Introduction

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Arguably the most famous song Burt Bacharach wrote is … ‘what the world needs now … is love, sweet love’.  ‘It’s the ONLY thing … there’s just too little of’.  Now given I was not alive in the 60s … though the evening service seems to think I’m that old … I can’t comment on whether that was true.  But given the polarisation over the Vietnam war … ‘love’ probably WAS in short supply.

But IF we were to write a similar song for the mid-2020s … what would you say there’s just too little of TODAY?  If we were to survey 100 people … Family Freud style … I reckon ‘the survey says’ FORGIVENESS is on that list.  In a world of heightened political polarisation … cancel culture … not to mention the tit-for-tat attacks in the Middle-East right now … FORGIVENESS is at least ONE of things … there’s just too little of in our world today.  Well as the NIV heading for our passage suggests, that’s our topic for today; ‘Forgiveness for the offender’.

So we’re working our way through the book of 2 Corinthians this term … the first 5 chapters anyway.  I’m hoping to come back and finish the letter off next year.  And the interesting thing about 2 Corinthians is it SHOULD actually be called 3 Corinthians … because it’s Paul’s 3rd … maybe even 4th letter to the church in Corinth.  But because those OTHER letters have been lost to history … the 2 that remain are called 1 & 2 Corinthians.  And as we learnt last week … the letter Paul wrote BETWEEN these 2 letters … which I referred to as 1.5 Corinthians … was a letter of rebuke.

Now Paul doesn’t give us ALL the details in OUR letter … but it seems his FIRST visit to Corinth was painful … 2:1.  The BEST guess that commentators and scholars have come up with … is one of the church leaders publicly opposed Paul during this visit.  And the rest of the church did nothing about it.  Now perhaps they were just sitting there dumbfounded … like the proverbial deer in the headlights.  Or perhaps they AGREED with this person’s assessment at the time.  Either way Paul wrote them a letter of rebuke … the now lost 1.5 Corinthians … which seemed to do its job.  It seems the Corinthians repented of their lack of support for Paul.

Now … like I said last week … we have to read between the lines a bit for the details.  But it seems that WHEN the Corinthians repented … they TURNED on the person who rebuked Paul.  Perhaps they were following Paul’s advice from ONE Corinthians 5 … and kicked this person out of their fellowship.  OK … 1 Cor 5 is about ANOTHER man … who was sleeping with his mother-in-law … yet coming to church every week as though he was doing nothing wrong.  And Paul said ‘put this man OUT of your church … SO THAT he will repent’.  Reading between the lines … we believe the Corinthians have done something similar with THIS guy.  They’ve enacted SOME kind of church discipline upon him … for how he opposed the great Apostle Paul … and took the rest of the church down with him.

Paul’s message in our passage today is … it’s time to mend relationships.  As Ecclesiastes 3:7 says … ‘there’s a time to tear and a time to mend.’  They’ve torn their relationship with this man … they’ve inflicted punishment on him … v. 6.  It’s now time to mend that relationship.    But as the Apostle Paul knows … mending a broken relationship is not easy.  And so Paul takes a quick detour in this letter … just 7 short verses … to outline how to mend a situation when someone messes up.  And in a nutshell … as the heading says … it means ‘forgiveness for the offender’.

And I’ve got 3 points today … to help outline Paul’s instructions FOR this.  And they are the what, the why and the how of forgiveness.  (i) What forgiveness looks like, (ii) Why forgiveness is needed, and (iii) How forgiveness is possible.  So let’s dive in … and look at what OUR world needs now.

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What forgiveness looks like

 

And our passage begins with these words:

2 Corinthians 2:5-6 (NIV) If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. 6 The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient.

So the FIRST thing we notice is Paul doesn’t rebuke the Corinthians for inflicting punishment.  The fact is … if someone does something wrong … it NEEDS to be dealt with.  Now that’s scary … because you never know how the person is going to react.  But they will GENERALLY follow 1 of 3 paths.  They will:

1. Deny.  ‘It was not ME … it was the one-armed man.’

2. Downplay.  ‘It’s not a big deal.  Everybody does it’.

3. Or deflect.  ‘It was the woman you put here with me’

Even the most mature of Christians will jump for one of those 3 responses … because when attacked … the human instinct is to protect ourselves.  HOWEVER … after this initial response … the MATURE Christian will then go away and think about it.  The MATURE Christian will realise that if a trusted friend has built up the courage to confront us … chances are they’re onto something.  And EVEN if they’re not … a mature Christian will know there’s plenty of OTHER sin in our life … and reflect on that.  So next time a trusted friend pulls us up on something … even if they do a terrible job at it … just remember … MATURE Christians are slow to (i) deny, (ii) downplay, or (iii) deflect … but are instead quick to (iv) deliberate … on whether what they’re saying HAS merit.

So ‘yes’ … confronting someone about their sin is scary.  But the alternative is even worse:

1. ‘Bottling up’ how someone has hurt us … doesn’t make the pain go away.  It just festers under the surface and gets worse over time.

2. That festering hurt will then DAMAGE your relationship with that person.

3. It means there’s no justice.  They just get away with it.

4. AND … it means they COULD just keep doing it to other people.  I’ve SEEN people behave poorly over and over … because no one ever pulled them up on it.

So … we HAVE to confront them.  The next question is … WHAT should that process look like?  Well Jesus actually gave us the flowchart on this in Matthew 18:15-17.  The way it works is this:

If someone sins against you … go to them one-on-one.  Start small.  And as we saw from last week’s passage … MAKE SURE our goal is NOT to hurt them back.  OK … our PRIDE and SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS will want to lash out.  We need to empty ourselves of such things … and ensure our heart, our words and our tone … are all pursuing reconciliation … and mutual joy.

Now IF they refuse to listen … step 2 in Jesus’ flowchart is to take 2 or 3 others along.  And AGAIN … choose people you think will have the GREATEST chance of bringing about reconciliation and mutual joy.

If they still refuse to repent … you THEN escalate the situation … by telling it to the church.  Now that does not mean gossip.  I can tell you from personal experience that gossip is one of the quickest ways to RUIN a church.  This is to be done publicly … by the church leaders.

And if they STILL refuse to repent … Jesus says we are to treat them like a pagan or a tax collector.  What does THAT mean?  At the very least it means stepping them out of any leadership roles … and refusing them communion.  Not my most favourite parts of my job.  And if they’re continued behaviour is damaging the church … 1 Cor 5 says you ask them to stop coming … in the hope that they repent.

Now … reading between the lines … this SEEMS to be what the Corinthians have done with this person who we believe attacked Paul.  They’ve enacted Jesus’ flowchart of church discipline … and Paul says in v. 7:

2 Corinthians 2:7 (NIV) Now instead you ought to forgive and comfort him,

Now again … Paul doesn’t lay out the details for us … but this suggests the person has repented.  And Paul says reconciliation and mutual joy come from:

1. Forgiveness … which means you no longer hold their crime against them.    You don’t bring it up.  In fact you treat them as though they never hurt you in the first place.

2. And comfort.  As we saw 2 weeks ago … comfort means you support them … stand by them … give them help … as they rebuild their relationships.

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Why forgiveness is needed

 

So … that’s the WHAT of forgiveness.  If someone sins … you don’t ignore it and brush it under the carpet … even if you fear conflict.  You confront them … using Jesus’ flowchart from Matt 18 … with the goal being (i) repentance, (ii) forgiveness, (iii) comfort, (iv) reconciliation, and (v) mutual joy.  The NEXT question the passage asks is … WHY is forgiveness needed?  Like … confronting someone is hard enough.  Forgiving someone is next to impossible.

And the REASON it’s next to impossible is because forgiveness means PAYING the debt that someone already owes you.  You see when someone hurts you … they TAKE something from you.  It might be reputation, trust, safety, or relationships … just to name a few.  It’s like when our house got robbed about 10 years ago … while we were out.  They took a few small things … and damaged 1 piece of furniture.  But those small jewellery items were not all they took from us.  For several months following that break-in … our sense of security was rocked.  When I heard a noise in the middle of the night … I was hyper-alert as to whether it was one of the kids going to the bathroom … or an intruder.  Those thieves had TAKEN from me … more than just jewellery.

Forgiveness means absorbing that debt THEY owe you … yourself.  Like EVEN if the thieves had been caught … or their conscience had convinced them to return what they stole … there was still a debt owed.  For US … it was safety.  For others … it could be love, acceptance, health … or dignity … just to name a few more.  And you can’t put a monetary value on things like safety or relationships.  Even if they paid you a million dollars … your trust or your reputation is still damaged.  Forgiveness … means absorbing that debt ourselves.  And that is hard.  So WHY should we forgive?

Well Paul gives us 2 reasons.  And they are (i) it stops you from becoming a monster, and (ii) it stops you from becoming one of Satan’s victories.  And we see the first in:

2 Corinthians 2:7 (NIV) Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

The word ‘overwhelmed’ there literally means to be swallowed up.  It’s a reference to an incident in the book of Numbers … where the earth opens up and swallows a bunch of people who had done the wrong thing.

Now WHY would the perpetrator be swallowed up in sorrow?  It’s because when someone opens up a debt with us … there are only 2 options as to how that debt can be paid off.  Either we ABSORB that debt ourselves … through forgiving them … OR … we make them pay.  And the WAY we make them pay … is not through monetary compensation.  It’s through inflicting hurt back on THEM.  OK …’THEY’VE hurt us.  So I’m going to make them pay off their debt … by hurting them back’.  And we do it subtly.  We don’t throw punches … or slash their tyres.  But we might spread s vicious rumour about them.  We might be passive-aggressive towards them.  We might ‘accidentally’ forget to invite them to a social gathering.  Or we might outright attack them … if they step out of line even slightly.

Now do you understand what’s happening when we do that?  WE’RE becoming the monster we’re angry at them at … for being towards us.  In fact refusing to forgive … turns a person into an even BIGGER monster than the person who hurt us in the first place.  Why?  Because a refusal to forgive … leads a person NOT just to subtly attack their attacker … it CAN lead to attacking their attacker’s whole tribe.  What do I mean?  I mean if a man refuses to forgive the women who hurt him … he won’t just subtly attack that woman … he’ll have a problem with ALL women.  Or vice versa if a woman refuses to forgive a man.  If someone is hurt by a person of another ethnicity … refusing to forgive them will often lead them to have a problem with EVERYONE from that ethnicity … or social group … or profession … or political party … etc, etc.  If WE decide not to forgive … not to absorb the debt ourselves … then we will end up making others pay.  And that turns us into an even bigger monster than the person who hurt us in the first place.

The SECOND reason forgiveness is needed … is because Satan wants the opposite.

2 Corinthians 2:11 (NIV) in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

Satan HATES forgiveness.  He’d much prefer seeing hurt people hurt people.  Now KEEP in mind … you and I CANNOT forgive perfectly … like God does … because we’re not perfect beings.  So Satan’s battle plan is NOT to stop us forgiving perfectly.  It’s to stop us from even trying.  If we refuse to even TRY to forgive someone who hurts us … we give Satan 3 goals:

1. The FIRST goal is it crushes the perpetrator … as we’ve already discussed.

2. The SECOND goal we concede is ongoing bitterness and resentment.  Though he didn’t COIN the phrase … Nelson Mandella said ‘resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person gets sick’.  Refusing to forgive eats us up inside.

3. And the THIRD goal we concede to Satan is ruins communities.  A bitter heart leads to gossip … complaining … slander … factions … and finally community breakdown.

So this is not a small issue.  The reason forgiveness is NEEDED … is because a refusal to even TRY to forgive transforms us into a monster … and gives Satan an easy victory.

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How forgiveness is possible

 

‘But hold on a minute there Brendan.  Aren’t you just moralising right now?  Aren’t you saying “do this GOOD thing … so that these other BAD things won’t happen to you”.’  And you’re right.  But ONLY because that’s been Paul’s argument so far.  But in v. 9 he says this:

2 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV) Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything.

And if we know ANYTHING about the Apostle Paul … it’s that obeying HIS word is not his main goal.  It’s obeying Jesus’ word.  And Jesus’ word on forgiveness … ties OUR forgiveness of others to Jesus’ forgiveness of us.  What does the Lord’s Prayer say?  ‘Forgive us our sins AS we forgive others.’  But if that’s too subtle for us … let me read what Jesus says … DIRECTLY after he the Lor’s Prayer.  This is from Matthew chapter 6:

Matthew 6:12-13 (NIV) And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV) FOR if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Now on the surface … this is a scary passage.  It SEEMS to be saying if we can’t find it in our hearts to forgive someone the hurt they’ve caused us … then God is not willing to forgive us the hurt we’ve caused Him.  But hang on a minute!  You just said we CAN’T forgive perfectly … because we’re not perfect beings.  So if Jesus’ forgiveness of US is contingent on our forgiveness of OTHERS … then we’re cooked.  No one is getting into heaven.  So that CAN’T be the link Jesus is making here.

The link Jesus is making in Matthew 6:14-15 … is WHEN we understand the enormity of hurt God has forgiven US … it becomes EASY to forgive others.  Think of it This way.  Imagine a family member gets into REAL financial trouble.  And they ask you for $10,000.  But you don’t HAVE $10,000.  To help them out … would mean going into debt YOURSELF.  But imagine if ANOTHER family member had just given you $1 million the week before … as an early inheritance.  The feeling of gratitude from that elderly family member would not just make it financially EASY to help this first family member out now … it should make us WANT to do it … JUMP at the chance to do it.  I’ve just been given $1 million out of the blue.  Of COURSE you can have $10,000.

And this is the effect Jesus’ forgiveness has on us.  American pastor R. Kent Hughes says it’s ‘the high voltage of God’s grace.’  He says when MOST people are asked to forgive … they say things like ‘if only you knew the PAIN they’ve caused me … you wouldn’t ask me to forgive’.  But … he says … when we understand the gospel … any attempt to forgive will be met with the high voltage of God’s grace.

So HERE’S our closing application for today.  We’ve already seen that:

1. We don’t deny, downplay or deflect.  Rather deliberate on your sinful actions.

2. Follow Jesus’ flowchart of forgiveness

3. Don’t become an unforgiving monster

4. And don’t give Satan an easy win by refusing to forgive

Our firth and final piece of application for today is … when someone hurts us … and we need to forgive them … don’t focus on the $10,000 debt they owe us.  Because if we focus on the debt they owe us … that debt will begin to dominate ALL our thoughts.  And when we obsess over the debt they owe us … it makes that debt look even bigger.  It’s even harder to forgive.  The way we make that debt look SMALLER … is to focus on the $1 million debt we’ve been forgiven.  And when I say $1 million debt … what I really mean is the death of an immortal being.  Our debt wasn’t just $1 million.  It was go great that nothing less than the death of an immortal being could pay it.  And what happens when we focus on the debt we’ve been forgiven … it doesn’t just make it EASY to forgive others … it should make us WANT to forgive them … out of gratitude for the forgiveness we’ve been shown.

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Conclusion

 

And this is what R. Kent Hughes means by ‘the high voltage of God’s grace.’  When God’s grace REALLY sinks in … it should make us almost look FORWARD to someone hurting us … just so that we get to pass on to them the forgiveness Jesus has given us.  Now I’m not saying become a masochist.  What I’m saying is … do you want to experience the high voltage of God’s grace?  If so … then next time someone hurts us … don’t focus on what they’ve done TO us … focus on what Jesus has done FOR us.  For THAT is HOW the forgiveness of v. 7 is possible … so that we will not swallow them up with sorrow … like a monster … and will not be outwitted by Satan’s schemes.  Let me pray.

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Prayer

 

Lord of mercy,

Please give us the high voltage of your grace … so that next time we’re called upon to forgive those who hurt us … it will be our pleasure … to pass on but a small token … of the infinite forgiveness you have given us at the cross.  Amen.