The School of Everyday Christianity 2: How to Forgive Someone

Ready to Forgive When Someone Sins Against Us

Welcome to the School of Everyday Christianity, where we apply the Bible and Christian teaching to problems, situations, and questions that people face in the course of everyday life. Today our question is, how do we forgive someone when they sin against us?

So last time we talked about how do we seek forgiveness, how do we ask for forgiveness when we sin against someone else. Today we wanna ask the question, how do we forgive someone when they sin against us?

And so we noted last time that oftentimes people try to paper over their sins and the sins of others, which just leaves a relationship cluttered up with anger and frustration and bitterness because it never actually deals with the sin.

And so we want to deal with the sins that come up in our relationships in a way that actually gets rid of them, and we need to do that in God's way in order to do that. And so we need to know how do we forgive sin when somebody sins against us.

Preparing the Heart to Forgive

And so the first thing I would say is that we need to be ready to forgive. We need to have our hearts prepared to forgive. And so this means not stewing on what was done to you, not turning it over and over and over again in your mind and dwelling on the offense that was given, but rather preparing our heart to be ready to forgive that person.

I like to say it like this, we need to have forgiveness baking in the oven. And so it's like fresh baked bread that you're ready to serve someone when they come and apologize to you, that you're ready and prepared to serve them up forgiveness.

But how do you get your heart ready to do that? Well, that's the second thing. And that is we need to remember that we have been forgiven. And so you have been forgiven by God, you've been forgiven by other people, you too have been a sinner.

And so it really changes our perspective when we remember that we've also been reliant and dependent upon somebody else to give us the generosity and kindness of forgiveness. And so we don't want to be like the unforgiving servant in that parable that Jesus told, who though he was forgiven an enormous debt, he then immediately turned around and refused to forgive a much lesser debt to somebody else.

So we don't want to be like that unforgiving servant that Jesus condemns in his parable. And we also want to remember that Jesus, several places in the Gospels, connects our being forgiven by God, and he links that with us forgiving others.

And so one of the fruits of being forgiven by God is that we're ready to forgive others. And so the principle is this, that we give to others what we have received from God. We want to give to others what we have received from God.

God has forgiven us, therefore we want to be ready to forgive others. And remembering God's forgiveness, and remembering the forgiveness of other people towards us prepares our hearts and makes us ready to forgive.

Counting the Cost of Forgiveness

The third thing we want to do is to count the cost of forgiveness. And so forgiveness always costs the person who is doing the forgiving. And so we want to be able to count the cost. I think this is best illustrated by five promises that we make when we forgive somebody.

So I take these from J. Adams and Robert Cagle's, and there are five promises that we make when we forgive somebody. The first is we promise to never bring the offense up again to that person to use it against them.

And so we don't get to come back a week later and say, yeah, but you did that, you did this. No, we're promising, we're not going to bring it up, we've forgiven it. So like God who remembers our sins no more, we promise not to bring their sin up to mind again to use it against them.

The second promise is related, we promise not to bring that offense up to other people for them to use it against the person. And so that is, we are committing, we are promising not to gossip. A third promise that we make is to not dwell on the offense, to not dwell on what they did, which will lead to bitterness.

Now, these are our promises that we can make and choose to do according to our will, not necessarily according to our emotions. We might not feel like it, but we can still choose to not bring these things up again, choose not to dwell on these things.

But we do need to keep in mind that oftentimes the sins against us, they are emotionally charged. They cause us hurt and they cause us pain. So how do we deal with that? Well, that's where the last two promises come into play.

And so the next thing that we promise when we forgive someone is we promise to act as if we have forgiven that person, because we have. And so we remind ourselves of these promises that we've already made, even when the hurt and the pain come back to mind.

And so this involves training our minds to think like Philippians chapter four, verse eight, tells us to think. When we think about those things that are true, we think about those things that are honorable and just and lovely, whatever's commendable, whatever is excellent, and we think on those things.

And then the fifth promise we make is we promise to treat the person as if the sin never happened. Now, we wanna be careful here. We're not denying the fact that there are consequences to people's sin, and sometimes some really bad ones.

And so a physically abusive spouse may go to jail. There might be lost trust after a betrayal. What we're saying is that to the extent possible, we're going to pursue reconciliation, and that we're not going to treat them as if they are still in debt to us in some way, because we've forgiven that.

And so forgiveness is not cheap.

It's not a hand wave.

It's not something that we just sweep under the rug. It's really a costly way to deal with sin, but it's the way that God has told us to deal with sin. And therefore, it is the right way, and it allows both parties involved to move forward in life in a healthy way.

Saying “I Forgive You” and “Go in Peace”

Now, the fourth thing I would say to you, and there's two things that you wanna communicate to someone when they're apologizing and seeking your forgiveness. And the first is, you want to be very clear and say, yes, I forgive you.

Yes, I forgive you. Not, nah, it's okay, we're good, don't worry about it, no big deal. No, no, no, you want to be clear and tell them, I forgive you. This tells them very explicitly the kindness and the generosity that you are extending to them.

It lets them know clearly that we're dealing with this sin in the biblical way, in God's way, in a way that does away with the sin and covers it. It really is a gift that you're giving to them, and it is the right thing to do to clearly communicate that so that there's no doubt about where you stand.

In your relationship.

There's no doubt about, has this been taken care of fully or not? And the second thing you want to be sure to tell them is, go in peace.

Be at peace.

This is another gift that you can give the person to assure that their conscience is clear and that there's nothing in between them, between you. Tell them to be at peace. I remember one time, I sinned against somebody by something that I wrote online.

So I wrote this man an email asking for his forgiveness. He was very gracious, and he said, I forgive you very clearly. And then he said, go in peace. Be at peace with this. And I didn't have to worry that there was anything in between us anymore.

That's an incredible gift that you can give to someone else, and it's what God gives to you. And so what God has given you, you want to give to others. And that's how you forgive somebody.

Who sinned against you.

This is The School of Everyday Christianity.

Thanks for watching.