Renovating Your Relationships--After Forgiveness

Rebuilding after something is unexpectedly torn down can often take some time. Natural disasters provide a perfect example of this. Those who have not been affected by a natural disaster can easily forget its aftermath, because we often turn our minds elsewhere as soon as the TV crews stop reporting from the location. But as I speak today, the residents of Joplin are still trying to rebuild, the people of Japan are still rebuilding after their tsunami, those who were affected by the earthquake in Haiti are still rebuilding, New Orleans is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, and even those in Southeast Asia are still rebuilding after the tsunami that hit there in 2004.

In some ways, the aftermath of a natural disaster can be compared to the aftermath of sin. When sins are committed, they can cause considerable damage to relationships, even tearing down strong relationships that have lasted for years. But forgiveness clears away the rubble left by sin and puts us in a position to rebuild our relationships.

This morning we’re going to talk about the aftermath of forgiveness. How should you move forward with someone after forgiveness has been requested and given? We’re going to look at one thing that should take place in all circumstances and one thing that could take place in certain circumstances.

So first of all, what one thing should take place after forgiveness in all circumstances?

I. Reconciliation

Reconciliation is the act of restoring peace to a relationship that has been damaged. Just as forgiveness often feels very unnatural to us, reconciliation does as well. Most of the time, we want to hold someone at arm’s length after they’ve hurt us—at least for a while. Or we may cease giving that person the cold shoulder, but we never warm up to them again, so our relationship just remains lukewarm.

Sometimes we may even attempt a half-hearted reconciliation. There was once a man who was celebrating New Year’s Eve at a party when a man that he had had a fight with came through the door. A mutual friend of these two men spoke to the first man and urged him to reconcile with the second man. He said, “Its so unkind to be unfriendly at this time of year. Go over and wish him a Happy New Year.” So the first man walked across the room and said, “I wish you a Happy New Year—but only one.”

That doesn’t exactly sound like reconciliation, does it? But let me ask if this sounds like forgiveness: imagine that you committed a sin, and you became convicted about your sin, so you prayed to God and confessed your sin and asked Him for forgiveness. Then imagine that you actually heard God speak and He said, “I forgive you, but I’m afraid you can’t be my child anymore. You are forgiven—but I can’t be on good terms with you anymore.” Does that sound like forgiveness? Would you feel forgiven? What would forgiveness even mean in that situation?

The reason that such a response doesn’t feel like forgiveness is that it violates the fourth promise of forgiveness that we talked about a few weeks ago—“I will not let this incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.” When someone says, “I forgive you,” but they also say, “We can’t have a relationship anymore,” that statement of forgiveness feels hollow, doesn’t it?

That cannot be true forgiveness because it doesn’t follow God’s example. God seeks to reconcile with those who have sinned against Him; He makes peace with them and enters into an ever-deepening relationship. The idea of reconciliation is at the very heart of the Gospel. Colossians 1:21 says that we used to be alienated from God and hostile to Him, but when we accept the King’s terms of peace—when we accept the Lord Jesus as our Savior—God adopts us into His own family! We move from enemy to infant in the family of God, and then He nurtures us along to help us grow in our faith.

That’s a wonderful blessing, and that’s precisely why we must work to rebuild our relationships with each other when they are damaged by sin—because that is how God responds to us. So it is not enough to say, “I forgive you,” and then let your relationship die. True forgiveness lays the foundation upon which a relationship can be rebuilt.

Now, it is not easy to rebuild a damaged relationship. Sometimes we may face some hindrances to reconciliation that we have to overcome. Let me briefly mention two. First, we may have to overcome an incomplete or insincere confession of sin. Most of us dealt with this when we were kids and our parents forced our siblings to apologize to us. Those apologies weren’t always the most sincere, were they? And we could feel it—we knew that our siblings didn’t really mean what they were saying at the moment, and because of that it was hard to make peace with them very quickly.

On the other hand, sometimes we receive a confession that is sincere, but its incomplete. More often than not, an incomplete confession will lack an offer to make restitution. The person who sinned against you has confessed their sin and asked for forgiveness, but they still left you to clean up the mess that their sin created. They haven’t offered to make things right, and in that situation its almost impossible to make the promise that you won’t let the situation hinder your relationship.

So if you receive an incomplete confession like that, you may have to gently press the person to make restitution. You may need to say, “I’m not mad at you anymore, and I would love to forgive you, but here’s what I mean when I say those words”—and then you can spell out those four promises. But then you would have to say, “I just can’t make that fourth promise right now because you’ve left me to pay for all of the damages”—or whatever the case might be. So in order to become reconciled to that person, you may need to gently help them make a complete confession.

Second, we may have to overcome an “all or nothing” view of trust. Many people end relationships after a sin because they say, “I just can’t trust this person anymore.” Behind that statement is the unspoken assumption that trust is all or nothing in a relationship—either I trust you completely without any reservations whatsoever, or I don’t trust you one iota. Its either 100% or 0.

But that’s not really the way that trust works in a relationship. If you’re married, think about the very first time that you met your spouse. Unless you had heard bad things about them, you didn’t distrust them, did you? But at the same time, you didn’t trust them as much as you do now, right? You didn’t immediately reveal all of your deepest secrets and commit the rest of your life to them! No—your trust grew over time, as the relationship grew.

So trust is not “all or nothing” in our relationships. You really can regain your trust as you rebuild your relationship. Depending on the magnitude of the sin, it will take some time, but it will come back if you give it a chance. Incidentally, this is another reason why its so important to make restitution when you have sinned against someone. That act on your part will make it easier for the person you’ve hurt to regain their trust in you, and thus it will make reconciliation that much easier.

So reconciliation should take place every time that forgiveness is requested and given. The goal is to rebuild your relationships to what it used to be—and perhaps it will even grow deeper during this process. It may take some time to rebuild the trust that was broken, but that’s only natural. Now that we’ve discussed something that should happen after forgiveness, I want to discuss one thing that could happen after forgiveness.

II. Imposing Consequences

This is an issue that we have to deal with particularly when we are in positions of leadership or authority, which means that most of us will have to deal with this issue as we raise our kids. The basic question surrounding this issue is this: Would it be wrong to impose ongoing consequences after I’ve forgiven someone? Or to put it another way, does forgiveness mean that I must not impose any ongoing consequences for that person’s behavior?

You can see how this question relates to positions of authority, because this won’t be an issue if you are not in a position to impose consequences. Thus, this issue doesn’t apply to situations like a marriage or a friendship, but almost all of us either have or will have situations where we are responsible for someone else.

So can it be appropriate to impose ongoing consequences after you’ve forgiven someone? I believe the Bible reveals that the answer is “yes.” We can see this very thing take place in the lives of two of the greatest heroes of the Old Testament—Moses and David.

Moses, of course, was the man that God used to free the children of Israel from their slavery in Egypt, and he then served as their leader as they were forced to live in the wilderness for forty years before God allowed them to enter the land that He had promised to give them. Now during that period of time, God performed several miracles through Moses, and at one point in time the people needed water, so God told Moses to gather the people around a certain rock and to speak to the rock, and God would then cause a spring of water to flow out of it. So Moses and his brother, Aaron, gathered the people and Moses said, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” (Num. 20:10). So first, Moses took credit for the miracle. Then, instead of speaking to the rock, he struck it with his walking staff. God went ahead and provided the water, but afterward He spoke to Moses and said, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them” (Num. 20:12).

So Moses faced a sad consequence for his sin—he would not be allowed to lead Israel into the Promised Land. But it is clear that Moses was forgiven of his sin, because his relationship with God did not change after this incident, and in fact he later appears beside Jesus at the Transfiguration, when Jesus allowed some of His disciples to see His heavenly glory shine through His earthly body.

David provides another very clear example of consequences after forgiveness. Why don’t you turn with me to 2 Samuel 12? Just prior to this chapter, King David had committed adultery with a woman named Bathsheba, and he even wound up having her husband killed. These were terrible sins, but David did not repent of them for a while. So God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David, which he did, and we see in v. 13 that David says [READ vv. 13–14]. We see clearly that David was forgiven, and yet he had to face the consequence of losing his child.

So from these examples, I believe we see that it is permissible to impose consequences after forgiveness has taken place. Let me offer a couple of guidelines to think about as we consider this idea. First, consequences should be intended for a person’s spiritual growth. I believe both Moses and David had to face their consequences to learn the severity of their sins. Its one thing to admit that you were wrong, but sometimes you have to learn just how wrong you were. Consequences can help us learn and grow, so in that respect we need to see that consequences should not be seen as a tool for punishment, but a tool for development. If we need to impose consequences, we should do so with the future in mind rather than the past.

So for example, as parents, we may need to impose consequences on our children even after we have forgiven them for a sin, but we should tell them as clearly as we can that we are seeking to help them grow, not to punish them for something that we have already forgiven them for.

For instance, after they make a sinful decision, we may see that they are very susceptible to a certain temptation. Thus, we may decide to impose consequences that will keep them away from that temptation for awhile. Or, we may see that they haven’t yet learned a particular lesson, such as the value of property. If they knew how valuable the car was, they wouldn’t have driven it 80 mph on ice! So perhaps you will impose a consequence to help them learn that lesson.

All you are really doing is turning the situation into a teachable moment. That’s what consequences are all about, and our second guideline emphasizes that. Second, consequences should not be seen as a requirement for “winning back” your love. I’m going to keep this in the context of the parent-child relationship. You must not make your child feel like he or she has to “win back” your love. If that’s true, then forgiveness has not really taken place. Forgiveness repairs the damage that was done to the relationship; consequences are not intended for that. So if you choose to impose consequences, tell your child clearly and repeatedly that you love them and they do not have to win back your love. Make sure they know that they have your love—they simply need to learn some lessons from the situation, and that’s what the consequences are all about.

Occasions where forgiveness is necessary can become great opportunities to have teachable moments. In fact, one of the best ways to teach your children about what it means to forgive is to ask for their forgiveness when you’ve sinned against them. You can model for them what a sincere confession sounds like, and you can discuss what you’re asking them to do when you ask them for forgiveness. Its more pleasant to learn when someone else takes the hard knocks, so if you will take the hard knock of humbling yourself to ask your child for forgiveness, you can teach them a powerful lesson that they won’t soon forget.

Reconciliation--Moving From War to Peace

Shortly before the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, he warned his disciples that until the end of this period of human history, there would be wars and rumors of wars (Matt. 24:6). History has shown that Jesus was no false prophet—war has been the norm rather than the exception throughout human history ever since that time (and even before then as well). In fact, a convenient way for historians to trace the history of a kingdom or a nation is to move from one war to the next!

Late last year, I had the opportunity to tour the Museum of French Military History in Paris while I was visiting some missionaries, and let me tell you, it was a huge museum because France has a lot of military history! The French have been almost constantly at war with someone throughout their entire existence as a nation. In fact, most of the European continent has been a battle zone since the times of the Roman Empire.

Even the relatively short history of the United States has been characterized by war. I think we had a couple of decades in the 1800’s where we were at peace, but the last 115 years in particular has seen war after war after war! We can trace our history from the Spanish-American War to World War I to World War II to the Korean War to Vietnam to the Cold War to the Gulf War and now to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With this kind of track record in the world, its no surprise that so many people are willing to give up almost anything for peace. But so far in history, the story of humanity has been a lack of peace. And while this has been true of human beings’ relationships with each other, the same could be said for our relationship with God as well. According to the Bible, when we are born, we all receive the desire for sin that first tainted humanity when Adam and Eve rebelled against the Lord. So at least initially, our relationship with God is characterized by a lack of peace.

But is there any hope of resolving this situation? Can we find peace with God that will restore our relationship with Him? Today we’re going to discover this hope as we look at the meaning of the word “reconciliation.” This is a great theological term that describes one of the things that Jesus accomplished for us in His death and resurrection. So today we’ll take a look first of all at what this word means, and then we’ll take a look at the implications of this idea both for our relationship with God and our relationships with other people.

I. What does the word “reconciliation” mean?

As we look at what the word “reconciliation” means in the Bible, what we find is that it has the same meaning as it does when we use it in common conversation. This isn’t always the case with these theological words. More often than not, if we still use the word in normal conversation, we use it with a slightly different meaning than the Bible does. But that’s not the case here, which makes it easy for us to understand what this word means.

The word “reconciliation” describes the restoration of peace in a relationship that has been broken. And so, we might speak of a husband and wife being reconciled after they’ve worked through some differences in their relationship, or we might talk about two old friends being reconciled when they patch things up after a fight.

So when Scripture says that we are “reconciled” to God, it means that our broken relationship with Him has been repaired; we have been restored to the relationship of peace and friendship that humanity once had with God prior to the Fall. We can see this clearly in Colossians 1:21–22. In these verses Paul writes, [READ vv. 21–22]. In v. 21, Paul describes a time when we were alienated or estranged from God, which means that we were separated from Him, and we were actually hostile to Him in our minds because of our desire to do evil deeds.

But notice that Paul says this condition is formerly true of us, and the difference is that in v. 22 Paul states that we have been reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ. So now for those who have accepted Jesus, we are no longer alienated or separated from God; we are no longer far from Him, but now we are near to Him. And we no longer have hostility in our relationship with Him—instead, we now enjoy peace and friendship.

What a wonderful reversal of fortunes! Friend, let this fact sink into your soul—God feels no hostility toward you! Some believers still feel like God sits in heaven eagerly waiting to punish them for something, but nothing could be further from the truth. As Paul put it in Romans 8, God is “for” us—He is on our side! When God looks at you, He looks at His own child, with eyes of compassion and love. When He looks at you, He doesn’t see the tattered rags of your sin—He sees the robe of righteousness that Jesus has supplied for us.

And notice from these verses who it was that took the initiative to restore our relationship with God. Was it us, or was it God? It was God, wasn’t it? God broke down the barrier that divided us. This belief is one of the central doctrines that makes Christianity different from all the other religions in the world. Every world religion believes that there is something in the human condition that makes us estranged from the divine being (whatever they believe that divine being is). But in every other religion, the responsibility is on us to make peace with the divine being; we are responsible to somehow bring ourselves back into harmony with the divine.

But friends, that idea is a lie from Satan, who is a deceiver and the father of lies. He has turned the truth upside down to hide from us the fact that there is nothing we can do to repair our relationship with God. Our sin is so offensive to God that there is nothing we can do to remove that offense. But God in His infinite love took the initiative to restore our broken relationship with Him by sending His Son to pay for our sins by dying on the cross so that we could once again have peace with God.

That is the glorious idea of reconciliation, that God has picked up the pieces of our broken relationship with Him and has made it whole once again. So we have seen what the word “reconciliation” means, and we have seen that it really captures well the work that Jesus has done in our behalf. But we also see in Scripture that our reconciliation with God is supposed to lead us to be reconciled with others. So the second question we need to deal with today is this:

II. What does our reconciliation with God mean for our relationships with other people?

A. Our relationship with other believers should also be one of peace and friendship (Matt. 5:21–24)

If our relationship with God is now one of peace and friendship, our relationship with God’s children should be the same. According to Scripture, when we accept Christ, God adopts us into His own spiritual family. This makes us spiritual brothers and sisters with everyone else who believes in Jesus. And just as you don’t want hostility in your family, God doesn’t want hostility in His family either.

Let’s take a look at what Jesus had to say in Matthew 5:21–24 [READ vv. 21–24]. Now there is much that we could say about vv. 21–22, but I want to focus your attention on His command in vv. 23–24. Jesus was speaking to Jewish people at a time when they still offered animal sacrifices, and he tells them that if they are in the middle of offering a sacrifice, and they remember that they’ve done something to offend a brother, they should stop what they’re doing, make things right with their brother, and then they can offer their sacrifice.

What this tells us is that God considers living at peace with each other to be more important than performing acts of worship. This should be no surprise, because God said this through the prophets over and over again in the Old Testament. God was often upset with the people of Israel because they were sinning against each other and then performing acts of worship as though nothing was wrong.

In our society today, we’ve come up with numerous ways of handling conflict that we think are acceptable. Perhaps one of the most common methods we use to deal with conflict is simply to avoid other people. If we do something that offends someone else and our relationship becomes strained because of it, often times we just avoid each other. And we justify this behavior by saying, “Hey! We don’t get into fights anymore! He has his circle of friends, and I have my circle of friends, and we just keep our distance from each other.”

Friends, let’s not think that God is deceived by our little charade. If we choose to simply avoid someone after we sin against them, what we’re really avoiding is God’s clear command to confess our sin to them and ask for forgiveness! We should seek for reconciliation with someone if we have sinned against them. It is certainly true that they might reject our efforts to make peace, but their response is on their own shoulders. Our choice must be to seek for peace when we have sinned against others.

But sometimes, divisions in the body of Christ are much more superficial. The idea of reconciliation teaches us that…

B. Our cultural and racial differences should not disrupt our peace and friendship with other believers (Eph. 2:14–16)

Sometimes differences in the body of Christ come up over things as petty as racial differences. But the idea of reconciliation reminds us that in heaven we will be part of a choir from every tribe, tongue, and nation that will be singing the praises of our Lord.

Notice what Paul writes in Ephesians 2:14–16. In these verses he is talking about how the death of Jesus abolished any wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles. There was a lot of racism that existed between Jews and Gentiles at this time, but for believers there is to be no room for racism whatsoever because of our reconciliation in Christ [READ vv. 14–16].

In our corner of the world, we encounter people from several different minority groups who have immigrated here to the United States. Anytime cultures collide like this, there is going to be some uneasiness as people get to know each other, but I’m sure we all hear emotions expressed at times that amount to nothing more than sheer racism against another group of people. Friends, we need to make sure that no such hatred exists in our hearts. We cannot allow something as superficial as race to cause us to be hostile to others—especially if someone from another race embraces the Lord Jesus as we do. There should be no such divisions in the body of Christ, and we must make sure that we never feed such divisions by our own words and actions.

In fact, from a biblical perspective, it would be best if we stopped talking about different races of people at all, because there is only one race—the human race. According to the Bible, all humans are descended from Adam and Eve, and then again from Noah and his wife after the Flood. We may have different languages and cultures and nationalities, but we are not from different races. So let’s make sure that we do not perpetuate racial distinctions, particularly within the body of Christ.

Finally, as the Bible speaks of reconciliation, it reminds us that we have a mission to accomplish.

C. Our mission is to bring other people into a relationship of peace with God (2 Cor. 5:17–21)

Since we now have peace with God, we are given the privilege of calling all other men to lay down their arms and receive the King’s offer of a pardon. Let’s read what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17–21 [READ vv. 17–21].

God the King has not only gladly welcomed us back into His kingdom, but He has also made us His royal ambassadors, His representatives to all those who are not at peace with Him. And what a great honor this is! Theoretically, God could have allowed angels to spread the Gospel. He could have sent a hundred million angels out into the world to pay a personal visit to every man, woman, and child on Earth.

But who better to deliver the King’s terms of peace than us, the very ones who used to be on the wrong side of the conflict? Remember, we were alienated from God and hostile toward Him in our minds, but He reconciled us to Himself, and now He has sent us back to our fellow rebels to tell them that the King offers peace, to proclaim that the King will not only accept them back into the kingdom, but will welcome them into the royal family!

Friend, if you have never accepted God’s terms of peace, I pray that you will today. You must understand that you were born into this world in a state of hostility toward God because of the sin that has tainted all of us. Your relationship with God is broken, but God sent His own Son to undergo in your place the punishment that you deserve by dying on the cross. God then raised Him from the dead to show that the price for sin had been paid, and that there was now hope of eternal life for those who would place their faith in Jesus as their Savior. Those are the King’s term of peace—if you will accept Jesus as your Savior, your relationship with God will be restored; you will be reconciled to God, to live no longer as His enemy, but as His child and friend. If you will accept Jesus, you can know that peace in your life today, and know that you will be warmly welcomed into heaven after this life.