BE HAPPY
HAPPY PEOPLE FORGIVE
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 18:21-35
JANUARY 15, 2012
The island of Cyprus has, for centuries, been called the happy place. To this day it is often referred to as He Makaria, the happy place. The first president of the Republic of Cyprus took the title Makarios, which means happy or blessed. Makarios Christodolous, the happy servant of Christ: the blessed servant of Christ. Three of the patriarchs of the island of Cyprus have also taken the title of Makarios, happy, blessed: the happy place.
The irony is that the island of Cyprus has rarely been a happy place. It has been a place of war, a place of conflict, a place of conquest. It was conquered by the Assyrians, conquered by the Persians, conquered by the Romans, conquered by the Greeks, oftentimes at war. Even today, the island of Cyprus is divided. Half of it belongs to the Greeks and is governed by the Greek Orthodox Church, thus the Greek patriarch. Another part of the island is controlled by the Turkish government and the Turkish people. It is ruled by the Sunni Muslims and Sunni Islam. The tensions are ever present. It kind of reminds me of the world. It is kind of a microcosm of the world. The world is not always a happy place. Sometimes happiness is elusive. We live in this nation where the pursuit of happiness is rampant, but so few people find genuine happiness at the core of their being.
Today, we look at happiness as it relates to forgiveness. I have two teachings. My first teaching concerns the happiness of sins forgiven. Happy people, in the deepest sense, are people who know that their sins are forgiven. In the four gospels in the Bible, in each gospel, there is the story of the anointing of the feet of Jesus with costly perfume. They really reflect two stories. In Matthew’s gospel and in Mark’s gospel and John’s gospel, the story refers to an incident near the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, an incident that took place in the final week of his life, an incident that took place in Bethany outside of Jerusalem. It was there that his feet were anointed by Mary of Bethany. Mary was the sister of Martha and Lazarus and a friend of Jesus. She anointed the feet of Jesus with costly ointment, with costly perfume. She did this to express her love and her adoration.
It led to a discussion regarding the poor and how money should be used and whether or not the cost of that perfume, the money should have gone to the poor. That is one incident that is described in Matthew, Mark and John. But, in Luke chapter seven there is a different incident entirely, completely different episode in the life of Jesus. This is early in his ministry in Luke chapter seven. Jesus is at the home of Simon the Pharisee and they are dining together. You might be surprised. You might think, “Didn’t Jesus really dislike the Pharisees?” Understand that Jesus had love for everyone and he was willing to befriend even Pharisees. Here was Jesus dining with a Pharisee named Simon. You have to understand the culture of the first century in the world of the Jews and really throughout the Middle East.
In that culture there was an inner courtyard in most homes and that was the place of dining and it was open to the streets. I know this is hard to even comprehend in our culture but in their culture while you were dining in the courtyard it was perfectly acceptable for people to come off the street and listen to your conversations. It often happened when famous people were in your courtyard; people would just come off the street and they would come into your courtyard and listen to your conversation as you dined. Here Jesus is dining with the Pharisee, and Jesus is famous. This woman comes off the street and the Bible simple tells us she is a sinner but the Greek word, contextually, probably means prostitute. This is a prostitute coming off the street. We don’t know her name, some have suggested it was Mary Magdalene, but there is nothing biblically to suggest it was Mary Magdalene.
The truth is we do not know who she was. She was in all likelihood a prostitute. As she came in she approached Jesus who was reclining at the table which was the custom of the Jews. She knelt down by his feet. This would never have happened in the courtyard of a Pharisee normally; they just wouldn’t have allowed such a woman to come into their courtyard, but this was Jesus. Jesus welcomed her. She knelt down and she had an alabaster jar that was filled with perfume and she probably intended to anoint him immediately. But, she didn’t because she was so moved and so emotional that she just began to cry, she began to weep. As she cried, the tears just poured from her face and began to fall on the feet of the Son of God. As the tears just fell on the feet of Jesus, she then took her hair and she unbound it. By Jewish law, you could not as a woman unbind your hair, but she took her hair and unbound it. She used her hair to wipe his feet as she washed his feet with her tears. She began to kiss his feet. She kissed his feet again and again and again. The Pharisee became enraged. “Do you not know what kind of woman this is? How can you allow this?”
Jesus turned to Simon and said, “Simon, let me tell you a story. There was a creditor that had two debtors. One owed him 500 denarii and another 50 denarii and he forgave them both. Which one do you think loved him more?” Simon says, “I suppose the one who was forgiven the 500 denarii-the greater amount.” Jesus said, “Simon, I came into your house and you did not give me water to wash my feet but this woman has not ceased to wash my feet with her tears and to wipe them with her hair. I came into your house and you did not give me the kiss of greeting, but this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet. I came into your house and you did not give me oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with costly perfume. I tell you he who has been forgiven much loves much; he who has been forgiven little loves little.” He said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven you.” He blessed her. Most scholars agree this woman had heard Christ preach and she had responded to his gospel, she had believed his message of grace and she had come in deep appreciation. When she wept and could not stop kissing his feet it was gratitude and it was joy, tears of joy.
I hope you have had something like that in your life, that at some point in your life you acknowledged your sin and you came to the foot of the cross and you invited Jesus to be your Savior and that you experienced his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness and the joy. I hope that at some point in your life, even for a brief moment, you had tears of joy as you contemplated the reality of sins forgiven by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Past sins, present sins, future sins there is no joy like the joy of forgiveness. It has nothing to do with socio-economics, nothing to do with relative wealth. We live in a world where so many people seek happiness through the acquisition of material things and through all those things the world tells us are so important. Yet, the kind of happiness that is deepest is spiritual and it is offered by Christ and it is offered to all people rich or poor.
I remember many years ago when I was in high school. I went with our high school youth group down to Mexico on a little mission trip. We went down to this community called Chapingo. This was an impoverished area, as many parts of Mexico are. There was a community that just lived in poverty. Many of them literally lived on the city dump and they built their little homes out of cardboard. Sometimes they used little pieces of wood from a crate, or anything they could find, but oftentimes they would just find cardboard boxes and they would flatten them and kind of make a wall with a cardboard box. They would lean cardboard against cardboard and crawl inside. They tried to stay out of the rain by such measures. Sometimes they would find a tarp with holes in it, and they would throw a tarp over. They used just anything they could find, and that is how people were living. We went there with our church high school group. We went down there and stayed in a hotel, although, it was kind of run down, but it was awfully nice compared to the community we were serving.
Every morning we would get on the bus and we would go out to serve this community. We would dig ditches and lay pipe, the purpose being to bring water into their community. Water was being hauled in all of the time and this would be fresh running water and it would bring greater health to them. As we were there with the people in Chapingo, all the kids would be out playing. As we would work, they would play all around us; we got to know a lot of the kids. They would tease us and they gave us all names. The name that all the kids gave me was “Cabeza de baca” That means Cow Head. Anywhere I went they would say, “Cabeza de baca! Cabeza de baca!” and they would laugh and point and tease. It got to be my name as the week went on. I didn’t know how to feel about this but I could tell they were being playful and they seemed to kind of like me.
As the time went on, I said to some of the kids, “Why do you call me Cabeza de baca?” They said, “Porque usted es loco in la cabeza.” I didn’t think that was a very good thing. One of the moms of one of the kids said, “They like you and they are teasing you. Crazy is good.” She said, “Loco es bueno.” It was an amazing thing to be there for this whole period of time. Every day we had a worship time and we would sing songs and have Bible study and prayer. The happiness that we saw, not just with the kids but with the parents and some of the grandparents, very few lived to be grandparents, but they had joy, they had happiness and it was embarrassing how happy they were. A large Christian community in Chapingo and they just loved Jesus, and they would sing with joy that was so contagious, a happiness that was spiritually deep and honest.
We have the song that we sing stateside, “I have the joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart, down in my heart to stay.” They would sing in Spanish and say, “Yo tango gozo, gozo, gozo en mi corozone, en mi corozone porque Cristo me salvo.” I have a joy in my heart because Jesus is my savior. All that happiness, all that joy is from the fact that Jesus had saved them from their sin and saved them from death itself, the promise of heaven before them. This is a happiness that is at the very soul, the level of the soul that the world can’t get. I think in our culture and where we live today in the midst of all of our materialism and hedonism and egoism and all of our pursuits, people can’t find it. They can’t find the deep spiritual happiness that Christ offers. It is so hard for folks to find the joy of forgiveness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Some of you have heard of Malcolm Muggeridge. Malcolm Muggeridge you have heard of if you have studied journalism or literature. Malcolm Muggeridge was a journalist and a writer and an editor and a publisher and a newspaper correspondent. He was renowned throughout the world during the mid-twentieth century. He traveled the world, often for the Manchester Guardian. He was British so he travelled from Cambridge to Cairo and from Africa to America and from America to Asia, all over the world. It was the spring of 1962 he went to Moscow on assignment for the Manchester Guardian. He went to interview members of the Kremlin and the Communist Party about religion. He was doing an article on religion in the Soviet Union and religion in the midst of the world of communism.
He himself, Malcolm Muggeridge, was an atheist and a self avowed practicing atheist. So here he goes in the spring of 1962, and he interviews high-ranking officials in the Kremlin. They talk to him about Marx and they talk to him about Engels, and they talk to him about Stalin, and they talk about religion as the opiate of the people, and they talk about their atheism, and he agrees with them. He agrees with them on all of it. Just a few days later, after he has done these Kremlin interviews, it is Sunday; he is still in Moscow walking the streets. It is in the midst of a freezing rain. There is a freezing rain in Moscow and he is walking the streets and he notices the cathedrals are filled with people, and he thinks for a second and realizes it is Easter Sunday, 1962. He is like, “wow!” On a lark, Malcolm Muggeridge thinks, “I will just go into a church and check it out.” Just curiosity.
He goes into a Russian Orthodox Church and he goes into the cathedral and it is packed. Everyone is singing and the singing goes to some creedal confessions, and then there is more singing and then there is prayer and then there is more singing and then there is some preaching of the word and there is more singing. He can’t believe the joy that is in the cathedral and the smiles and the happiness that he sensed that Easter morning. It just blew him away. As the service ended the priest shouted out, “He has risen!” and thrust his fist in the air and the whole assembly rose up and said, “He has risen indeed!” It was in that moment that Malcolm Muggeridge said he got chills in his soul, he knew in that instant, he knew in that moment that Marx was wrong, that Engels was wrong, Stalin was wrong, and the Kremlin was wrong. He knew in his heart, he said, that if there is any hope of happiness it has got to be Christ.
Malcolm Muggeridge was a man of some controversy, even after his so-called conversion and whether or not he really became a Christian is a matter of great debate, he certainly never became orthodox, in the sense of the orthodox churches, even in the sense of orthodox Christianity and the orthodox doctrines of the church. He struggled always with faith. He always said that if there was any hope for happiness and meaning it was in Jesus Christ. I don’t know where you are at as you sit here this morning, I promise you, the only hope is in Jesus Christ who died for you. He is the hope of the world. He rose from the dead. He offers salvation and eternal life. When you find his forgiveness it is a happiness that is profound and deep. You don’t want to miss it.
There is a second teaching. It is not the happiness of sins forgiven but the happiness of forgiving sins. People who find happiness not only know that their sins are forgiven, but they are willing to forgive the sins of others. Jesus has made us this way and he has promised us that ifwe forgive and we learn to forgive others that there is this profound blessing that will come to us.
On February 9th in the year 1960, Adolph Coors III was coming out of his house in Morrison. He was leaving the home there where his family lived. He was just going to work up in Golden at the Coors Brewery where he was chairman of the board. He had a dirt driveway that came out of his house. It was a long driveway that went over a little bridge and a little creek. He was going down his driveway, as he did every morning, heading to work in Golden. He noticed that just across the bridge on his driveway a car was parked. A car was parked there and this was his driveway. He had never seen anyone park in his driveway and he figured something was wrong.
He stopped his car, walked over the bridge to this parked car to see if somebody had a problem. He could not have known that in that car was a man named Joseph Corbett. Joseph Corbett was an escaped prisoner. He had escaped from maximum security in a penitentiary in California. He was in prison for murder. He had escaped and now he had come to the home of Adolph Coors III to kidnap him and seek to ransom money. Adolph Coors III couldn’t have known that. He is walking up to this car on the dirt drive and suddenly this guy tries to apprehend him and he fights with desperation, he fights for his life. There is this great struggle to the point where they caused each other to bleed, as the authorities would later find. He tried to escape; he tried to run back to his car. Joseph Corbett pulled his gun and shot him in the back three times. Adolph Coors III died.
Joseph Corbett took his body and stuffed it in the trunk of his car and drove him 40 miles south and threw him off by the side of the road. This news shocked the city of Denver, it shocked the state of Colorado, and it shocked the nation as the Coors family was well known then as it is today. The family was devastated. Adolph Coors III’s wife, who was a wonderful and beautiful lady, could not handle the loss and she became an alcoholic. The whole family was so stressed. One of the children was a fourteen year old boy named Adolph Coors IV.
Adolph Coors IV, at fourteen years old, just lost his dad and he was filled with hate. His life had come apart. He had lost his dad; he loved his dad so much. He was filled with hate. He tried to live and go through the days without his dad. Seeing his mom crumble, he still tried to live. He wound up going into the military and he went to college and got his degree and he tried all the things that the world said would make life worthwhile and would bring happiness, all the material stuff. It was a void in his heart; nothing filled it but hate. He hated Joseph Corbett. Joseph Corbett had been tried, convicted and thrown into the penitentiary at Canon City. Adolph Coors IV thought, “I would just love to see him suffer to death.” The hate was in him and it was constant. In the course of years passing, Adolph Coors IV met a wonderful young lady named BJ and they were married.
Finally, in 1975, when Adolph Coors IV was 30 years old, he and BJ, neither one of them Christians, had dinner with another couple who they had grown to know through the brewery. This other couple was devout in their Christian faith. This other couple talked to Adolph Coors IV and his wife BJ about Jesus Christ and told them about the cross, and told them about the gospel. A few days later BJ accepted Christ, gave her heart to Jesus. Adolph just immediately noticed the differences in her. It was hard for him because he had so much hate in his heart, but after a period of time he gave his heart to Jesus and accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. From age 30 to age 32, he still had that hate in his heart, though a Christian now. The Lord convicted him, “you have got to get rid of this hate.” So seventeen years after his father died, when he was 32 years old, Adolph Coors IV said, “I am going to go down to Canon City and I am going to forgive Joseph Corbett, who killed my dad.” He went down to Canon City and talked to the warden of the prison. The warden said, “I will try to arrange it,” but Joseph Corbett refused to meet with Adolph Coors IV.
Adolph wrote him a letter and in the letter said, “My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has commanded me to offer you forgiveness and to give you forgiveness. I do forgive you. I ask you to forgive me for the hatred that I have harbored in my heart for seventeen years.” Joseph Corbett never responded to that. Adolph let go of the hate, Adolph let go of the desire to get even, Adolph let go of the desire to hurt this guy, all of the hatred that was eating at him, Adolph let go as Adolph forgave. Joseph Corbett, after twenty years, was released from Canon City in 1980. He died in 2009, right here in Denver. He chose to live here in Denver. He lived in an apartment on Federal Boulevard. In 2009 he took his own life, committed suicide. They found the gun by his head on the bed. Adolph Coors IV and his wife BJ, they are still going strong. They are doing great. Adolf and BJ go all over the country sharing about the forgiving power of Christ and the command of Christ that we forgive others and the joy that comes not only from being forgiven, but from offering forgiveness. Adolf and BJ became members of our church.
For many, many years, Adolf and BJ were wonderful members of our church until they moved to the mountains. I remember I would play Adolf in racquetball; we would play every week for a number of years. Though occasionally I would beat him, though I never felt like I did because every time we would play racquetball, we would play three matches and after every match he would go down to the floor and do 100 pushups. So even when you won you just thought, “Man, this guy is tough.” God has worked in the Coors family. Many members of the Coors family have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. What a beautiful thing to behold. They have learned the joy of forgiveness. Joe and Gayle Coors are members of our church and I know they love Jesus and are wonderful people and good friends. The thing is you have got to learn forgiveness. You have got to forgive.
In the book by Henry Cloud, Henry Cloud makes it very clear that forgiveness is letting go. It is letting go of the desire to get even, it is letting go of the desire to hurt somebody. It is being set free from the hatred that is inside of you. You have got to understand that forgiveness doesn’t mean that you negate consequences; it doesn’t mean you remove consequences for actions. We raise our children, they do something wrong, sometimes it might make us mad. We might even have an instant where we want to get even; hopefully that doesn’t last. We love them, so we soon forgive them. But even though we love them, we still structure some consequences because we love them and care about them. Forgiveness does not mean you remove consequences for actions. Forgiveness also doesn’t preclude the demand for justice. When Adolph Coors IV went down to Canon City, he wasn’t saying, “Let this guy out,” he wasn’t trying to negate the criminal justice system, he was just trying to offer forgiveness in his own heart. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you preclude the demand for justice. It is true that sometimes when we forgive we temper justice with mercy.
It is true that sometimes when we forgive there may be a loss of consequences in the midst of that forgiveness. I can remember the date, December 10, 1961 because December 10, 1961 was my birthday and I turned sixteen years of age. I got my driver’s license. I had my learner’s permit, but now I had my driver’s license and I was dangerous. My dad gave me a gift for my 16th birthday and it was a car, a $50 car. He bought it for 50 bucks. In 1961 you could actually buy a used car for 50 bucks. It was a 1949 Ford. Dad brought it home as a gift and I was so excited. I had a car! A 1949 Ford. The next Sunday I drove it down to church, the first time I had ever driven to church on my own. I drove to the church for youth group on Sunday night. After the youth group, a lot of my friends didn’t drive yet, they had been dropped off by their parents, but I offered to take them home. So they called their parents and said they had a ride home. I am sure their parents would like to have known who with.
I had a full car that Sunday night of friends who I was taking home in Glendale, California. The backseat was filled with kids and the front seat filled with kids and I am driving on Verdugo Blvd. which is in the Glendale area. They are all just kind of out of control in the car, laughing, hitting each other and bumping me. Suddenly I see these flashing red lights behind me. I have only had my license for three days and I see the flashing red lights and it is a cop and he pulls me over. He says, “You are having a hard time staying in your lane.” He looks at my license and he says, “Have you been drinking?” I say, “No, in fact I just came from church.” He said, “What is going on?” I said, “I am taking my friends home, and they are all clowning around in the car telling jokes and bumping and pushing into each other and they are bumping and pushing into me and it has made it a little harder to drive.”
This guy was a great guy, this cop. He looked into the car and put his head in and gave a little talk to the people in the backseat about the responsibilities of being a passenger and how this isn’t a place where you are supposed to rough house. It was just great. He talked to me a little bit about peer pressure and when you should just pull your car over and that kind of thing. Then he says, “I am not going to ticket you. Good night and have fun.” That is grace. I was oh so happy. When he did not ticket me, I was so happy. I have got to believe that he was a little bit happy too. It doesn’t just make you happy when you are forgiven; it makes you happy to forgive others. I have often thought, “I would love to be a cop.” I know it is hard, and I know sometimes you have got to give out tickets and sometimes you have to arrest people, you have got to keep society safe, I understand that. I know as a cop there are many times where you can show some grace, many times where you can show mercy. How fun that would be! I really think Christ has given us this understanding that it is not just about being forgiven but being willing to show mercy towards other people.
I have done a lot of weddings through the course of my ministry. I always share 1 Corinthians chapter thirteen, oftentimes called the love chapter, with the couples I have married; this has been hundreds of times I have shared 1 Corinthians chapter thirteen. It really is the key to relational happiness. If you would have relational happiness, your relationship has to be filled with mercy towards each other. That is the only way you can really get the happiness out of marriage that God designed, if you show mercy. When you look at 1 Corinthians chapter thirteen and it describes love with all of these mercy words. It starts with makrothume, love is patient. The word is makrothume and it means literally to suffer long. If you really love someone, if you really love your spouse, you are willing to suffer long with them. That is mercy. Some of our marriages come to a point where it is really put to the test. What if your spouse comes down with Lou Gehrig’s disease and they slowly, incrementally cease to be able to function. What long suffering that would require what depth of love and care that would require.
Many couples as they get older, one comes down with Alzheimer’s and loss of mental faculty and dementia, the love and the mercy and the long suffering is huge. That is just one word that is used to describe love in 1 Corinthians chapter thirteen. There are words and phrases like ou paroxune, which means not provoked. Love is not provoked. Love is not easily irritated. There is a mercy there. If you really love somebody, that is expressed in such a way that you are not easily irritated by them. In a marriage where someone is easily irritated, or both are easily irritated, it is hard to find happiness. Love is ou paroxune, not easily irritated.
Also, ou chairei epi te adikia, love does not rejoice in mistakes. Love does not rejoice when somebody is wrong. If you are in a relationship, a friendship, or even a marriage where one likes it when the other is wrong, that doesn’t work very well. There is a mercy in true and genuine love. Ou logizomai te kakone means love is not resentful, but literally it means love does not keep a record of wrongs. That is a beautiful concept. Have you ever had in your marriage, when you get in a fight, the list comes out? That is not love. That is not forgiveness, and it is not enough mercy in that. If you are really going to find the happiness in the love relationship, the word stegos is in 1 Corinthians thirteen means to bear all things, but it is far more beautiful than that.
The word stegos or stegoi, as it is in this case, refers to cover up. Love covers up. Stegoi literally means to protect by covering up, to conceal. This is a difficult concept because I don’t believe in a lack of accountability, I don’t believe in co-dependency, I believe that there should be a responsibility but on the other hand, at the heart of love, if you really love somebody you want to cover up their flaws, you want to hide them. There is a mercy that the Bible describes. At the end of the list is agape oudepote pipte, which means love never fails, love never, ever ends.
God crafts this relationship when a man leaves his mother and father and cleaves to his wife and the two become one, he has meant it to bring great joy and great happiness. It has got be just flooded with mercy. Life itself, in all of our relationships and friendships needs to be flooded with mercy.
Here is a warning as we close. In Matthew 18, Jesus tells this parable of the unforgiving servant. He talks about the king, the lord, who forgives his servant a debt of 10,000 talents. The king, the lord is God, the King, the Lord is Christ. Ten thousand talents are ludicrous. A talent is a monetary unit of weight. A talent was equal to fifteen years of income for the average worker, so 10,000 talents would represent the income of 150,000 years. Jesus is using hyperbole; Jesus is using exaggeration to drive this point home that there is this forgiveness that has been given by the king, by the lord to the servant, a debt that could never be paid in countless lifetimes.
Yet, that same servant, having been given that incredible forgiveness, went out and found a fellow servant who owed him 100 denarii. A denari was about an average day’s wage, so 100 is about three months income. He had him seized by the throat and thrown into prison. Then you see the king, the lord, taking this unforgiving servant and saying, “I forgave you your entire debt because you besought me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy upon you?” Then Jesus turns to the crowd, the disciples and says, “So will my heavenly Father do to you if you do not forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.” This warning is given to the people, the people of Christ, that having been forgiven so much, we must now forgive others. As you leave here today, hopefully you have accepted Christ and you have embraced that forgiveness of debt. No matter how massive your debt is, it is all forgiven. Now you must forgive others and show mercy and bring mercy. It is the key to happiness, to accept his forgiveness and to grant forgiveness to others. Let’s close with a word of prayer.