Post Script
In the old days of handwritten letters, there were many times when you needed to add something to your letter after your signature, and so you included a P.S. or post script at the end. Every week, our pastors devote hours to studying God’s Word and writing a letter to you, the church, that they will deliver each Sunday in the form of a sermon. But as with any good letter, there are times when our pastors had more to say than the sermon could fit, and that’s exactly what this Post Script channel is for.
In August of this year, our church began a five-week series on relationships, especially relationships in the church. Our teaching was based on a simple yet profound set of verses in Colossians 3:12-14:
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Throughout our study we were honest with one another that relationships can be messy. Yet God strengthens us and sanctifies us both through comforting and challenging relationships in the church. As you run the race that God has designed for you, you will need other believers to run with you, straining and aching with you, and encouraging you to keep running during intensely difficult seasons of your life. But there will be times when someone makes a mistake in that race that hurts us. In order to keep running, we must be willing to forgive them.
The church – with its gathering of people from vastly different backgrounds, education circles, and personalities – is the arena where God wants to strengthen and purify you. One of the ways that He will significantly work in your life is teaching you how to forgive others just as He has forgiven you. This is an area of great challenge for many people, but nothing is impossible with God. When we find ourselves unable to forgive, we must read the Bible for help and cry out to God in prayer. You will not be able to do this in your own strength, but over time God will give you His strength. Keep bringing your burden to God and He will deliver you in His time. For the battle belongs to the Lord (2 Chronicles 20:15).
We are all flawed. We all hurt each other. Yet we all have the same choice. We can spend our life focused on the flaws of those who have hurt us. Or we can turn our focus on Jesus and be stunned by the forgiveness He offers us through His suffering on the cross. You can spend your life holding on to people’s offenses against you. Or you can let go of those offenses as you fling your arms wide open and hug the cross where all charges against you were dropped.
There are few greater privileges in life than to forgive someone who expresses genuine sorrow to you for something they said or did that brought you pain. They cannot undo what they have done, but you have the power of lifting the burden of guilt from them by accepting their apology and assuring them the relationship is healed. That’s what full reconciling forgiveness is; it’s removing the tension in the relationship by releasing someone from the weight of guilt as they acknowledge regret for their wrong against you.
This is what the Bible means when it says we have peace with God through Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). As we repent of our sin and ask God to forgive us based on the mercy of Christ’s sacrifice, He cleanses us of guilt and removes the tension that exists because of our sin. When we come to God in genuine repentance and faith, He doesn’t just forgive us; He celebrates us (Luke 15:7, 10, 24).
At this point in the article, it is likely that someone is asking the question, “Are you saying that forgiveness is always that simple?” The answer is no, as reflected in the title of the article, “The Complexities of Forgiveness.” Forgiveness can be perplexing for many reasons. There are occasions when someone wrongs you yet refuses to acknowledge their sin. In fact, they are proud of their hostility against you. Jesus alluded to this in Luke 6:27,28 when He said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
In these verses it is clear that Jesus is not equating love with a full reconciling forgiveness. This verse does not imply that you will be close to your enemies, for Jesus clearly noted in this verse that they hate you. But we are to love our enemies, and we do that by not showing hostility to them when we see them. God would not insult us by implying that we are to be best friends with those who hate us. But He is commanding us not to respond hatefully. We are to pray that God would replace their hate with His love and their darkness with His life.
Not everyone will be changed by your obedience to Christ, but you will always be changed when you obey the Lord. You will become more like Christ, and you will sense His pleasure that you have honored Him. By refusing to hate your enemies, you are trusting God with the outcome. When Jesus was on the cross, praying for His enemies and entrusting Himself to God, one of the soldiers who crucified Him was wonderfully stunned by Christ’s demeanor, “And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39).
So yes, Jesus calls us to love extravagantly, but this does not mean that we to are love naively. For there was nothing naive in Jesus. The Bible says in John 2:23,24, “many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people….”
What exactly does that mean, he did not entrust himself to them? In essence, it means that Jesus loved everyone, but He did not depend on anyone to validate Him. His confidence and joy were fully dependent on what God said about Him. Jesus began everyday with prayer, and every time He left the throne room of God, His cup was filled with joy because He knew how much His Father loved Him. Not only did He have plenty of joy to give away, He did not try to fill His cup by seeking the approval of people. Or to say it another way, because He enjoyed the approval of God, He did not fear the rejection of man.
So, what does all of this have to do with relationships and forgiveness? It means that it is not sinful when you do not give yourself fully to a relationship that is unreliable. Full reconciling forgiveness is only possible when you’re able to trust that someone has a godly sorrow for their sin and is ready to walk with Christ on a path of repentance and faith.
For some of you, the troubling relationship in your life is more than unreliable, it is unsafe. It is toxic; it spreads the poison of despair throughout your soul. You will realize that a relationship is toxic because every time you interact with this person your confidence and joy is replaced with condemnation and doubt. Often times in a toxic relationship there will be a predictable rhythm of pain, momentary healing, followed by more pain.
No amount of forgiveness will enable you to have a relationship with a toxic personality. The weaker person in the relationship is always vulnerable to the emotional manipulation of the stronger one. The power to manipulate is so strong that the victim in this relationship has no confidence and strength to put a stop to the abuse. Many people live in fear of addressing the abuse because of the uncertainty of consequences. The abuser may degrade them even more. Or heap guilt upon them by blaming them for saying there is a problem.
Addressing a toxic relationship is especially difficult for Christians with a tender conscience. They have been taught that Christ’s love is passive and overlooks all offenses. This is not biblical and therefore not right. If someone repeats a harmful behavior against you, you are under no biblical obligation to let that person have the same level of influence they once had. There is no reason to show excessive anger when you confront the toxic person; you just have to be clear. From this moment on, the relationship changes.
Perhaps one day you’ll enjoy closer fellowship, but presently the wounds are too painful to allow a previous level of closeness. Forgiveness does not mean that you give someone a license to continue abusing you. Not every toxic relationship has to end, but every toxic relationship that will be healed must be redefined and restructured. If restructuring is not possible, then you will likely need to graciously step away from the relationship. You must always give yourself permission to be free from abuse. Confronting a toxic relationship is not a decision that should be made lightly. Exactly when you must speak out is something that only you will know.
Several years ago, I received a phone call from a friend who owned a business in our city. He was concerned about one of his best employees. She was smart and hardworking, but work was becoming very hard for her because of emotional abuse from her father. Interestingly, this woman was over 40 years old yet crippled by a toxic hold on her life by her father. Every time she would visit him, she would come back devastated. In the most subtle ways, he would make demeaning comments to her that eroded her confidence. My friend was calling to ask if there was anything I could do to help this employee. He was literally watching her life fall apart.
A few days later, I met with her and her husband, and over a period of time, I helped her develop a plan to deal with her father. She would continue to see him, but she would explain to him in very clear terms that he was never to speak to her again about the topics that he would often bring up.
Because I had dealt with this before, I even prepared her that her father would not give in easily. I advised her that his manipulative tactics might be stronger than ever as she told him the abuse must stop. And if he persisted in his derogatory speech during the conversation, she calmly needed to raise her hand and say, “Stop Daddy; do not speak to me like that again.”
I told her she literally would need to practice this at her house because of how overpowering her father would be in that moment. And that is exactly what happened. All it took was one time of her raising her hand and making it clear that this is not what a loving relationship looks like.
As long as you live on this earth, God will call you to forgive those who sin against you. But He does not call you to be passive when you are involved in a relationship that erodes your confidence and steals your joy. No counselor can fully tell you how to deal with a severely fractured relationship in your life. If there is to be healing, you will need much strength and wisdom from God to know what you should say and not say, and what you should accept and not accept. As you navigate through a stormy relationship in your life, it is more important than ever that you immerse yourself in the Word of God and in prayer. And that any counsel you receive must come from a source who is also faithful to God.
You can find the full sermon here.
For Further Reading:
When People Are Big and God is Small – Ed Welsh
The Peace Maker – Ken Sande