Category: Forgiveness (Page 7 of 12)

Forgiveness Imitates Jesus

December 16, 2015 / Allan / 0 Comments

Jesus is eating dinner with a bunch of religious leaders at Simon’s house when a well-known prostitute walks in and begins showing Jesus a lot of attention (Luke 7:36-50). She causes quite a scene when she begins weeping and pouring perfume on Jesus and wiping his feet with her hair. Simon makes judgments against the woman and against the rabbi, Jesus, who doesn’t seem to know how awful she truly is. But Jesus looks this woman right in the eyes and says, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Now, I don’t know all this lady’s sins. I don’t know everything she’d ever done. I don’t know about all her poor decisions and terrible situations. I don’t know the details of all the hurt she had caused. But Jesus knew. He knew all of it. And he looked right at her and said, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Maybe the four most powerful words anybody can ever hear.

Maybe the four most difficult words anybody can ever say.

Forgiveness is hard. It’s not air freshener that we just spray from a can (psssht-phssht!) and “Ah, doesn’t that make everything better?” It’s not, “Oh, you really hurt me, you really sinned horribly against God and me, but (psssht-psssht!) I forgive you and now everything’s great!” No, it’s not like that at all. Forgiveness is hard. It’s achingly difficult. And, actually, fairly unnatural.

Elizabeth O’Connor wrote, “Despite a hundred sermons on forgiveness, we do not forgive easily nor find ourselves easily forgiven. Forgiveness, we discover, is always harder than the sermons make it out to be.”

“Your sins are forgiven.” You need to hear that. You need to say it.

But, I know, it’s not easy. I struggle with some of this. We’ve all got questions, right? Even in this magnificent story of divine forgiveness in Luke, we’ve got questions: Did this woman even ask for forgiveness? Did Jesus tell her to “sin no more?” What about all the homes she had wrecked, what about those other wives and kids? Do they have any say? Where’s the truth in this story? Where’s the justice?

Real forgiveness is hard. But it imitates Jesus.

Notice that Simon, the religious expert, has one way of dealing with people who sin and Jesus, the Son of God, has another way. Simon wants to be right, he wants to be religiously and socially correct. So he separates himself from people who sin. He keeps this woman at a distance. He wants it very clear that he does not endorse this lady’s lifestyle. Jesus is, of course, anti-sin. He clearly teaches and preaches against every kind of sin. But he does not isolate himself from sinners. He understands that if the light is going to shine in the darkness, the light has to engage the darkness. Simon is distant and critical. Jesus is up close and personal.

Because Jesus sees the potential. There’s real possibility here. That’s why Jesus pursues and relates to sinners. Simon focuses on the woman’s past sins, Jesus is zeroed in on her future potential. That’s why he points out all the positive things she’s doing. Look, Simon, do you see this woman? Do you see her kindness and generosity, her goodness?

What do we see? That’s one of the hard questions this story raises. Do we see sinners for who they are or for what God can do with them? If the Church really believes it has something eternal to offer in Christ Jesus, then we’ve got to relate to sinners the way Jesus did. God’s number one way of changing people is by offering them grace and forgiveness. Lots of people want to start all over again, they’re just not sure it’s possible. Jesus shows us here that no hole is too deep for the reach of God’s compassionate and delivering hand.

So when we meet people whose lives are totally out of touch with God, we’ve got to be very patient and very kind. And we must forgive. Because nothing’s going to happen without God anyway. That sinner is not going to change without God. No chance.

See, that’s one of the places I struggle. Sometimes I want to put the cart before the horse. I want to see people clean up their act first, get everything in order, prove to me you’ve changed. Then I’ll forgive and have a relationship with you.

Jesus always makes the first move. Always. Jesus first extends his mercy and forgiveness. Jesus first establishes the relationship.

“Your sins are forgiven.” Have you said that to anybody lately? You need to. It’s a powerful way to imitate our Lord.

Peace,

Allan

It Is Finished!

September 19, 2015 / Allan / 0 Comments

“Jesus said, ‘It is finished!’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” ~John 19:30

Not a cry of desolation. This isn’t, “Man, at last! It’s over!” This is an announcement of victory. “It is done! It is accomplished!”

Jesus came to fulfill the promises of God. He came to complete the salvation work of God. Jesus had said earlier, “My food — what keeps me going, what gives me energy and life, what sustains me — is to do the will of my Father who sent me and to finish his work.” On that last night, our Savior prays, “I have brought you glory by completing the work you gave me to do.” So when Jesus declares, “Is if finished!” he means all of it. The forgiveness of sin: Done! Relationships restored between humans and God: Accomplished! The dark forces of evil destroyed forever: Finished!

“It is finished!” means God has succeeded now in accomplishing everything he wanted to do for us through Jesus. And what was needed to satisfy God ought to be enough to satisfy us.

That’s the good news of the Gospel.

Christians know that all people are alienated from God. It’s our fault. We have disobeyed God’s commands. Even worse, we’ve ignored or even rejected his love. But, incredibly, it’s not the guilty party who acts to restore the broken relationship. It’s the injured party who makes the first move. God doesn’t demand that we’ve got to do something first to make up for our sins and then he’ll reluctantly agree to forgive us and love us again. We don’t make peace with God; God makes peace with us! That’s what the death of Jesus is all about.

Jesus died not to change God’s mind about us, but to express God’s heart for us.

In the cross of Christ, God says to us, “Yes, it’s true, you have hurt me and offended me. But I still love you. Oh, my child, how I love you! So I am making your guilt mine. I will bear the consequences of your sins in myself. I will suffer with you and for you to make things right between us forever.”

When I survey the wondrous cross, I have to ask “Why?” Why would Jesus do this for me? Why would he die for you? It should leave us with a deep sense of gratitude when we realize it’s simply because he loves me so. But should also create in us a sense of being inseparably bound up with him, obligated to live for him. We are so tied up with Jesus that when God looks at you, he sees his righteous Son. We are one with God because of his death, burial, and resurrection on our behalf. He restored the relationship. He fixed everything.

As a result, we are now free to live for him, to become who we were always created to be before sin wrecked it. Because of Christ, everything’s new. To be in Christ means a new creation. A new order. The prophets always talked about God bringing rulers down from their thrones and lifting up the poor. But they never imagined God himself would come down off his heavenly throne to suffer with the sinful so we could all be lifted up.

You don’t need a complicated theology to know that salvation for us and salvation for the whole world is found in Christ Jesus. But the cross of Christ is about transformation and renewal. Jesus doesn’t just offer forgiveness and salvation. He offers life. Real life. Abundant life. Eternal life. Life in perfect union with God as true sons of daughters of God.

“To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” ~John 1:12-13

Peace,

Allan

Leave It Alone

July 27, 2015 / Allan / 0 Comments

“A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?'” ~Luke 13:6-7

Notice the violence of the command. “Cut it down!” It’s not producing fruit. Chop it down! It’s not doing what I need it to. Get rid of it! This tree is disappointing me, it’s taking up space and eating valuable resources and doing nothing productive. Cut it down!

That’s usually our first instinct: Cut it down. We see something we don’t like, we meet somebody who treats us wrong: Cut it down!

The disciples, while they were on the way with Jesus, reacted this same way. Just three verses into this journey, Jesus and his followers are rejected by the people in a Samaritan village:

“Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” ~Luke 9:54

Burn ’em out! Turn this whole place into a giant sand trap! Cut ’em down!

We’re the same way. We something wrong, we rush in to make it right. We encounter sin in the world or sin in the church and we fly into action with accusations and judgments and violence. Something offends us or some person is useless to us or just taking up space in the Kingdom, not doing what I think they should be doing, and we either verbally or physical get rid of them. Cut him down! Cut her out! Get rid of it!

We like to solve problems by amputation. That’s our instinct.

According to our Lord’s story, though, the preferred solution is to wait.

“‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.'” ~Luke 13:8-9

Notice the patience and restraint in that response. Leave it alone. And let’s spread around some manure. I want to write more about the manure tomorrow. Today, let’s look at the great contrast between “Cut it down” and “Leave it alone.”

There are times when brave and decisive action is demanded. And those times are exhilarating. It’s exciting to be in the middle of God’s action. But there are other times that demand restraint. There are times when the command from Christ is to not do something.

Sometimes Jesus says, “Go and do likewise” or “Come, follow me!” His commands move us, they push us. “Put out into the deep” or “Go make disciples!” But sometimes his commands stop us in our tracks. “Get behind me” or “Put your sword away.” “We’re not calling down any fire today” or “Leave it alone.”

This is a good lesson for us. I think this is a great lesson for me. I’m too quick to retaliate when I’ve been wronged; I need to be quicker to say, “I forgive you.” I’m too quick to correct others; I need to be quicker to say, “How can I help you?” Instead of evaluating and judging and fixing others, I need to be nurturing and caring and paying attention to others. Instead of chopping down, I need to leave alone.

The world desperately needs our patience and restraint. If we don’t forgive, who’s going to? If we don’t spread love and hope around all the hate and fear, who will? This world is full of people who demand and take; who’s going to give and give and give?

Peace,

Allan

I Forgive You

June 23, 2015 / Allan / 0 Comments

They are three of the most powerful words in any language. These three words contain the awesome power to break through seemingly impenetrable walls, to break down unscaleable obstacles, to break in to the most fortified places. These words are able to accomplish what bullets and bombs cannot, what politicians and policies cannot, what violence and force cannot.

“I forgive you.”

Powerful. Whoa!

These are the three short words the family members of the nine Christians killed in Charleston used over and over in court Friday afternoon when confronting their loved ones’ murderer.

Dylann Roof killed Ethel Lance’s mother in that horrible shooting. Yet Ethel told Dylann Friday, “I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you. You hurt a lot of people; but God forgives you and I forgive you.”

Felicia Sanders survived the massacre at that mid-week Bible study, left to mourn her daughter who was slain by Roof. She prayed for him Friday, “I forgive you. May God have mercy on you.”

Myra Thompson’s relative told Roof, “I forgive you and my family forgives you.”

When reflecting on the unique scene that played out in that South Carolina courtroom Friday, the President of the United States later observed, “In the midst of darkest tragedy, the decency and goodness of the American people shines through in these families.”

With all due respect, I disagree. To borrow Demi Moore’s line, I strenuously object.

It’s not decency and goodness in Americans that’s shining through, it’s the love of Christ in Christians that is shining through. It’s the glory of a loving and merciful God that is reflected through disciples of Jesus, not citizens of the United States.

Americans do not respond to violence with forgiveness, Christians do. American people do not meet hate with love, Christians do. Americans don’t return grace and good for evil, Christians do. Americans respond in vengeance with bullets, seeking revenge by force. Christians react in love with forgiveness, seeking reconciliation by means of peace.

The reason it makes news, the reason it raises eyebrows, the reason it compels commentary and praise is because forgiving enemies and doing good to those who persecute is so decidedly un-American! The reason it stops the presses is because it’s so radically different, it’s so anti-culture, it’s so not what we expect.

It moves mountains, it shakes the earth, it changes everything.

“I forgive you.”

It liberates, it transforms, it saves.

“I forgive you.”

You should give it a try sometime.

Peace,

Allan

Beyond Your Sin

March 24, 2015 / Allan / 1 Comment

“…your Father who sees what is done in secret…” ~Matthew 6:3, 6, 18

Remember the old church song about the All-Seeing Eye? It was creepy. It was scary, actually. I think it must have been written to keep church people from leaving during the invitation song. The All-Seeing Eye. And the song created this terrible picture of our God as this angry, arbitrary, ogre in the sky who just can’t wait to nail you. To grab you by the scruff of the neck and throw you out. Or destroy you.

Yes, our God sees everything. He sees all the good things you do. And, yeah, he definitely sees all the bad things you do. He sees your sin. He sees everything.

That means he not only sees your sin, he sees under your sin. He sees behind your sin. God sees above and below your sin. He sees beyond your sin to your pain. He sees the fear and the scars. God sees the hurts and the wounds that cause your sin. He knows.

God doesn’t just want you to stop sinning — yes, he definitely wants you to stop sinning — but he also wants to heal you. He wants to make you whole. He wants to get to the pain that drives you to those websites. He wants to fix the hurt that causes you to lie. God wants to cleanse the wounds that push you to anger or stealing, addiction or gossip. God loves you. And he wants to transform you. He wants to make you whole.

Peace,

Allan

Confession at the Cross

March 23, 2015 / Allan / 0 Comments

Beware of exploring the spiritual disciplines. Practicing the traditional disciplines will force you to confront your sins. I know this first hand. Silence before God or a prolonged meditation on a Psalm tends to bring out the honest truth of your relationship with the Father. Fair warning. There’s no hiding it when you’re in that place with our God.

Yesterday at Central, we explored a few of the historic spiritual disciplines together. We began with our middle school and high school students reciting a prayer of invocation written by Walter Brueggemann in 1996 and ended with a benediction penned by John Newton in 1779. We prayed the Lord’s Prayer together at the table and we observed two moments of silence around Psalm 32. And we confessed.

The inner life is about being in a place with God where he can work on you. And as we commit as a church family to pursuing a more holistic discipleship, which includes the traditional disciplines, confession just seemed like a good thing to do. If we’re going to be in that place with God, we’ve got to be up front with him about our sins. So we wrote down on pieces of paper the things that are wrong in our lives that need to be fixed by God, the attitudes of our hearts that need to be redeemed by God, and the situations in our lives that need to be given completely to him. And then we placed them on a large wooden cross at the front of our worship center.

The cross of Christ represents forgiveness and restoration and new life. It stands for a trust in God that he is bringing to completion that thing he has started in us. It reminds us that our Father has promised to make all things right — if things aren’t right in my life, it means that God’s not finished yet, he’s still working. So, after dwelling in Psalm 32 (“I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’ – and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”) we brought our sins and our attitudes and our lives to the cross and left them there.

And they’re still in there.

I’ve walked in to our worship center twice already today to spend some time at that cross. I read the confessions, I see the lists of sins and attitudes that plague our people, and I can relate to a bunch of them. Reading the words on that cross today, praying for the people who wrote those words and placed them on the nails on the cross, brings to light sins and attitudes in my own life that I haven’t written down or even acknowledged yet that need to be forgiven and transformed by God.

I don’t ever want us to come into the worship center on a Sunday morning Just As I Am and leave an hour-and-a-half later Just As I Was. Part of that corporate assembly experience is to be changed by God. Confession is good. Silence is good. Embracing a contemplative posture in the holy presence of God is good. You can’t hide anything when you get into that place with God. And it’s impossible to stay the same.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Forgiveness (Page 7 of 12)

Forgiveness Imitates Jesus

It Is Finished!

Leave It Alone

I Forgive You

Beyond Your Sin

Confession at the Cross

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