What Did Jesus Teach? Forgiveness
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| In the language of flowers paperwhite daffodils symbolize forgiveness |
I have found that many Christians as disciples of Jesus are not as well acquainted with his teaching and example as one would think that they might be. While it is tempting to blame pastors—“They are not teaching what Jesus taught and practiced,” or congregations—“they are not paying enough attention to their pastor when he is preaching and teaching,” I believe that the real culprit is the human brain. If we are not having something taught at regular intervals, our brains are prone to forget it. While we may tune something out if we hear it too often, it is more likely that we will forget what we heard. Just as we need to be reminded what is the gospel, we also need to be reminded what Jesus taught and practiced.
Jesus told the Jews who had begun to follow him that those who were his disciples continued to accept and obey his teaching. It was something that they did all of their lives. Jesus told his disciples that those who love him obey his commands. They live in his teaching and his teaching has become a part of them. They have completely internalized what he taught and practiced. We have not quite accepted or absorbed Jesus’ teaching and example so that it has become part of our character. What is determining how we think, feel, and act are old ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that we acquired during our childhood and early years. What the apostle Paul describes as the old self is strongly influencing how we think, feel, and act.
A Cleveland Clinic article, “You’re Not the Boss of Me! Why We Don’t Like Being Told What to Do” offers a third reason that we do not obey Jesus’ teaching and follow his example.
“As humans, we crave independence and autonomy. We want to be the ones calling the shots and making the rules. Since we were little we’ve participated in some form or another of the same song and dance — we don’t like someone else telling us what to do, so we don’t do it or we act out.”
While we need frequent reminders of what Jesus taught and practice, we also need help not only assimilating his teaching and example and incorporating them into the way that we think, feel, and act. As the apostle James put it, we need to do the Word as well as hear it. We need to practice what we are learning. We need to make it a part of our character, so we become what Paul describes as our new self.
We also need to tame our rebelliousness, which is very much a part of our old self. In the Cleveland Clinic article a behavioral therapist Jane Pernotto Ehrman explains how we can keep our inner rebel from sabotaging ourself. The link to the article is https://health.clevelandclinic.org/why-we-dont-like…/ .
What I just told you has implications for how we use our quiet time and what we do in the Sunday School class. We need to spend more tie studying Jesus. This requires us to be more focused upon Jesus—his character, his teaching and example, the Old Testament scripture to which he alludes in his teaching and how he interprets this scripture. We need to spend less time studying the details of the construction of the Temple at Jerusalem and the like.
With what I just wrote In mind, let us take a look at what Jesus taught about forgiveness.
1. We cannot expect forgiveness from God if we are not willing to forgive others. In Matthew 6: 14-15 Jesus explains:
“For if you forgive other people their failures, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you will not forgive other people, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you your failures.”
In teaching the first disciples how to pray, Jesus taught them to ask God to forgive their trespasses as they forgave the trespasses of others. A trespass is an offense, a wrongdoing. He further taught:
“And whenever you stand praying, you must forgive anything that you are holding against anyone else, and your Heavenly Father will forgive you your sins.” (Mark 11: 26 Phillips)
In some churches the congregation prays the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday, but how many people in congregation really understand what they are asking God to do. Their attitudes and behavior on Sunday and during the week suggest that they do not. They appear to expect God to forgive them even though they themselves are unforgiving. Or they are indifferent to whether God forgives them. They may have been taught that God is so loving that he turns a blind eye to their lack of forgiveness. This, however, is not what Jesus taught. He made a connection between our forgiving of others and God’s forgiving of us. Such attitudes and behavior may also be evidence of an untamed rebellious nature.
2. We are not to limit how many times we forgive someone. In Matthew 18: 21-22 gives this reply to a question from Simon Peter.
“Then Peter approached him with the question, ‘Master, how many times can my brother wrong me and I must forgive him? Would seven times be enough?’
‘No,’ replied Jesus, “not seven times, but seventy times seven!”
When Jesus walked the earth, the Jewish rabbis taught that someone had only to forgive someone else seven times, after which they could show the other person no further forgiveness. When Jesus says “seventy times seven,” he is speaking figuratively. By “seventy times seven” he means an unlimited number of times. We are not to keep count of how many times we forgive someone.
Implicit in what Jesus told Peter is that how many times we forgive someone does not depend upon their response to our forgiveness. We are to let go of our anger and to not hold what they did against them. Jesus is not saying that we should accept what they did as right or proper, but we are not to keep throwing in their face what they did.
3. Unforgiveness, unwillingness to forgive people for the things that they do wrong, has consequences. In Matthew 18: 23-35 Jesus goes on to explain:
For the kingdom of Heaven is like a king who decided to settle his accounts with his servants. When he had started calling in his accounts, a man was brought to him who owed him millions of pounds. And when it was plain that he had no means of repaying the debt, his master gave orders for him to be sold as a slave, and his wife and children and all his possessions as well, and the money to be paid over. At this the servant fell on his knees before his master, ‘Oh, be patient with me!’ he cried, ‘and I will pay you back every penny!’ Then his master was moved with pity for him, set him free and cancelled his debt.
“But when this same servant had left his master’s presence, he found one of his fellow-servants who owed him a few shillings. He grabbed him and seized him by the throat, crying, ‘Pay up what you owe me!’ At this his fellow-servant fell down at his feet, and implored him, ‘Oh, be patient with me, and I will pay you back!’ But he refused and went out and had him put in prison until he should repay the debt.
When the other fellow-servants saw what had happened, they were horrified and told their master the whole incident.
Then his master called him in. ‘You wicked servant!’ he said. ‘Didn’t I cancel all that debt when you begged me to do so? Oughtn’t you to have taken pity on your fellow-servant as I, your master, took pity on you? And his master in anger handed him over to the goalers till he should repay the whole debt. This is how my Heavenly Father will treat you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart.”
4. God extends forgiveness to us and therefore we should extend forgiveness to others. We are to be merciful like our Father in heaven is merciful. Forgiveness must also come from the heart. We must really forgive whoever offended or wronged us. We cannot just make a pretense of forgiving them. We must really stop being mad at them or blaming them for what they did, and let go of anything that we hold against them.
As the Mayo Clinic article, “Forgiveness: Letting go of grudges and bitterness,” draws to our attention, forgiveness has physical, psychological, and emotional benefits for us. The link to the article is https://www.mayoclinic.org/…/forgiveness/art-20047692 . These benefits, as well as the practical and spiritual benefits of forgiveness, help to explain why Jesus taught his disciples to pursue reconciliation with a brother or sister who something against them, even going as far as postponing fulfilling their religious obligations until they had made peace with that person. While Jesus may not mention these benefits in his teaching, he appears to be keenly aware of them.
As we have seen, forgiveness is an integral part of Jesus’ teaching. It is not optional for his disciples, for ourselves.
When it comes to forgiveness, it may be helpful to keep these things in mind. God is rich in mercy and is ready to forgive us. By the help of his grace God enables us to forgive. The Holy Spirit gently nudges us to forgive. God who is good and who gives good things to his children will answer our prayers if we ask him for help to forgive. When we forgive, we are doing God’s will and we are pleasing God. When we forgive someone, we take a great burden of our shoulders and lighten the load that we carry in this life. We also take a burden off the shoulders of whomever we forgive. We allow healing to take place—inner healing as well as healing of relationships.