You're Forgiven

You're Forgiven

"For if you forgive men when they sin against you,
your heavenly Father will also forgive you."
Matthew 6:14

Attending the funeral today of a 22 year old young man gunned down on the streets of Detroit was an opportunity to show support for two of our students who had, without warning, lost their brother last week. Because of the circumstances of his death, the funeral home was a place of weeping and sadness as they held the memorial service to say goodbye to someone they loved.

During the service, people were invited to come forward and share memories about the young man, a son, a brother, a grandson, a nephew, a cousin and a friend, who would surely be missed. I want to share with you the following testimony given by one of his friends in the hope that it will stir each of us in the area of forgiveness:

"Anthony and I had our problems over the years but he wrote me a letterseveral months ago asking for my forgiveness but I never answered that letter. Then I ran into him and he again asked for my forgiveness for some things he had done wrong, he even gave me a hug, but I wasn't interested in his apology, I never told him he was forgiven. When I heard he had been murdered, I realized that I would never get the chance to tell him he was forgiven. Life is so short, we need to learn to put our differences aside, to realize we all make mistakes and to forgive our brothers and sisters when they do things that hurt us."

The young man then turned to the casket and said "Anthony, you're forgiven". It was a powerful moment in an emotional saying goodbye to a loved one, a lesson on the importance of forgiveness.

Jesus told the story in Matthew 18:21-35 of a servant who, though he was forgiven of a large debt, refused to forgive his fellow servant a much smaller amount owed. The master of that servant, because of his unforgiveness, ordered him cast into prison until he repaid the entire debt he owed. That story is often entitled "The prison of unforgiveness". It is so easy to lose sight of all we have been forgiven of, to forget how merciful the Lord has been to each of us. Unfortunately, when that happens, we can fall into the trap of not forgiving as we have been forgiven. We magnify the wrongs we have suffered from others while minimizing the mistakes we have made. And the result is we find ourselves in the prison of unforgiveness, bound up by our unwillingness to let go of hurts and injustices, and by our inability to utter those simple words, either face-to-face or in our hearts, "you're forgiven".

The young man who spoke those words today needed to be released from his own unforgiveness. He needed to experience the freedom that comes when we forgive our friends and family members for wrongs committed. Let's all make it a point to be quick to forgive, to not hold on to offences, to forgive as we have been forgiven, knowing that as we forgive others, in like manner, the Lord will forgive us.

God Bless
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church