Nearly two years ago, I found myself on a plane returning from Texas to Georgia. I had attended a men’s conference in Dallas and was on cloud nine spiritually. I was so excited about what God was doing in the lives of the men who had attended that I couldn’t wait to get home to share about it with the local church I was pastoring. What was interesting, though, is that I had already prepared a sermon on another topic before attending this end-of-the-week event. As I sat in my seat on the plane, I started mentally gleaning through this sermon I had previously written. I started preparing to preach it. And yet, as I read through it, I found myself suddenly bored with what I had written. The reason is because I had prepared a sermon about forgiving others, and this suddenly was not exciting at all to me after experiencing such a spiritual high.
I found myself instead wanting to share about how God moved in the conference. I longed to describe to my congregation how I had witnessed men from across the country submitting themselves to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in their lives. This was much more exciting. I was much more passionate about sharing about the life transformation I had just observed at the conference, not to mention the incredible speakers I had heard. Why would I want to preach a sermon about forgiving others? The topic was now so lackluster. Power was what my congregation needed. And so, power is what they got. The next morning, I scrapped the sermon onstage and preached from my heart instead. It must have been the right decision, because I don’t know if I have ever received more compliments from a delivery. Yes, I was right, the forgiveness sermon would have to wait.
The poor rejected forgiveness sermon remained filed away. It could be preached another time, when the excitement had waned. I would pull it out some other Sunday, maybe when I could not think of anything else to preach on. Forgiveness, Jesus’ strong and unambiguous command to forgive, would have to wait for another day. People want excitement and passion. And excitement and passion are what they got.
Looking back, I now wish I had preached the forgiveness sermon. It would not have received nearly the compliments. In fact, it likely would have offended some in the congregation. No one wants to be challenged to forgive someone who hurt them, especially if the hurt was great. Not many people want this place of their hearts tampered with. And yet, a sermon on forgiveness would have been much more beneficial in the long run, as it would have contained the power to free people from the resentment and bitterness that so often shackle our spiritual lives, from “ungrace” that prevents us from becoming the people God longs for us to be.
In the sermon that I never preached, I was going to quote Dr. Robert Smith, an African American preaching professor at Beeson Divinity School, one of my former professors. His son had been murdered in 2009, and he recounted in an article I read in Christianity Today about how he arrived at his decision to forgive the 18-year-old who held his son at gunpoint and robbed him before pulling the trigger.
He writes as follows: “Søren Kierkegaard was right when he contended that life has to be lived forward but can only be understood backwards. In life some things happen that are not immediately perceived as beneficial. Following our son’s murder, which did not seem to have any redemptive value, the question God asked me was ‘Do you really believe what you preach?’ For 44 years I have preached about the forgiveness that Joseph, Job, and Jesus extended to those who brought great pain in their lives. I knew how to explain, illustrate, and apply forgiveness from a biblical perspective. Now God was telling me if I really believed what I had been preaching, then I must, by his grace, live that forgiveness now . . . Though the wound to my heart is still open, I have forgiven Tony’s murderer. Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminded me in No Future Without Forgiveness that forgiveness takes the sting out of memory. I confess that the ache of memory is still there, but the paralyzing sting has been swallowed up in God’s agape love. I asked prayer warriors to pray for me as I prepared to write the young man and to pray that he would respond affirmatively and ultimately add my name to the visitors list so that I could come and tell him in person—‘Jesus loves and forgives you and so do I.’ After nearly two years, in September 2012 I finally mailed that letter. He added me to his visitors list in 2014. Soon by God’s grace I will see the young man whose face was the last face our son saw before standing in the presence of the Lord. I will offer the young man the forgiveness that Christ offers to me and to all who will believe.”
Yes, I should have preached the forgiveness sermon. It would not have received immediate praise, but it contained the power to change more lives. Why? Because if we can truly forgive a person or group of people who have harmed us greatly, even if it takes us a lengthy amount of time to do so, if we can arrive at the place where the Lord leads us to extend grace to those who do not deserve it, we place ourselves in an unpopular position, yes, but also a powerful one. Why? Because at this point, our hearts truly become free, free to testify to every person that the God we serve is a God of grace who longs to forgive every sin, every offense, that there is nothing more powerful than the blood that was shed on Calvary. Christ has forgiven us. We have forgiven others. Both were hard and required great sacrifice. However, the result for all is now freedom. Freedom from the “wages of sin.” And this, my friend, is what grace is. This is why we call it “amazing.”