Marvelous Marriage: Forgiveness

God is at work in Faith Church! I am so encouraged by the many reports from couples that God is helping them deal with some of the issues that have separated them, many times for years. Keep it up folks! I know this is hard work, but it is so worth it! Keep close to Jesus; listen to Him; stay soft in His hands.

One of the things that makes it hard is that we often hurt one another. Remember the line from the song that said, “You only hurt the one you love?” How true that is! When we really love someone, we open ourselves up to being hurt by them. How many of you have never been hurt by someone else? How many of you who are married have never been hurt by your spouse? How many have never hurt your spouse? That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

What do we do with that? After thirty-five years in the pastorate, I have become convinced that one of the great obstacles to Christians enjoying the abundant life Jesus came to bring is our lack of forgiveness. Living in a world full of sinners like ourselves, it is inevitable that we will be hurt, offended, sinned against in many ways. The closer the relationship, the more likely it is that we will be hurt by the other person. Since marriage is the closest of all human relationships, it is inevitable that we will be hurt by our spouse.

What’s important, though, is not what happens to us, but how we respond to those events and circumstances. How do we respond when we are offended? How do we treat our “debtors”, “those who have trespassed against us”? The Bible is clear about our responsibility to forgive them, but all too often, we respond out of our own sinful natures. We want to retaliate, to get revenge, to pay them back. This is so natural, and feels so right, that it is hard to grasp just how wrong it really is. Our sense of justice is outraged, and we cry out for retribution. We want to make them hurt as much as they have hurt us.

In the wisdom of God, He has another plan for us. As always, His plan is both for His glory and our good. When He calls us to forgive our debtors, He is calling us into the best possible future, both for ourselves and for those who offended us.

So first, let’s ask, What causes these conflicts? We know we love each other; why do we hurt the ones we love?

I’m sure there are many reasons, but the Bible suggests one main cause in James 4:1-2, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? [2] You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.”

Conflict comes when our desires grow into demands, and then we judge and punish those who get in our way. We learned in our Love and Respect seminar last weekend that many times the wife may want more love from her husband (expressed in particular ways that are not intuitively obvious to men) and husbands often want more respect from their wives (again, requiring her to speak a foreign language.) What we want may be fine in itself. But if we expect our spouse to fulfill that desire, and they consistently fail to do so, and won’t talk with us about it, then we are at a crossroads: Will we trust God to either meet that desire or take it away? Or will we dwell on that unmet desire and disappointment until it grows to control our life? Because the more we think about it, the more it will grow in importance to us, and pretty soon we won’t be able to think about anything else.

If we keep stewing about it, we’ll come to see this desire as an absolute need, or something that we deserve. We tell ourselves we have a God-given right to it. We demand it. We can’t possibly be happy or fulfilled if we don’t have this. It is more important to us than anything else. That’s the point when it begins to compete with God for our affection and longing. We want it more than we want Him. In biblical terms, it has become an idol.

The next step in this process is that we start to judge those who fail to satisfy our desires and live up to our expectations. We feel superior to them, we look down on them, we feel bitterness and resentment toward them. We often judge their motives, and conclude that they really don’t love us after all. How many times have we said (or heard someone say), “If you really loved me, you would…”? That’s just a bald attempt at manipulation, and it is very seldom true.

And then, finally, we punish those we have judged to be guilty for not fulfilling our demands and expectations. Typically, that punishment takes one of two forms: we seek to hurt them either with our words, or with our silence. We either try to pound them into the ground, and make them feel as guilty as possible; or we withdraw from them emotionally, give them the silent treatment, withhold affection, etc. In extreme cases, we leave the relationship altogether. All because we didn’t get what we wanted. James 4:1-2, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? [2] You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.”

So there we are. Quarreling and fighting. We’ve probably all been there; what are we going to do about it? First, I think it helps to understand that

Many people think of “sin” as a violation of God’s laws, for which we will be punished. It’s sort of a legal/judicial thing, very impersonal, very rigid and strict, very unloving. There is a sense in which sin is breaking the law, and yes, God does say He will punish us for it. But when we ask why God gave us the laws in the first place, we get a very different picture. All the laws and rules and commandments of God—all of them—are given for our good. He tells us to do certain things (like forgive one another) and not do other things (like lie, steal, kill, commit adultery, covet, etc.) because He knows what is best for us. He wants our welfare. He loves us. So ultimately, and primarily, when we “break the law”, we are breaking God’s heart. We are stomping on His love for us.

As parents, we understand this: we tell our kids not to drink underage, not to smoke, don’t do drugs, do your homework, work hard, be responsible—because why? Because we want to restrict them in as many ways as possible and make their lives miserable? No! We give them these rules because we love them. And when they don’t do what we told them to do, it is a personal hurt to our love and our hearts.

Just like it was for Jesus. We break His heart every day when we snub His love, and yet, the Bible says, Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He didn’t wait for us to get our act together, to shine up our character and improve our ethics. While we still had our fist in His face, and our boot on His neck, He died in our place, so that He could forgive us, and be reconciled to us. As the song says, “He’d rather die than live without us.”

God understands the hurts we receive from others, because we hurt Him daily. Jesus knows what you are going through when you have to forgive someone. He’s been there. It cost Him His life to be able to forgive you. No one ever forgives another person unless he bears the penalty of the other’s sin against himself. If you owe me $20, and can’t pay it, and I forgive that debt, then it has just cost me $20. To forgive someone is to pay their debt. When we pray, “forgive us our debts,” we mean, God, we are asking You to pay the debt we owe You. We can’t pay it, so we are asking You to pay it for us. That is exactly what Jesus Christ did on the cross.

Many times we are reluctant to forgive those who hurt us because we misunderstand what forgiveness is. To clarify that, here are some things forgiveness is not.

Sometimes we are reluctant to forgive those who hurt us, because we think that if we do so, it means they will get to go free, without any consequences to their wrongdoing. That seems unjust, or unfair, so we tend not to forgive.

Consider the church treasurer who is caught embezzling funds from the weekly offering. (Disclaimer: this is a purely fictional story!) When confronted by the church leadership, he admits his mistake, publicly confesses his theft to the entire congregation, and makes restitution for all stolen funds. By all accounts he is a changed man. Now he wants to be reinstated to his position as treasurer. What do you think? Does forgiving him mean that he should have his old job back?

No, it does not. He might some day be reinstated as treasurer, but the consequence of his sin is that he has broken the trust people placed in him. It takes a lifetime to build trust, but only a moment to destroy it. He needs to earn that trust back through years of faithful service in lesser responsibilities.

Forgive and forget. Somehow, we think those two go together, and we point to Scripture that says God forgets our sin. But does He really? How could He be the judge of all the earth, how could he reward everyone based on how they have lived, if He forgets our sins completely? The verses that speak of God forgetting our sins are figurative language; they are attempts to express the completeness of His forgiveness. His forgiveness is as thorough as ours would be if we had forgotten those sins.

God does not have to actually forget our sins in order to truly forgive, and neither do we. Forgetting is a function of the memory; forgiveness is a function of the will. We can choose to forgive, even when we cannot forget. Forgiving will help us forget, but you don’t have to forget in order to forgive.

We do not say by our forgiveness that they were justified in what they did. They did wrong. We call it for what it was: betrayal, unfaithfulness, stealing, deceiving, violence, adultery, insensitivity, gossip, etc. They are free moral agents, just like we are, and we do not excuse their sin when we forgive. True forgiveness acknowledges their guilt, and then releases them from their obligation to us anyway.

Once when I was deeply hurt, I found myself nursing that hurt. I knew I needed to forgive the man who hurt me, but I didn’t feel ready yet. I kept waiting for my emotions to come around to the place where I could feel forgiving toward him, because I thought that was necessary if I was to forgive him with integrity; but that never happened. I finally came to the realization that I might wait for my feelings forever, and they would never fall in line with God’s will. I had to choose to forgive.

It felt strange, saying that I forgave him without feeling any shred of kindness or forgiveness in my heart toward him. But that was the right thing to do. That was the step that started me on the road to complete forgiveness. I said, “OK, I forgive him. I will not hold this sin against him. I will let it go. I release him from all his obligations to me. He doesn’t owe me a thing.” It was like a mountain climber who drives a piton into the rock above his head, and then hangs on that to pull himself up higher. It is a decision. A choice.

How long might it take for the emotions to catch up to our decision? Forgiveness is not a one-time event. It is a process. Forgiving takes time; sometimes a lot of time. Corrie Ten Boom tells how she struggled to forgive the Germans for the atrocities they committed against her in the concentration camps. She was having trouble sleeping, so she went to see her pastor, who told her this story. He pointed to the church tower, and said, “Up there is the church bell, which is rung by pulling on a rope. But after the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging, and ringing. But eventually the momentum of the bell wears down, and it stops ringing. Forgiveness is like that. When we forgive, we take our hands off the rope. But if we’ve been pulling at our grievances for a long time, we shouldn’t be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while longer. Give it time; eventually, they’ll stop.”[2]

So if we know what forgiveness is not, that helps us be willing to try it. But still, it’s hard, especially when the hurt is deep. How do we do it? Here are some steps I think are helpful.

In Genesis, there is a story about Joseph, whose brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt. Eventually, through God’s sovereign grace, he found himself in a position of second in command in all of Egypt. And then his brothers arrived, looking for food in a severe famine. Rather than treat them the way they treated him, he forgave them and helped them. But he did not gloss over their sin. He acknowledge that he been wronged. He said, “You sold me into Egypt.” “You intended to harm me.” “You meant it for evil.” Joseph called their sin sin.

The hurt that requires forgiveness is deep enough that it truly wounds us. When we are hurt in that way, we can’t just ignore it, or pretend it didn’t happen, or it wasn’t all that serious. True forgiveness does not make light of serious wrongs.

The second step is to recognize that the wrong has created a debt. Wrongs create obligations to make them right. A traffic violation results in a fine; a broken curfew results in grounding; sin results in death—eternal separation from God. Joseph tacitly acknowledged that when he said to his brothers, “Don’t be afraid,” (Genesis 50:19). They knew, and he agreed with them, that they had every reason to be afraid. He could have had them all killed on the spot, and in some sense, that is what they deserved.

As we think about the people who have wronged us, we need to acknowledge that they owe us something. What do you think they owe you? You might say to yourself,

Every offense creates obligations, a moral debt that has to be paid. What do they owe you? Total it up.

This is the crucial step. We choose to release our offender from that obligation, and to cover the loss ourselves. Joseph formally released his brothers from their debt by giving them a new land in Goshen that they did not deserve and providing them with grain in the drought. Remember, the only way an offense can be forgiven is if the forgiver bears the cost of the debt that was owed. Joseph, the second in command in Egypt, gave some of his land and grain (the government owned it all) to the people who had hurt him so deeply. He said, “I will provide for you there.” God did that for us, when Jesus died in our place on the cross. He paid the moral debt we owe for our sin. When we forgive someone, we agree to pay the moral debt that person owes us for their offense. We relinquish our right to hurt them for hurting us. We say to ourselves that they don’t owe us anything anymore. Not even an apology. We give up our right to an apology, or repayment, or any punishment we may have imagined for them.

Joseph said, Genesis 45:5, “And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.” [8] “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God...” [20] “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good...” In retrospect, Joseph could see how God had taken the sin of his brothers and turned it into something good for them all. We can’t always see that, but we can always trust that God is sovereign, and that in all things—even truly evil things—He is at work for the good of those who love him (Rom 8:28).

Finally, why should you forgive your spouse, or anyone who has hurt you? This is so counter to our feelings, and our culture, that we just wonder why should we do it? There are a lot of good reasons, but here’s the best one: because you have been forgiven by God. Jesus told a parable about a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. He called in a man who owed him a fortune, but he couldn’t pay it. When the king threatened to sell him into slavery, the man begged for time. The king, though, went beyond that and canceled the entire debt. But then that servant went out, found one of his fellow servants who owed him a few dollars, grabbed him and began to choke him, and demanded that he pay it back. This man couldn’t pay either, and he, too, begged for more time to be able to get the money together. But the first one refused. Instead, he had the man thrown into prison.

When the other servants saw what had happened, they went and told the king about it. Then the master called the servant in. “‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. [33] Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ [34] In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. ‘This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” (Matt 18:32-35).

Why should we forgive those who hurt us? Because God has forgiven us. This is why Paul says in Ephes. 4:32, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Thank You, Lord. May your grace and forgiveness so soften our hearts that we will forgive those who sin against us.

[1] Many of the ideas in this section come from Ken Sande, “Getting to the Heart of Conflict” , Spirit of Revival magazine, Vol. 37, No. 1, Summer 2006, © Life Action Ministries, p.11ff.

[2] Robert Jeffress, When Forgiveness Doesn’t Make Sense (Colorado Springs: Waterbrook Press, 2000), p.138.