Sermon Notes, chiefly on Forgiveness

Here are some sermon notes from John Notehelfer’s sermon, Sunday, May 8th, 2005:

What are the telltale signs of someone who is faithful, that is, full of faith? (Check out Luke 17: 1—19)

Those who are faithless are also prayerless.

One of the telltale signs of faith, is a life of prayer. Those who pray daily with power and conviction are those rooted in God. What is faith? It is trust in God. A handing over to Him all that we are, hope to be, and have been. It is a radical trust that reaches to the roots of our being that says: “No matter what happens to me, I trust that God wills the absolute best for me. This doesn’t call for me to alter, correct or meddle with that will. I believe that God desires only and profoundly good for me, no matter the pain, the confusion, the ‘not-knowing’ I may experience as I walk in faith.”
To be faithful we acknowledge that God rewards those that diligently seek Him. That is what is meant by Him willing only our absolute good. He doesn’t care if we are successful, only that we are faithful. “Success” (in the world’s idea of success) slips like dry sand through His fingers. It flows fleetingly. No house can be built upon it.

The Apostles asked: “Increase our faith / Give us more faith.” This sounds as if they perceived that it was a commodity. It was stuff: quantifiable and multipliable. Yet this is not so. Faith more properly mirrors only our relationship with God: the degree in which we trust ourselves to God and His purposes on the earth.
We always want more faith, but we must be willing to trust more. Faith isn’t a case of shouting more loudly: I believe! Faith consists in turning your life, your plans, your wealth and means of making wealth, decisions, likes and dislikes, free time, entertainment, career, relationships, hobbies, interests and politics all over to God, placing those things in His hands, increasingly without reservation or retrieval: what is handed over to God remains with God.

Another telltale sign of someone who is faithful lies in one’s ability to forgive and receive forgiveness. John Notehelfer asked: “What is harder: to repent and ask for forgiveness, or to continually forgive those who sin against you: seven times, seventy times or even seventy-times-seven?”
Those who are faithful are forgiving persons. If we fail to forgive and continue to harbor bitterness we can become icy and paralyzed inside. If we are forgiving and we don’t nourish or nurture grievances we find ourselves free.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This reminds me of one of the maxims I gleaned from George MacDonald: Don’t take offense even if it is given.
One of the problems with humanity is our over-extended notion of “rights.” We think we have a right to this and a right to that, and if our rights are abridged or taken away, or infringed upon, then we have a “right” to be offended. So we find each other offensive, we are offended, people give us offense and we take offense at remarks and actions directed towards us. We don’t forgive because we have a “right” to be injured: After all, the other person OFFENDED us.
But it is this very idea of taking offense that betrays us. You see, we are not obliged in the least to TAKE offense, even when it is GIVEN. And think of how often we take offense when none was intended! We imagine our right to be offended, that indebts the other to us….We imagine they “should have known better.” Oh, really? How in the world do we think that keeping a score of wrongs, a ledger of offenses is anyway remotely linked to the Kingdom of God? It surely is not. No, quite on the contrary, we are called to forgive each other. We are called NOT TO TAKE OFFENSE no matter what the intention of the other person. We should begin dismissing the long list of “rights” we have mistakenly imagined were granted to us as our birthright. Thomas Jefferson kept his list of inalienable rights to a minimum in the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps, changed and humbled by the message of grace, we too, should shorten our list, and see that life, health, happiness, hope, family, career, location, food and drink, and a host of other things are GIFTS, not rights.

Forgiveness cannot be underestimated. Not only are we commanded to forgive, but we find out that forgiveness enlarges and blesses us, allows us to breathe more deeply, run faster, laugh more heartily, sleep more soundly, smile more broadly and enjoy the antics of children more eagerly. Even food and drink taste and satisfy more completely when we forgive others, and live out of a state of mutual forgiveness.

Forgiveness grants liberty. We are freed from our self-built prisons of resentment and self-deception. If we don’t take offense at or from others, we add no burden to our shoulders. Instead we discover gratitude.

Gratitude transforms our attitude.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *