Forgiveness – Part Four

City Harbor Church – Hampden, Baltimore, MD

Week 1: Introduction, viewing forgiveness through how God forgives us.
Week 2: Someone forgiven of much refuses to forgive for little.
Week 3: Jesus heals the paralytic but not until he forgives his sins first.
Week 4: How do we actually forgive?

Possible Signs of Unforgiveness

Emotionally

• Negative Emotions: Negative feelings about someone tell us that something is not healed
• • Deep, negative emotions when you are reminded of an event or a person
  • Prolonged stress amplifies our Amygdala’s sensitivity making us even more susceptible to further hurt and pain.

Deep emotions come to us in a rush but don’t leave at the same pace (LT,10)

• Anger
  • Ephesians 4:26-27 And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.
  • Study says anger causes “rumination” of thoughts. (mental anxiety/stress) and inhibits forgiveness and further damages the relationship.
• Depression
• Bitterness – towards God, the church or others or on behalf of others (example of people leaving church because of job for Dad).
• Seeking revenge
• Gossip
• Don’t notice good things

Mentally

• Can’t stop thinking about the event or the person involved
• Keeping record of wrongs
• Diminished memory: long term stress, cortisol is released and causes our brain to atrophy especially in our hippocampus or memory center

Physical symptoms (NIH)

• Frequent illness (lower immune response)
• High cholesterol
• Heart disease
• Hypertension
• Physical pain
• Poor sleep or insomnia

Damage from unforgiveness

• Hinder your relationship with God
  • Mark 11:25 – But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.
• Allows the event or perpetrator to continue to have power over you
• Keeps us in the past (we can’t move forward)
• Relational Damage
  • Begin to lose trust
  • Fear of more damaged relationships
  • Withdrawing from healthy relationships (isolation which leads to more depression etc.)

What is forgiveness not?

• “Moving on”
• Condoning bad behavior
• Taking away your right to feel hurt/pain
• Staying in a relationship no matter what
  • Boundaries aren’t to push people away, they are to hold me together (LT, 132)
• Forgetting what happened
• A relationship improver
• Consequence Remover
  • A willingness to accept consequences for sinful behavior is actually good evidence that an offender truly is repentant.
• Unconditional

What is forgiveness?

• A decision
• A process
• Reflection of the character of God
• Obedience to God

Steps to ask for forgiveness

• Apology
• The hurt is named
• The damage done is stated
• Repentance
• Forgiveness asked for

I’m sorry I…. I recognize that it damaged you …. I will not do it again… Will you forgive me?

(If someone asks for our forgiveness) How do we forgive?

• Realize that God brings healing and our Enemy (Satan) is our real villain.
  • The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10
• Recognize that forgiveness will cost us something (like parable of king forgiving)
• Remember that forgiveness is a key to a closer relationship with God
• Ask God for help (God help me to forgive like you do…. Please help me heal from the damage they have done to me)
• Choose to forgive
• Repeat
• Get help from pastor/therapist if needed
• Have a posture of readiness to forgive again.

When there is no repentance: Going beyond forgiveness.

Matthew 18 – Offense between Believers

• Go privately to that person
• Take one or two others with you
• Take your case to the church
• If they won’t accept the church’s decision “treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector”.

Matthew 5

• If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other cheek also.
• If you are sued and your shirt is taken, give your coat too.
• If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles.
• Love your enemies (hostile, hating, opposing)
• Pray for those who persecute you

Matthew 5:46-48 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Love your enemies, AGAPE – 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Loving my enemy means:

I am patient and kind to them. I am not jealous of them or boastful or proud about myself when I think of them (self-righteous). I will not be rude in my behavior or conversation with or about them. I will not be irritable to them or irritated when I think of them. I will not keep a record of what they do wrong. I will not rejoice when something bad happens to them. I will rejoice when they come to Jesus!

I will never give up on them, never lose faith that God is working on them. I will continue to be hopeful that true reconciliation is possible and yet I will endure through every circumstance that makes it seem like this is not ever possible.

Results of Forgiveness

• God will forgive your sins
• Peace
• Joy
• Hope: After practicing forgiveness Hope for the future shown to increase in
• College Students (Luskin et al., 2005).
• At-risk adolescents (Freedman, 2018)
• Early adolescent female sexual abuse survivors (Rahman et al., 2018)
• Incest survivors (Freedman & Enright, 1996)
• Terminally Ill (Hansen et al., 2009)

Further Study/help

• Bible
• Forgive by Timothy Keller
• Unpacking Forgiveness by Chris Brauns
• Forgiving what you can’t forgive by Lysa Terkheurst