Forgiveness
The third Saturday of each month, we have a men’s breakfast. If you are a man, I’d highly encourage you to attend. It is only about an hour out of your morning and you get food!
In my opinion, have a harder time talking about our feelings with each other. For those of us lucky enough to have a wife worth her weight in gold, we know we have someone to talk to about most things. For those who do not have a wife, it would be beneficial to have a group of men to use as a sounding board.
The young man who shared a message with us, said that he recently delivered a message regarding forgiveness. It centered on a parable Jesus gave in Matthew:
“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” - Matthew 18:23-35 ESV
He combined this with the prior verse to this passage where Jesus tells Peter that he must forgive a person virtually without limitation:
“Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.’” - Matthew 18:21-22
A great message but it got me thinking that there are at least two flavors of forgiveness. The first flavor is forgiving someone of the consequence of their wrong. The above parable seems to be along those lines. The parable above certainly focuses on the king who didn’t only put the debtor in jail but forgave the debt and how, when he found out that the debtor would not do the same with someone who owed him money, put him in jail. This type of forgiveness is what we obtain when we accept Jesus as our savior and his sacrifice of dying a perfect life for our sin.
But it seems like their is at least one other flavor of forgiveness and that is forgiving someone of the wrong they committed for your own peace without impacting the consequences of their sin. For example, let’s say a person, impaired from alcohol, drove, hit another car containing your child, killing him or her. In this example forgiving the person releases you from the pain and torture of desiring revenge against the person who killed your child. Forgiving the driver doesn’t remove the legal consequences of their action. Another example might be a situation of marital infidelity. The person who didn’t cheat on his or her spouse might decide to forgive their spouse to work on their marriage while not returning (right away) to the same level of trust that they had before the indiscretion.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” - Matthew 22:36-40 ESV
In both flavors of forgiveness, the common aspect is that the person forgiving feels better by letting go of the pain from the other party. Maybe that is the lesson whether or not grace is involved as part of the forgiveness.
