Rooty toot toot!

It was May 13th, 1981. St. Peter's Square at the Vatican was filled with 20,000 pilgrims and visitors from all over the world. The air was filled with keen expectation--and a joy which was contagious. Looking like doves of peace, hundreds upon hundreds of light gray pigeons, sat on fountains, window sills, and roof statues all around the square. Like a sweet fragrance, their gentle cooing drifted through the air. 

Suddenly the crowd burst into cheers, as Pope John Paul II was driven into sight. Cameras flashed, as the smiling Pope stood in his open-air "Popemobile." He waved blessings to the crowd and embraced little children lifted up to him. As the Popemobile slowly made its way around the crowded square, a forest of eager hands reached out to the Pope. Tragically, one of those hands held a gun!

Shots rang out! The gentle pigeons scattered in fright. Severely wounded, the Pope fell backwards in intense pain. His white robes showed the spreading red stain of his own blood. The Pope survived. 

It was now a chilly early morning on December 23, 1983. Dressed in his crisp white robes, the Pope sat in a bare, white-walled prison cell in Rome. Seated before him, knee-to-knee, was his would-be assassin. Unshaven and clad in blue jeans, this man was now a prisoner, convicted with a life sentence. The Pope looked into the eyes of this man who tried to kill him. Then, leaning forward, the Pope took the man's hands in his own--and he forgave him!!! He emerged from that prison cell, calling the prisoner his "brother." This Pope forgave graciously, in a way that is a model for all Christians.

 Being a Christian makes a definite difference – a huge difference -- in ones life. It must.

 Today I want to conclude my series of messages on Put It off – Put it on. The series has had as it’s focus Ephesians 4:22-32. The Apostle Paul tells us here that as Christians we must no longer lie, steal, fly into a temper, or indulge in rotten putrid talk of any kind. We are called to put off such things.

But Christianity must not, can not stop at this point.  Many people. Including some Christians, have made the tragic mistake of believing that serving Christ is merely a matter of stopping certain things.

·         No smoking,

·         No drinking,

·         No dancing,

·         No gambling, and

·         No bad movies.

The idea is, if we don’t do these bad things, then we are marked as a Christian. The world ridicules this and is certainly not impressed by it.

Maybe you remember hearing years ago a satirical jingle. It goes,

Rootytoot toot! Rootytoot toot!
We're the boys from the Institute.
We don't smoke and we don't chew
And we don't go out with girls that do.

The thought that has gotten around is simply this, we know well what we are against, but we do not have a clue as to what we are for. This is why we have developed a reputation of being against everything.

Here in Ephesians 4 the writer tells us not only to:

·         Put off lying, but rather to put on Christ by speaking the truth in love.

·         We are not merely to restrain our selfish tempers, but we are to train ourselves to be kind and

compassionate.

·         We are not only to stop evil talk but we are to speak positively, helpfully, and graciously in all situations.

·         We are not only to stop stealing but to start giving.

·         And then as if to top it all off, Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:32 to for­give “each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” 

How many will admit that forgiveness is not always easy to do? I would dare say that it was not easy for the Pope to forgive the man who had tried to assassinate him 

All of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, are daily embroiled in problems of human relationships.

·         We have difficulties in getting along with people.

·         There are those who irritate us,

·         those who rub us the wrong way,

·         those whose personalities clash with ours.

·         There are those who are constantly sabotaging our plans by their thoughtless actions, and we react to them. Everyone does.

Nonetheless, it is in this context that Paul tells us to forgive.

 Let’s look a little closer at the word forgiveness.

There are three Greek words translated "forgive".

1. The first (Aphiemi) means - To send away, dismiss, set free... to remit the punishment, where the guilty person is dealt with as if he were innocent.

2. The second word (Charizomai) - To do a person a favor, be kind to... to graciously pay a person's debt or sin; hence, to pardon, forgive graciously.

3. The third (Apouloo) - To let lose, to loosen, unbind; set at liberty... a debtor, hence, overlook, forgive.

 Sound difficult? It is. And yet forgiveness is not an option.

Luke 7:37 notes, “Forgive and you will be forgiven….”

Mark 11:25 adds, “Forgive if you have anything against anyone… so that your Father also may forgive you and your trespasses.”

The point is simple. If you want eternal forgiveness from God the Father, then you have to be willing to forgive others in the here and now.

Hard? Yes. The Bible cuts us very little slack. We have been forgiven; we now have to forgive. Our relationship with our brother will reflect our relationship to our God. If there is a horizontal problem, then more than likely there is a vertical problem that must be addressed.

I well remember having some pretty serious fights with one of my brothers. While he was younger than me by nineteen months, he was bigger than me. I resented that as child. That was not the way things were supposed to be. Anyway Jack and I would get in a fight and dad would come along and break it up. He didn’t just stop the fisticuffs though, he would make us make up. The way he did this was have us face each other nose to nose. I then had to put one of my hands on one of Jack’s shoulders, and Jack had to put one of his hands on one of my shoulders. I would then have to tell him that I loved him and that I was sorry for the fight. He had to do the same thing to me. We hated this more than we hated each other.

Let me assure you, while the words of forgiveness came from our lips, they never came from the heart. Dad was not able to legislate love. Our forgiveness only came through gritted teeth. The Lord sees the same thing with us when we forgive, not from our hearts, but only out of a sense of religious duty.

 To be honest, the Bible calls us to something more; something better.

 I want to now help you with this matter of Forgiveness. look with me at these seven points.

 1.         ASK GOD for HELP

When Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, one of the issues He dealt with in the so-called Lord’s Prayer was the issue of forgiveness. He said, in Luke 11:4, “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” 

Pray. Don't underestimate the Lord's willingness to get involved in such matters.

 As someone once said, "To err is human, to forgive is Divine." I think that's very true.

 Forgiveness is His thing. He loves to forgive. He died to forgive!

When God forgives:

·         Original sin is covered.

·         Sins of action and inaction,

·         Sins of the heart, sins of the body, sins of the will… all covered!

 Notice the scope of His forgiveness:

·         He forgives us horizontally: “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”  

·         He forgives us vertically: “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him….”

·         He forgives us gracefully: “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” 

·         He forgives us eternally: “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

·         He forgives us repeatedly: “If your brother… sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, `I repent,' forgive him."

·         He forgives us completely: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

·         He forgives sins divinely: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

·         He forgives sins lovingly: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

That's Calvary's love! That is also the pattern -- the measure -- for our forgiving others!

 If you need to forgive someone, then I recommend that you go to the forgiving specialist – the Lord Jesus Christ. Entreat His help.

 2.            Forget about forgetting. 

"Forgive and forget" is an Old English proverb which dates back at least to the 14^thcentury. But as a general rule, I don't think it is good advice.

 You see, there are certain things that you and I will never forget. 

·         If someone murders a loved one,

·         If you were raped,

·         If your spouse had an affair,

·         If someone falsely accused you of some terrible deed,

The chances are excellent that you will remember the person/event in spite of your best efforts.

 These things are recorded in the subconscious mind and are subject to recall until the day of death. You may forget the matter for a while but then:

·         you see the person who committed the offense,

·         you hear a certain song,

·         you are in a conversation with a friend and the matter is brought up and there it is again.

 There would be some who would say that the very fact that you remember the issue verifies that you haven’t really forgiven the person. I couldn’t disagree more!

 In fact, I believe that there is a valid reason why the mind chooses to remember. We can learn from our injuries, and try to protect ourselves and others from being injured in the same way again. Consider this example:

A babysitter abuses your baby girl. The child ends up in the hospital with a broken arm. The sitter is sorry and begs you to forgive her. You do. Sometime later you see the person and she volunteers to baby-sit again. Remembering the past injury, you refuse her services. The friend throws up to you that since you have not forgotten, you obviously have not forgiven. You though, know better. You have forgiven, however, you have also learned from the painful experience, and you wisely choose not to repeat it.

Forgiveness is an act of grace. Trust and responsibility is earned.

It is obvious that I still remember my childhood conflicts with my brother Jack. Nevertheless, he is one of the people I most admire in life. I truly love him. I also know that I have forgiven him.

How do I know? Let me tell you:

1.      In my remembering the conflicts, I no longer hold anything against him;

2.      I do not wish him ill;

3.      I pray for him and bless him;

4.      Many times when I see him, I do not even think of our previous differences. They no longer matter to either one of us;

5.      We do not review the past;

6.      We do not try to seek an apology or try to determine who was at fault;

7.      I have peace in my heart about the matter. There is now no condemnation.

Yes, friends the war is over. The injury is truly left in the past. It no longer defines or has a grip on our lives in the present.

 How about you? I am not asking if you have forgotten; have you forgiven? 

 3.         Don’t rehearse the matter with OTHERS.

Don't scatter the poison.  Let the offense die. If you feel that you must spread word of the offense, ask yourself why. 

·         What is the motive? 

·         What are you hoping to accomplish?

·         Are your actions motivated by love or by something less honorable?

 The Bible says that “for lack of fuel the fire goeth out.”  In other words, if you quit feeding the offense, it will eventually die.  Don't tell it.

 Along this line, I do not recall ever knowing anyone who forgave, who did not first consciously want and choose (at least in some sense) to forgive. I do not believe our forgiving just happens without or against our wills to do so.

I want to now share with you an exert from Corrie Ten Boom’s excellent book  "Tramp For The Lord”:

I recall the time--and I was almost seventy--when some Christian friends whom I loved and trusted did something which hurt me. You would have thought that, having been able to forgive the guards in Ravensbruk, forgiving Christian friends would be child's play. It wasn't For weeks I seethed inside. But at last I asked God again to work His miracle in me. And again it happened: first the cold-blooded decision, then the flood of joy and peace. I had forgiven my friends; I was restored to my Father.

Then, why was I suddenly awake in the middle of the night, rehashing the whole affair again? My friends! I thought. People I loved. If it had been strangers, I wouldn't have minded so.

I sat up and switched on the light. "Father, I thought it was all forgiven. Please help me do it." but the next night I woke up again. They'd talked so sweetly too! Never a hint of what they were planning. "Father!" I cried in alarm. "Help me!"

Then it was that another secret of forgiveness became evident. It is not enough to simply say, "I forgive you." I must also begin to live it out. And in my case, that meant acting as though their sins, like mine, were buried in the depth of the deepest sea....

Many years later, after I had passed my eightieth birthday, an American friend came to visit me in Holland. As we sat in my little apartment he asked me about those people from long ago who had taken advantage of me.

"It is nothing," I said a little smugly. "It is all forgiven."

"By you, yes," he said. "But what about them? Have they accepted your forgiveness?"

"They say there is nothing to forgive! They deny it every happened. No matter what they say, though, I can prove they were wrong." I went eagerly to my desk. "See, I have it in black and white! I saved all their letters and I can show you where...."

"Corrie!" My friend slipped his arm through mine and gently closed the drawer. "Aren't you the one whose sins are at the bottom of the sea? Yet are the sins of your friends etched in black and white?"

For an astonishing moment I could not find my voice. "Lord Jesus," I whispered at last, "who takes all my sins away, forgive me for preserving all these years the evidence against others! Give me grace to burn all the blacks and whites as a sweet-smelling sacrifice to your glory."

I did not go to sleep that night until I had gone through my desk and pulled out those letters--curling now with age--and fed them all into my little coal-burning grate. As the flames leaped and glowed, so did my heart. “Forgive us our trespasses,” Jesus thought us to pray, “as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In the ashes of those letters I was seeing yet another facet of His mercy....

Forgiveness is the key which unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness. The forgiveness of Jesus not only takes away our sins, but makes them as if they had never been.  Amen.

 I Corinthians 13:5 provides for us a better way. The Living Bible states, “Love is not irritable or touchy.  It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when oth­ers do it wrong.”

·         Other translations note: “Love does not keep a record of wrongs suffered.”

·         “Love does not take into account a wrong suffered.”

Don’t rehearse the matter. Drop it.

 4.         MOVE ON WITH LIFE.

One of my favorite words is rather difficult to pronounce, therefore please allow me to just spell it for you: ISSUMAGIJOUTUNGNAINERMIK. It is an Eskimo word which means: "NOT BEING ABLE TO THINK ABOUT IT ANYMORE."  In English, it simply means to forgive.

 Forgiveness restores the present, provides a bases for healing in the future, and releases us from the past.

 I like this story. I know I have already shared it with my marriage class: In Charles Flood's book, Lee: The Last Years, he tells of a time after the Civil War when Robert E. Lee visited a Kentucky woman who took him to the remains of a grand old tree in front of her home. There she cried bitterly that its limbs and trunk had been destroyed by Union artillery fire. She waited for Lee to condemn the North or at least sympathize with her loss. Lee paused, and then said, “Cut it down, my dear Madam, and forget it.” There comes a time when that is the only wise course of action: simply, “Cut it down, and forget it.” Just move on, in other words.

5.         QUIT WAITING ON THE OTHER PERSON TO APOLOGIZE.

If they haven't already, they probably never will.

 Since I have been a pastor, I have had people lie to me, steal from me, say evil and untrue things about me and more. Do you know how many have come back to say that they are sorry for their evil deeds? I could probably count them on one hand. Few people have the needed courage or humility that it takes to say "I'm sorry" even when they know they are wrong.

 Jesus didn't wait for an apology as He was dying on Calvary -- He took the lead: “FATHER FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO.”

Likewise, Stephen prayed as he was being stoned to death: “FATHER, LAY NOT HIS SIN TO THEIR CHARGE.”

 In our anger or pain, we may feel that we should withhold our forgiveness, until our injurer repents. But consider this question from another angle. Making our forgiveness dependent on another's repentance is not very helpful. It sets us up to be a victim, not just once, but twice! By making our forgiveness so dependent, we hand considerable power over our lives, to the one who injured us!

 6.            FORGIVE as one who needs forgiveness

Jesus told us to not forget the log that was in our eye as we examine the speck that is in our brother's eye. As I noted in my last message in this series: “LET HIM WHO IS SINLESS THROW THE FIRST ROCK!”

 While here, do you realize that it is hard to arrogantly condemn someone else over their sin when you are humbly confessing and acknowledging your own?

 Ask yourself, honestly, are you entirely innocent in the rift? Could you not be:

·         5% guilty?

·         10% guilty?

·         25% guilty?

·         50% guilty?

Acknowledge your own level of sinfulness. Seek forgiveness there.

 USA TODAY carried the following article  -- a human interest story -- on forgiveness: 

ONE COUPLE WHO FORGAVE

"In an extraordinary act of forgiveness, a Kentucky couple befriended the man who killed their only son.

'I intended to hate the man forever,' recalls Elizabeth Morris, 40, whose son Ted, 18, died on Christmas Eve 1982 after being struck by drunken driver Tommy Pigage in Herdon, Ky.

When Elizabeth and her husband, Frank, first saw Pigage, 24, in court, the devout Christians were astonished at the intensity of their ha­tred. Says Elizabeth, 'Tommy was walking and breathing and my son was dead, and it was so unfair, I wanted Tommy dead.'

When Pigage pleaded not guilty, their resent­ment deepened. Pigage was charged with murder, but the charge was reduced to manslaughter.

He was required to spend only every other weekend in jail and par­ticipate in Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) programs for high school stu­dents.

Elizabeth forced herself to go hear Pigage talk at a MADD program.  She wasn't prepared for what she

heard. ' I thought he'd be excusing him­self, but instead he talked about the anguish he felt.  He called

himself a murderer.  He said his sentence was too light.'

Elizabeth went to see him in jail. 'My son's life had been destroyed, but it seemed Tommy could still be helped.'

Now, two years later, Pigage goes to the Mor­ris' church and spends every Wednesday and Sunday with them.  'Ted would have wanted it this way,' Elizabeth says.  'He wouldn't have wanted us to go on hating.'"

The one party in the story was a young man who was guilty of drunk driving.

The other party were two professing Christians who were angry, bitter, hate-filled people. In the sight of God, who was at fault? If you ask me, both parties were guilty of wrong -- sin!

7.         AND FINALLY -- LEAVE JUDGMENT AND VENGEANCE TO GOD.

He has promised that He will repay. He keeps His word.

An eye for an eye becomes a leg for a leg and, eventually, a life for a life.  No matter what our weapons are -- words, clubs, arrows, guns, bombs, nuclear missiles -- revenge locks us into an escalation of violence. 

 GHANDI once observed: "If we practice and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, soon the whole world will be blind and toothless." The only way out is forgiveness!

 It is my opinion that if Jesus had not forgiven His murderers, He would have died and simply would have been forgotten.

·         The key to His grand victory was His grand forgiveness!

·         Without it, Jesus would have been like anyone else.

·         Forgiving them made it possible for Him to likewise forgive us.

·         He showed us an undeniable lesson that forgiveness under any circumstance  with God's help -- is possible!

 Therefore, leave it to Him:

·         He loves everyone involved. He has proved that.

·         He knows the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

·         He is faithful and just.

·         Then too, Abraham said, “The judge of all the earth will do right.” He will.

 As I close, I want to share with you one final story.  A little boy came to the Washington Monument and noticed a guard standing by it. The lad looked up at the guard and said, "I want to buy it." The guard stooped down and said, "How much do you have?" The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out 25 cents. The guard said, "That's not enough." The boy replied, "I thought you would say that."  So he pulled out nine cents more. The guard looked down at the boy and said, "You need to understand three things. 

First, 34 cents is not enough, 34 million dollars is not enough to buy the Washington Monument. 

Second, the Washington Monument is not for sale. 

And third, if you are an American citizen, the Washington Monument already belongs to you."

 Friends, we also need to understand three things about God's forgiveness: 

·         First, we can not earn it. 

·         Second, it is not for sale. 

·         And third, if we accept Christ, we already have it.

To put on Christ -- forgive!

To do anything less is to simply have a “rooty toot toot”  religion!