A characteristic that all Christians possess (remember a true Christian is a follower of Christ) is the willingness to forgive those who sin against them. This is critical to local churches that are made up of people who are far from perfect. We have all sinned against a brother or sister in Christ before, and we have all been sinned against in the past. If brethren in a local church are in the habit of holding grudges and refusing to forgive, that local church will never be what God wants it to be. Even more importantly, souls will be lost. If we refuse to forgive others, God will refuse to forgive us.
Matthew 6:14–15 (NKJV)
14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Can you see how critical it is to forgive others? Forgiveness is a fruit of love, and do you remember what Paul said about love—without it, we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)?
Why is God so insistent that we forgive when sin is committed against us? It is because He has forgiven us, and we have sinned against Him much more than anyone else has sinned against us. Jesus gave a great parable about this in Matthew 18: It involved a servant who owed his king ten thousand talents. That is an amount that would be impossible to pay back; thus, the king was going to sell him and his family into slavery. This servant fell on his knees and begged the king to have patience, and he would repay the debt. The king knew he could not pay it back, but he had pity on him and forgave him of the debt.
Ironically, this servant who was forgiven also had a servant who was in debt to him, but he was only owed a hundred denarii, a payable amount. When his servant asked for patience to pay, the forgiven servant refused and imprisoned him. When word of this got back to the king, he was so angry that he immediately turned him over to the jailers until he could repay his original debt, which meant he would die in jail. Now, here is our Lord’s ending to the parable.
Matthew 18:35 (ESV)
35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
If we want a home in heaven, we must be willing to forgive those who sin against us, and when we do, we are in good company because, as we have already pointed out, no one has forgiven more than God.
Forgiving others does not mean sweeping sin under the rug. When brethren sin against us, we must hold them accountable and demand that they repent.
Luke 17:3 (ESV)
3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,
When a brother sins against us, we are never to stop loving him. This is why Jesus instructs us to rebuke the offender. We rebuke the one who sins against us because first, sin always needs to be rebuked, but second, it might move him to repent and that is what we should be interested in the most. Without being rebuked, the brother might not ever repent, and if he does not repent, it does not matter what we do, God will not forgive him. We rebuke the one who sins against us because we love him enough to want his soul to be saved, even after he has injured us somehow. Remember, we have injured God much more than others have injured us.
How many times does a brother have to sin against us until we say, “Enough, I refuse to give this person any more” Jesus teaches us that we must forgive endlessly (Luke 17:4). However, He does say “…if he repents.” God does not expect us to do something that He never does, and when it comes to sin, God always demands repentance, and we should as well.
As you wind down for the night, think about these things.