All of us sometimes remember, think, feel pain because of something that it would have been better had we never done, some time, some where, don't we? What we regret having done; what it pains us to remember. It could be something we did 40 years ago, or a year ago, or ten minutes ago. We regret what we did because we realize that it was a bad choice on our part, that went against love, perverted the meaning of life, caused cruel pain to others; we regret things we did because we realize that they were spiritual crimes, even if not crimes under secular laws.
And, moreover, we Christians are regretful in cases where unbelievers would not be, because we now perceive everything with new eyes; the apostle Paul says that "we have the mind of Christ," and if we have the mind of Christ, how much more vividly and starkly we perceive the wrongness of everything that is contrary to the love and holiness of God. So there is a paradox here, a blessed paradox, because although it is no fun to experience this heightened sensitivity to sin, to sin in and around us, at the same time it is a precious gift - yes, it is a "deposit of the Holy Spirit" that constantly draws us back to God for forgiveness and forward with God as His children to the fulfillment of His victorious, triumphant, eternal purpose of which we have forever been part in Christ. So in the end, we can only give thanks and say, "Thanks be to God who gives us victory in Jesus Christ!"
1 John 1:9
God is love, writes the apostle John in the same epistle. It is because God is love that He is faithful and righteous. Love is faithful, and so God is faithful in forgiveness. In plain human terms, God forgives because He wants to. Love wants to forgive. Even human love longs for the healing and peace that forgiveness brings. If this is true of us, how much more so is it true of God, who created us in His own image? Love begins in God, finds its origin in Him not in us.
If we, on our part, confess, He, on His part, is faithful, because Love is faithful. To forgive us is consistent with His love, with His eternal purposes, with His desire to preserve us and know us throughout eternity. Perhaps we sometimes forget this. Perhaps we forget what this eternal love is--call it an eternal principle, if you will, or an attribute, or a driving desire--but perhaps we sometimes forget what it was in God that drove His inexpressible feat of redemption, that is, the Love that brought the Son of God into the world and to the cross. This is undoubtedly what the Apostle Paul was thinking of when he asked, "Shall not God, who gave us his Son, also with him give us all things?" This includes mercy and forgiveness, cleansing and renewal. God is faithful because He is Love.
Furthermore, if we, on our part, confess, He, on His part, is righteous. Just as we are sorry in our lives because we have committed unrighteousness, when God forgives and cleanses us, He is, in fact, committing righteousness. For us, of course, it would be uncomfortable, indeed inappropriate, to say to God in prayer, "You know, in fact You must forgive me because it is righteous conduct.
And, indeed, there is no need to tell God that way, since we do not know more than He does; He does not need our lecture. It was not for this that the apostle John declared that God acts righteously, forgiving and cleansing, but rather for us to hasten, to speed our way to God, without delay or hesitation, with the certainty that we are going to the Father who loves us with the ultimate love, to the Father who is willing, on a level beyond all understanding, to do what is RIGHT and RIGHTeous. Exactly as He did in sending the only begotten Son, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
It may seem like I'm changing the subject abruptly now, but please be patient with me. Let's read Galatians 2:11-14:
We can look at God's servants, the apostles, and their actions and behavior in Scripture, and see that even after the Resurrection and the Day of Pentecost they remained men with, as we say in English, "clay feet," and that in the course of their ministry and their relationships with one another not everything was always perfect. They experienced conflicts and contradictions among themselves, sometimes they did not understand each other, and I am sure that in such moments they felt resentful, as occurs among us. This is just such a case. In this case, Paul confronted Peter at Antioch, pointing out, let's say, Peter's theological inconsistency. Peter gladly sat with the non-Jewish believers and ate with them. But then came the representatives of the Jerusalem church, no doubt representatives of that extremely strict faction in the Jerusalem church that wanted all non-Jewish believers to fully accept the Mosaic law, and so to become fully Jewish through the Messiah Jesus. This was their understanding of the gospel.
Peter plausible had commendable motives. He did not want to offend the brothers in Jerusalem. He thought he was keeping the peace. But he was wrong. In fact, Peter was showing a weak, not yet fully developed theology. You know, theology is not just what we think. Our behavior is theology in action; you could say that our behavior is walking theology; by our behavior we show what in fact we really believe, what we understand about God and role in His order.
Peter had not yet fully grasped what it means that all who are in Christ are one, that in Christ's Church there are not two layers or classes of believers. His deficient theology naturally produced deficient behavior. And Paul, being Paul--though I'm sure I would say that Paul was, I'm sure, rightly upset at seeing how much Peter's behavior hurt the non-Jewish believers when Peter distanced himself from them as if they were second-class Christians--so Paul, being Paul, openly rebuked Peter for this hypocrisy. I'm sure it was unpleasant for Peter. It couldn't have been pleasant for Paul either. Feelings must have been hurt on both sides. Yes, they were apostles, but they were men, and men have feelings.
But many years later, what does Peter write about Paul?
1 Peter 3:15-16
Clearly, the life and power of the risen Christ imbued these two apostles with the kind of love that strives with all its might for peace, forgiveness, reconciliation. Yes, the very love in which God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and purify us.
There was no bitterness or resentment there. Peter honors Paul as a "dear brother" and boldly claims that it was God who gave Paul this wisdom, and, yes, he even calls Paul's letters "the Scriptures," on a par with the inspired Scriptures of the Old Testament and other writings of the apostles.
Yes, it would have been better if Peter had not distanced himself from his non-Jewish brethren in Christ that evening in Antioch, and it is likely that Peter later regretted it. But the same love of God that faithfully and righteously restores us when we turn to Him was the same love that brought reconciliation and deep understanding, yes, and honor and respect, between the apostles, so that just as no one can separate us from the love of Christ, nothing could separate the apostles from one another in the love of Christ.
This is the paradigm, the model, for the Church. And the power and might to incarnate this model is found in that very love, faithfulness and righteousness in which God Himself unwaveringly moves to keep and guard us and our fellowship with Him.
Of course, it would be better if we never made mistakes, if we never fell, if we never sinned. But if we lived in such a world, the Son of God would never have needed to come and sacrifice Himself for our salvation. Therefore, we must not pin our hope on the fantasy of our own sinlessness. Rather, we should be united by the very love that accomplished our redemption precisely because we were so imperfect and fallen.
Remember, "And in this the love of God is revealed, that Christ Jesus died for us while we were still His enemies."
It is this love, this divine love that always seeks forgiveness and reconciliation, that unites us now, and if God is faithful and righteous to forgive, then forgiveness and reconciliation are always the right and righteous way for us in cases of offense and mutual insult.
We also remember how the apostle Paul was so displeased with the young Mark that Paul separated from Barnabas, who disagreed with Paul on the matter, and this must have really saddened them both, not to mention Mark, because they went through so many deep and meaningful things together. I do not think, however, that Paul harbored resentment and bitterness toward Barnabas. The proof is that years later Paul wrote, "Hurry to send Mark to me, because he has been useful to me in my work." And if Paul had no bitterness against Mark, I doubt he had any bitterness against Barnabas.
So the key idea I want to express here today is this: there is a deep connection and spiritual interaction between what we read in 1 John 1:9 (If we confess our sins, He, being faithful and just, will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness) and what we read in Matthew 6: 14-15: For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
This profound, essential spiritual interaction is also found in the words of the Lord (John 13:34-35): A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another: as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
I believe what the Lord is saying to us here is something like this: "If my life dwells in you, others will see me through you. And His life is Love; where Christ dwells, Love dwells. And Love forgives.
So of course I should not expect God's love to function for me, to purify and forgive me when it suits me, but not seek to express itself through me to others. How then can it be Love?
For if you forgive people their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
These words can frighten us theologically because they can be misunderstood as teaching salvation by works (i.e., "I am saved because I forgive"). No, they do not teach salvation by works. But the Lord often formulates doctrines in startling ways; we sometimes need to be startled and shocked so we will pay attention.
But between the love we receive and the love we radiate, there is an inescapable reciprocity, an interaction, a mutually animating and expanding principle: one cannot exist without the other. Which is vividly expressed in the words of the apostle Paul: (Eph. 4:32) "...be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you."
And in the words of the Lord: (Luke 7:47) Therefore I tell you, her many sins are forgiven because she has loved much, but the one who is forgiven little loves little."
And in the words of the apostle John in the same epistle with which we began today (1 John 3:18):
My children, let us not love in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth.
This love is not a matter of sentimental, sugary displays. On the contrary, it is manifested in fidelity, constancy, sacrifice, reciprocity, and commitment to our common love and service to our Savior Jesus. What fuels and sustains this constancy and sacrifice is personal fellowship with the Father and the Son, as John says at the beginning of his letter, "...what we have seen and heard, we declare to you, that you might also have fellowship with us: and our fellowship is with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ," because without this fellowship none of us is able to maintain this way of life. Remember, "Without me you can do nothing."
And so, everything in our lives as the people of Jesus, how we relate to God and to each other, depends on where we are and where we are going.
Where are we? We are in Him, and His life and love are the operative principles of our existence, as Paul said, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. For one who is in Christ, everything is new; we have entered into a new order.
And where are we going? We are speeding toward the day when God's new order in Christ will be finally manifested, the day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. May our lives, our relationships, our forgiveness and our patience with one another be completely determined by this divine trajectory in which we find ourselves, the trajectory of redemption, of restoration, of renewal, the trajectory finally of the new creation, of the Kingdom of God in holiness and love.
