WITH GOD’S HELP, WE CAN AND WE WILL

MIKE CUNNINGHAM

August 19, 2007

For the past several weeks I’ve been stressing the necessity of you and me cultivating the habit of dealing with our anger in a manner which is pleasing to God. For instance, the Bible tells us not to sin when we become angry. God also wants us to get rid of it before the sun goes down (Eph. 4:26). If the offense is not dishonoring to Christ or His church we can choose to overlook it. There may be times when someone has wronged greatly, that our initial reaction is one of rage; such as when a drunk driver slams into someone we love dearly and paralyzes him or her for life. For our own good and His glory, God wants us to forgive such a person before we go to sleep. That’s a real tough order. Nevertheless, the One we profess to love and follow tells us that forgiving others is not an option but a command.

Mark 11:25 (ESV) ²⁵ And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

Luke 6:37 (ESV) ³⁷ “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;

Colossians 3:13 (AMP) ¹³ Be gentle and forbearing with one another and, if one has a difference (a grievance or complaint) against another, readily pardoning each other; even as the Lord has [freely] forgiven you, so must you also [forgive].

Matthew 6:14-15 (AMP) ¹⁴ For if you forgive people their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Matthew 6:15 (ESV) ¹⁵ but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Last week I stated that as we become more and more transformed into the image of Christ, sincerely wanting to obey these commands will become the most natural thing for a Christian to do. I concluded by saying: “Christians don’t struggle to become holy because they know that it’s impossible to enter into God’s Heaven unless they are holy. ………Christians also don’t forgive in order to earn God’s forgiveness, but all Christians will want to forgive because they have been forgiven. Followers of Christ struggle to become holy and forgiving because they sincerely want to become holy and forgiving just as Jesus is.

These beautiful Christ-like virtues are evidence of the fact that they are being slowly being transformed into His image (Romans 8:29). And gradually, over the course of time, the pain of the awful wrongs done to them will diminish, until every one of them vanishes forever, and nothing will ever hinder them from enjoying the unimaginable happiness of being eternally in the presence of their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”[i]

Meanwhile, you and I are living in the here and now, and we all know some of our brothers and sisters in Christ who are presently enduring horrendous circumstances which they would do anything to change. Circumstances which you and I would also do everything we possibly could to alter. But we are not God almighty. Being subjected to such anguish whether it’s physical or emotional or both, has a profound impact on the faith of a Bible believing Christian. To believe that back in eternity past our loving Father planned and ordained every single one of these awful situations which He would either allow or cause to happen to each of us and those we love, have a way of testing our faith to the max. Allow me to share the anguish of a remarkable woman who, as a young girl had a horrible life jolting experience in an accident. It was part of our Father’s perfect eternal plan that, for His own glory and the eternal happiness of that particular seventeen year old teenager named Joni Eareckson Tada that He would allow her to become a quadriplegic. Listen to how she describes her feelings during those early dark depressing days.

“Once again, I desperately wanted to kill myself. Here I was trapped in this canvas cocoon. I couldn’t move anything except my head. Physically, I was a little more than a corpse. I had no hope of ever walking again. I could never lead a normal life and marry Dick. In fact, he might even be walking out of my life forever, I concluded. I had absolutely no idea of how I could find purpose or meaning in just existing day after day—waking, eating, watching TV, sleeping.

Why on earth should a person be forced to live out such a dreary existence? How I prayed for some accident or miracle to kill me. The mental and spiritual anguish was as unbearable as the physical torture. But once again, there was no way for me to commit suicide. This frustration was also unbearable. I was despondent, but I was also angry because of my helplessness. How I wished for strength and control enough in my fingers to do something, anything, to end my life.” [ii]

And the Bible tells us that whenever we get angry not to sin in our thoughts, words and deeds. Who can fault Joni or a mother of four young children for becoming angry, when “out of the blue,” her husband of fifteen years leaves a voice mail message informing her he is at the airport and about to take off and fly away with the new love of his life? And, for their good, our Father wants that Mom and her children to get rid of their justifiable anger and forgive the man.

But how about someone who wasn’t sinned against by anyone? How about the person such as a man whose fifty six year old wife of thirty seven years; a woman who never had any prior cardiac symptoms, suddenly collapsed and died at the dinner table right before his eyes? Would it be wrong for that new widower to become angry because of his loss and everything he would have to endure because of it? Of course not; not anymore than it would be for a person who lost his or her job through no fault of their own, or any or the other folks I spoke about earlier. However, it is often the people who are Bible believing Christians who are also very strong in their faith that will be greatly tempted to sin big time in the kind of situations I just described.

For instance, wouldn’t the greatest temptation to sin in their anger that a Christian who believes the Bible is the divinely inspired infallible Word of God would be to become angry at Him? After all, they know their loving Father allowed those painfully heart wrenching experiences to happen. They also know He could have prevented them from happening but He chose not to. What are these people supposed to do; walk around with a phony smile on their face pretending they don’t hurt? Non-Christian shrinks are apt to suggest that he or she vent their feelings at God. Scream at Him. It will make you feel better. After all, He’s the Big Man. He can handle it.

But is it really okay to harbor angry thoughts in our heart about God? Remember what I said in a previous sermon about our anger being a precious gift from God which we can use for good or bad. We can choose to become angry or not. We can also choose to lash out at God using our moral standards to judge His infinite wisdom and perfect love and find them faulty. Who are we to accuse God of doing something which we have concluded to be unfair or unloving? What right do we have to accuse our Father of not preventing our heartbreak, which by our standards, is what any normal loving earthly father should and would do? Where do we get off being angry at God because He doesn’t give us or do something for us as quickly as we want Him to, or doesn’t give us what we ask for because perfect love and infinite wisdom simply can’t?

Forgiving someone who has wronged us greatly is something which is a lot easier said than done. Nevertheless, the Bible records numerous instances in which folks have dealt with their often justifiable anger in a manner pleasing to God and we can all think of instances which have happened in our own time. A number of years ago I read an excellent book entitled The Hiding Place which was written by a remarkable woman named Corrie ten Boom. She and her sister Betsie had been caught up in the horrors of the Holocaust during the Second World War. Corrie lived to speak and write about their experiences. He sister didn’t. In the book Corrie describes an unexpected encounter which occurred years later.

“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,” he said. “To think that, as you say, He washed my sins away!” His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled within me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile; I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness. As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.[iii]

You and I must stop worshiping ourselves and instead focus on the One who loves poor lost sinners such as us. So much so, that He left the glory He enjoyed in Heaven, and allowed Himself to be born in a stinking rat infested stable. Throughout His earthly life He was a man of sorrows who was familiar with all kinds of grief. He had to die an agonizing death in order to save His people from their sins and enable them to cross over from death to life, and we will glorify Him by becoming more and more like Him, in love, patience, gentleness, goodness and humility; people who are slow to get angry and quick to forgive.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting it’s always easy to forgive because it isn’t. But I also know our Father will never require any of His children to do anything which is impossible. The Apostle Paul reminds us we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Phil.4:13). As far as getting rid of our anger and forgiving those who sin against us; with God’s help, we can and we will.

[ii] Cited in A Step Further, from the book Joni © 1978 by Joni Eareckson & Steve Estes, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506, p. 13.

[iii] Cited by R. Kent Hughes in his excellent commentary on “The Sermon On The Mount,” © 2001, Crossway Books 1300 Crescent Street, Wheaton, Illinois 60187, p. 50.