Hating, Forgiving, Loving One Another — Roy Hession

Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Lord Jesus, we thank Thee for Thy presence here this evening. There are so many things to speak to us about. Up to now perhaps we haven't been able to bear what You've wanted to talk to us about.

But in these days You've drawn us aside especially to hear Thee speak. Even as Moses heard Thee speak from out of that burning bush. And we ask, Lord, that that dear, loved voice of Thine shall be heard once again saying to us things that we need to hear as You see them.

Hating One Another and Loving One Another

And we ask, Lord, that the very word that is spoken to us may have power in it to accomplish miracles in our lives even this evening in Jesus' name. Amen. I want to turn you to two little phrases in the New Testament which I want to put in contrast one with another.

The first is in Paul's letter to Titus. Titus comes after Timothy which in turn comes after the epistle to Thessalonians. Chapter 3, verse 3. For we ourselves also were sometime foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.

And the phrase I want to pick out of that verse is that very ugly one. It sounds terrible even to quote it in a gathering like this. Hating one another. Hating one another. And then I want to put in contrast with that verse, a verse from John 13, verse 34.

The words of Jesus to us. 13, 34. A new commandment I give unto you that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. And the phrase I want to pick out from that verse is love one another.

Or to make it balanced with the other verse, loving one another. And there you have two widely contrasted attitudes. Hating one another, loving one another. Now, the Christian's relationship with others is of tremendous importance to him in the new life which he has begun.

For if you and I are wrong in our relationship with others or with but one other, to that extent we are wrong in our relationship to God. As the spokes of a wheel get nearer the hub, they quite obviously get nearer to one another.

And if a particular point on the spoke is not near the next spoke, you know that to that extent it is not near the hub. And if the Lord Jesus has brought us to the hub, he wants us to see to it that we're right with the others that also have been brought there.

And if it should be that we're not, to that extent we haven't been brought right back to the hub and there is a separation and alienation between us and him. It's so easy to imagine that we're all right with God, things are just fine, when things are not right between us and another person.

But it is impossible to be right with God in your relationship and your fellowship, unless we're right in our relationship with other people. Both sins have got to be put under the blood. Not only that between us and God, but that between us and other people.

Indeed, all that comes between us and others also comes between us and God. And there's no doubt at all that in the matter of our daily living, the Christian life, this question of relationships with others is of paramount importance.

And if you haven't learnt, if I haven't learnt rightly to repent in that area, then we have hardly begun. Life is a complicated scheme of human relationships and probably more than half of our sins are in the realm of wrong attitudes and actions toward others.

And when I come back to God and repentance via the cross, it's invariably with a whole heap of those things. And the work of the cross of Jesus is not only to reconcile me to God through the death that he died, but me to other people.

The work of the cross is a two-fold work of reconciliation. Now these two verses give us two widely separated attitudes to other people. Hating one another or loving one another. Someone has said the whole world can be divided into two compartments.

Those that hate and those that love. We're more used to having it divided between the lost and the saved. And that of course is absolutely basic. But here's another possible definition, division. Those that hate and those that love.

And although we may be truly amongst the saved, when we divide people on this other basis, we may have to class ourselves among those that hate. I've said that these are two widely separated attitudes.

Actually, I don't think they're so widely separated as they might appear at first to be. Hate is simply the opposite of love. And everything which isn't love for that brother, God regards as hate. We might be shocked to think that God regards us as hating somebody.

But if I'm failing in love toward that person, God regards me as hating him. If 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter which gives us the great definition of love, tells us that love is suffering long, love suffereth long and is kind, it means then that when I am not long-suffering with another and his ways, and am not kind to him, God accounts me to be hating him.

If it says, love envieth not, isn't jealous of the other person, then when I am jealous, and when I don't repent of that jealousy, I am hating that brother. If 1 Corinthians 13 tells me that love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, so it doesn't make the other man feel small, then when I am puffed up, when I am boastful, and I am making the other person feel small, can you believe it?

God says, you're hating that man. He's not encouraged, he feels an inferiority complex, a failure in love. Even in such a matter as that, it's accounted as hatred. If 1 Corinthians 13 says that love seeketh not her own, that is, is not selfish at another's expense, it can only mean that when I am seeking my own, and am selfish at another person's expense, I'm hating that one.

If 1 Corinthians 13 says that love is not easily provoked, it can only mean when I am provoked, to feel hurt, or resentful, or angry, or bitter. God regards that resentment in my heart as nothing less than hatred of that person.

And he requires me to regard it so myself, and to handle it as nothing less than the sin of hatred. And this hatred, apparently, is something mutual. He talks about hating one another. It means that the man who hates is sooner or later hated, hating and hated, resenting and resented.

Invariably that happens. Jesus himself said, with what measure you meet, the measure you hand out to others, there's an order of life, which says it's going to come back to you in the same measure. Be assured, the man who hates is himself hated.

The man who resents, sooner or later, if not immediately, is himself resented. It's something mutual, hating one another. And alas, this state of things can be seen amongst us Christians. It can be seen in our churches.

It can be heard operating in the church meeting, or the diaconate, or the PCC, or among the leaders of the various organizations. You may be such one, and have been involved in these situations. How quick to resent.

At the back of some of the things is really jealousy, or vaunting ourselves. It can be seen and heard even in our homes. Of the early church, the world said, behold how these Christians love one another.

But too often today, as the world hears of what is sometimes said and what goes on among the churches, the world has to say, behold, how these Christians hate one another. And it could well be that some of us are in situations where you've got involved in hatred.

Don't think about the other man hating the other man. We are involved. We've taken sides. We feel our rights are infringed. Our advice has not been taken. We've not been given our place, or in our homes.

The other partner doesn't go the way we want him or her to go. And we may be involved and be classed as those that hate one another. Doesn't it sound terrible? But there's nothing in between love and hate.

This finds me out as certainly as it finds you out, hating one another. But oh, thank God, there's an alternative. There's another relationship with other people which Jesus came to institute among those whom he'd loved so much.

And that is, they should love one another as he has loved them. And oh, thank God, it could be changed. And instead of being in an atmosphere where we're hating one another, grace can so work in our lives, each one of us beginning with us individually, so that instead of hating one another, we're loving one another.

And this too is mutual. For if we love, we find ourselves being loved. If it's true of some, they're hating and being hated. The opposite is true of those who are learning to love. Even where there might not be any ground for love, they're loving.

And strangely, they're being loved. If you find everybody very horrid to you, don't look at them. Search your own heart. Perhaps they're reacting against something in you. But you know, that can be changed.

Grace can change it. And we can be in that other group of people who love. And strangely, we find we are loved. Though, of course, it may not always work out that way, at least not immediately. It didn't actually, if you'd like to know, for the Apostle Paul, because when he wrote to the Corinthians, he said, though the more abundantly I love, the less I be loved.

But that won't quench the one who loves. He'll go on loving. But there is this same blessed principle that does work in one degree or another in every life. With what measure you meet, it shall be measured to you again.

Happy the one who is measuring out love. If he gives, it shall be given to him again. Good measure, pressed down and running over. And so we see these two possible relationships with others. Hating one another, we're involved in it, and loving one another.

Forgiving One Another Through the Cross

Now, it is not just a matter of stepping from one to the other. By, say, trying to love, where before we were resenting and hating. Nor even by asking God to give us love or do something for us. There's something in between hating one another and loving one another.

And it's easy to bypass it. Just ask for more love. No, no, we've got to get to the root cause. And so I turn you to a third little phrase which I want to put between the other two. Ephesians 4, verse 32.

Ephesians 4, 32, Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. What is the little phrase that comes in between the two? Listen. Forgiving one another.

In other words, between the two comes the cross of Jesus, where we learn to forgive one another. And there's no way by which you can pass from hating one another to loving one another save by forgiving one another.

Why is there resentment? Why is there bitterness? Why is there this which God calls hatred? Well, it's usually because someone has done something that hurts us, by which we feel ourselves to have suffered loss in one way or another, because of which we feel we have a claim on them for reparation.

We may not know exactly what reparation we feel ourselves entitled to, but we feel we have a claim on them, against them. And they seem to do nothing to meet that claim. And we hate them. And it's quite obvious we can never love that person until we forgive the thing that they have done by means of which we've suffered loss.

But you can't forgive without foregoing your claim upon them. No forgiving without foregoing. No forgiving without consenting to have suffered that loss. As long as you feel it isn't right, it shouldn't have happened, I'm not going to stand for that sort of thing, you'll never be able to forgive them.

You and I will only forgive another when we consent to have been treated as they've treated us, until we've consented to forego our claim against them, until we've consented to suffer that loss. For instance, if you've lent somebody a hundred pounds and they're embarrassed because they can't pay it back, you might find it in your heart to forgive them that debt of a hundred pounds.

But that means you're going to be a hundred pounds out of pocket. You might say to myself, but I can't afford it. I'm not willing to be the loser by a hundred pounds. Then you can't forgive them the debt.

If you do forgive them the debt, you write it right off and you suffer the loss yourself. And so it is with our forgiveness of others. This is why forgiveness is not so easy as it might seem. It does mean submitting to loss.

It does mean accepting what they've done. It does mean letting it go, suffering the loss yourself, loosing them, from any sense that you have it against them and forgiving them. You end up with having suffered the loss of that indignity.

But you always gain peace with God. And from in the heart of that one who thus forgives, strangely there comes love. For the one is forgiven. The one at whose hands he suffered loss. And that can be mutual.

And there can be a wonderful healing. This is why to forgive is such a struggle. And what losses some have been made to suffer. What wrongs. Wrongs they are and no one would disagree. And sometimes I've seen someone with a struggle to forgive that.

I've had to avert my gaze to consent to that. But she's got to do it. She'd only tear herself apart if she doesn't forgive or he doesn't forgive. And at last the battle's over. It's the battle with self.

It's the battle with pride. The willingness to suffer the loss in order to extend to that one a forgiveness that perhaps they don't deserve. Even before they've repented. Of course it can't be made two way until there's repentance but it'd be certainly one way, your way, to them.

It's potential to be in your heart but it can't become even potential unless I fight this thing out and I face it and I lay in dust life's glory dead and my rights in that matter. After all, who are we?

Who am I? Why should we always be treated with respect due to our position? Jesus wasn't. And more than that and most important of all this is exactly what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Our sins, rightly understood are to be regarded as personal wrongs against God because of which he has suffered grave loss and therefore has a claim on us for reparation.

That was the state of the man who owed his king 10 ,000 talents. Someone's estimated it taking account of inflation a debt of 5 million pounds and because he had not with wherewith to pay he was going to cast him into prison and sell his children to be slaves and you and I are in debt.

It's very interesting in the German language and sometimes I go to Germany my message is translated into German and I hear my German translator and I pick up all sorts of words and you know the word for guilt and debt is the same word one word in German, schuld and guilt is simply the fact that God has a claim on you for reparation which you can't meet.

It's a debt, an unpaid debt. But that man in the parable, Matthew 16 said have patience with me and I will pay you all. He couldn't. He'd have to live a long time to pay so much out of his wages each week to pay off that vast debt and that king did a wonderful, beneficent act.

He had compassion on that man and his little family and he decided he'd let it go. He'd bear the loss himself and he forgave him. But what a loss! At what a cost! Of course the parable doesn't tell us about that though my friend William Lagenda did add to the parable once and described I remember in Brazil when we were speaking together of how that king had to sell all the treasures in the palace and how his wife, the queen had to go out cleaning houses to raise a little money and when that man asked why he said because I forgave thee that debt.

He suffered the loss himself no other way! Who can tell the compassions of God towards sinners who confess? They have nothing to pay. There's nothing they can do to put things right! Then it is he takes this last wonderful option that the king takes he consents to forgo his claim and to suffer the loss himself to forgive us.

And in order that he might actually suffer the loss and seem to be suffering the loss he sent his son to die between two thieves with God in Christ suffering the loss himself the indignities himself to which we've subjected him in order to forgive us.

And all he wants you to do is to do the same to other people. As the old hymn says, Have you had a kindness shown? Pass it on. Have I been gracious to you? You be gracious to that other man. Oh, that servant was acting very rightly in insisting on his debt but God says I don't want you to act rightly toward that other person but graciously as I've acted graciously to you.

And so this is the way. The simple step by which those who hate one another may pass to loving one another by forgiving one another. Please turn the cassette over now. Do not fast wind it in either direction.

The simple step by which those who hate one another may pass to loving one another by forgiving one another. By going back to that cross where God for Christ's sake suffered the loss and confessing how wrong the attitude should be and then there you go!

Suffer the loss yourself and forgive it. So that he knows you're no longer holding it against him. Now this is our grand privilege and it's a way out of the tangled skeins of wrong relationships so often by which love comes in.

Forgiveness in Personal and Church Conflicts

The other day, last week I was coming a little late to the meeting and I saw a boy of eleven. He'd been involved in one of the children's meetings or games and he was coming along crying. So I went up to him what's happened?

He had an accident? No he said I haven't. I said what's happened? My brother. And I saw his fists were clenched. That brother of mine! He'd had a fight with his brother. The trouble was his brother was older than him.

I said what did he do? He's mimicking me! And you know I tremble to think what that boy might have done had he had a knife in his hand. Eleven that he was. And I put my arm around him. He's such a lovely looking boy.

I put my arm around him. I said do you know what you can do? I'll tell you what you can do. What? He said you can forgive him! Oh that brother of mine! I said I'll tell you what you can do. You can forgive him!

And a little smile came. He said I was once involved in trying to help a certain church in America not so long ago. There was a faction that felt the minister had acted in a wrong way in a certain matter.

And this issue was threatening to split an otherwise lovely church. And one day I found myself speaking to the man who was at the heart of it. And he was telling me how wrong the minister was in that matter.

I said brother there's something you can do about it. What's that? Forgive him! But he was so wrong! Listen! Granted I don't know whether the rights are wrong. I wasn't at all sure myself which way it was.

But alright he's wrong. Now your next step is forgive him. Even if you suffered in the process of what he's done just forgive him. Suffer that wrong yourself. Let it go. And I said I want to tell you if you do forgive him you've never acted so much like God as that.

And this is our great, grand forgiving. And you know this forgiving is mutual forgiving one another. You know Christian fellowship isn't a bunch of Christians amongst whom nothing goes wrong. Things do go wrong.

Hurts are inflicted on one another. But when a man is hurt he forgives. And when he sometimes is the one who inflicts a hurt he asks to be forgiven. Forgiven and being forgiven. And oh I don't know any other fellowship that I call revivals fellowship.

It's the sweetest fellowship because where there's mutual forgiveness then we love one another. Love of God for one another flows. And the group that were so much at variance or two people find themselves knee deep in love.

But only as they go through the narrow gateway the foot of the cross and forgive the other person as God for Jesus sake has forgiven us. Some people say why should it always be me who does the forgiving?

It isn't always going to be you. It'll be you one day who's called upon to forgive. But unless you're very different from me the next day it'll be you asking somebody else to forgive you. It's mutual.

Forgiving and being forgiven. And so it goes on. And as we're prepared to go this way we love one another. Just one little story and then I'm going to ask my brother Dave Wilson to come and add a word of testimony to this theme.

Forgiveness Before Repentance

In East Africa in Uganda the tier state at Namutamba where many African Christians live and work one African, not a Christian, wicked man seduced the wife of one of the Christians and she went to live with him.

And this dear godly Christian every day he went to work had to go past the house where his wife was living with that other man. While he himself had to make do and get by on his own. He was surrounded by much love and fellowship of the brethren and god helped him in a wonderful way as was seen by the sequel.

Sometime later the wind of the spirit blew afresh in those parts and the gospel came to many people afresh and people were saved and one day that particular man who'd seduced the other was saved too beautifully saved, he found Jesus and the first thing he did was to go to that man whom he'd so wronged and say, oh brother forgive me for the bitter wrong I've done you and you know what that African said there's nothing to forgive I forgave you the day you did it.

In other words he faced it. He didn't say I'm not going to have this I've got a claim against that man he said God's allowed this thing for some wise purpose I accept it, I suffer the loss and the day he did it forgiveness was there for him it was potential the battle, the real battle was finished in that man's heart of course it couldn't be made mutual until that man repented as he did but he was there all the time and everything that passed between us and God was potentially finished at the cross, father forgive them yes, of course between us and him it's not actual until we repent and confess but the loss hasn't got to be suffered again, it's been faced and suffered and you and I don't have to wait even till the other person sees what they've done.

We can face this matter with Jesus and on our part at least it can be finished because we're willing to bow the head suffer the loss for go ugly. And forgiveness is available. And so there are our three little words the terrible distinction between hating one another and loving one another.

What way can we pass from one to the other by the way of the cross the way of the blood of Jesus Christ by forgiving one another we find ourselves in an area of mutual forgiveness because sometimes we have as I've said to ask to be forgiven but in that way things are healed.

Mending things a lot more rewarding than ending things. And he's still around. Some people have found just going on mending things. I'll ask Dave to what he has to say. Dave Wilson. The testimony that I have to give is a testimony because I'm a father with teenage children and I think that probably makes me one of the average here tonight.

Dave Wilson: Dying to Self in Everyday Conflicts

I don't really quite know where to begin. This morning following the bible study I had to have a little funeral service because I realised I had to die again to self. Last night following the testimony I saw someone else dying Jesus for me.

Yesterday morning following the bible study I stood at the grave of my past sins and all this is very relevant because Monday I had a terrible day might not have appeared to have been so terrible to those who perhaps saw me and heard me and sat at table with me.

But it was in the morning I was playing tennis. I like tennis. It's one of those things that we don't get enough of at home and so once we come here tennis becomes one of the things we really do most of the time.

I said I'm a father of teenage children. My daughter is 17. She'd been into town on an errand for mum so naturally as soon as she came back she wanted to explain what she'd done and how much the postage was on the present to grandma and what she'd bought for this and that and the other.

And we were playing tennis and so she waited until we'd finished that particular game and then she ran straight on to the court and said mum I've done this I've done that. And I said do you mind we're playing a game of tennis.

Come on come on. And she was a bit shaken by this but being a little bit stubborn like me she continued with the account and I went straight to the other end of the tennis court and picked up the ball and said well if you're not playing I am.

And we were playing doubles at the time and so it wasn't too difficult. The two at the other end were waiting and so I served and started to play. And when my wife had finished the job in hand she joined me on the court and we carried on and Debra went off up to the house.

I played the rest of the set like I've never played tennis before. I really hit that ball and it went in. I don't recommend bad temper unless perchance you count tennis more important than a daughter and I felt pretty rotten and so I joked about it as I invariably do and said look how good I'm playing now I'm in a temper you better put me in a temper every day then I'll win.

But I was sick inside and I knew I was wrong and I didn't want to do anything about it because I'm a father I'm a big boy I'm a grown up and it hurts to say sorry and I wasn't going to do it and she was wrong anyway she shouldn't have walked on the court and you know where on earth was she brought up but you know I couldn't enjoy the rest of the game and thankfully it was nearly lunch time.

I don't know whether it was my wife who said it's only a game of tennis or whether it was my own heart that told me it was only a game of tennis but as I came up out of the hard courts and it's quite a hike up there I knew I'd got to say sorry and I didn't want to and I'd worked out the speech all the way across the croaky lawn but it wasn't the right speech at all because it was going to be the speech that said you shouldn't have done that but I'm sorry but apologies with butts in them aren't apologies and so I hoped perhaps she wouldn't be on our table but we met long before we got to the dining room.

In fact we met on the lawn outside Clough and the Lord was very good. He gave me a heart instead of the large lump of stone and I don't know where it came from but I just said I'm sorry please forgive me and we just hugged each other nothing more just a hug.

That's all it needs to say. You're forgiven. So that was lovely but it didn't stop there. I then upset a member of the staff I was being funny and made a little remark and it wasn't kind and I didn't know I'd upset her.

I found out later on. Then I upset a friend that I'd made an arrangement with to play a game and called it off and blamed the friend. Then I discovered that it was me again and I had to say sorry to the friend and then subsequently find the member of staff.

In fact it was only when I found her that I discovered I'd upset her. By the end of Monday I felt rather like the wide mouthed frog. I began to ask myself why it's foolish to ask ourselves why we go wrong we don't know and when we ask ourselves Satan is eavesdropping and he told me he told me very clearly what was wrong.

You see it was the past it was all the sins of the past and he showed me all my past sins and he began to stir the water and it got very muddy. My past has got a lot of mud in it particularly when Satan stirs it up he seems to make much out of little and what he makes out of much doesn't bear telling and I didn't know what to do about that until the Bible study.

And the next morning I realised that what I was doing I was digging up the dead Egyptian and that's why I was in such a foul mood because I'd listened to Satan and then I panicked and I didn't know what to do.

Foolish isn't it that I didn't know what to do with these voices of Satan and these ghosts from the past and then in the evening we heard that testimony which was so simple and I'm very simple too, I needed to hear very simply that the blood of Jesus which cleansed those sins in the past had washed them away and that now that same blood was powerful and could stop Satan accusing me over something that was dead and buried, that was washed away and so I was free and it didn't end there either, I went to bed last night rejoicing because I was cleansed and Satan had been dispelled and that nasty ghost had gone but it was only this morning that I realised where those problems of Monday began and they began because I was still there and there was so much of me and I wanted this week to be seen as a successful Christian and I wanted people to respect and regard me but it was so subtle it was trying hard to be what I wanted people to see and being completely unwilling to be known as I really was and so this morning there was a very happy funeral service just down there when the Lord in His grace bowed to me and said I forgive you so I just give that testimony to His glory, Amen Amen Praise the Lord we live on forgiveness ground forgiven for Christ's sake so much and because of that we forgive others and where necessary we ask to be forgiven and that's the ground where love reigns, Amen and Amen, thank you Dave now we're going to sing a lovely song to finish with number 436 436 Jesus my Lord to Thee I cry unless Thou help me I must die we're going to sing well I don't know yes we'll sing the first three verses I'd like to finish promptly at 9 o 'clock Jesus my Lord to Thee I cry.

Last verse.

Prayer for Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Lord Jesus we thank you, you do just that. Lord we've got such funny things in our hearts, bitter things hard things scores. We still feel against others. And then too Lord we're also conscious of where we've hurt others.

Lord we not only need to forgive but we need to be forgiven. And thank you. You begin it by forgiving us then in the strength of that we can be gracious to the other man as you have been gracious to us now.

Lord we pray that you apply these words we've listened to, to each one of us indeed. Lord we know we've been eagerly making our own applications this evening. And oh Lord may we get through to victory.

May we get through where we know the burden's gone. We know thy blood has cleansed us. We don't need to have any more ghosts accusing us from the past. Oh how we thank thee that Calvary covers it all my past with its sin and shame.

And so Lord deal with us as our need requires. May none go to rest with a concern a burden, an accusation unconfessed to thee. And Lord may there be this sweet forgiving one another and loving one another.

May love reign where up to now perhaps hate and resentment has been. Lord do this lovely thing amongst us all for thy dear name's sake.

Amen the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.