Grace is greater Ch.4.

Ch.4. More Healing Than Your Wounds
          God’s Healing > Your Wounds

 My wife is an organized person who enjoys making lists, creating systems, and putting things in their right place.  These are concepts I’m only vaguely familiar with.

 She has recently been reading a book called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. The subtitle is The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. So the premise of this book is that “tyding up” is “life-changing magic” and that “decluttering and organizing” is an “art.”

 My wife was going through this book both by reading it and by listening to the audio version. One day I came home early from work and she had the audio version playing in the house. I found out she was listening to it while she was cleaning out her closet. 

 I listened to the author, Marie Kondo, explain that the key to cleaning out your closet is knowing exactly what you want to keep and then getting rid of everything else. She also explained how you make such difficult decisions. The trick is to pick up each and  every item, one at a time, and ask each item, “Do you spark joy?” If it does, you keep it. If not, you get rid of it.

 I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of going through my closet, taking each item in my hand, and asking, “Do you spark joy?” 

 I was preparing to write this chapter, and listening to that audiobook made me think about how we become attached to emotions like anger and resentment. We store them in the closet of our hearts even though they don’t bring us joy and instead rob us of peace. Still, we just can’t seem to let them go. And over the years our anger and resentment start to pile up.

 It’s time to clean out our closet. For most of us, there is a lot we need to get rid of. For example:

 

 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. (Eph. 4:31)

 Don’t you wish it was as easy as that verse makes it sound? But getting rid of bitterness and anger can be painful. It’s easier just to shut the closet door, pretend everything is fine, and open it only when absolutely necessary.

 In this section I want to invite you to clean out your closet and deal with some of the hurts other people have caused you. In my personal experience, and in my twenty-plus years as a pastor, I’ve discovered that extending grace and forgiveness to someone who doesn’t deserve it and  can’t make it right is more than a decision we make, it’s a journey we take.

                   Beginning the Grace Journey

 The first step is to decide it’s a journey you want to make or at least are willing to try. There is no magic grace button we can push that erases the painful memories or heals the festering wounds that others have caused us, but the difficult journey begins with a willingness to forgive even if forgiveness seems like too much to ask.

 For many of you who have been deeply hurt by someone else, it’s not that you want to continue living with those wounds or carrying the weight of that bitterness. It’s that giving grace doesn’t feel like an option. Maybe you would put it this way:
“I’ve been hurt too badly.”

 I’ve heard many versions of that sentiment:

  “You don’t know what I’ve been through.”
  “Not after what she’s done to me.”
  “He has destroyed my life.”
  “It’s too painful to even think about.”

 Maybe that’s you. Maybe you’ve done that math and reached the conclusion that the hurt done to you is greater than the grace you are able to give.

 A few days after I preached on this subject at church, I received an email from a lady who is now in her midfifties. She got married when she was nineteen years old to a man who was physically and verbally abusive. As she told me some of the horrors of her story, I found myself wishing for a baseball bat and five minutes alone with this man. She was married to him for twelve years before she finally escaped. For the several decades she had been consumed with bitterness, anger, and rage. Not because she wanted to be, but because after what she had been through, it seemed her only option. In her email she explained to me what she felt like as she listened to my sermon challenging her to open up her closet and deal with what was inside.

 I wake up every day and feel like my hate for him is going to suffocate me. I never considered that anything other than 

that was possible, not after what he did to me. There was so much pain for so long that my bitterness left no room for 

even the possibility of grace. Because it seemed impossible I had never thought about whether I wanted to forgive him or not. As I listened to your sermon, I was overcome by the realization that I had never even tried to forgive. In fact, I had never even considered that God would want me to. I still don’t know if it’s possible, but I’m ready to at least try.

That’s the first step of this journey: a willingness to forgive even it it doesn’t seem possible to make the equation work.

                             Do the Math

 In Matt. 18 Jesus tells the story of the unmerciful servant to help us understand not just the greatness of the grace we have received but the greatness of the grace we are to give. We discover in this parable that grace is only grace if it goes both ways. Grace is a two-way street. Receiving it from God but refusing to give it to others isn’t an option. Grace flows.

 I’ll say it in a way that might make you more uncomfortable: the litmus test for the reality of grace you have received from God is extent to which you give grace and offer forgiveness to the person who’s hurt you the most and deserves it the least.

 Peter comes to Jesus in Matt.18 with a question. It’s a generic question, but I bet there was a specific issue that motivated it: “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” (Matt.18:21).

 Peter presents a math problem, an equation to solve. Is grace greater than an offense that has been repeated over and over? It looks something like this:

                         G >/< O x 7 

 How many times does Peter have to forgive a person who hurts him? He even makes a guess at the right answer, seven, and probably thinks he’s being very gracious. Jewish rabbis taught that you should forgive someone three times; the fourth time you didn’t have to forgive them. So when Peter throws out the number seven I imagine he’s expecting Jesus to commend his star pupil. “Peter, Seven times? That’s incredibly gracious. Why can’t all the disciples be like you!?”

 Perhaps Peter had someone in mind when he asked this question. Maybe he thought he’d already been gracious enough with this person. After all, he had forgiven him or her somewhere around, I’m just guessing here . . . seven times. Someone had hurt him – not once, not twice, but seven times. Peter is ready to be done. He’s been hurt too badly, too many times.

 Perhaps for you it’s not a number of times but rather the degree of the offense. Maybe the person hurt you only one time, but the pain was times seven or even pain to the seventh power.

 We don’t know who Peter is talking about specifically, but I think it’s safe to assume he or she is someone he knows quite well. We’ll explore this more in a later chapter, but the truth is those closest to us are in a position to inflict the deepest wounds.

 Last year, after I preached on forgiveness, I challenged people not just to forgive but to ask for forgiveness. After the service a man I didn’t know came to me to apologize to me for an email he had sent me a number of months earlier where he had, apparently, said some hurtful things to me. I could tell he genuinely felt bad and needed to tell me he was sorry. His apology was humble and heartfelt and I appreciated it. “I feel terrible and I’m sorry that my words hurt you,” he said. I  thanked him for that and forgave him, but I also said, “Hey, I’ve got good news for you. I’m only vaguely aware of what you’re talking about. I kind of remember getting the email you described. But bro – I went home that day, kissed my wife, played with my kids, slept like a baby, and didn’t think much more about it.”

 I wasn’t angry or bitter toward him. Why? Because I didn’t know him and he didn’t know me, and there’s no way I’m going to give someone who doesn’t even know me that kind of power over my life. Most often it’s the people we know the best and love the most who have the power to hurt us.

 There are exceptions, of course. You may have had someone come into your life just long enough to bring about life-altering devastation. But for most of us, the people we love most dearly are the people who have the power to hurt us most severely. The people we give our hearts to are the most likely to break them.

 I’m convinced this is not a random theological question from Peter. There is a face and a story behind it. Maybe when you hear his question, a face comes to mind with a story you would do anything to forget but can’t help remember. And maybe Peter’s question is one you would like to ask too. “Yeah, Jesus, how far is too far? How much is too much? When is the hurt that has been done to me greater than the grace you want me to give? When does grace run out?” I don’t know what word you would choose to fill in the blank of the equation below, but maybe when you do the math this is the equation you come up with:

                   _____________ > Grace 

 Jesus answers Peter’s question, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (v.22). Some translations say, “seventy times seven.” It’s not that Jesus is saying 77 times or even 490 times. He’s pointing to the chalkboard and saying, “Grace is always greater.”

 Let me pause here and acknowledge that some of you may be feeling a bit defensive. I don’t mean to sound dismissive. I don’t know what was done to you. I don’t understand the depth of the betrayal or the degree of pain you experienced. I don’t know the nightmares that wake you up at night. But I know this: grace is greater.

 Maybe you’re willing to accept this on some level intellectually. You want to believe grace is greater, but emotionally the equation just doesn’t work for you. The abuse or the abandonment was too painful, and as much as you want the remaining infection of bitterness gone, it just doesn’t feel like forgiveness is possible. My question is: Are you at least willing to try?

                           Grace Received

 Jesus understands how difficult this equation can be, so he tells a parable that helps motivate our willingness to try.

  Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. (Matt. 18:23)

 We’re introduced to this high-powered CEO-type who decides it’s time to collect from those who owe him. He takes a look at the books, and we’re told that a man who owed “ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him” (v.24). I don’t  know how many bags of gold you have, but that’s a lot of gold. It’s roughly the equivalent of $150 million today. In Jesus’ day it might have been about ten times the national budget. It was an astronomical figure that probably had his audience chuckling. No master would ever loan this amount of money, and no servant would ever be able to pay it back. Jesus uses hyperbole here to make the point that this is a debt the man would never be able to repay.

 Jesus continues,
Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold
to repay the debt. (v.25)

 The master realizes this guy will never be able to pay him back, so he decides to auction off everything the debtor owns and to sell the debtor along with his family into slave labor. This wasn’t unfair. In fact, this kind of treatment was expected for any debt that could not be repaid.

 This parable is meant to reflect our standing with God. We are called in to give an account. He has been keeping track and we are all guilty. We have sinned and racked up a debt we can never repay.

 You can live in denial and pretend you don’t owe God anything. You can justify the debt or dismiss it by comparing it to others. Or perhaps you accept that you owe a huge debt and decide you are somehow going to work it off. The problem is you can’t. The debt is too big. You owe too much. There is no amount of good deeds or benevolent acts that will somehow get you back to even. There is nothing you can say or do that will make things right.

 Jesus begins this parable with an image of God opening up his books and calling us in to give an account. It’s a reminder that apart from Jesus we are all in deep debt to God because of our sin.

 Hebrew 4:13 teaches us, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” Your teacher may not know you plagiarized the paper in college, but God knows. Your husband may not know about your flirting at the gym, but God saw it. You may have deleted the history on your computer, but God knows the websites you visit. No one else may know about your drinking problem, but he knows. The windows on the house may be shut tightly enough that neighbors can’t hear you yelling, but God can hear it from heaven. The boss may not know about the embezzling, but God knows. He knows about all of it. He even knows about the pride some of you have right now because I couldn’t think of an example that applied to you.

 The servant in Jesus’ story is confronted with this huge debt he owes and realized what he deserves.

 The servant fell on his knees before him. “Be patient with me,” he begged, “and I will pay back everything” (Matt.18:26)

 The master knows that will never happen. There’s no chance this servant will ever be able to repay the debt. But incredibly the master takes pity on him, and in verse 27 Jesus tells us the master cancels the debt and lets him go.

 There are two verbs used here. One is translated “cancel the debt” and the other is “let him go.” Both of these verbs could accurately be translated “to forgive.”

 The servant owes $ 150 million but the master erases it from the books. It’s an incredible act of grace. The master doesn’t extend the note or lower the monthly payments. He completely deletes it from the record. As significant as the debt was, the master’s grace was greater.

                        Community of Grace

 Then this parable takes a disturbing turn.

 But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed    him and began to choke him. “Pay back what you owe me!” he demanded. (v.28)

 The servant who was forgiven a $ 150 million debt finds a coworker who owes him about 20 bucks. He begins to choke him and demand repayment.

 His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, “Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.” (v.29)

 That is exactly what the first servant had said to the master. Don’t miss this: he is being asked for the same grace he received, only to a much lesser degree.

 If you’ve never heard this story, what do you think will happen?  Of course he’s going to forgive him. He was just forgiven a huge debt. Of course he’s going to show the same mercy. How could he not?

 But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. (v.30)

The next detail in the story is easy to miss, but we can’t overlook what happens:

 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. (v.31)

 The “other servants” of the master are the ones who report the unforgiving servant to the master. They saw how much grace had been received and that this guy refused to give it, and they were outraged. Why? It was because they live in this community of grace together, with this master who doesn’t treat them as servants but as sons and daughters. They have a master who is known for extravagant benevolence. So when one of their own, who has been on the receiving end of this grace, refuses to give grace – the community is “outraged” or “very sad.” Outraged is also sometimes translated “greatly distressed” or “very sad.”

That is an appropriate response when someone in a community violates the core value of the community.

 Think  about this a little more with me – the fellow servants become outraged when a member of their community doesn’t show grace, so they tell the master on him. Don’t miss this. In the middle of this story about grace, we find a lack of grace for the person who isn’t gracious.  

That  might seem counter-intuitive, but it’s not. It’s why we see Jesus extend radical grace to everyone he meets who is caught in sin except for the Pharisees whose sin was refusing to be gracious. If grace is the core value of a community, then that community just can’t ignore someone who refuses to be gracious.

 Today the church is Jesus’ community. And as our leader demonstrated through his actions and reinforced with his teachings, our core value is grace. Our churches should be marked by grace, flooded with grace, known for grace. So when one of our own refuses to be gracious, there should be outrage and deep sadness.

 Here’s my concern: often the church is known for its outrage toward people outside of our community who need grace rather than outrage for the people inside our community who refuse to give it. When we sniff legalism in our community, or see someone who has received God’s incredible grace being judgmental and condemning toward those whose struggles are different than their own, we should become very distressed.

 Since grace is to be our most defining attribute, a person in a church who doesn’t live a grace-giving life should shock and grieve us. Picture someone who has given his life to a peacekeeping organization using his days off to plan terrorist bombings. This may be difficult to picture because it doesn’t make any sense. And if the people in one of those organizations discovered they had a member who was directly violating their core value, there would be total outrage. The person would be confronted and held accountable.

 Look again at Heb. 12:15. “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many” (NIV 1984). As a community we embrace extravagant grace and we do our best to make sure that no one misses it. And when someone in our community who has received it refuses to give it, we don’t just let that go.

 I’m afraid this is what’s happened to many people in the church over the years. Somehow, for some reason, they missed the grace of God and a bitter root began to grow – it creates a root of bitterness. In an earlier chapter I pointed out that in Hebrew culture any poisonous plant was called a “bitter” plant. This not-so-subtle metaphor is making the point that a Christian or church that misses grace is poisonous. A root may be small and it may grow slowly, but if it carries poison it is dangerous and can defile many.

                            Raise a Hand 

 I was on Facebook not long ago and stumbled across the page of a woman who had been a couple years ahead of me in high school. There’s a place on Facebook where you tell about yourself. You can put down your favorite movie, band, quote, and so forth. She had a quote from Gandhi: “I like your Christ. I don’t like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” When I read that, it brought back a memory of when I was fifteen years old. She was probably seventeen and went to the same church I did. It was a small church in a small town, so when she got pregnant it didn’t take long for the news to travel. She tried to keep coming to church, but as she began to show some of the parents started to complain that it was awkward for their kids, who really shouldn’t be exposed to that at church. It didn’t take long for her to get the message. She wasn’t welcome at church anymore. And a bitter root started to grow.

 The parents in that church were offended by her sin and her need for grace, but the real offense in that church was their unwillingness to give grace. Let me give you an example of how the church should respond.

 I once heard a pastor named Jean Larroux talk about doing some work with a ministry called Love in Action, which is for people who are caught up in sexual addiction.1 Jean tells about sitting in on one of the group meetings. He had never been to something like this and wasn’t sure what to expect. There was a good-sized group of men who gathered together. One went to the front to share his story and talked about driving home from work and passing an adult nightclub. “I really wanted to stop,” he said. When he said this a bunch of hands went up in the air. Jean didn’t know what was happening. He thought, Who would ask a question during a story like this? The guy continued his story, “I didn’t want to . . . but I pulled into the parking lot and went in.” Again some of the guys in the crowd raised their hands. The man went on, “I spent the evening there . . .” and he confessed some of what he did, and again some hands went up. He said, “When I left, I felt so ashamed. I didn’t think God could love me.”
                               footnote
  1 Jean Larroux, “Why Bad People Make Good Missionaries,” sermon given      at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Sept.2014.

 At this point almost every hand in the crowd except for Jean’s went up in the air. He couldn’t figure out what all the questions were about, and for that matter why none of the questions were being asked or answered. The director stopped to speak with him afterward. “You look troubled,” he said. Jean admitted, “I am troubled. Why were there so many questions? And why didn’t anyone try to answer them?”

 The director said, “Oh, no, you don’t understand. We have one rule at Love in Action – you never struggle alone. So if you have ever struggled with the same thing that someone else is confessing, you have to raise your hand.”

 That needs to happen in churches, so no one misses the grace of God. People need us to raise a hand, not point a finger. They need to hear, “Me too. I’m broken too.” That’s the only response that makes sense in a community of grace filled with people who have to rely on forgiveness to get in. I realize it may seem out of place to call for outrage in a book about grace, but outrage is appropriate when someone violates the core value of a community.

 Some of you have been choked by someone in the community who wanted to receive grace from the Master but refused to give it to you. So for those of you who have grown up in a community that violated this core value, I want to take a moment on behalf of the community to apologize. I actually have a list here, if you’ll bear with me:

   To the pregnant young lady who graduated a few years ahead of me: I am sorry.
   To the man who was told he wasn’t allowed to be part of the community because of a divorce in his past:

      I am sorry.
   To the parolee who opened up about his past mistakes and was told he was no longer welcome: I am sorry.
   To the woman from the adult industry who became a part of the community in need of a hug but instead 

      got judgmental stares: I am sorry.
   To the addict who finally was honest about his addiction but instead of support was offered shame: I am sorry.
   To the . . . 

 When someone in our community wants to receive grace from the Master but refuses to even attempt to give grace to someone who has hurt them, the community should be outraged and saddened.

                         The New Equation

And so, the master finds out that this guy who had received incredible grace was refusing to give it.

 Then the master called the servant in. “You wicked servant,” he said, “I canceled all that debt of yours because you        begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” In anger his master handed    him over to the jailors to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. (Matt. 18:32-34).

 I’m thinking that’s going to take a long time. How long is it going to take him to earn $ 150 million in prison. How about . . I’m just guessing here . . . forever? He’s never going to pay it back. He’s going to spend the rest of his existence in a cell, imprisoned by his unwillingness to give grace and shackled by the overwhelming guilt of what he’s done. Do you know what that’s called?  It’s called hell.

 Oftentimes when Jesus tells a parable, the takeaway is a little vague. Sometimes he leaves it hanging for people, prompting them to ponder the meaning and implications. Sometimes it’s a little ambiguous, but not here. Jesus ends this parable with this warning:
 
 This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. (v.35)

 I know some of you immediately push back on that. “What? You’re telling me that if I don’t forgive the person who hurt me, who abused me, who betrayed me, who cheated me, who abandoned me, God won’t forgive me?” No, I’m not saying that. I’m just telling you what Jesus said.

 This wasn’t the only time Jesus issued such a warning. In Matt. 6:14-15 he said, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

 Jesus made it clear that you can’t receive God’s grace and then refuse to give it to others. If God’s forgiven your sins, you can’t continue keeping track of the sins of others. If you do, if you hold on to the bitterness, your hurt will become hatred. It will poison you, and the infection will spread, and the not-so-subtle insinuation is that it could lead you to miss out on grace altogether. So instead of holding on to the bitterness of what was done to you, hold it up, realize it’s not sparking joy, and get rid of it.

 I know it’s not simple; it’s a journey, but the journey begins with a willingness to take the first step.

 I know it’s not fair. That person hurt you. They owe you something. Maybe they owe you a childhood. Or a marriage. Or a lot of money. Or at least an explanation.

 It’s not fair to let it go. It’s grace. And you’ll never be asked to give more grace than you’ve already received. That’s what we learn in this parable.

Jesus answers Peter’s equation with an equation of his own. Jesus’ equation looks like this:

                     $ 150,000,000 > $ 20

In other words, the grace you have received is greater than the grace you are being asked to give.

 I hope you don’t think I’m minimizing the offense of what you have to forgive. I’m not. Neither is Jesus. I realize you may have had horrible things done to you. My heart breaks trying to imagine it. I am not making light of it. I am saying that the more you understand the holiness of God and the more you understand yourself, the more you will realize how true this is. 

When the gospel sinks in, it changes your equations.

                         Don’t call It Grace

 I grew up being taught that if I hurt someone, if I was disrespectful or disobedient, my job was to “make it right.” I needed to say or do something to make it right with that person. It’s a good lesson to teach kids. But it developed into an unbiblical approach to forgiveness and grace, because I came to this conclusion: when someone hurts me, forgiveness happens when the person who hurt me makes it right. When they say or do something to make things right, I will forgive them. The problem is that this is not grace.

 Besides, what do you do when you are hurt so badly nothing can be said or done to make it right? What do you do then? Some of you know exactly what I mean. You’ve been hurt badly enough that you are painfully aware there is nothing they could say and nothing they could do to make things right.

 That was exactly the position you were in with God when he extended his grace to you through Jesus. You could do nothing. You could say nothing. When there was no possibility of you making it right. God gave his only son.

 Jesus said the master canceled the debt. He didn’t just extend the note or make it interest-only, he erased it completely. That’s what God has done for us. It’s not earned. When you make grace dependent on the actions of the person who hurt you, you need to find a different word because it’s not grace. With grace, the person doesn’t fix the consequences of their sin; you take the consequences of their sin. That’s not fair. It’s not right. But it is exactly what Jesus did for you.
                         For You > To You

 So are you willing to at least open the closet door and look inside? You don’t have to, but what’s the alternative? You can let the root of bitterness continue to grow. You can continue to make her pay every penny she owes. But ultimately you’re the one who will pay the price for your refusal to forgive.

 In this story, the servant who was forgiven a debt of $ 150 million refused to forgive the debt of the guy who owed him 20 bucks and had him thrown in prison. What’s interesting is that in the ancient world, the person who would have paid for that guy to be put in prison would have been . . . are you ready for this? The person he owed the money to. Instead of forgiving the twenty-dollar debt, he paid for the guy to be punished. Not only did refusing to forgive not get him back what he was owed but it ended up costing him even more. That’s how it worked back then.

 And that’s still how it works. If you refuse to forgive and keep the person who sinned against you locked in a prison of your bitterness, guess who’s paying? You are. You’re the one losing sleep. You’re the one whose stomach hurts. You’re the one whose relationships are being infected by bitterness. You’re the one whose closet is a wreck.

 The master has canceled our debt, and it is time for us to let that grace flow. It’s not easy, but with God it is possible.

 Here’s where I want to ask you to begin: stop thinking about what’s been done to you, and start thinking about what’s been done for you.

 Every time the pain of what’s been done to you gets triggered, intentionally start thinking about what God has done for you. Because what’s been done for you is greater than what’s been done to you.