Transcript & Slides: Forgiving and Restoring

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Forgiving and Restoring
By David Feddes

I received an email from someone who's been a friend for a long time and who was part of a church that I ministered in years ago. I'll just call her Amy. She's given me permission to share this letter.

She writes, "Good morning, Dave. My dad passed away Thursday morning after a week of pain and suffering because of a fall."

And when you hear the news of a father passing away, that of course is a hard thing for people to bear. But this was a little different. Her father, years earlier, had severely abused her physically and had also abused her sexually.

When I got to know her, she was in her early 30s. She was a very competent professional in medicine, and from the outside looked to have it all together. But she was really struggling. She was struggling with addiction; she was struggling with depression. One time I went out to the cemetery where she was—with razor blades—considering slashing her wrists. She was in really bad shape. And through all of that, the Lord worked in her life, set her free from her addiction, and gave her sobriety, and also helped her to start facing up to some of the things that had happened to her.

At any rate, that's the kind of father that she had—the kind of father who had just passed away. And years later, he began to slip into dementia and to lose part of his memory. At any rate, Amy writes, "I promised my mom that I would take care of him, never knowing how God would use that promise to bring healing and restoration to my heart."

Her mom had died more than six years ago, and before her mom died, she said, "Okay, I'll take care of him." They knew his mind was slipping. "Over the six and a half years since Mom passed, I've taken care of him, done my best to do what was for his best, and through that, God has caused a softening of my heart toward him. He brought healing to that relationship."

So the kindness she showed to her father—who had not been kind to her—really brought healing to her own heart to a considerable degree through those years.

"Then a week ago, last Saturday morning, I had just finished feeding my dad his breakfast. Through breakfast, he had his eyes closed but would respond with a yes or a no. Then suddenly, he opened his eyes, looked at me, and said, ‘You're Amy.’ I responded, ‘Yes.’ He took my hand, looked straight at me, and said, ‘I'm sorry, Amy.’"

She writes, "Dave, you know how I struggled, but in that moment the healing in my relationship with him was complete. Those simple words covered a multitude of sins, wrongs committed, and God released me to finally, truly love him as my dad. I've apologized to him many times over the years for my actions and behaviors, but never had he done the same. This was the only apology I’d ever gotten. I cannot know for certain what my dad’s intent was, but God used those words to bring completeness."

So somehow this old man, whose mind had slipped away, in his last days God gave him the ability to recognize his daughter again and to say he was sorry.

She says, "While I was with him in that week before he died, I was putting up some Christmas cards. Again, he appeared to be sleeping. He moaned out and I asked what was wrong. His response was, ‘I am so lonely.’ And I saw my dad in his entire humanity. And I knew two things: first, I will do whatever it takes to mend relationships so that I don’t end up that alone person that he was. And second, I’m blessed beyond words that the Lord has filled my life with friends and family that I can love and be loved by."

"Remember our first meeting, Dave?" she writes. "I'd lost my best friend and my grandpa—the two people who I had allowed into my life. Never did I foresee that the Lord would bless me so greatly with such a multitude of people. The Lord has given me many great gifts and blessings over the years. What I have experienced this week—these are two of the largest and the greatest. I turned 60 two weeks ago. Next week I celebrate 29 years in recovery. I'm humbled that my life is worth the Lord’s time and attention."

So that's someone who endured great sin and great sorrow at the hands of her father and found the Lord restoring her life through the power of forgiveness.

Scripture says, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Ephesians 4:31–32).

When we’re forgiven by the Lord because of the blood of his cross, then the power of forgiveness becomes the way that we deal with others as well—no matter how severe and terrible the sin against us may have been. And when we forgive, we're seeking restoration. To forgive another means to cancel the debt of what is owed in order to provide a door of opportunity for repentance and restoration of the broken relationship.

Forgiveness isn't just an emotional transaction within me, but it's also a desire for a relationship to become what it ought to be, and to give the other person a chance to repent.

As we think about forgiveness, I want to highlight three things. They’re also kind of highlighted by Dr. Dan Allender in his books.

First, forgiveness involves wanting restoration. It involves revoking revenge and not seeking to punish the other. And it involves pursuing goodness—pursuing goodness positively and actively.

And we’ll see what that means.

First of all, forgiveness involves wanting restoration. And that's not the same as just saying, “Oh, we’re going to get along just fine. We’re going to have reunion with a wicked person in a warped relationship.” No. That's not what it means to want restoration and to forgive.

You want the offender to be restored, and you want the relationship to be restored. You want that to happen in the right way. You want the offender to be repentant and restored in God’s image—to become the kind of person he or she was meant to be. And you want the relationship restored to a relationship of healthy love and respect for one another.

So when you talk about forgiving and restoring, that’s not saying, “Oh yeah, I'm just going to keep on getting along fine with the person as wicked and unrepentant and twisted as they are. And even if our relationship is really sick and there are some really dysfunctional things going on, forgiveness means just ‘It’s okay.’”

No. It means you want restoration of the person to who they ought to be, and restoration of the relationship to the way it ought to be—not just going on with business as usual with a wicked person in a warped relationship.

Forgiveness can sometimes be twisted. And let me just mention a few of the ways that forgiveness can be twisted.

First, you have the exaggerator. Everything that irritates me is a huge sin—a major sin for me to forgive. And so if you're a person who squeezes the toothpaste tube in the middle and not someone who squeezes it from the bottom as it ought to be, then you're sinning and I need to forgive you. Or if you're one of those depraved people who puts the toilet paper on backward and it comes out behind the roll instead of in front of the roll as all right-thinking people would have it, then I need to forgive you for doing such a wicked and irritating thing.

Well, I’m exaggerating a little bit—but that's how exaggerators operate. Anything you do that they find a little bit offensive is a big, big sin that you're doing to deliberately anger them. And you're wrong. And they will forgive you—but it's going to take tremendous power to forgive.

Don’t be an exaggerator who makes a mountain out of a molehill.

Then you have the superstar. And the superstar is ready to forgive. Others are always wrong, and they must admit how wrong they are. "I’m always right, and I am superb at forgiving. If you beg me, if you bow on the ground and kiss my feet—why, I’ll be happy to forgive you. Since you’re always wrong, just make sure you apologize properly, and then I’ll be the one who forgives." And so you have these superstars of forgiveness who've never learned to say, "I’m sorry" or "I’m wrong."

Then there's the manipulator who uses forgiveness as a way to just keep on getting his way or keep on hurting people. "My job is to keep hurting you, and your job is to keep forgiving me." Maybe they’re even religious, and they’ll quote you some verses about forgiveness and how you owe it to them to forgive them. And then they proceed with business as usual and never seek to change and are never truly sorry.

And if you’re living with a manipulator, sometimes you might be tempted to become a doormat: "I’m too weak, I’m afraid to insist that you repent and change, so I forgive. I just keep putting up with all kinds of horrible stuff because I’m afraid that if I stood up and urged you to repent or told you you were wrong, it might ruin the relationship or you might harm me." And so I’ll be your doormat and allow you to continue being the manipulator. That’s not real forgiveness.

All of these are very self-centered. The exaggerator is thinking only of his opinions of what needs to be forgiven, of what’s right. The superstar thinks he’s always right. The manipulator thinks, "I’m in charge, I get to do what I want, and you’ve got to put up with it and forgive it." And the doormat is self-centered too, because he or she is afraid of what might happen if you actually stood up for yourself, developed a backbone, and insisted that some things need to change.

These are not real, healthy forgiveness. These are ways of twisting forgiveness.

Forgiveness is an invitation to reconciliation. It’s not the blind, cheap granting of it and saying, "Oh yeah, we’re going to get along fine." It’s an invitation to restore the relationship—but some things may need to change before it can really be restored.

Forgiveness involves a heart that cancels the debt but does not lend new money until repentance occurs. The other person, if it’s a real sin, does need to repent, or the relationship can’t really be healthy and be restored. So forgiveness is a willingness not to hold things against others and, at the same time, realizing that the relationship can’t truly be restored until they repent.

So forgiveness is wanting restoration. And then it’s revoking revenge.

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:17–21).

Don't take revenge. That doesn’t mean vengeance is a bad thing. It’s a good thing. Vengeance is something that God himself does. So vengeance is a good thing in some circumstances. It is not right that evil should continue to increase, that evil should be committed and that there are no consequences whatsoever for it. It’s good when evil gets punished. But it’s not the best thing. Salvation is even better than vengeance.

God has two ways of getting rid of enemies. One of them is to destroy them. The other is to turn them into his friends. And so we shouldn’t be in a hurry to get the vengeance, because perhaps God’s plan for that person is not so much the vengeance as the salvation.

We revoke revenge. Now is not the right time for it. I’m going to wait patiently for Judgment Day. And I’m not the right judge. God is the final judge. And earthly punishment is the task of the proper authority.

So if you’re a child in a family, it’s not your job to punish your siblings when you’re mad at them. That’s Mom and Dad’s job. When you’re a citizen in society, it’s not your job as a vigilante to get back at somebody and harm them. That’s the job of the proper authorities.

Because, by ourselves, our desire for revenge usually gets carried away. We’re self-centered, and we don’t have a really good perspective on the seriousness of the harm, and we don’t have a good way of limiting the harm within just bounds when we’re just following our own temper and getting our own revenge.

So now is not the time. And I’m not the judge. I’m going to leave it to God. Leave room for God’s wrath, as the apostle says, and don’t take revenge yourself.

And all of this comes in line with the fact that the Bible says that we relate to God and to other people in the terms of a package policy. I’ll tell you what I mean—or what Jesus means:

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy" (Matthew 5:7). People who show mercy to others are shown mercy by God.

Or as Jesus said: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you" (Matthew 7:1–2).

Jesus says, "If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins" (Matthew 6:14–15).

Jesus made that point in his unforgettable story about a servant who owed a king a vast, vast amount of money—unbelievable amount of money that he could never pay back. And the king canceled the debt and let him go. And then that man went out and grabbed somebody by the throat who owed him only a little bit and demanded that he pay right away. Well, when the king found out about it, he had the guy arrested and said, "You’re not getting out of prison until you’ve paid the last penny, because I had mercy on you. You should have had mercy on your fellow servant" (see Matthew 18:21–35).

Jesus is saying that forgiveness is a package policy. You cannot choose grace as God’s policy toward you but grudges as your policy toward others. You have just two options, two choices: you can live under a policy where all debts are canceled and all sins are forgiven—where God forgives all your debts and cancels all your sins—or you can live under a policy where no debts are canceled and nothing is forgiven. But you can’t say, "Lord, I want you to deal with me in grace and forgive all my sins and cancel all my debts, but I want revenge against those who sinned against me and who owe me." Can’t do that.

Jesus says it’s a package policy: if you want forgiveness from God, be forgiving towards others.

You might remember the story of Jonah in the Bible, where he disobeys God. And then he is in a great storm at sea, is thrown into the sea, swallowed by a great fish. And from the belly of the fish, he prays to God for mercy and he praises God that he’s a God of grace. And the fish spits him out on the shore, and he’s safe again. And Jonah is praising God for his grace. But then God forgives the city of Nineveh, which Jonah hates. And when God forgives Nineveh and shows them grace, Jonah says, "I am so angry I could die" (Jonah 4:9).

He praises God when he receives grace. He is furious with God when God forgives the city that he hates. And God teaches Jonah a lesson. We need to learn that lesson.

It’s a package policy. If we want to relate to God as gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, then God calls us to be people who are merciful and full of steadfast love and quick to forgive.

When we think about forgiveness, we need to also deal with some ways of misunderstanding it. Forgiving is not forgetting, and it's not being totally free of pain and anger. Sometimes people say, "Well, if you really forgave, you would not remember even that offense anymore," because God says, "I will remember their sins no more" (Hebrews 8:12).

Well, what does God mean when he says he will not remember people's sins anymore? Does that mean God trashes his omniscience—his all-knowing nature—that he no longer knows what people did? Of course not. God always knows every sin that was ever committed. He doesn't push a button and forget them all. It's just that he doesn't remember them against us or remember them in a way that he intends to punish us for them. But he doesn't forget them in the literal sense of not having them in his memory anymore.

And when we forgive, we're going to continue to remember things that were wrong sometimes. And we shouldn't feel guilty that it's still in our memory, because we have a memory. It also doesn't mean even being free of negative emotions, being free of pain, being free of anger about the wrong that was committed. You might forgive somebody and still feel some of the pain of the hurt that was caused. You might still feel a bit angry about what happened.

Another thing to keep in mind: forgiving a serious wrong is not just a one-time event, but it's a process. So it might be a one-time event—that "Lord, I forgive them, I'm determined to keep forgiving"—and there may be a decisive moment like that. But it's also an unfolding process, because again and again, something may come to memory, or we may feel the impact of someone's sin. If it was a really damaging thing to us, we may feel it again and again, and then it's a process to keep on forgiving.

C.S. Lewis said when Jesus said to forgive seventy times seven, he might not just mean forgiving 490 different sins. He may mean forgiving the same thing 490 times because it comes back to us again, and we need to let go of it and forgive it all over again. And sometimes just at an emotional level, as harm is more fully faced, it takes deeper forgiveness to overcome.

My friend Amy, whom I mentioned earlier—when her father had committed those sins against her as a child—she didn't fully realize the damage it had done. She was in her 30s by the time she realized how much of a wreck it had made of some of her relationships, how she had become addicted as kind of a reaction to things that had happened to her earlier. And when all of that happened, she really needed to fully face the harm that had been done—and then to forgive it all over again. So sometimes we move into deeper levels of forgiveness as we move into deeper levels of understanding or experience of the harm that was done.

So forgiving is not just, "Snap your fingers, it's all over, now I'm going to pretend that it's not an issue anymore." Sometimes even when you forgive, it still is kind of an issue, and you have to forgive more and more deeply and keep dealing with it as a process.

What are the benefits of forgiving?

Well, one benefit is that it deepens your experience of mercy. Assurance of God's forgiveness of you grows as you forgive others. If someone sins against you in a really serious way and you have grace to forgive them, then you realize afresh how great God's grace is toward you, and that he has forgiven you great sins. If you have to forgive somebody something that they repeat again and again—because it's been a harmful habit, and they're fighting against it maybe, but they've still done it again and again—and you forgive them, then you have a deeper experience of mercy because you know in your own life there are habits you've been fighting and you've sincerely wanted to overcome them, but you committed that sin repeatedly. And you know that God forgives you repeatedly. Your willingness to forgive other people deepens your sense of God forgiving you.

Another tremendous benefit of forgiving is it repairs relationships. Forgiving keeps Satan out, keeps the Spirit happy, and it keeps loved ones close to each other. When the Bible says, "Forgive as God in Christ forgave you" (Ephesians 4:32), it comes in the context of saying, "Don’t be bitter," and "Don’t give the devil a foothold" (Ephesians 4:26–27), and "Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God" (Ephesians 4:30).

When we are bitter and refuse to forgive, we give Satan a foothold. We grieve the Holy Spirit, so that he pulls back and withdraws and isn’t as active in our lives. But when we forgive, Satan loses his foothold. The Spirit comes near and rejoices and causes us to rejoice. And we’re brought closer and closer to our loved ones. If we keep holding things against those whom we love, it can drive us apart. So the repairing of relationships is so vital, and forgiveness is the way to do that.

It even helps us defeat our enemies. Forgiving those who harm you and keep harming you and have malice against you—forgiving them keeps their cruelty from controlling you and it leaves them to God.

If you refuse to forgive, somebody else is dominating you. Somebody else's wrongs are dominating your mind. They're controlling you. The only way to defeat them—the only way to get them out of your head in the sense of being the controlling factor in your life—is to let go what they did to you, pray that God will do good things for them and bless them, and move forward.

And you know what? When you do that, you have just cut off their cruelty from controlling you. And you're free from their grip, and you're leaving them in God's hands.

It’s important to forgive. It’s a package policy, and there are many benefits. But how in the world do we do it?

We receive power to forgive because God’s grace is flowing to you, and God’s grace isn’t just flowing to you—it’s flowing through you. As you become a more gracious person, you’re born again. And your reborn self—the life of Christ in you—that reborn self loves and forgives. You’re in God’s kingdom, and God’s kingdom is in you. You’re under God’s reign, and God is reigning in you. And because that’s so, he’s forgiven you, and you’re forgiving others. You’re in Christ, as the apostle Paul liked to put it. You’re in Christ, Christ is in you. And Jesus, who said on the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34)—that same Christ is living inside you when you belong to him. When you put your faith in him, then you have power to forgive.

Dan Allender gives us a good picture of what’s involved in revoking revenge. He was talking to a woman who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her father. And he said, "What would you do if God gave you the choice between pushing a button on your left which would utterly destroy your father at this minute, or a button on your right which would lead to radical deep repentance and the kind of change that would make him the father God intended him to be?"

You notice he didn’t ask, "Do you like your father just the way he is? Are you content with him the way he is?" He’s just saying, "Do you really, really want revenge and the absolute destruction of that pitiable wicked man, or do you wish that God would change him—that he’d repent and become the man God meant him to be?"

If you take that attitude toward somebody—if you say, "You know what? My biggest preference for somebody would not be their destruction and their total suffering, but for them to be transformed to be who God meant them to be"—then you’ve revoked revenge. You’re already a long way down the road to forgiving.

And then, when you’re wanting restoration, when you’ve revoked revenge, then also forgiveness involves pursuing goodness.

"Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing" (1 Peter 3:9). Romans 12 says, "Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:9,21).

Forgiveness is not approving evil. Forgiveness is not just accepting and putting up with evil. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. And even as you hate what is evil, it doesn’t mean that you just pour out your hatred on every person who is evil. No, the way to deal with them is: you overcome their evil with good—with the power of love, with the power of forgiveness, with the power of God-given courage. Overcome evil with good.

In the Old Testament, we’re sometimes told that it was fine to hate your enemies. In the New Testament, we finally learn that you’re supposed to love your enemies. But that’s just not so.

Here’s what the Old Testament teaches: "If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it" (Exodus 23:4). If you find that his donkey has collapsed under a burden, you don’t just say, "Oh, serves him right. I hope the donkey dies and my enemy suffers." Instead, says the Scripture, you go and help your enemy get his donkey back up again (Exodus 23:5).

In Proverbs 25 it says, "If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink" (Proverbs 25:21). Another passage from the Old Testament: "Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:17–18).

You see how the Old Testament part of God’s Word is so consistent with the New Testament. Jesus wasn’t inventing something brand new when he said, "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) or when he said, "Don’t take revenge." When the Old Testament teaches us to love our neighbor, it’s saying, "Don’t hate your brother. Help your enemy."

And the New Testament, of course, says similar things. "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him" (Luke 17:3–4).

Now notice: this is different from what we saw earlier of the manipulator who says, "It’s my job to hurt you, and it’s your job to forgive me." This is a person who truly does repent. But they’ve got these deadly habits ingrained in their nature, and they keep repenting, and they keep trying to change, and then you keep forgiving them.

You pursue goodness by being bold. Bold love is the tenacious, irresistible energy to do good in order to surprise and conquer evil. Love may demand change. Love may bring consequences for a failure to change. Love may withhold involvement until beauty is pursued. Love may hurt the other for the sake of a greater good.

Now, when it’s saying "hurt the other," it doesn’t mean punch or try to destroy. But it may mean taking an action that will be very unpleasant for the other person.

I know another woman who was sexually mistreated by her father. And years later, she confronted him, and he would not admit it. He wouldn’t apologize. And she said, "Well, if that’s how you want to be, then you’re not going to see much of me anymore, and you’re going to have nothing to do with my children—your grandchildren."

He was very upset by that. And some other family members were upset by that. They thought she was being too harsh and too vengeful. But here’s a man who can’t be trusted. He won’t admit what he did. And yet he thinks that he should be left alone with his grandchildren.

Well, she’s pursuing goodness. She wants the relationship to improve. She wants her father to face up to what he did and become a better man. But she’s not going to place her children at risk in order to please him. And she’s not going to keep hurting herself by hanging out with him a lot if he’s not even willing to admit what he did when she was younger.

So sometimes pursuing goodness may cause some pain to the other person. It may mean that you withhold being as involved as you otherwise might be if they were truly transformed. But the goal is still restoration. The goal is still to overcome evil with good.

"Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted" (Galatians 6:1).

And James tells us, "Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins" (James 5:20).

That’s the blessing of being straightforward with people, of showing them areas in which they need to repent and seek forgiveness. They can be saved from death. They can be saved from hell. And so restore people—gently.

Sometimes, no matter what you do, no matter how much you love, no matter how gentle you are, people remain stuck and refuse to repent. And then you don’t need to normalize a wicked relationship or pretend that a wicked person is okay. A refusal to normalize a wicked relationship is a gift of excommunication that waits for the sinner’s return but does not offer deep relationship until he acknowledges and deals with his sin.

The church sometimes excommunicates people who are unrepentant and says, "You cannot come and participate in the Lord’s Supper anymore until you repent." And that’s not because the church hates the sinner. It’s because the church longs for their restoration—but it can’t offer that restoration, it can’t offer that relationship, until the sin is admitted and dealt with.

And just as there’s excommunication sometimes in healthy church discipline, there’s also a distancing in relationships with people who refuse to deal with their sin.

And we’ve talked about this when it comes to spouse abuse. You’re not helping an abusive spouse by continuing to go along with it and to put up with it. The only thing that helps an abusive spouse is if they are faced with consequences—if they are either left by their partner or they are arrested and imprisoned. And then, and only then, do they really have the proper incentive to make the changes that are necessary.

So sometimes you’re blessing a person by facing them with consequences that otherwise they would not deal with.

Love your enemy, and keep a few things in mind as you love your enemy. The enemy you love is still your enemy—not your friend. You can love somebody, but that does not mean that they’re truly your friend. Loving an enemy doesn’t mean liking his personality. It doesn’t mean liking his behavior. It means seeking his good.

As we saw in those Old Testament stories, it may mean helping him get his donkey back up. It may mean giving him some food when he’s hungry (Exodus 23:4–5; Proverbs 25:21). It doesn’t mean saying, "Boy, I just feel warm and fuzzy when I’m around that guy." It means you want what’s good for him, and you’ll do what’s best for him, and you’ll pray that God will bless him. And in the meantime, you don’t have to like that rotten personality or that evil behavior.

Seek the good of a wicked fool or a mocker by challenging his evil.

Now, we’ve been talking about forgiveness, and there are a lot of different areas to forgive. Sometimes you’re forgiving your spouse, and you already love each other, you already have a close relationship perhaps, and yet there are things you’ve done that were wrong toward each other and you need to let go of those. That’s one kind of forgiveness—maintaining the love that you already have in healthy relationships.

But there’s another kind of forgiveness, and that’s dealing with a wicked fool or a mocker—as the book of Proverbs calls them. People who make fun of your attempts to restore the relationship, who are hardened and are wise in their own eyes. And to seek their good means directly challenging their evil and confronting it and refusing to put up with it.

So loving your enemy is consistent sometimes with confrontation—with very direct honesty—and sometimes with imposing consequences on someone who refuses to repent.

Forgiveness also means—and I trust I’ve made this clear in my talks on child abuse and spouse abuse—sometimes you might forgive personally and still let the person experience the consequences, the full consequences of the law. If a child is molested, it is not a requirement that forgiveness means just letting the molester go. That’s happened all too often. And they go out and continue to commit those terrible crimes.

So loving an enemy is consistent with challenging the evil and doing everything in your power to put a stop to it—so that good overcomes evil.

"Do good to your enemy," and that means, among other things, you have the power of forgiveness.

Stay joyful. Don’t go around as a grump and act like your whole life has been ruined and poisoned. It may have been a terrible crime that they committed against you, but you have the joy of the Lord in you. You have Jesus Christ. So count yourself blessed when you suffer for doing right as Jesus’ follower. Do what pleases God, and do what helps your enemy.

You don’t let his sin control you. And you challenge sinful patterns—even if it means sometimes risking rejection and attack. But your goal is to do good to those who persecute you, to those who wrong you, to those who need God’s mercy and grace in their life—the grace and mercy that you’ve already received.

Forgiveness: you want restoration. Restoration of the person. Restoration of the relationship—if possible. And if not, it’s not going to be because of grudges or a desire to punish on your part, but because of refusal to repent on their part.

You’re revoking revenge. You’re saying, "They deserve punishment, but I’m not the one to give it. It’s not the time to give it. It is God’s to avenge, and judgment day is his day for vengeance. And in the meantime, I pray that God will have mercy on them. I pray that God will bless my enemies and rescue them from their evils."

And then pursue goodness—by being kind, by being helpful, by being honest, by being firm, by establishing what is right and what’s wrong.

And in all of that, you’re relying on the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You forgive because God first forgave you.

 

Forgiving and Restoring
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

Forgive others as God forgave you

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:31-32)

Forgiving & restoring

To forgive another means to cancel the debt of what is owed in order to provide a door of opportunity for repentance and restoration of the broken relationship. (Dan Allender and Tremper Longman, Bold Love)

Forgiveness

• Wanting restoration
• Revoking revenge
• Pursuing goodness

Wanting restoration

• NOT reunion with a wicked person in a warped relationship.
• Wanting the offender repentant and restored in God’s image.
• Wanting the relationship restored to healthy love and respect.

Twisting forgiveness

• Exaggerator: Everything that irritates me is a major sin for me to forgive.
• Superstar: Others are always wrong and must admit it. I am always right and am superb at forgiving if you beg me.
• Manipulator: My job is to keep hurting you; your job is to keep forgiving me.
• Doormat: I am too weak and afraid to insist that you repent and change.

Forgiveness is 
an invitation

Forgiveness is an invitation to reconciliation, not the blind, cheap granting of it… Forgiveness involves a heart that cancels the debt but does not lend new money until repentance occurs. (Allender and Longman)

Forgiveness

• Wanting restoration
• Revoking revenge
• Pursuing goodness 

Revoking revenge

Do not repay anyone evil for evil… If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:14-21)

• Vengeance is a good thing—but not the best thing. Salvation is.
• Now is not the right time. I will wait patiently for Judgment Day.
• I am not the right judge. God is the final Judge, and earthly punishment is the task of the proper authority.

Package policy

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. (Matthew 5:7)

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15)

You cannot choose grace as God’s policy toward you but grudges as your policy toward others. You have just two choices:
Live under a policy where all debts are canceled and all sins forgiven.
OR
Live under a policy where no debts are canceled and nothing is forgiven.

Forgive and forget?

• Forgiving is not forgetting or being totally free of pain and anger.
• Forgiving a serious wrong is not just a one-time event but a process.
• As harm is more fully faced, it takes deeper forgiveness to overcome.

Benefits of forgiving

• Experiencing mercy: Assurance of God’s forgiveness grows as you forgive others.
• Repairing relationships: Forgiveness keeps Satan out, the Spirit happy, and loved ones close to each other.
• Defeating enemies: Forgiving those who harm you keeps their cruelty from controlling you and leaves them to God.

Power to forgive

• God’s grace is flowing to you and flowing through you.
• Your reborn self loves and forgives.
• You are in God’s kingdom; God’s kingdom is in you.
• You are in Christ; Christ is in you.

Revoking revenge

What would you do if God gave you the choice between pushing a button on your left, which would utterly destroy your father at this minute, or a button on your right, which would lead to radical, deep repentance and the kind of change that would make him the father God intended him to be? (Dan Allender)

Forgiveness

• Wanting restoration
• Revoking revenge
• Pursuing goodness

Overcome evil
 with good

Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing. (1 Peter 3:9)

Hate what is evil; cling to what is good… Do not be overcome by evil, but over-come evil with good. (Romans 12:9, 21)

Help your enemy

If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. (Exodus 23:4)

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. (Proverbs 25:21-22)

Love and rebuke

Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:17-18)

Rebuke and forgive

If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, “I repent,” forgive him. (Luke 17:3)

Pursuing goodness

Bold love is the tenacious, irrepressible energy to do good in order to surprise and conquer evil. Love may demand change; love may bring consequences for a failure to change; love may withhold involvement until beauty is pursued; love may hurt the other for the sake of a greater good. (Dan Allender)

Restore gently

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. (Gal 6:1)

Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

(James 5:20)

Excommunication

A refusal to normalize a wicked relationship is a gift of excommunication that waits for the sinner’s return but does not offer deep relationship until he acknowledges and deals with his sin. (Dan Allender, The Wounded Heart)

Love your enemy

• The enemy you love is still your enemy, not your friend.
• Loving an enemy does not mean liking his personality or behavior; it means seeking his good.
• Seek the good of a wicked fool or mocker by challenging his evil.

Do good to enemy

• Stay joyful; count yourself blessed when you suffer for doing right as Jesus’ follower.
• Do what pleases God and helps your enemy. His sin doesn’t control you.
• Challenge sinful patterns, even if you may be risking rejection and attack.

Forgiveness

• Wanting restoration
• Revoking revenge
• Pursuing goodness