The Healing Power of Love
10/31/2010 - The Freedom of Forgiveness
Corrie Ten Boom, whose life story was made famous by the movie The Hiding Place, spent part of World War II confined and abused in a Nazi concentration camp. After the end of the war she was released and traveled around Europe speaking about the love and forgiveness of God.
In one of her messages on God's total and complete forgiveness of us she made the statement in a church in Munich that, "When we confess our sins to God he casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. And then he places a sign out there that says, 'NO FISHING ALLOWED!'"
After the service she noticed a man in a blue uniform and a visored cap with the emblem of a skull and crossbones making his way to the front against the flow of people who were filing out in silence.
As she watched him get closer it all came back to her with a rush—the huge room with the bright overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past ogling and leering guards, the sight of her frail sister in front of her with her sharp ribs almost puncturing her parched skin. The place was Ravensbruck, a Nazi concentration camp, and the man who was walking towards her had been a guard there—one of the cruelest guards.
In her book she writes, "Now he was in front of me, thrusting his hand out."
"A fine message, Fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!" Corrie fumbled in her pocketbook not wanting to take his hand.
"He couldn't remember me," she thought, "how could he remember one prisoner among thousands of women?"
But Corrie remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his wide belt. She was face to face with one of her captors and her blood seemed to freeze inside her body.
"You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk," he said. "I was a guard there. But since that time I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for all the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well, Fraulein." Again the hand came out, "Will you forgive me?"
"It could not have been many seconds that he stood there," she says, "hand held out. But to me it seemed like hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I ever had to do. My sister, Betsie, died in that place. Could he erase her slow agonizing death simply for the asking?"
"As I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart I realized that forgiveness is not an emotion, but a decisive act of the will and can function regardless of the temperature of the heart." "Jesus, help me!" I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling."
And so woodenly, mechanically, she thrust her hand into his and as she did an incredible thing happened. The current started in her shoulder, raced down her arm, and sprang into their joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to fill her whole being and brought tears to her eyes. "I forgive you, brother," she cried, "with all my heart." And for a long moment they stood there, grasping each other's hands, the former Nazi guard and the former concentration camp prisoner, the monster and the victim. Forgiven and free.
This morning we continue our series called The Healing Power of Love. It's a series in which we're learning together what it takes to be set free from the hurts and the wounds and the sin of our past that can keep us from loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves which Jesus called the greatest commandment.
The first two weeks were all about confession, confessing to God and exposing our wounds to him and then confessing our wounds to one another. James 5:16 says, Therefore, confess your faults to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
There can be no healing without confession, but confession is a choice we have to make. And as we said last week not everyone wants to make that choice because not everyone wants to be healed.
Viktor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who, like Corrie Ten Boom, was another holocaust survivor. He spent almost three yeas in Nazi concentration camps where he lost his mother, his father, and his wife.
After he was liberated in 1945 he wrote a world-famous book calledMan's Search for Meaning in which he described the life of a concentration camp prisoner through the lens of a psychiatrist. He went on to life a long life and died in 1997 at the age of 92.
And in his book he writes, "Everything can be taken away from a man or a woman but one thing. The one thing you can't take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The human freedom to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances can never be taken away."
We can't control what's been done to us, but we can control how we respond to what's been done to us. So we to need to make a choice to confess to God and then to confess to a trusted person who will listen to us and pray for us and encourage us in the healing process. But after that, comes what I believe, is the most important choice of all. And that's the choice that Corrie made. The choice to forgive.
As followers of Jesus we can be experts at receiving God's grace and forgiveness. I love the fact that thanks to the cross our sin is cast into the deepest sea with a sign over it that says "NO FISHING ALLOWED." But when it comes to showing that kind of forgiveness to someone who has hurt us deeply that can be the hardest thing we ever have to do.
If you have a Bible turn with me to a story Jesus told on forgiveness in Matthew 18:21-35. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who sins against me? Up to seven times?"
In that culture the rabbis used to say that you should forgive somebody three times. So Peter is actually patting himself on the back because he doubles that and throws in a bonus round for good measure perhaps to impress Jesus.
Verse 22, But Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." Or some translations read seventy times seven. In other words, "Peter, stop counting! Forgiveness is not a game we play and keep score. Forgiveness is a way of life."
Verse 23,"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.26"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
In this story the man owed the king a bazillion dollars worth of debt, ten thousand bags of gold. In other words, it's a debt that he could never repay, kind of like our national debt that stands at $13 trillion dollars. More money then we can ever imagine!
So the man begs for more time to do the impossible. But the king gives him something better than more time, he gives him forgiveness. The debt is completely canceled and he let's the man and his family go free. The king absorbs the huge loss.
This is a picture of what God does for us when we ask his forgiveness. The moral debt that we've accumulated before a just and holy God that's been growing for years is forgiven when we put our faith in Jesus. The entire weight of our unpayable, moral debt was placed on Jesus at the cross. The king absorbed the loss. Like the chorus says, "He paid the debt he did not owe. I owed a debt I could not pay. And Jesus washed my sins away." And what Jesus did for us on the cross, in an infinite way, he invites us to do for one another.
Forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel. Lewis Smedes says, "When you forgive someone, you are dancing to the rhythm of the divine heartbeat ... God invented forgiveness as the only way to keep his romance with the human race alive."
So what does the man do? Look at verse 28,"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. 29"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'30"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt."
Instead, of going out and forgiving his debtors with the same forgiveness he had received, the forgiven man goes out and beats the snot out of a guy who owes a pittance and throws him in jail. He wants to make him pay. The one who received mercy shows no mercy. Somehow this man who was forgiven a bazillion dollars didn't get it? The gospel, the good news of forgiveness, did not sink deep down into his heart.
In his comments on this story David Seamands writes this in his bookHealing for Damaged Emotions, "Woven into Jesus' parable is a picture of human relationships. We feel oughts and debts to one another. We say things like, 'He owes me an apology. He's paid his debt to society. I feel indebted to her or obligated to him.'
"Think about how you apply this parable to the significant others in your life: parents who hurt you when you were growing up, brothers and sisters who failed you when you needed help, who teased you, and put you down, a friend who betrayed you, a sweetheart who rejected you, a marriage partner who promised to love, honor, and care for you, but instead has done just the opposite and caused you so much pain. They all owe you a debt, don't they?
"They owe you affection and love, security and affirmation, but since you feel indebted and guilty, resentful, insecure, and anxious, since you see yourself as unforgiven and unacceptable, you in turn become unforgiving and unaccepting. You have not received grace, so how can you give it to others? And as you feel tormented, you hurt others. You've got to collect on the grievances, collect on your hurts. You must make all these people who have hurt you pay the debts they owe you. You are a grievance collector."
How do we stop being grievance collectors? Let me suggest that we stop by starting to embrace the incredible forgiveness that we've received from a loving, gracious God. We forgive seventy times seven because we were forgiven a mountain of debt that we could never repay. That's the truth. That's the healing power of love. It starts with accepting God's ridiculous love for us.
The apostle Paul put it this way in Colossians 3:13, Bear with each other and forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Forgive as the Lord forgave you. But what does that forgiveness look like? What is it that we do when we forgive somebody? And how do we do it? Is it once and done? Let me give you some suggestions that may help.
First, forgiveness is a choice, it's not a feeling. It's a decision that we make. Feelings of love and compassion may follow and replace feelings of anger and bitterness, but we don't wait for those feelings to make the decision to forgive.
Corrie Ten Boom had to make that decision in an instant when she was approached by that prison guard. And after she stuck out her hand then that current of warmth filled her whole body and brought her to tears. It didn't happen first. We can't wait to feel forgiving before we forgive. Forgiveness is an act of the will.
Second, forgiveness is not forgetting. The saying "forgive and forget" doesn't come from the Bible. In fact, it's important that we remember the hurt so that we know our forgiveness is real.
In his excellent book, Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves, David Stoop shares the story of a woman named Myra. One day Myraburst into his office in tears and sobbed, "I can't do it. I can't do it. I just can't." "You just can't do what?" he said. "I can't forget what he did to me. I've tried. I've really tried. But I just can't." Myra had been abused by her father until she ran away from home at 17.
After she finally calmed down, Dr. Stoop said, "You don't have to forget. I don't want you to forget. I want you to remember. You need to forgive your father. And you can't forgive your father unless you remember what he did to you. To forget it is to deny it. And as long as you deny it there will be no freedom from forgiveness."
Forgiving is not forgetting. We may forget things over time, but not always. The power of forgiveness lies in the fact that we forgive even as we remember.
Third, forgiveness is not always a once and done deal. It may have to be reaffirmed again and again. When God forgives us it's once and done. I love the picture Corrie paints of God burying our sins in the deepest sea and then posting a sign, "No Fishing Allowed." It's over, it's done.
But sometimes we have to repeat the process again and again.Sometimes the bitter memories of an offense that we've forgiven can be triggered by seeing a certain face, going to a certain place, smelling a scent in the air, hearing a song on the radio, looking at a date on the calendar and when that happens we need to confront that memory with two other memories. We need to remember how much God has forgiven us. And we need to remember the choice we already made to forgive that person who hurt us. In some cases, not all, forgiveness looks more like a process than a once and done deal.
Fourth, forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Forgiveness takes the choice of one person, reconciliation takes two. Forgiveness doesn't mean as a wife I sign up for more abuse or as a business person I take back a dishonest partner. Forgiveness and reconciliation are two separate things. I can forgive some one who's lied to me, but that doesn't mean I'll believe everything they say from now on. Reconciliation requires the rebuilding of trust and that means good faith on the part of both parties. I believe every person is "forgiveness worthy." But not every person is "trust worthy."
Finally, at the heart of forgiveness is giving up the right to get even and instead wanting the best for the other person. The word forgive literally means "to release" a person from retaliation. I know I've forgiven some one when I can look past the hurt they've caused me and see them as a person with hurts in their own life as well and then eventually get to the place where I actually wish the best for them and mean it.
Jesus ends his story with a strong warning in verse 31,When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.32"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' 34In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.35"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive a brother our sister from your heart."
Wow. What's that about? Withholding forgiveness is a serious offense in God's eyes. Jesus said that the unforgiving servant will end up tortured in prison. I'm not completely sure I understand all of it, but I think it has something to do with the unresolved anger and bitterness that can torture our souls when we fail to forgive and keep us locked up in a kind of prison that's stronger than any iron bars.
Max Lucado, a popular Christian author and pastor writes, "You know what we learn when we forgive somebody. We learn that when we open the door to our prison of bitterness and let them out, the real prisoner was our self. And we're the ones who can finally walk free."
On that day in Munich, Germany, Corrie Ten Boom had a choice to make... bitterness or forgiveness. She had every right to punish that guard for the hell he had put her through. But she didn't. She gave up the right to retaliate and made the choice to forgive. And it set them both free.
Some of us are facing some hard things right now. Some of you are pursuing counseling and dealing with hurts in your past that are very painful and I applaud you for that. You're heroes in my book. And I want to remind you this morning that the pain you're going through in the process is worth it because the person you're setting free is yourself. Hang in there as painful as it is. We all need the freedom that comes from forgiveness. Freely we have received. Freely give.