Exodus 34:4-8 · Genesis 3 · Exodus 33:5 · Exodus 34:6-7 · Philippians 2:5-11 — God's Intention for the Family
God's Intention for the Family -- Forgiveness
Forgiveness is the key to family harmony. This sermon examines three elements of biblical forgiveness—relinquishing rights, clear communication, and unconditional love—and calls believers to mirror God's grace toward one another.
I.
I do not want to leave you waiting for the punchline of this lesson, so let me state it on the front end — the key to any family is forgiveness. Some will say it is communication and indeed that is invaluable. Some will say it is recreation, prayer, or even learning to fight fair. All of these and any other concept has a role to play in family harmony. But the key to family is forgiveness. It is the ability to deal with sin in any form and find ways to move on. I will be the first to admit that some things are easier to forgive than others. But we are not here to establish a hierarchy of forgiveness. Learning to forgive can save a marriage and heal a family. We endorse forgiveness. We talk about God forgiving us. We encourage each other to forgive. The real difficulty comes in practicing that which we know is what God wants. It is like the man who loved dogs. He served as a speaker in various civic clubs to benefit the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). ILL. “Forgiveness — abstract.” I want to make forgiveness concrete.
II.
Turn to Genesis 3. In Genesis 2 we find the meeting between the first man and woman. It is a meeting of excitement and gratefulness. But when we come to chapter 3, sin enters their relationship. What is the woman’s sin? Some may say that it is eating the forbidden fruit and that is certainly the expression of her sin. But her sin is a reminder of our own sin. All sin is a desire to be God. We want to call the shots. We want to be in the position of being in control. While the woman sins in eating the fruit, the expression of that sin comes from a heart that is set on being God. And with sin, we believe ourselves to be God even though we are not.
Isn’t this what the serpent promised the woman? She would know good and evil. But didn’t the woman already know good and evil? Hadn’t God already told her about good and evil? But to know good and evil by herself was a promise that God wasn’t needed any longer. God is displaced and the woman is now in control.
Then the man shares in the woman’s sin. He, too, eats the fruit. The result — loneliness and isolation. The very thing that the woman was to alleviate becomes the reality. The man was lonely without the woman and now the man is lonely with the woman. This is the effect of sin in every relationship and in every family. Instead of being a helper for the man, the man and woman seek ways to serve themselves rather than each other. The man blames the woman and the woman blames the serpent and neither regards the other with joy. Trust is broken.
Every family has experienced this in some form. Maybe it was a major difficulty or maybe it was petty. It doesn’t matter. Sides are drawn and each side believes the other ought to give in.
III.
So what do we do? When sin enters our family, separation and loneliness comes with it. At times our first inclination is to retaliate, to hurt in return. This may be more true with spouses than with children, but isolation comes with sin. How can we deal with the separation and loneliness? Walter Wangerin calls this process “The Divine Absurdity.” Jesus entered the world to buy us back from sin and to forgive. Forgiveness is irrational and unwise as the world reasons. Forgiveness omits the step of retaliation in order for healing to begin. There are three elements to forgiveness.
First, forgiveness is a willingness to relinquish our rights. The one sinned against chooses not to demand rights or redress for the hurt and suffering. Forgiveness begins by giving up something of self and we step into the world of mercy.
Second, forgiveness must include clear communication to the sinner about the sin. Without that communication no changes take place. The person who has sinned against you must be told in clear language what was done wrong. We do this in order to facilitate change not to punish the sinner. Sometimes we are hurt so deeply that we erroneously think that if we keep it to ourselves time will heal the hurt. Or we think that if we say anything it will lead to an argument and things will only get worse. To say nothing is to tacitly agree with what has been done and the one who has sinned is left to continue in the wrong action. Forgiveness also means not bringing up the past. To bring up the past demonstrates that forgiveness has not taken place.
Third, forgiveness is giving love when there is no reason to love and no guarantee that love will be returned. It is repaying evil with kindness even when you don’t feel like it. It is mercy without expecting mercy in return. When the sinner is confronted with the sin, the sinner fully expects the worst. But when the sinner is given love instead of condemnation, then change and growth can occur.
IV.
None of these three elements is easy. Sooner or later we think “I can only take so much” or “there’s nothing left for me to give any more. I’ve reached my limit.” The truth is that we are able to sin against each other a whole lot more than we are able to forgive. So how do we keep forgiving when there is no energy left for forgiving?
Concentrate on your relationship with God. Focus that we are the sinner and he is the forgiver. Before anyone ever sinned against you, you sinned against God. How did God respond to our sin? He gave us over to his Son in order to forgive.
Look at Exodus 34. After the golden calf incident, the sin of the people is so significant that God says in 33:5 that he will not accompany Israel into the Promised Land. In other words, he will fulfill his promise, but his presence will not be with them.
ii. Moses pleads for God to change his mind and when God does, Moses boldly asks God to reveal his glory (33:18). And God reveals his glory declaring who he is to Moses in the process in 34:6-7. God forgives. Only one who has experienced grace, can share it.
Remember Jesus gave up his rights (Phil. 2:5-11); he gave notice to all of us that we are sinners. And he gave to us gifts of love which we did not deserve. We can do that as well. We mimic the forgiveness of Jesus in our family. It isn’t easy, but it leads to family harmony. ILL. “Forgiveness: Kai Harriot.” Invitation.
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