FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
FORGIVENESS
DR. JIM DIXON
MAY 25, 1986
1 CORINTHIANS 3:15, MATTHEW 6:14-15, JAMES 2:13
“Forgive one another because God through Christ Jesus has forgiven you.” That’s the message God has for Christians through this parable called the Parable of the Wicked Servant. Forgive, because you have been forgiven. This servant owed his master and Lord an incomprehensible debt. He owed his Lord a debt of 10,000 talents. Now to help you understand what that means, it took the average Jewish laborer 15 years to earn the equivalent of one talent, 6,000 drachmae, and 15 years to earn one talent, and this servant owed 10,000 talents, the equivalent of 150,000 years of labor. The point of his debt was ridiculous, it was beyond measure, beyond calculation, and it was impossible to pay back, and yet his master and Lord, in mercy, in grace, in pity, in compassion, released him and forgave him the entire debt. If you’re a Christian, God wants you to understand that He has done the same thing for you. The moment you embraced Christ, the more moment you received Him, and you invited Him to come and be the Lord of your life and the Savior of your life, in that moment, He forgave you all of your sins. He asked one thing of you, that you now, in His name, and for His sake would forgive others.
On April 25th, 1950, 36 years ago, a Korean exchange student was a leader in student Christian affairs at the University of Pennsylvania. He left his dormitory and walked three blocks to post a letter, and as he approached the mailbox, he encountered 11 teenage boys clothed in leather jackets. This Korean student didn’t provoke them in any way, but they attacked him anyway, and they beat him with blackjacks, and with lead pipes, they beat him with their feet, and with their fists, and it was two hours later that the police found him lying in the gutter. He was dead. The news was on the front page. The story was on the front page of most newspapers all across this country 36 years ago, and the entire city of Philadelphia cried out for vengeance. The district attorney secured legal authority to try the teenage boys as adults so that those found guilty could receive the death penalty. Everyone cried out for justice, but then a letter came to the office of the district attorney. That letter caused a lot of people to think, I’m reading a portion of that letter to you now. “Our family has met together, and we have decided to petition for the most generous treatment possible, within the laws of government, to be given to those who have committed this criminal action in order to give evidence of our sincere hope. Contained in this petition, we have decided to save money to start a fund, to be used for the spiritual, educational, vocational, and social guidance of the boys. When they are released, we’ve dared to express our hope with a spirit received from the gospel of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins.” This letter was sent from Korea, from the town of Posan. It was sent from the parents of the boy who was murdered. The parents signed this letter, and 20 relatives of the boy also signed the letter. All of them had committed their lives to Jesus Christ. All of them had received the forgiveness of Christ, and now incredibly, they were reaching out in the name of Christ, seeking forgiveness for 11 boys who had murdered their son.
God doesn’t expect governments to acquiesce to criminals. He expects governments to discipline criminals. God expects employers to discipline irresponsible employees and God, God expects parents to discipline children who are disobedient. But you see, as an individual Christian, whenever you are offended, whenever you are hurt, whenever you are afflicted, whenever you are wounded, God expects you to forget no matter how hard, no matter how costly, God expects you to forgive.
A few years ago in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Frank, and Elizabeth Morris lost their only son in a tragic automobile accident. Their only child, a little boy, was run over by a car, driven by a drunk driver. The name of the drunk driver was Tommy Paggi. When the Morris’s lost their little boy, they were filled with confusion and frustration and anger and rage, and it was in anger that they monitored every appearance of Tommy Paggi throughout the trials. It was in anger that they followed him every weekend to the county jail to make sure that he was serving his weekend sentence. It was in anger that they sat in their car outside of his apartment during the week trying to catch him violating parole, because Mrs. Morris said, “We wanted him in prison.” Mr. Morris said,” Quite frankly, we wanted him dead.” They wanted vengeance. But you see, Frank and Elizabeth Morris were Christians, and it was kind of incongruent for them to be so filled with hate and to have such a desire for vengeance, and they could not live like this because the Holy Spirit within them was grieved.
One day the Holy Spirit convinced them that they had to actually forgive Tommy Paggi, it was the hardest thing they ever did in their life. They went to Tommy, and they told him that they forgave him, and they said, “We know that you didn’t mean to take the life of our little boy.” They asked Tommy Paggi if he would forgive them because of all the anger and resentment that they had harbored in their heart for all those months. Tommy P, excuse me, Tommy Paggi is a different person today. He’s a different person because of what Christ was able to do through Frank and Elizabeth Morris, Tommy Paggi through Frank and Elizabeth Morris has accepted Christ, and given his life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and he now attends church twice a week. It’s Frank and Elizabeth Morris who drive him to church every week, twice a week, and Frank and Elizabeth have an extra chair at their dinner table now, and three nights of the week they have Tommy over for dinner and he eats dinner with them. Tommy Paggi is no longer an alcoholic. He no longer drinks. He’s given his life to Christ, and he now speaks all over this country for an organization that fights alcoholism, it all happened because he found forgiveness, the forgiveness of God through two people whose son, he took the life of.
That’s hard for the world to understand that kind of forgiveness. It’s not hard for the Lord to understand because he’s more than willing to forgive all of us who took the life of his son, and if you’re a Christian, there’s a part of your heart that understands how Frank and Elizabeth were able to forgive Tommy. You can understand that because you once stood beneath the cross of Jesus. You can understand that because you’ve been pardoned by what the Apostle Peter called the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and all of your sin has been forgiven you and you’ve been given eternal life and you know, and now you are called to forgive others. For Christ’s sake.
Leonardo DaVinci (with this we will close) was one of the most intelligent men who ever lived. DaVinci was a draftsman, he was an engineer, he was a scientist, he was an artist. He was knowledgeable in anatomy, knowledgeable in astronomy, botany, and he was also knowledgeable in geometry, but he was most famous for his paintings, and his Mona Lisa and his Last Supper are considered two of the greatest paintings in all of history. It was almost 500 years ago in the year 1490 that Leonardo DaVinci began to paint the Last Supper. At that time in his life, he’d had a series of horrible arguments with another artist, and they had become bitter enemies, and Leonardo da Vinci hated him. As he was painting the Last Supper and Da Vinci came to the face of Judas, he decided to paint the portrait, the face of this other artist, as the face of Judas, and he really did this. When he had completed the face of Judas in the picture of the Last Supper, and it really was of course the image of his enemy, he felt satisfied. He felt great, he’d had his vengeance, and he said he was going to pass on the portrait of his enemy in infamy to the scorn of succeeding generations. As the weeks passed, he began to paint the other apostles around the table, and then he came to Jesus Christ, and when he tried to paint the face of Christ, he couldn’t. He just couldn’t do it. His creativity was blocked, and his heart was grieved. He knew something was wrong. He labored over it for weeks and weeks and he could not paint the face of Christ. Finally, God convicted him in his heart and the Holy Spirit spoke to him and he realized that he had to go back and forgive this other artist. He had to go back and repaint the face of Judas, and so, he did. He went back and erased the face he had painted, and he changed the image of the face of Judas removing the image of the other artist. Then he went to his enemy, and he forgave him, and it was only then that he was able to paint that great picture called the Last Supper.
It is true for all of us that we can’t possibly paint the face of Christ or the image of Christ and our life and upon our hearts, as long as we are painting our enemies in enmity and hatred, God wants us to understand, and we’ve been forgiven a great deal. We’ve been forgiven a debt beyond major, and we are now called to forgive, and he also wants us to understand that if we do not forgive, there are consequences. You see, the wicked servant had been forgiven a massive debt. He then went out and refused to forgive a fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarius, three months’ wages. And so it was that the judgment of his master and Lord came upon him. Again, I do not believe it’s possible for a Christian to lose salvation, but I do believe as God tells us in his word, that when we do not forgive, there are consequences.
There may be someone that you’re having a hard time forgiving right now in your life. It might be an ex-husband or an ex-wife, might be a former business associate, might be your mom or dad. Could be a neighbor, could be a son or daughter or brother or sister, but whoever it is, God wants you to forgive them, and if you do not forgive, there are consequences. You cannot possibly in this life experience the intimacy of fellowship with the Lord that God desires with you if you are harboring resentment and ill will towards another person. You cannot possibly experience effectual prayer if you are unwilling to forgive. You cannot experience the fullness of God’s power in your life and ministry if you are not willing to forgive. You can’t experience the joy of God or even the forgiveness of God when you’re not willing to forgive, and God’s blessings are somehow in some measure withheld from your life. If you’re not willing to forgive, then someday as a Christian, you will stand before Jesus Christ and you must give an account, and even then there will be consequences because even as Christians, we will suffer the loss of eternal rewards in accordance with I Corinthians, chapter three, where we’re told that “Many Christians will be saved but only as through fire and they will suffer much loss.” So, God has a strong word for us this morning, and that word is that we’re called to forgive, and it doesn’t matter what the offense is.
God’s will is for us to let it go and to forgive, and that is why Jesus Christ said, “If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will my heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses,” and that is why the Bible says, “Judgment is without mercy for those who have shown no mercy,” and that is why Jesus said, “Forgive and you shall be forgiven.” So, as we come to communion this morning, if you are harboring in your heart some resentment, some hatred, some ill will towards any other person by the power of God’s spirit, this could be a beginning for you. When you ask the Lord’s help in enabling you to forgive, this is a time when, of course, we remember the forgiveness we have found through Jesus Christ and his love for us. It’s a time when, remember that all that He has done for us, His protection and His provision in our life, the eternal life has given us His body broken for us, His blood shed for the remission of our sins. Before we have communion this morning, let’s look to the Lord with the word of prayer. Let’s pray.