Dear Siblings in Christ at Pax Pres,
Almost every Sunday when I preach, I am mindful that there is often more to be said on a given
Bible passage or topic than time allows for each Sunday.
This is true of virtually every topic, because the depth of God’s truth is profound and endless.
But in my personal experience as a pastor, this is perhaps most true with the subject of
forgiveness. Three Sundays ago – August 13 –I had the privilege of shepherding you through
Psalm 130, largely on the theme of forgiveness.
For a few reasons, I find that forgiveness, in some ways, is the hardest subject to preach on
most effectively. Here are some of those reasons:
First, the situations where forgiveness is needed from God or with others are endlessly unique.
Every situation, no matter how much it might have in common with someone else’s situation, is
unique. Because every single person is created uniquely in the image of God. So it’s challenging
to preach on forgiveness in a way that connects timeless biblical principles with the nuances of
everyone’s personal situations.
Secondly, preaching on forgiveness is challenging because it is the heart of the Gospel message.
Thousands of Reformed Christian leaders, including myself, say that the Gospel is a holistic
message that has implications for every aspect of our life and world. There’s “so much” to the
Gospel, in one sense. But in another sense, the absolute core and heartbeat of the Gospel is the
atonement of Christ for our sins before a holy God. Therefore, preaching on forgiveness
requires exquisite care and precision, in the same way that handling the fusion core of a nuclear
reactor requires exquisite care and precision.
Third, preaching on forgiveness is daunting because in some ways forgiveness is simple, and in
some ways it is complex. There might be some “simple” definitions of forgiveness out there
(meaning simple enough to memorize; not simple in the sense of “easy to do!”). But
forgiveness, as you know from personal experience, is also a multi-step, emotional, complicated
process. For better or for worse, in our worship habits at Pax Pres, generally the sermon is
expected to be no longer than 20-25 minutes. It’s hard to be comprehensive about something
as complex as forgiveness in 20-25 minutes!
I have preached on forgiveness before. But in the weeks since August 13 when I most recently
preached on Psalm 130, I have had a few very good, heartfelt conversations with some of you.
Some of you appreciated the message. I wouldn’t doubt that by God’s Spirit, some of you were
convicted of some piece of God’s Word in a healthy way. But I also don’t doubt that some of
you disagreed with or were rubbed the wrong way by certain ways that I expounded upon
God’s Word that morning. That is the reason for my writing this “post-sermon” reflection…
I need to clarify something that I was not clear about on August 13:
There is an essential difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Last week, a friend
gave me a memorable definition of forgiveness. He relayed to me that Pastor Charles Stanley
once said that forgiveness is “naming the debt and releasing the debt.”
Forgiveness does not mean you are telling someone that what they did was okay, excusable, or
not really wrong after all. By definition, forgiveness means that you have the humble, clear
courage to call something “wrong.” Naming the debt: being clear about what was done, and
that it was harmful, damaging, etc. - wrong in some way. It’s not always possible to
communicate this to the person at fault. But it is still essential that you “name the debt”
somewhere — if not directly to the person at fault, then to yourself, to a trusted friend, a
counselor, pastor, etc.
Releasing the debt could be described in many ways, but it is exactly that: bringing the “debt
ledger” back to zero in that person’s relational “account” with you. No longer holding that debt
against the person or persons.
But on Sunday, August 13, I had some moments where I implied that forgiveness (described
above) and reconciliation are the same thing. And they are not. Not every situation of
forgiveness can also include reconciliation, for a wide variety of reasons: emotional reasons,
safety reasons, sheer life circumstantial reasons, and more.
On August 13, I used the story of death row convict Jimi Barber to illustrate many parts of
Psalm 130. Part of his story included some deep moments of reconciliation with the family
members of the woman he murdered. It is my pastoral and theological responsibility to make it
absolutely clear that extending forgiveness to someone does not necessarily mean you must
also reconcile.
As I said at the beginning of this post about preaching, there is probably even more I could say
about this, but this blog post has gone on long enough! Any given Sunday there are things I’d
probably want to go back and explain more. For now, here’s the clarification and correction to
part of my August 13 message:
If the forgiveness of God has worked in your life – if God has drawn you to the foot of the cross
and into living relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ – praise God for that! Only
out of that received forgiveness, do I then urge you (and myself!) to extend forgiveness to others
in your life. But know for certain that the call to forgiveness does not always include a call to
reconciliation. They are different things.
If this brings up further questions for you, I would be glad to schedule time to talk more with
you. May God bless you as you daily receive the forgiveness of Christ and extend it to others.
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