Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Following Jesus means knowing how to forgive Mark 2:1-12 Following Jesus without Freaking out Sermon 06 Maya Angelou said, “Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host.”   Nearly fifteen years ago Kurt Cobain, the founder and lead singer of Nirvana, ended his life filled with bitterness and anger. His violent suicide prompted a lot of questions. "Why? He had it all…a great career, dedicated fans, plenty of money, a beautiful wife and a 19 month old daughter. So why did he kill himself?"   Kurt Cobain was very vocal about his bitterness from being a child of divorce and moving from house to house, and eventually without a home. He felt that life was rotten and meaningless. His music often spoke of his anger and disillusionment. One of his songs was called "Nevermind." Its recurring line was "Oh well, whatever, nevermind." Another song that he wrote was never released because it was too objectionable. It was called, "I Hate Myself, And I Want To Die." That’s bitterness. His friends said he often acted without reason. He was constantly on an emotional roller coaster. But his dips into despair got deeper and deeper. Once, a member of his road crew asked him why he was moping around so much. Cobain bitterly replied, "I’m awake, aren’t I?"   Our world is filled with bitter people. It’s estimated 75% of the people you encounter every day are bitter about something. Imagine that! Seven to eight out of every ten people you encounter each and ever day are bitter about something or with somebody. And many of us struggle with bitterness. This past week I had a long conversation with a Mom who was struggling with being mistreated by her daughter on Mother’s Day. Another person was struggling with forgiveness toward a person whom they had lent a large sum of money to and when they asked that it be repaid, they were attacked and accused of being greedy. All of us struggle at some level with bitterness. Maybe it’s toward your spouse or your parents or your lot in life. Maybe it’s toward your child or a co-worker or an ex-friend. Maybe it’s toward another Christian or even a pastor…maybe it’s even me. Some of you are divorced and struggle with bitterness toward your ex. Others have been molested or abused, and you can feel the hatred periodically brewing in your soul. Some of you are simply bitter at God.   From a purely human perspective if anyone had a “right” to be bitter, it was Jesus. He was born into poverty, falsely accused of being illegitimate. His parents didn’t get him and His siblings thought He was nuts. Religious leaders hated Him. The crowds just used Him. Politicians tried to take advantage of Him. Ultimately, His enemies murdered Him by the most inhumane death possible, death on the Cross. Rather though than bitterness and hatred, our Lord models for us love and forgiveness. His last words were, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Jesus is the model of forgiveness. If you are a Christ-follower, Following Jesus means knowing how to forgive.                    1. Bitterness has a high price. A few decades ago several American companies authorized by the U.S. government buried toxic waste products underground. They filled large metal containers with chemical waste and other life-threatening products, sealed the drums tightly, and buried them deep down below the topsoil. They thought that was the end of it. Within a short time, however, many of the containers began to leak and the toxic waste started seeping to the surface, causing all sorts of problems. In some locations, it killed off the vegetation and ruined the water supply. People had to move out of their homes. In one section near Niagara Falls, known as the Love Canal, an inordinate number of people began dying of cancer and other debilitating diseases. Many communities are still suffering the effects of toxic-waste burials to this day. What went wrong? They tried to bury something that was too toxic. It couldn’t be contained. They thought they could bury it and be rid of it once and for all. But they didn’t realize that the materials they were attempting to bury were so powerful and too toxic for the containers to hold. They never dreamed that one day these contaminants would resurface, and they’d have to eliminate them all over again. But this time, the toxic materials would be dispersed, and much more difficult to deal with. Had they disposed of them properly in the first place, they wouldn’t have had this terrible problem. Like Frankenstein, bitterness is a deadly monster that turns on its creator, and causes internal damage beyond compare. Bitterness and unforgiveness are always sin. Please note this though, the one they hurt the most is the carrier. So what will bitterness do to you?     a) Bitterness will devastate you spiritually. Why? Two reasons: Because bitterness necessitates that you walk in the flesh and not in the Spirit. While we can’t control what happens in life, we can control how we respond to it. If you have unresolved bitterness in your life, you’re not right with God and are not walking in the Spirit but in the flesh!   b) Bitterness will destroy you physically. Doctors know that bitterness affects your physical health. It’s been medically linked to glandular problems, high blood pressure, cardiac disorders, ulcers and even insanity. Famed psychiatrist, Dr. Karl Menninger, stated that “90% of all people in insane asylums could be released immediately if they would learn how to forgive, or how to be forgiven.”   c) Bitterness will hurt you emotionally. Where there’s bitterness, there’s discouragement. Bitterness leads to paranoia. You start to develop a victim’s mentality that everyone’s out to get you. You become negative, critical even paranoid. You become judgmental of others and think you know their motives. You think people are talking about you. Someone joked that you can’t even go to football game because of the team huddles… and you’re sure they’re talking about you.   d) Bitterness will divide a church family. We’re on a roll here at Grace. The momentum is moving in a good, steady direction. PTL! If you want that to stop, then just harbor bitterness for someone else who’s here! We’re all human. At times we’ll give each other reason to be offended …sometimes unintentionally, sometimes not! That’s what happened in the Philippian church. “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord” (Phil. 3:2). These two women had a falling out and it hurt the church. I’m not minimizing but friend, you’re not the 1st person to get hurt in church! Sometimes we just need a good old-fashioned dose of growin’ up! We need to grow up and get over it. Remember that you don’t deserve God’s forgiveness, and even if they don’t deserve yours, it’s still the right thing to do to grant it to them!   e) Bitterness will defile your relationships. Bitterness has a spill-over effect. You don’t have to be bitter toward your spouse to hurt your marriage. You can be bitter toward your Dad or Mom, and harm your marriage. Bitterness at your boss can hurt your relationship with your children…because of the spill-over effect. And be assured of this, bitterness toward anyone, living or dead, hurts your relationship with God.   f) Bitterness will deprive you of God’s blessings. If you’re bitter, you’ll bring that negative, petty, critical spirit to church with you. You won’t come looking for a blessing, you’ll be looking for what’s wrong…and you’ll always find something. You’ll become what we talked about last week, a missionary of misery. But the one you hurt the most is you!! 2. Forgiveness is our greatest need, Mark 2:1-12 (p. 708). There are some little words and phrases that are extremely significant in life. Just the word “yes” to the question, “will you marry me?” The phrase the doctor spoke when he said, “It’s a girl.” That small phrase became a life changer. When the politician hears, “you won!” There are many other little phrases that represent great moments in life. The most significant of all is when Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven.” A Gospel song says, “these are the sweetest words that Jesus ever spoke.”   This chapter in Jesus’ life raises a vital question for us: What is our greatest need? When we look at our friends and family struggling with life, what is their greatest need? The need that Jesus heals first is not the need that most of us would expect.   Did you know that there are anywhere from 250,000 to 400,000 people with spinal cord injuries in the U.S? 47% with paralysis of the lower extremities, the other 53% are quadriplegic. About 90% live a normal life span and more than half were injured between the ages of 16 and 30.   Can you picture the scene described here? Jesus is preaching in a crowded house. There are people on the floor, the doorways, the windows. Passersby stop in curiosity at to what or who is attracting such a crowd. This particular house Jesus was in had outside stairs going up to a mud and straw thatched roof. Four men arrive with a paralyzed friend lying on a homemade stretcher. They’ve heard about Jesus and believe He can heal their friend. When they arrive, they can’t enter the house because of the overcrowded situation, so they go to the roof. Imagine sitting on the floor in this house listening to Jesus, as little pieces of straw and dried mud begin to fall from the ceiling. Soon a bit of sunlight is shining through, then a large hole, and suddenly, a man on a stretcher is lowered right in front of the preacher. It had to be quite a chaotic situation. What’s the owner of the house thinking as his house is vandalized? What are the guests thinking as they’re covered with dust and their service is interrupted? And what does Jesus think of the somewhat abrasive forwardness of these intruders? But Jesus always sees the real need, not just the surface one. He’s always looking at the heart issues.   If you had been Jesus, what would you have thought the greatest need was? What do you think that your greatest need is today? More money? A better marriage? Physical healing? Do our Lord’s words seem out of place to you? But as Jesus looks into the heart of this paralyzed man, He sees a heart crying out for release from guilt. He looks at this paralytic man, looking past his paralysis deep into his heart. He knows the deepest yearning of this man’s heart is to be rid of guilt, to be forgiven. A Dutch poet called man’s guilt “the root of all human problems.” A British psychologist called man’s sense of having been forgiven “the most healing force in the world.”   Scripture clearly teaches that there is a relationship between sin and disease, and forgiveness and healing. Sickness, disease, and death are the consequence of the sinful condition of us all. That’s why it’s appropriate for Jesus to proclaim the forgiveness of sins. Jesus’ pronouncement of pardon is the recognition that man can be genuinely whole only when the breech occasioned by sin has been healed through God’s forgiveness of sins. The presence of pain and illness in our lives is a reminder that we belong to a race of sinners and that our greatest need is spiritual. We all need to be forgiven! That’s our greatest need! Someone has pointed out that the experience of illness, (the effects of sin) should always drive us to the Cross where Jesus died so that sin can be forgiven and the ultimate effect of sin, death, can be conquered. 3. We must be forgivers because we are great debtors. Let’s be honest. It’s easy to proclaim the virtue of forgiveness but reality is another matter.  C. S. Lewis put it well: "Forgiveness is a beautiful word, until you have something to forgive."   Something powerful within us clings to wrongs suffered, longing to strike back at our tormentors. Because this desire is so strong, Jesus dealt with the need to forgive on numerous occasions. Obviously, He considered it to be one of life's crucial issues. His entire life was both a lesson about forgiveness and a provision for it. Perhaps His most important message about the subject was given in the form of a parable, the story of the unforgiving servant found in Matthew 18:21-35 (p. 695).   Jesus’ story takes us into the affairs of state of a great king. As we think of this king, we’re to think of God. The leader of a great empire, this king has a multitude of ministers and bureaucrats answerable to him, men charged with the administration of his realm. One such individual owes the king "ten thousand talents." Even in our day of incredible salaries paid to athletes and entertainers, it’s an enormous sum.   The servant owed 10,000 talents. Do you know how much that is? During New Testament times Galilee’s total annual revenue was just 300 talents. King Herod’s total annual income was 900 talents. The other servant owed 100 denarii…just over three months salary. H.R.S. Kennedy gives a brilliant picture to contrast the two amounts. 100 denarii could fit in your pocket but it takes 8,200 people carrying 60 lb. sacks to equal 10,000 talents. Let’s also look at some modern day equivalents. 100 denarii would equal $3200. 10,000 talents would equal, (are you ready for this?) nearly four trillion dollars! The point is that nothing that others could do to us can in any way compare with what we have done to God. We tend to see sin as something small, insignificant. After all, we all do it. But sin is no small matter to an absolutely righteous and perfect God. Sin places each of us in a position of spiritual bankruptcy, with an obligation we cannot discharge, even if we were given all eternity to do it.   But the king responds in an amazing way: He "took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go." It’s important to recognize what the king does and why. The motive is compassion. It’s the character of the king, not the character of the servant that produces the release from debt. The reason for forgiveness is found in the forgiver, not the forgiven. It’s an act of grace. This is the great truth about our forgiveness through Christ. God, being who He is, chooses to forgive us in grace. And that’s the model of all forgiveness. The nature of forgiveness is release from debt by the payment of a price. The king, in effect, turns the debt into a gift. The money is his, and he gives up the right to it. The forgiver pays what the forgiven owes. Only the king can forgive the debt and he forgives it by paying it himself.   But the free and forgiven man has no sooner left the palace than he meets a fellow servant who owes him a small amount of money. Although he has a legal right to demand payment, he has no moral right. It’s impossible to receive forgiveness gratefully from one and to refuse it vengefully to another. And the inconsistency of the servant's actions becomes a scandal in the king's household. The point being made here deals with the present, not the eternal, consequences of an unforgiving spirit. There is a torment, a torture that is more real than even physical pain for a bitter, unforgiving person. The torture chamber of an unforgiving spirit is all too real. That same truth is echoed in the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12).   James Montgomery Boice wrote, “The only sure proof that a person has received God’s forgiveness through true faith in Jesus is a transformed heart and changed life. How do we get that down into the practical areas of our lives so that we actually begin to treat others as we have been treated? By standing before the holy God and seeing ourselves as the sinners we are—vile and yet forgiven through the death of God’s Son. We must know that we have been saved solely because of the undeserved mercy of God. That awareness should humble us so that we simply have no other option but to forgive others and to do it from the heart.” 4. Jesus models for us forgiveness in that He forgave the greatest sin of all time, Deicide. As He was dying on the Cross, Jesus cried out “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).   General James Oglethorpe, the founder and first governor of the colony of Georgia said to John Wesley, "Mr. Wesley, you know that I have never forgiven." And that great Methodist preacher told him, "Then, I hope you never sin!" We all need forgiveness, and the only One to not need forgiveness, was the One who so freely offered it and paid the whole price for our forgiveness.   In these words of Jesus we have a priceless jewel, blurred in the English translation but crystal clear in the Greek text. The phrase, "Jesus said" is in the imperfect tense, indicating continuous action in past time. It could be translated, "Then Jesus kept saying." This is so beautiful, you don’t want to miss it. It's seems very apparent then that Jesus prayed and pleaded, not once, but over and over again, "Father, forgive them." It's very probable that when they laid Him on the cross beam and began to drive the spikes in His wrists that He prayed, "Father, forgive them." As they lifted Him up and pulled against His bones and flesh He said, "Father, forgive them." As they nailed His feet, He again prayed, "Father, forgive them." And then as they mocked and jeered Him, "Father, forgive them."   Can you imagine how this shocked those heartless Roman soldiers? They’d been trained in might, right and justice. Mercy was an alien thought to them. What did it mean to the Jews who believed "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?" They knew He was innocent. From their perspective He should have been calling down fire from Heaven upon them. Instead He prays, "Father, forgive them."    But this forgiveness was not a blanket pardon or cancellation of the penalty of all those who participated in His death. It’s not Universalism. It’s not an open door for everyone to automatically go to heaven. He’s not excusing their sin. God will not pardon someone unless they first desire to be pardoned. On the positive side, we may say that His prayer was in a very definite sense concerning Himself. When He said, "Father, forgive them," the unexpressed implication is clearly "And condemn Me." It’s only by assuming their debt that He could plead for their forgiveness. The word translated "forgive" here would be better translated "let be" or "suffer them." The same word is used in Matthew 19:14, when Jesus says "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me." Jesus was not directing His disciples to forgive the little children but to not interfere with them. When the crowd tried to prevent the soldiers from giving Him vinegar to drink, they used the same term, "let be." They wanted the soldiers to hold off relieving Jesus until they could see whether Elijah would come in answer to Christ's misunderstood cry. Jesus is praying, "Father, let be--suffer them--don't interfere now; for they know not what they do."   What they were committing was Deicide – the murdering of God. If Jesus had not prayed for the Father to restrain Himself, all the wrath of God would have been poured out on them. Jesus had already prepared His little band of followers to go forth as witnesses. After His resurrection and Pentecost, they’ll be ready to witness to the true meaning of His death, burial and resurrection. So Jesus is praying, "Father, don't strike these poor dupes of sin down until they have found out what this is all about. Give them another chance, Father." It’s not pardon but rather, it’s postponement so that they might have opportunity to repent.     Beth Moore commenting on Jesus’ words writes, “This may be the most perfect statement spoken at the most perfect time since God gave the gift of language. As unimaginable as His request was, it was so fitting! If the cross is about anything at all, it is about forgiveness. Forgiveness of the most incorrigible and least deserving.” If Jesus could forgive His own murderers, what prevents us from forgiving the petty offenses against us? Conclusion: When the public schools of New Orleans were integrated under court order in 1960, four six-year-old black girls were selected to break the color barrier that had been built over generations to keep white and black children apart. Three were assigned to one school and Ruby Bridges was sent alone to Frantz Elementary School. How was a little girl supposed to deal with such tension? She was escorted to and from school each day by federal marshals for her protection. She had to run the gauntlet of taunts, curses, and threats from adults as she arrived and left each day. White parents took their children out of Frantz, and Ruby was the only child in Miss Hurley's first-grade class.   Dr. Robert Coles is a child psychiatrist who studied Ruby's experience. He visited Ruby and her family twice every week. He interviewed Miss Hurley about her pupil. To his amazement, Ruby was sleeping soundly every night, eating well, and playing with neighborhood children as before. "You know I don't understand this child," said her teacher. "She seems so happy. She comes here so cheerfully." One morning Miss Hurley was watching Ruby walk toward the school. Suddenly, the little girl stopped right in the middle of the screaming, jeering crowd. Facing all those angry people, her lips started moving. Miss Hurley thought she was talking to them. She wondered what Ruby might be saying to people who seemed ready to kill her. The marshals tried to move her into the building. But she wouldn't budge until she finished what she was saying. Miss Hurley asked her later what had happened, and Ruby explained. "I wasn't talking to those people," she said. "I was praying. I was praying for them." You see, every morning little Ruby stopped a few blocks from her school to pray for the people that hated her. That morning she had forgotten until she was already on the sidewalk in the middle of the angry adults. And here’s what she prayed twice a day, before and after school. "Please, God, try to forgive those people. Because even if they say those bad things, they don't know what they're doing. So You could forgive them, just like You did those folks a long time ago when they said terrible things about you."   As we tie this up, let me end with some practical steps of forgiveness: Don’t deny feelings of hurt or anger—acknowledge these feelings and commit yourself to doing something about them. Make a conscious decision not to seek revenge or nurse a grudge and choose instead to forgive. Think differently about the offender. Accept the pain you’ve experienced without passing it onto others, including the offender. Think about how it feels to be released from a burden or grudge. Seek meaning in the suffering you’ve experienced. See the offender as a tool God is using to build character in you. Finally, realize the paradox of forgiveness: as you let go and forgive the offender, you are experiencing release and healing.   Forgiveness is a choice, a decision of the will. Jesus chose to forgive and He modeled it for us. By His grace and power, let’s choose to forgive too! Friend, who do you need to forgive…today?