Please Forgive Me
Reminding ourselves to forgive
By Pastor Adam Fox
I am a proud member of the Millennial age group because I was born in the 1980s meaning that I was old enough to experience and enjoy the 1990s. One of the better parts of the Greatest Decade, trust me, was the TGIF television lineup on Friday nights. While many shows came and left from this dynamo lineup, one of the powerhouses was Boy Meets World.
Boy Meets World was a show with a simple plot: "The show chronicles the everyday events and life-lessons of Cory Matthews. It also stars Cory's teacher George Feeny, best friend Shawn Hunter, brother Eric, and love interest Topanga."
Boy Meets World was a show that I loved as a youth and still own on DVD and have watched as an adult many times. While the life-lessons are still the same and transcends the years – nostalgia is a driving force in re-watching it.
In 2012, ABC announced that Boy Meets World would be getting a spin-off show based on the life of adult couple Cory and Topanga Matthews and their children called Girl Meets World. While I did not watch it live when it came to Netflix; I did take the time to watch this spin-off show in hopes it would rekindle those childhood memories of nostalgia.
It was not nearly as good, but it did have a few stirring and touching moments - and one of them was the episode called "Girl Meets the Forgiveness Project". The plot of the episode was a simple one, Teacher Cory charges his class to expresses their feelings on paper to someone they wish to forgive. For most this is a simple project, but for the main characters best friend Maya - it is a daunting project.
The Maya character contacts her father who left her and her mother when she was a child and attempts to forgive him and give him the opportunity to show remorse. This brings up many great points for us to learn about forgiveness. Who do we forgive, how do we forgive or why bother... forgiveness is not easy.
The Bible is filled with examples and commands to us to forgive, from forgiving ourselves, to our neighbor, to everyone. As Christians, God makes it very clear to us in multiple places in Scripture to forgive BECAUSE we have been forgiven. Look at Paul’s words to the brothahs and sistahs in Colossians.
12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. Colossians 3:12-13
Just meditate on those words of Paul for a second longer, as the elect - those who have been forgiven by God for our sins. We are to imitate or do the same as Jesus Christ did for us. Where Jesus willingly allowed men to harm Him and take on the punishment of the cross, even though He was blameless and perfect, out of His great love and kindness for humanity – for you and I specifically. God loved us before we loved Him! The sinful, terrible, selfish and evil people that we were and He still loved us and forgave us.
That is what true forgiveness is and that is one of our examples from the Great Teacher - the parable of the Unforgiving Servant found in Matthew 18. The parable is the result from a question from, my guy, the Apostle Peter in verse 21 of how many times should we forgive?
"22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. 23 Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. 26 The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ 27 Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt."
While Peter may have thought that 490 times is a sizable number - but Jesus shows us that true forgiveness has no ceiling or limits. We are not called to keep a record of how many times we have forgiven our boss, our spouse, our children or anyone. That is why the Almighty uses the real-world example - something that each person there could relate and understand of a king who forgives a debtor of a great amount owed. Not going to lie, if any member of our government would want to put this example into practice with my student debt... let me know.
If Jesus ended the example there it would be a heartwarming story of a rich and powerful person forgiving a poor person. Reality television has these moments of helpless people’s debt being wiped out from the well-off. But he moves on, so that we do not just have the cockles of our heart warmed but understand the point of the parable.
"28 “But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ 30 And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. 31 So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. 32 Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 33 Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ 34 And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. 35 “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”
There it is. Jesus shows us in an extreme example of how we are to live. This King forgave a mammoth amount of money in a person and then this newly forgiven and debt free person went right out and did not apply how to forgive for others.
The heart gripping reality of this parable should hit us hard. We have been forgiven greatly by God for our sin through Jesus death and resurrection. No longer guilty, no longer bound for Hell, no longer under the penalty for our actions BECAUSE Jesus willing took our place.
But we still live like this servant, are not applying and forgiving as we have been forgiven. We are still being rude, hurtful, unloving, unkind, lacking in grace that Jesus Christ showed to us to be through His example of love and forgiveness towards others.
Why are we not flowing with forgiveness towards everyone in our lives consistently? Why are we still acting like this wicked servant? We are believers in God, light and salt to a lost and sinful world, but if we are not showing the forgiveness, love, grace kindness that Jesus showed us - and the entirety of the World when He died for us - we are a terrible example of God to the world.
Forgiveness is hard, there can be a lot to forgive in our relationships with other folk but also with our self. We need to be able to forgive our past and our self completely. Paul tells us this plainly in Philippians 3, moving on from the hurtful scars of our sinful past and not letting us be bound by them any longer.
13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
The people or hurts of the past are hard to forgive and move on from. As we get older, we become more hind-sighted in our victories and failures and we all have a habit of letting past mistakes, hurts and failures keep us prisoners in the now. Which is why Paul takes the time to tell the church in Philippi and us to not let our past sins make us prisoners of our current.
The past is hard to forgive, memories and ghost are hard to forgive but, in my opinion, forgiving yourself is even harder still. The Triune God has forgiven you completely, knowing each part of yourself - our past, our future and even our secret inner thoughts. Knowing all these private and intimate thoughts and actions - God still forgave you. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 that we have been saved by grace – a grace that is understood of having prior knowledge of who we were and what we have done. If God has completely forgiven you and I, why are we so hesitant to forgive our self?
Forgiveness is hard. It takes a lot of time and a lot of prayer to forgive our self, our past and others, it is not a quick thing. Completely forgiving is not something that we can do in a snap. We can tell our self that it is possible and that person has been forgiven in an instance, but seeing that person again usually brings up those memories and causes us to act un-Christianly. Keep forgiving and praying about it.
And of course, the greatest reminder is that God has forgiven you completely - and loves you unconditionally. Do the same.
"And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ" Ephesians 4:32
We have seen a lot about many types of forgiveness today. From forgiveness of yourself to forgiveness to others and releasing yourself from past mistakes. For some of us, forgiveness takes a great deal of effort and repetition. But no matter how challenging forgiving and being forgiven may be for us - we have to be a people of forgiveness.
How can you and I show true forgiveness - like Jesus Christ showed towards us? Is there someone in your life you can finally and completely forgive? Is there multiple people or maybe yourself? Seek forgiveness and escape from the self made prison that guilt and sin. And most importantly, imitate God in all things - especially in how He forgave you and I for our sins. Keep forgiving, Keep showing grace, kindness and love.
Who would have thought that a spin-off television show from the 1990s would bring up so many thoughts? Boy Meets World - more like Boy Meets Forgiveness.
Cheers and Excelsior!
Pastor Adam