Transcript
On Forgiveness
The Rev. Dr. Matthew William Kozlowski
I want to talk today about forgiveness. Specifically, God’s forgiveness.
There is a church in New York City with a sign our front, and it’s become so well known that it’s a tagline for the parish. Three words: Enjoy Your Forgiveness.
Now it might seem obvious, but that’s referring to God’s forgiveness of you.
And it’s maybe helpful to break down those three words:
- First word: Enjoy. In other words: Take joy. That’s profound. Don’t just receive or accept forgiveness. Rejoice in it. Harder than it sounds.
- Second word: Your. Personal. It’s not just that God forgives the sins of the world. God forgives YOU.
- Third word: Forgiveness. What’s the point? Well, it’s a thing. Forgiveness is not just an idea. Or a feeling. Forgiveness is a reality. It’s a thing that God does which, we believe, fundamentally changes who you are.
But I have three ideas for you today about forgiveness.
Why does God forgive?
How does God forgive?
What difference does it make?
Why does God forgive?
There are probably many answers to this question. But this morning I have one answer. John 151. 5 Jesus said to his disciples: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends.” At the Men’s breakfast yesterday, Dr. Matt Messer gave a brilliant talk, and he kept coming back to this point. The Christian life is friendship with God. You may heard this before. So much so that it loses its power. But that statement is absolutely astounding. God desires friendship with you. God wants to be your friend.
Dr. Messer was saying that this was possible for example, for Aristotle to conceive of. God was distant, God was perfect. Friends with God? That’s impossible.
But Jesus comes and says, that’s exactly what I want. Greater love has no one than this: than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
A friend is someone who wants the best for you. A friend is someone who loves you. Who wants your highest good.
So if you are in Christ – that’s how the Bible talks about being a Christian – it means friendship with God.
What does this have to do with forgiveness? God, as your friend, says that sin is not your highest good. Sin – we know this – hurts our relationship with ourselves; hurts our relationship with others; and hurts our relationship with God. And God says, I love you too much for that. Confess your sins. Let me wipe the slate clean. Because I have plans for you.
1 John 1. 8 – 9. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God says let me bring your out of error into truth. Out of sin into righteousness. Out of death into life.
2. How Does God forgive?
Lodged deep in the pages of Scripture is the notion that sin must be dealt with. There is a cost; there is a price.
In the Old Testament, there were the sacrifices. You would sacrifice an animal. A dove. Or a goat. Or a lamb.
We come to the Gospel passage that we heard today. John the Baptist sees Jesus and says, “Behold, the lamb of God.”
Everyone would have known what that meant. A lamb, in the Biblical worldview is something to be sacrificed. A lamb was especially sacrificed at Passover. That’s why we say every Sunday in the Eucharist, “Alleluia, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”
Jesus, as the lamb of God, allows himself to be sacrificed. To deal with sin.
2 Corinthians 5. 21. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
As the lamb of God, Jesus took sin (and death) upon himself. And in doing so, he broke the power of sin. So that anyone who is IN HIM is no longer subject to the ultimate power of sin (and death).
God says let me bring your out of error into truth. Out of sin into righteousness. Out of death into life.
3. What difference does God’s forgiveness make?
One thing to say up front: God’s forgives does not remove the consequences of sin. The things we do – they have lasting effects. For good and for bad. The blessings that give one another – they fill us up. But the hurts we cause. They leave wounds and scars. That’s why it’s always worth being kind. It’s always worth telling the truth.
What God’s forgiveness does is set us free; and give us the chance to love again.
Forgiveness is a choice. It’s not cheap. You have to think about it. Pray about it.
I got saw a quote recently:
“Some of what’s heavy today isn't from today — it's old hurt you've learned to work around.
Forgiveness doesn't say it was okay. It simply says you're ready to stop dragging it.”
The Christian life proposes that God’s forgiveness also allows us to do at least two things:
To become better people.
To forgive others.
Corrie Ten Boom tells the story of giving a talk on forgiveness in Munich after World War II. She herself had been imprisoned in a Concentration Camp.
After the talk a man came up to her, and she recognized him as one of the guards.
Let me end where I began. Enjoy your forgiveness.
Enjoy your forgiveness. Don’t just accept it. Here’s the challenge. Delight in it.
There’s an old preaching story about a man who took an ocean-liner across the Atlantic ocean. To save money, he bought the least expensive ticket available. To save even more money, he decided to fill his suitcase with peanut butter and saltine crackers. Every night, as other passengers walked to the Dining Room for dinner – he was quietly return to his room and eat from his suitcase.
On the last night of the journey, the chief steward approached him and remarked, “Sir I haven’t seen you in the dining room this whole trip. Is there a reason why?” The man sheepishly explained the situation – how he had brought his own simple food because he could not afford the dining room. At that the steward’s face fell. “My dear man,” he said, “Didn’t you know? The meals are included in your ticket. You could have been joining us for dinner every night at no cost.”
The moral of the story is something like this. Many of us, in our spiritual lives, are living on peanut butter and crackers. When there is a whole feast down the hall, bought and paid for, with a place set for us at the table.
When God forgives you. You don’t get to simply accept forgiveness.
Sheepishly. Quietly. Alone in your room.
You get to enjoy your forgiveness.
To relish in it.
To delight in it.
To let your life overflow with it.
God says let me bring your out of error into truth. Out of sin into righteousness. Out of death into life.
