I. The meaning of forgiveness
A. Several words are used in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek that are translated “forgive” and forgiveness.”
B. Some of these words are also used in contexts unrelated to forgiveness of sins but provide insight into the concept of the forgiveness of sins.
II. Release of debt
III. Divorce, send away, or sever a relationship
IV. Throw away, carry away
- Leave (used of the disciples leaving their nets to follow Jesus)
- Let something go as in Jesus yielding His spirit and dying.
V. To cover something to hide something.
A. Taking them together we see the sense in which the person who is sinned against sends the sin away, lets it go, and no longer requires an accounting of it.
VI. We see this with God’s forgiveness of us
A. Hebrews 10:12-17 – Sacrifice so that sins are no longer remembered
B. Illustrated with the scapegoat at the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16.
C. God’s forgiveness is more special because He has never done anything that requires us to forgive Him. Sin is a one way street: we sin and God forgives.
VII. Forgiving others
A. God’s forgiveness of our sins should motivate us to forgive others, Luke 11:4; Mark 11:25.
B. It would be ungrateful to accept forgiveness from God but be selfish in giving it to others.
- Matthew 18:21-25 – parable of the unforgiving servant
- We sin against one another (sins of neglect or actively doing something against another).
- Our debt between one another is small compared to our debt owed to God who has never wronged us.
- Our appreciation of God’s forgiveness should motivate forgiveness of others.
C. Hannah More (1745-1833), an educator and writer: ” A Christian will find it cheaper to pardon than to resent. Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.”
D. We need to ask God’s power to forgive others because the desire is not always in us.
- Desire is for revenge or making the other person suffer as we do.
- Unknown: ” We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive.”
VIII. When we forgive, we (use the list in point 1)
IX. Forgiving ourselves
A. Sometimes, or depending on the person, it may be easier to forgive others than ourselves.
X. We need to accept God’s forgiveness.
- Do we doubt his love, the sincerity of His promise, or the abundance of grace?
- Forgiving ourselves must be based on the understanding that God suffered the greater wrong but forgave us and will not hold our sin against us.
A. We can learn from our failures to obey God’s will to increase our resolve to make better decisions in the future, use our failures to help others avoid or recover from the mistakes we made, and deepen our appreciation for God’s love and mercy.
B. But as God expects us to forgive others because we have been forgiven, we need to forgive ourselves.
- Read the list from point 1 in the context of our sins
- Quit carrying our weight and release ourselves from a sense of debt.