarcastic, or you're going to want to lapse into self-pity, but instead, this week, we're all going to say what? "Here's my chance to be forgiving."

This week, some of you are going to remember for the millionth time the worst wound you ever received in your life. And when it surfaces again and it hurts again, you're going to say to yourself, "Here's my chance. Here's my chance. Here's my chance." Let's pray together.

Father, thank you so much for your lavish grace, the wealth that you lavish on us. Now, with every head bowed, every eye closed, I want to do something different this morning. With your eyes closed, your heads bowed, I just want to speak to you for just a second. Some of you right now are not certain whether or not you have received the forgiveness of God. If you're not, here's your chance right now, because you're going to find it hard to forgive other people until first you know you are forgiven.

Second question, who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to forgive? I just want to pray a prayer right now, and I invite everybody here to pray this along with me silently if it expresses your own heart. This could be a very big day, the first step to some real emotional freedom for you. Dear God, first I want to accept your forgiveness. Jesus, thank you for the penalty you paid on the cross through your death and resurrection to pay for all my sins once and for all, to wipe out all my debts, to receive me into your family. I don't understand it all, but I am so grateful.

And now because of your love, because you've forgiven me, right now I choose to take the first step in letting go of my unforgiveness. I want to repent of it. And I forgive. And fill in the blank there, just you name the person silently in your heart. I forgive that person. I've held on to hurts and memories, but today I want to let them go. And I want to get on with your plan for my life. Help me to heal and grow. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.