In other words, if Im not right horizontally with the people in my life, with the human beings in my life, why should God forgive me? Why should God do the vertical forgiveness if Im not doing the horizontal forgiveness? After all, as a believer Ive been greatly forgiven. Im a sinner. Im a moral foul up and so are you. And our gracious God has done the work of forgiveness. And because of that, Ive got to forgive others.
So I need to defer to God, to give him my life. Because if I dont, if I dont live this forgiveness thing out, whether Ive hurt the person or theyve hurt me, then Im going to break my fellowship, my connection with God. Heres something else that messes up. I become a selfish person when I harbor unforgiveness. It totally guts the generosity that God wants me to have. Whenever you hurt me and I forgive you, Im giving you a gift. Im being generous to you. If I hurt you and come to you and say, not just Sorry, but, Will you forgive me? Im giving you something.
When we forgive, were being generous. And usually the person who benefits the most from forgiveness is you. Isnt that something? Its supernatural. You show me someone who is selfish and Ill show you someone whos never experienced the forgiveness of God. Yeah, they might have intellectually received it, but theyve not experienced it. And because theyve not experienced it, they cant really share it with others.
Also, sitting on this bench and being leashed up to unforgiveness will level the love I should have for other people. God is love. And because God loves me and hes given me this love, I should love others. And part of expressing love is forgiving others. Colossians 3:13 is a verse we saw last time: Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive (there we go again) as the Lord forgave you.
Ed Young Pastor tells us that instead of asking, How could they do this to me? We should be asking, Why am I doing this to myself? Instead of saying, Well, they hurt me. They took advantage of me. I cant believe they did this to me. We should be saying, Why am I still leashed up to all this junk? Look at the next verse of Colossians. Look at Colossians 3:14. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
