Forgive, but never forget?

… that he may grant you… to be strengthened… in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts…

Today I want to talk about forgiveness and the title is Forgive but never forget. Let's begin with saying the statement. This is the summary statement of our entire sermon. Drowned in his love and anchored in his justice. The verse we referred to is excerpts from a long passage, from Ephesians chapter 3: that he may grant you to be strengthened in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts. 

1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 5. This chapter is the the big love passage, it says love keeps no record of wrongs. Today we look at an associated area to forgiveness, not forgiveness itself, not God's forgiveness for us or our forgiveness, that we should forgive. I should forgive you. You should forgive me. That's not the thrust of this, I think everybody knows about God's forgiveness and the fact that we should forgive. What we lack is the capacity to let go. And that is what I want to give some thought to. Peter struggled with it. He said, how many times should we forgive? I forgive. I get that. And Jesus said, 70 times 7. The hope is that as you count you will forget. It's about record keeping. We struggle to let go of score keeping. My mind is not able to let go of score keeping. We struggle to forget what has been done, what was said, what it robbed from us, what it did to our relationships, what it did to our lives, how it changed our lives. I was happy then. I was trusting then. I was secure then. So then what happened? Because you said that, because you did this, I can never forget. That inability to forget the record and let go is what we... But has God asked you to forget? Have you heard the phrase, forgive and forget? Where in the Bible does it say, forgive and forget? Where does he say that? Does forgiving mean forgetting? Does it mean, if I forgive, I’m supposed to forget? I mean, I don't forget anything else. I don't forget other things that have happened. I'm supposed to remember all the good things that have happened.How can I remember good things but forget bad? It doesn't make sense. Has God asked us to forget? Does forgiving mean forgetting? Can I just wipe out a part of my brain, part of my history, part of my experience? What about trust? Trust that's lost. You said that to me. You did that to me. You walked away from me. You shamed me, or, you humiliated me. So trust is lost. So, what do you expect me to do? Forget that? Am I making sense? 

Forgiveness is a gift, but trust needs to be earned. I can forgive you but I don't need to trust you anymore. I can forgive you but I don't have to be in your life any more. I can wean you out of my life. I can prune you out of my life. I don't have to continue and pretend that everything is okay. So, hopefully today's sermon will release and relieve you a bit but also give you some clarity as to what God wants you to do.

So, let me begin by giving you four reasons we struggle to let go of memories. Reasons are like bills, receipts. I was clearing out my desk the other day and all these bills, you swipe the credit card, you get a receipt. And then they say you want a bill. You got the credit card receipt and you have the bill. And now you can't read anything. So, you're just reconciling all those bills.You just keep those. But we keep them. We keep them. From 2021, we just keep them. Who knows? You know, at some point, some bill, I'm going to have to go back. So, we keep records, bills, receipts, scars, tattoos.

The first reason is because it now identifies us. Traumatic experiences often involve intense emotions like fear, anger, shame, betrayal. And these emotions can create a lasting psychological and neurological imprint. It burns into us, into our mind, the back of our brain. These emotions can create lasting psychological and neurological imprints as the brain's amygdala and hippocampus, these are the two parts of our brain that deal with emotions and deal with memories. One deals with emotions. One deals with memories. They encode these experiences as significant and urgent for survival. So, they start taking notes.The brain takes notes of these because an emotion came up at that point. Because what was said, what was done, what happened in your life was so deep, was so hurtful, was so triggering, it was so traumatic that heavy emotion has now singed it, it has imprinted it into who you are, and you can't just let go of that. So, now for survival in the future, so that it doesn't happen again, you need to remember that. You need to remember how people behave. You need to remember signs of betrayal so that you don't fall into that. So, our survival instinct will not allow us to forget. We will not forget because we need to survive, we need to protect ourselves.The intensity of the event can make it feel central to our identity. So, once it happened to us, now it is us. I'm a rape survivor. I'm a holocaust survivor. You get what I'm saying? We become our tragedy. We become identified by what happened to us. What was done to us. The brain prioritizes the retention of emotionally charged memories to prevent future harm. And over time, certain thoughts, certain emotions can trigger that unresolved pain. And these triggers make it feel as though the past is happening again. Again, I'm going through the same thing. I can't afford to do this. Keeping the trauma present and alive in our minds. Like it happened eight years ago, but I still feel it's happening now. But there's hope. The Bible says, He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds. 

The second reason is now it gives you a good excuse that as long as I'm sick, I don't need to participate in anybody else's healing. You know because once a person is bedridden, they're not responsible for the house, the security, the cooking, the cleaning, the shopping. He's sick. So now he is excused. So we hold on to what we have, so that it excuses us from living for other people. We believe that it's fine for my life to revolve around myself because people don't know what's happened to me. “You don't know what I've been through”. “You don't know what all I'm dealing with and how hard my life is”. What are you really saying? Leave me alone. I'm not responsible for anybody else. You have your pain. I have my pain. Of course, my pain is amplified. Also, it gives you an excuse to not trust again. Somebody once said something or betrayed you or whatever. Now you don't trust anybody. And that's your excuse to not get into any relationships, not trust, not take any chances, not jump, not love unconditionally. 

The third reason is an interesting reason, more theological. The love of God hasn't drowned us. What do we mean by that? The Christian life is by osmosis. It's Christ in us making its way through the osmosis process to come out. And as the outside climate changes to maintain the Christian-ness of my being, Christ comes out through me. We will talk more about this in just a bit, but this is one of the greatest reasons we struggle with the capacity to let go. So not being filled with God's love results in not overflowing with God's love because you can only overflow if you're full. First you got to be full, then you got to overflow. So God's love to others must be an overflow, not scratch the bottom of the barrel. No, you're not looking deep down inside to find love for the people or find forgiveness for the people. We use phrases like, “I'm running out of patience”. “ I'm at the end of my tether”. Orif you're more everyday, “I've had it with this person/ with this work”. “ I can't take any more of this”. Whenever you hear these phrases, it's all evidence that you are living and loving in your own strength. So God's character, the life of Christ, it overflows, it comes through when required. When the climate changes outside, when the temperature changes outside, it comes out. And you can apply that accordingly. 

The fourth one is the justice of God and the goodness of God. I don't know about you, but I really struggle with this. And I know many others do. Here's a very real struggle. We process our own judgment, our justice and our punishment, while we watch others get away with God's goodness. Let me put it this way. We know and believe the goodness of God, but we struggle with His goodness to me. God is good, but is He good to me? We know and believe the justice of God, but we struggle with His justice toward others. We know and believe the goodness of God, but we struggle with His goodness towards me. When it comes to my sin, God is going to judge me. Everybody else is going to judge me. I will be held accountable for everything I do. I get called out on everything I do. I get blamed for everything I do. When it comes to others, the goodness of God suddenly comes. Suddenly, I must forgive. God has forgiven. I must forgive. We go through our life and everybody else gets the goodness of God, except me. Nobody else gets the justice of God, only me. So there's the issue or the tug of war between the justice of God and the goodness of God.

Let me give you two truths to build on. You can take these two and you can begin just working with these, and you can find yourself a lot of healing.

Number one, forgiveness is inevitable. You will land up forgiving. You will naturally forgive. You will find within yourself the desire, not just the capacity, but the desire to forgive, when you are drowned in God's love. I told you we're coming back to this. Here it is. Forgiveness is inevitable when you are drowned in God's love. Here is a prayer that Paul prays for the church, especially in Ephesus, for all churches, but for the church in Ephesus, and this you'll find in Ephesians chapter 3, 14 - 21. Paul says to God about the Ephesian church, he says, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches, according to the standard of the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power (how?) through his Spirit ( where?) in your inner being, not in the mind, not in the heart, but in my inner man. My spirit receiving from God's Spirit the ability, the courage, the tenacity to forgive. It goes with all characteristics, but today we're talking about forgiveness. So God's Spirit living in me gives to my spirit the character. It rubs off the character onto me so that it begins to come through my character, my words, my interactions, my everything.So what is the first thing Paul is praying for? That you may be strengthened with power through His spirit in your inner being. Why? So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith- that you so that you be rooted in love, … What direction is that? Down. There's a, you dig your heels into God's love, and no wind, no storm is going to turn you over. Your roots are solid. Solid in what? Not the love of a woman, not the love of a man, not in your intellect, not in your bank account, but in the love of God. So you are rooted and grounded in love.That gives you your firm foundation. 

Then he says, in verse 18, that you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints... Now we're talking about intellectual strength, an understanding strength, a wisdom strength. …what is the breadth and length and height and depth…Why does he say all this? Is he just being poetic? So first of all, I'm grounded and I'm anchored in God's love. Then I'm beginning now to understand the length, and breadth, and height, and depth of Christ's love. So that I'm literally drowned in his love. When the ship is drowning, it's because the water has gone into the ship. When you drown under water, you're okay until you start taking in the water. Once the water goes in, it has now filled you, and you suffocate and die. We say a person drowned because water got into him. So first you are in the love of God, and then the love of God is in you. And the love of God is a way of thinking. It's a way of acting. It's a strength. Two times he's used the word strength. He hasn't used the word feelings or sentiment. He hasn't used the word emotion. He's used the word strength. That you may be strengthened. So the Spirit of God gives me the strength, courage, tenacity, elasticity to comprehend along with everybody the length, breadth, height, depth, so that I may know the love of Christ. Verse 19. …and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. So God is full. God is complete. And you are being filled with the love of God. So all of God, all of his character, is being filled in you. All of you. There's nothing left of you. So when you love me, you'll be loving me with what you've got or what you're full of. When I shake you up, you'll overflow with what you're full of. When I irritate you, when I threaten you, when I boo you, you will overflow with what you're full of. And if you're full of the love of God, effortlessly that's what's going to come out. 

But you and I use phrases like, “he brings out the worst in me”. No, it's not the worst, that is you. He brings you out. You kept it hidden, you controlled it a little bit because you didn't want people to know the real you. God doesn't want to change you, he just wants you to die and he wants to fill you with himself, so that in your worst moments, on your worst day, Jesus leaks. Jesus overflows. 

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, Third time he uses the word power. Power, strength. Power, strength. It's not emotions. It's not feelings. It's not character. It's not niceties. It's not flowers. It is power. To love someone requires power. It requires strength. And that inner strength comes from the Spirit of God. It doesn't come from your knowledge of how to love. 

So we can let God's love do the forgiving for us. Mostly because you cannot do it, maybe you have had enough and have run out of patience. So come to God saying, “I've done it and I'm finished”. “Now if anybody is going to get any love from me, it has to be yours, it has to be you through me, Lord, like you need to love that person”. If I am to continue in my life with my spouse or with my child or with my teenager or with my in-laws or with my cousins or whatever, you have to do the loving of God. We can let God's love do the forgiving for us. He will do it because it's an issue of strength. So flooding us with the mercy and love to do the impossible. His Spirit poured into our hearts, accomplishing the impossible. Replacing pain with joy and peace and sufficiency. God drowns you in his love so that when you're shaken, when you're stirred, when you're threatened, when you're booed, his love comes out.Why? Because that's what you're full of. And when you're full of something, you don't need anybody else's anything. You don't need Nike. You don't need Gucci. You don't need Versace. You don't need a Mercedes Benz. You don't need the latest anything, because when you're filled with God's love, there is no space left for anything else.

So, let me give you a second truth to live your life on. Forgiveness is possible when we have an accurate understanding of the justice of God. You heard the word karma, but nobody understands it right. It is not correct either by the Christian understanding or even by most Hindu understandings. Karma is something totally different. It is the biblical concept where you say what goes around comes around. You reap what you sow. So that's a biblical concept. Not so much tooth for tooth, eye for eye, but you reap what you sow. When you sow wheat, you're not going to get apples. You're not going to get anything else. You're going to get wheat and you're going to get a lot of it. It's a principle. 

So believers are the ones who should most abide and most believe in the fact and the principle and the understanding that you reap what you sow. Psalm 89 verse 14. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Love and faithfulness go before you. 

Romans chapter 2. Romans is the crucible of theology for us. God will repay each person according to what they have done… but Pastor Jeremy, he's forgiven all our sin and all are going to heaven and it's all hugs and kisses from now and nobody is going to be held accountable for anything. We all have grace, Pastor..? No… God will repay each person according to what they have done… This is New Testament. This is Romans.  To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who who reject the truth and who follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. So this is in the New Testament in the age of grace, post the cross? Yes. God hasn't changed. God hasn't switched from being a bad guy to a nice guy. God hasn't gone from Old Testament to New Testament saying, “okay done with all that gore and stuff, done with all the bloodshed and all the things, now I'm just going to be a nice guy”.Everybody come as you are God will see! He's a God of justice, and he had to find a way around it. He had to send his Son to the cross, he did it to maintain his justice, but he will not be found unjust. Righteousness and justice are his foundation. Look at Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 13. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So here's the problem my dear brothers and sisters, we have become New Testament believers and we have not read enough of the Old Testament. We have not lived in the Old Testament enough and we have somehow thought we have somehow perceived that God is no more the God of the Old Testament. He is now just the God of the New Testament. There was a time, God was waiting for when He could execute mercy because Jesus had to go to the cross. Justice had to be met. Jesus had to pay the price. Only then could mercy be doled out. Mercy can't be doled out before justice has been served. So you think in all of the Old Testament God is so judgmental and then suddenly He flips and He is now this really nice guy. That's not the truth. He is still a just God. He is still a God of anger. He is still a God of wrath and He doesn't owe you an explanation for it. He owes nobody an explanation for the fact that He is angry at sin, that He hates evil and that He does what He does and nobody gets to question Him. The fact that He shows mercy and the fact that He shows grace arrives in the New Testament only because Jesus comes between the Old Testament and the New. If there was no Jesus, the God of the Old Testament would have been the God of the New Testament. It would have been the same God. You would still have been dealing with a God of fire and lightning and of sulphur and what not. 

So you and I as believers, truth number two, you have to get this. Forgiveness is possible when we have an accurate understanding of this. I can let go because I know God is a just God. He is not going to let go. So better that person in God's hands than mine. If I want to wish worse for you, I wish you in God's hands, not mine. I could not bring about a certain justice to you as God can. I must leave it to God. 

But sadly what do we believe? God only punishes me. God lets everybody else go. So I have to take it into my own hands. I have to make sure this guy suffers a little bit. I cannot leave it to God. God is too good to everybody. And that's the dilemma. That's the struggle. That's where we get stuck. So there's not enough Old Testament in our heads and minds and hearts. We need to understand that God has not changed. Forgiveness is God's way of setting us free from the burden and responsibility of executing justice. When we refuse to let go off the bills, the receipts, the scars, we rob ourselves. We don't rob the others because God's just. He's going to get back to them anyway. But what we do is we rob ourselves. And let me give you four ways we rob ourselves. 

Number one. If we haven't forgiven, our sacrifices are unacceptable. You give to the Lord, sacrificially you give to the Lord, God does not want your sacrifice. He does not accept your sacrifice. He does not want it. He says in Matthew 5:23, so if you're offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come back and offer your gift. Because if you have a knot against your brother, your wife, your loved one, and you're living with anger towards somebody or somebody's anger towards you, and you haven't sorted out a relational issue and you're coming here being all holy and spiritual and giving me big gifts, I'm not going to take it. I'm not falling for that. I know your life. You're robbing yourself. When we haven't forgiven, our sacrifices are unacceptable. 

A second thing we rob ourselves from when we haven't forgiven, our prayers hit the ceiling. They don't go past the ceiling. Psalm 66 verse 18. I learned this when I was very young, and it imprinted on me real hard. If I regard wickedness in my heart. King James Version says, if I hide sin in my heart. I like that one. That is unresolved, unconfessed sin. If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Psalm 59 verse 2 is even more brutal. But your iniquities have separated you from God. Iniquities means sins. …your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear . You know the loved one in your home that walks around in the house with their head the other way. They don't want to look at you. You know how that hurts, no? Yeah. It says God does that. Still? Yeah. Even after Jesus? Yeah. Even after the cross? Yeah. Because God still can't stand sin. He hasn't become okay with sin after the cross. He still cannot stand sin. But your iniquities have separated you from God. Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear. 

Number 3. When we haven't forgiven, we gamble away God's forgiveness for us. Matthew chapter 18. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me… So also my Heavenly Father will do to everyone of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. So God is looking at whether you're paying forgiveness forward. You have been forgiven much. Are you paying it forward? James chapter 2 verse 13. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. We want forgiveness. We want judgment on others. We want to be let go. We want others to be held accountable. We want a second chance. We don't want them to have a second chance. That's where we become even worse than our offenders.

So God is a God who looks not at your sin but at how much you have forgiven. So he looks at your sin and he says, I've forgiven you this much. Then he looks at how much you've forgiven others. He says, I forgive you this much. You're not even able to forgive this much. Well, I'll take this back. Thank you very much. 

Number four. When we haven't forgiven, we hinder spiritual growth and healing. Two things. Growth and healing. So the church won't grow. Spiritual growth won't happen when we don't forgive. And healing won't happen when we don't forgive. Ephesians chapter 4 talks about growth. The whole of the book of Ephesians chapter 3 and chapter 4 also talks about the maturity of the church. He says, From him the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. What is love? Maturity. What is maturity? Love. Love is stalled. It is retarded. Maturity is retarded when we do not forgive. So, for everyone in church that is holding back forgiveness and keeping records, the church is not growing. What about healing? James chapter 5 verse 16. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Because you can't keep so much resentment. You can't keep so much unforgiveness. You can't keep so much score  and not have it start telling on your health. Your body was not meant to be a scoreboard. Your body or brain was not meant to be a scoreboard. So the more you keep in your heart, the more you carry through your life, the more and more it's going to talk to your kidneys. It's going to talk to your pancreas. It's going to talk to your digestive system. It's going to talk to your mind and your headaches and your ulcers etc. Your health by and large is connected to your spiritual health. Sometimes, yes, there is a clinical issue. Forgiveness is one massive way to healing. 

So what does God want me to do? Well, God wants you to forgive and never forget. Number one: God wants you to forgive and never forget that you have been forgiven. Ouch! Because we remember all the things that were done to us, but we forget that he forgave. And the second thing is God wants you to forgive but never forget that He will take care of justice. They will not get off the hook. You don't have to look after the justice issue. You don't have to look after the execution of that justice. You don't have to make sure that they pay for it. God will make sure that they pay for it. He is a just God and He will do what is necessary to bring them to account. You can trust God with His justice. You can move on with your life. To do this, you have to be drowned in His love, and anchored in His justice. You need to be drowned in His love. That's where the strength comes from and, anchored in His justice, that's where the release comes from. 

May the Lord bless you and may He give you powerful breakthrough release from relationships, from bondages, from mental bondages of what has been holding you down in the area of forgiveness.