Audio Transcript

Good Monday, everyone, on this day before Independence Day here in the States. Last time, last week, we addressed sibling rivalries — a common theme in the Bible, and a concern we should have for our own homes today. Sibling rivalries was Thursday’s theme, in APJ 1954. And today we look at forgiving family members.

The question is from a listener to the podcast, a young man who lives in Brazil. He writes this: “Hello, Pastor John, thank you for this podcast, which has been a huge resource God has used in my own sanctification. My question is this: My family struggles to forgive each other, and it’s been this way for years. They argue along the line that ‘even Jesus was harsh with his enemies, so why should I forgive my enemies?’ How would you answer them? In dealing with hurt in the past, what is the difference between Jesus dealing with his enemies like the Pharisees, contrasted with what God expects from us in dealing with our own family members who have sinned against us?”

This is utterly crucial. It’s a matter of life and death, and I mean eternal life and death, as we will see in just a moment. So, I take this question really seriously, and I hope this family will take the issue seriously also.

What Is Forgiveness?

First, let’s clarify what forgiveness is and isn’t. That’s a huge stumbling block for a lot of people. When they start arguing about whether they should forgive or not, they don’t pause to define what it is and isn’t. So, let’s do that.

First, forgiveness is not thinking or saying or acting as though no great wrong was done. A great wrong may well have been done against you.

Second, forgiveness is not reestablishing a wonderful relationship. In Romans 12:18, Paul says, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” It may not be possible. He also says in Colossians 3:13, “[Bear] with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, [forgive] each other.” Now “bearing with one another” means, literally, “endure one another,” “forbear one another.” In other words, there will be frustrating, annoying, even hurtful things about others that no amount of forgiveness will fix, and they must be endured. We must bear with them. You’ll see why in a minute.

“Forgiveness can be real even if the other person does not accept it or want it.”

Third, forgiveness does not mean that trust is immediately restored. This is crucial. So many think that to forgive is to restore trust — to give trust to someone who has betrayed you. But that assumes that the person has reformed, and does not have those same untrustworthy patterns of life that made them do wrong. But, in fact, they may be worse, not better. Forgiveness may lead to new and deeper trust; it may not.

Fourth, forgiveness can be real even if the other person does not accept it or want it. They may not think they did anything wrong. That’s just a huge problem in marriage, for example. You want to forgive, and they don’t think they’ve wronged you. In those cases, the full transaction of repentance and forgiveness is not possible, but a forgiving spirit is still possible. And if that is all we can give, because they don’t want our forgiveness, then the Lord counts that — that forgiving spirit — as our forgiveness. We’ve done what we can do. We have shown that we are a forgiving person. You can love your enemy even while he remains your enemy if he chooses.

So then, if that’s what forgiveness is not, what is it? Forgiveness is wanting the good, not the ruin, of the one who wronged you, in spite of the wrong, and then acting for their good. You won’t let the wrong strangle your love. You won’t let their sin make you sin. You will lay it down and pray for their good and work for it.

Why Is Forgiveness Crucial?

Okay, with those clarifications in mind, why do I say forgiveness is so crucial?

1. We were greater enemies of God.

You as a Christian have been forgiven an offense against God that is millions of times greater than any human has offended or sinned against you. Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” The outrage of the way you have treated God in your sin and unbelief was so great that it cost God the death of his only divine Son to forgive you. In other words, your debt was infinite. Nobody who has wronged you has ever come close to wronging you as badly as you have wronged God. And yet we are forgiven. You and I, Christian, are forgiven.

What would it mean if we refuse to forgive? Here’s what it would mean. It would mean we think God is a fool to forgive us. “He’s acting like a fool, because I’m not going to act like that. I’m not going to be stupid and foolish like that. So, God must be foolish to forgive me since I’m not going to forgive.” That’s pretty serious. Let that sink in. That’s very serious to think God’s a fool or to act like he’s a fool.

2. Jesus died for his enemies.

Our friend in Brazil says that his unforgiving relatives say, “Even Jesus was harsh with his enemies. Why should I forgive my enemies?” One answer is that Jesus forgave his enemies. Hanging on the cross to purchase our forgiveness, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Of course, he was harsh with the Pharisees and scribes, good grief. And the reason he was harsh with them is because they were so unforgiving. But while being harsh, he was on his way to die for them if they would only trust him. So, Jesus forgave his enemies.

3. Forgiven people forgive.

Jesus said that if we don’t forgive, we won’t be forgiven. Matthew 6:14–15: “If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

And then he told a parable to emphasize this shocking reality. The king forgave a slave who owed him zillions. And that’s a pretty good translation because the amount is like twenty thousand years’ worth of wages. I mean, it is supposed to sound like zillions. He owed him zillions of dollars. Then the slave went out and wrung the neck of a fellow slave who owed him ten dollars. And the king said, “Throw him in prison till he pays everything,” which means forever (Matthew 18:23–35). Why? Because in relationship with God, forgiveness must go both ways. God gives and we receive. That slave did not receive the king’s forgiveness. He despised it, he mocked it, he scorned it, he trampled it in the dirt.

When you won’t forgive someone else his debt while claiming to love the God who forgave yours, it’s just pure hypocrisy. You’re acting like God was a fool for forgiving you. And so, if you keep on thinking God is a fool, you will perish and not be forgiven.

4. A great reward is coming.

When forgiveness seems hard, think about the reward. That’s what Jesus says in Matthew 5:11–12, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.” So, when the hurt you have received seems so great that you can’t rejoice and forgive, Jesus says, “Remember your reward. Remember your reward. It will be very great.”

5. God will repay.

One more suggestion from Romans 12:19–20. One of the reasons we stumble over the command to forgive those who’ve hurt us is the sense that if we don’t punish them in some way, they’re going to get away with a great wrong; they’re going to get away with a real injustice. So, there’s a sense in which our very proper love for justice makes us hesitant to let the offense or the hurt go. We feel that if we let it go, justice will simply not be done, and that would be wrong, so we justify our vengeance.

“Nobody who has wronged you has ever come close to wronging you as badly as you have wronged God.”

But the problem with that way of thinking is that God has told us precisely that justice will be done, and that he will do it. He will do it far better than we could ever do it. Here’s what he says in Romans 12:19–21: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.” Now, that leaving to God to deal with it is part of what goes into forgiveness — you leave it. Paul goes on, “For it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ To the contrary, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Now, the amazing thing about this promise — “I will repay” — is that it is true for all the wrongs unbelievers do against us and all the wrongs believers do against us. If others wrong us and never turn to Christ and remain unbelievers till they die, they will go to hell, and all the wrongs that they have ever done will be duly repaid — indeed, repaid more terribly than anything we could ever do here. So, we don’t need to do it. We don’t need payback.

If those who wrong us are true Christians or become Christians in their lifetimes, then the wrong that they did to us — with all their other sins — was punished in the suffering of Christ. Christ bore the punishment for the sins they committed against us. Let me say that sentence again, because I just think it would have such a vast impact on the way we treat each other: Christ bore the punishment for the sins they committed against us.

Think what that means if we are unwilling to forgive their wrong against us. It means we are acting as if the sufferings of Christ were not enough. We are making light of the horrors he endured to bear the guilt of that wrong committed against us. We do not want to be found in that horrible attitude. We don’t. That’s a dangerous attitude to think that Christ’s sufferings are inadequate.

So, dear friend in Brazil, I will pray for your family and for you — that they would see the seriousness of what’s at stake in not forgiving, and that you would seek to be a beautiful example to them of what forgiveness looks like. I will pray for you. I hope you will for me as well.

How do works of obedience relate to the free, unmerited gift of God’s grace in the life of a Christian? This has been a recurring controversial and confusing issue since the earliest days of the church.

If we are justified by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ’s sufficient substitutionary work alone, and not by any work of ours (Romans 3:8), then why are we warned and instructed to “strive . . . for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14)? If our works don’t save us, then how can our not working (like not striving for holiness) prevent us from being saved?

Before we turn to the apostle Peter for help, hear a parable of an unhealthy soul.

Diligence Reveals Real Faith

There was a man who was forty pounds overweight. Despite knowing it was dangerous to his health, for years he had indulged in too much of the wrong kinds of foods and neglected the right kinds of exercise.

One day, his doctor told him he was in the early stages of developing type-2 diabetes. Not only that, but his vital signs also pointed to high risks of heart attack, stroke, and various cancers. If he didn’t make specific changes, his doctor warned, the man would surely die prematurely.

So, the man heeded his doctor’s warnings. He made every effort to put new systems into place that encouraged healthy habits of eating and activity and discouraged his harmful old habits, preferences, and cravings. After twelve months, the man’s health was beginning to be transformed. He had lost most of his excess weight, felt better, had more energy, and no longer lived under the chronic, depressing cloud of knowing he was living in harmful self-indulgence. When his doctor next saw him, he was very pleased and said to the man, “Well done! You are no longer at heightened risk of premature death.” The man continued in his new ways and lived well into old age.

Question: Was the man’s health restored through his faith in the gracious knowledge provided to him pertaining to life and healthiness, or was it restored through his diligent efforts to put this knowledge into practice?

How Faith Works

Do you see the problem with the question? It poses a false dichotomy. The man’s faith and his works were organically inseparable. If he didn’t have faith in what the doctor told him, he wouldn’t have heeded the doctor’s warning — there would have been no health-restoring works. If he didn’t obey the doctor’s instructions, whatever “faith” he may have claimed to have in his doctor would have been “dead faith” (James 2:26) — that faith would not have saved him from his health-destroying ways.

This parable, imperfect as it is, is a picture of the biblical teaching on sanctification. In a nutshell, the New Testament teaches that the faith that justifies us is the same faith that sanctifies us. This faith is “the gift of God, not a result of works” (Ephesians 2:8–9). It’s just that this saving faith, by its nature, perseveres, and works to make us holy.

We passively receive this gift of faith freely given to us by God. But faith, once received, does not leave a soul passive. It becomes the driving force behind our actions, the way we live. By its nature, faith believes the “precious and very great promises” of God (2 Peter 1:4), and the evidence that real faith is present in us manifests, over time, through the ways we act on those promises. The New Testament calls these actions “works of faith” (1 Thessalonians 1:3) or the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5). True works of faith don’t “nullify the grace of God” (Galatians 2:21); they are evidence that we have truly received the grace of God, and are themselves further expressions of grace.

Now, let me show you one place where Scripture clearly teaches this. And as I do, imagine yourself as the unhealthy soul in my parable sitting in your doctor’s office — and your doctor is the apostle Peter. Dr. Peter has just examined your spiritual health and has some serious concerns. So, as a good physician, he gives you a firm exhortation.

Escaping Through Promises

[God’s] divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3–4)

Dr. Peter begins by telling you that God has granted to you all things. He agrees with his colleague, Dr. Paul, that God has granted you life, breath, and everything, including the day you were born, the places you’ll live, and how long (Acts 17:25–26). God has granted you regeneration (Ephesians 2:4–5), the measure of your faith (Romans 12:3), spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:7–11), and capacity to work hard (1 Corinthians 15:10). And God has given you his “precious and very great promises so that through them” you may escape the power of sin and be transformed into his nature.

Everything, from beginning to end, is God’s grace, since “a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven” (John 3:27).

Make Every Effort

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. (2 Peter 1:5–7)

Notice Dr. Peter’s words: For this reason (because God has granted you everything), make every effort (act with faith in all God has promised you).

In other words, prove the reality of your profession of faith, by doing whatever it takes to actively cultivate habits of grace, that nurture the character qualities necessary to live out the “obedience of faith” through doing tangible acts of good to bless others.

What Negligence Reveals

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. (2 Peter 1:8–9)

“Diligence will reveal genuine faith because that is how faith works.”

Dr. Peter’s prescription is clear and simple: if you cultivate these holy qualities, they will foster spiritual health and fruitfulness; if you don’t, you will experience spiritual decline and demise. Diligence will reveal genuine faith because that is how faith works: it leads to action. Negligence will reveal your lack of faith because “dead faith” doesn’t work.

Now, this is a warning, not a condemnation. Peter knows well that all disciples have seasons of setbacks and failure. But he also knows, with Paul, that some disciples “profess to know God, but they deny him by their works” (Titus 1:16) — their profession of faith is not supported by the “obedience of faith.” Peter doesn’t want you to be one of those statistics, so he ends his firm exhortation to you on a hopeful note.

Pursue Diligence by Faith

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:10–11)

Just so you’re clear, Dr. Peter emphasizes the organic, inseparable relationship between God’s grace and your “works of faith.” He says, “Be diligent to confirm your calling and election.”

You don’t call yourself to Christ; Christ calls you by his grace (John 15:16). You don’t elect yourself to salvation; God elects you by his grace (Ephesians 1:4–6). But you do have an essential contribution to make to your eternal spiritual health. You confirm the reality of God’s saving grace in your life through diligently obeying by faith all that Jesus commands you (Matthew 28:20) — or not.

“You can confirm the reality of God’s saving grace in your life — or not.”

This is Dr. Peter’s prescription for your assurance of salvation: your diligent obedience through faith, your making every effort to pursue holiness, is evidence that your faith is real and that the Holy Spirit is at work in you to make you a partaker in the divine nature.

This is why Scripture commands us, “Strive for . . . the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). It’s not that our striving, our “making every effort” to obey God, somehow merits us salvation. Rather, our striving is God’s gracious, ordained means — fed by his promises and supplied by his Spirit — to make us holy as he is holy (1 Peter 1:16) and to provide us “entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

God’s grace is no less gracious because he chooses to grant it not only apart from our works (in justification) but also through our diligent “works of faith” (in sanctification) — especially since these works are evidence that our faith is real.

Sinners rescued from the road to hell love to rehearse and celebrate the mercy of God. Where would we be today without mercy? Where would we be for eternity without mercy?

Without mercy, we would be dead in our sin, a death worse than death. Mercy called us from the tomb. Mercy lifted us out of the pit. Mercy opened our blind eyes. Mercy gifted us with faith, repentance, and joy. We deserved every possible ounce of rejection, punishment, wrath, but God gave forgiveness, love, and life instead. All that we have, we have by the mercy of God. Is there any other god, in all the religious imaginations on earth, who deals so gently and compassionately with sinners?

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me,” Jesus says, “for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29). Knowing how we’ve treated him, all the endless ways we’ve each ignored and insulted him, he has every righteous reason to be severe and merciless, but he’s gentle with us. He stoops low to receive and restore us. Jesus recites these precious lines from Isaiah about himself: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench.” Who could know himself a redeemed sinner and not love the kindness and tenderness of such mercy?

And yet mercy doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s another side of this king — a holy, majestic, jealous, even vengeful side, a side sinners like you and me are often far less likely to rehearse and celebrate.

Bruised on the Battlefield

When Jesus drew near to bruised reeds and smoldering wicks, he did not coddle or compromise with sin. His mercy mingled with justice:

Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,     my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.I will put my Spirit upon him,     and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. . . .a bruised reed he will not break,     and a smoldering wick he will not quench,     until he brings justice to victory. (Matthew 12:18–20)

He came to establish justice, and he wouldn’t stop until he saw it to the finish. We might imagine these bruised and vulnerable reeds hiding safely in backyards and community gardens, but here they’re crouching on the battlefield of a cursed world.

Why else is the reed bruised and the wick smoldering, if not because they’re caught in the awful, ordinary crossfire of sin? We all relate to that thin, fragile blade of grass because we’ve felt like that at times, if not often. We’ve all felt the sting of sins against us, and we’ve all watched, with sorrow-filled anger, as sin has torn apart marriages, families, friendships, communities, even whole nations. With our hearts aching with confusion and grief, we’ve cried out for justice. We’ve groaned, with creation, for a better world than the one we have.

Until Justice Is Done

Jesus came to bring that better world, to pour out justice like Niagara in spring, to declare war on all who opposed him, to put a certain end to centuries of rebellion. And yet, as he wages his holy war, he kneels down, with infinite strength, taking fire from every direction, to lift and support the weak, humble, trusting souls in his path. Toward his enemies, he’s severe, unyielding, terrifying. Toward his own, however, he’s gentle and lowly.

On that battlefield, his justice is not some dark cloud casting a shadow over his mercy; it’s the sunless, moonless night which makes his mercy shine. His justice and mercy are two parts in one holy symphony. Isaiah 30:18, for instance, plays the harmonies, mingling the tenderness of God’s mercy with the promise of his justice:

The Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

Mercy and justice are not at odds here, but beautifully joined together. Because he is just, God will be merciful to you, in his perfect timing. His grace to you, in Christ, is justice. The purest enforcement of justice ever conceived or executed delights to show mercy.

God of Against

This mercy does not blunt the force of his justice. The justice of God is a soul-shaking, pride-shattering justice. Right before Isaiah 30:18, the Lord confronts Israel for desperately turning to the armies of Egypt for rescue:

Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern. (Isaiah 30:12–14)

Notice, the mercy of God doesn’t keep him from severity. Is the God you worship one who ever smashes rebellion against him? When you close your eyes to pray, is there ever a sense that he could, right now, righteously decimate billions of people for refusing and insulting him — that sin really is that repulsive and insidious? Some regular awareness of his holy furor against injustice, especially all our injustices against him, is vital to a healthy life of worship. The God of all comfort, after all, is also a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29).

For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up — and it shall be brought low. . . . And people shall enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the Lord, and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth. (Isaiah 2:12, 19)

“The God who stoops, in Christ, to gently lift you out of your sin will one day terrify the nations again.”

This is not a cruel God left behind in the Old Testament. This is the God of infinite mercy. The God who stoops, in Christ, to gently lift you out of your sin will one day terrify the nations again. His justice may be hidden, for a time, beneath his staggering patience, but its devouring fire will soon consume his enemies.

Justice Fueling Mercy

All of that makes his mercy all the more stunning. The terrifying flames of justice don’t undermine his mercy, but illuminate and enflame it. “The Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice.” But they were despising his word and trusting in oppression and perverseness — how could he be both just and gracious to them? How could he bless the ones who cursed and despised him?

By becoming the curse they deserved. Revel, again, in the familiar and shocking story of how justice and mercy meet:

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:23–26)

“The wooden beams outside Jerusalem frame the wondrous marriage between justice and mercy.”

The wooden beams outside Jerusalem frame the wondrous marriage between justice and mercy. Through the cross, God is both just and justifier, both just and merciful. On that dark and bloody hill, the terrifying justice of God became a servant of mercy for all who would believe. In Christ, justice is no longer a threat, but a refuge. All the sovereign power that would have ruined us now promises to protect us. “‘In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you,’” Isaiah 54:8 says, “‘but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,’ says the Lord, your Redeemer.”

How could we feel the full weight of his mercy toward us if we tend to ignore or marginalize the fury of his justice?

Justice and Mercy for Me?

We know all of this about our God, and yet some reading this still struggle to believe that God will be so merciful. The guilt and shame they carry make everyday life feel heavy. They hate their sin, and have made efforts to be done with it, but are back on their knees, again and again, bearing the same painfully familiar confessions. The mercy they thought they’d found feels further and further from reality. Could God really forgive and love someone like me?

Others reading this, however, struggle to believe justice really will be done. Some days, it feels like their whole lives have been one long heart-rending headline. They watch the godless enjoy comfort, success, and prosperity, while they suffer for their faithfulness. They cling to the promise that everything will eventually be made right, but they search the corners and crevices of their lives in vain for evidence it might be so. And if they muster the courage to raise their eyes above their own plight, they see many more suffering in horrible, unjust ways. Could God possibly make anything good of all this pain and injustice?

We struggle to embrace the justice of God because we don’t trust him to fully deal with sins against us. We struggle to embrace the mercy of God because we don’t trust him to fully deal with sins done by us. To both groups, the bloody cross and the empty tomb stubbornly say, he can, he has, and he will. He will surely bring justice to completion. No stone in your life will go unturned. Every sin against you will be brought into the light and made right. Justice himself will call wickedness to account until he finds none (Psalm 10:15).

And in the meantime, he will not break a bruised reed. He won’t quench a smoldering wick. His mercy is as wide and deep as you are sinful. Our God is far more just than we realize, and far more merciful than we can now imagine.