Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Forgiveness Really Means | Redefining Love (1 Cor. 13)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to drive across town. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we are working through 1st Corinthians 13, which is Paul's definition of love. He wrote this chapter to a church that was struggling with people arguing among themselves because they're motivated by their own self-interest. This church was struggling with self-righteousness so that some of their members were looking down on others. They were struggling with this thought that if they knew a lot, that somehow they were spiritually mature.

Starting point is 00:00:39 And Paul's trying to correct all that. He's trying to teach them that the way of Jesus is the way of love. But more than that, he's trying to teach them what love looks like. And so we've been going through this chapter, phrase by phrase, looking at how love is manifested in our life. And so we're ready for a great little phrase. I think a really helpful phrase that defines love. And it is this, love does not keep a record of wrongs. Love does not keep a record of wrongs, which implies that love forgives. Now, before we say anything else, I just want to point out that that gives us a really helpful insight into what forgiveness is and isn't.

Starting point is 00:01:25 Sometimes I think we have a misconception of what forgiveness is. And we think that forgiveness means to forget. So if you haven't forgotten how someone hurt you, you haven't truly forgiven them. But that can't be the biblical definition of love because God forgives us in Christ, but that doesn't mean he forgets our sins against him. How could an omniscient, all-knowing God, forget anything? But what it means that God forgives us is that he no longer holds our sin against him. us. He no longer makes us pay for our sin. So when we forgive other people in our life, people who have

Starting point is 00:02:06 hurt us from small slights to very serious sins, what it means to forgive them is to no longer make them pay, to look to Christ as the one who has paid for their sins, or to entrust that to God, but we aren't going to make them pay by gossiping about them or giving them the cold freeze or lashing out at them or any of the number of ways we try to make people pay who have hurt us. To forgive them means to release them from that payment because love does not keep a record of wrongs. Love does not hold people's sins against them. Now, that's a really helpful definition of love. And it shows us that when we want to have love define our relationships with other people,

Starting point is 00:02:54 then what that means is we are called to be a, forgiving people. But where do you get the power to do that? I don't know anybody who doesn't want to forgive, but how do you forgive? How do you release people who have hurt you in a significant way? What do you get the power for that? Well, I want to share with you a little story that Jesus told at the end of Luke 7. I think it's a powerful story, a story that has helped me so much. in my relationships with other people, in my marriage, in all my relationships, to be frank. And it's a story that Jesus tells, and the point of the story, I think, is found in verse 47, or at least the point I want to drive home is found in that verse today.

Starting point is 00:03:46 Here's what he says in verse 47. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven as her great love is shown. but whoever has been forgiven little loves little. Now, I'm going to tell you the whole story and the context for that verse in just one second, but I want you to get that what Jesus says here is that those who are forgiven much love much, and those who are forgiven little love little. Okay, let me set it up with the story. Jesus is invited to a Pharisee's house, and this Pharisee is named Simon.

Starting point is 00:04:21 And while Jesus is at this party, other people are there as well, this woman comes in. It just says she's a sinful woman. We don't know much about her. And her entrance into the party would not be as weird as we think it sounds. It would have been normal for people outside to stand on kind of the outside of the party, outside of the house and listen in and watch. That would have been culturally acceptable. But what this woman does then is enter into it.

Starting point is 00:04:51 and this is when things get a little awkward because she starts cleaning the feet of Jesus. Simon the Pharisee has not extended this cultural nicety to Jesus. He hasn't offered him any water for his feet, much less cleaned them. But here comes this woman in and she cleans them, Jesus' feet with her tears and with her hair. And then she pours perfume over Jesus' feet. And Simon is disgusted by what he sees this woman doing. and he thinks in his mind, if Jesus knew who this woman was, he would not let her touch him. Now, Simon doesn't say any of that, but he's thinking it, and Jesus knows what he's thinking.

Starting point is 00:05:31 And so Jesus looks at him and says, Simon, I've got something to tell you. And he tells a story to this Pharisee. And the story he tells goes something like this. One person owed a guy a little bit of money, let's say $5. And another person owed that same guy a lot of money. let's say a million dollars. And the guy forgives both debts. And so Jesus says, which of them do you think will love him more? And Simon the Pharisees doesn't have to think about it that long, right? Well, he says, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven. And Jesus says, yeah, you got that right. The person who

Starting point is 00:06:10 is forgiven a million dollar debt loves the guy more than the one who is forgiven a $5 debt. Now, Jesus goes on to say, look at this woman, Simon. She has offered to me her whole life. She's cleaned my feet. She's given me this perfume, the most valuable thing in her life. You haven't done any of that for me, Simon. All you've been is rude toward me. Now, what's Jesus driving at here?

Starting point is 00:06:41 Is Jesus's point that some people are forgiven much and some people are forgiven little? Because remember this key verse I told you. Jesus says in verse 47, therefore I tell you her many sins have been forgiven as her great love has shown. So her great love for Jesus shows that her sins, her many sins have been forgiven. So is Jesus's point to Simon that this woman has a lot of sin and Simon doesn't have much? That some of us have a lot of sin and some of us don't have that much sin and those, who are forgiven of a lot of sin, well, we're going to love Jesus more than those of us who don't really have much sin to be forgiven? No, that's not at all Jesus's point. Jesus's point is that some people grasp, some people comprehend, some people get it, how much sin they have, and that Jesus has come to rescue them from it, and they're amazed and they're overwhelmed, and they love them deeply. And other people, they have the same amount of sin. Their sin is just as big, just as big a problem. They need Jesus to rescue them from this huge debt they owe. And yet they don't see it.

Starting point is 00:08:01 It's not that some people have more sin than others. It's that some people comprehend it how much sin they have. And others go, well, you know, I think I'm a pretty good person. I don't think I'm that biggest sinner. I know I'm a sinner, but I'm not that biggest sinner. I'm better than these other people. And, you know, they know they need Jesus, but maybe they don't feel that need, since that need, as much as other people do who feel the weight and the burden of the sin in their life. And they know what Jesus has done to rescue them from their sin. You might say that those people have a very big cross because that big cross, it shows the big debt of sin that Jesus paid for them. And the other people who know their sinners but don't sense how big their sin is, you might say

Starting point is 00:08:50 they have a little cross to show they need a little Jesus to help them. It's more like a booster seat, right? Like a little step stool. They need a little Jesus with a little cross. And Jesus says, those who are forgiven much, those who realize how much they've been forgiven, Well, they love much. And those who think, they misunderstand, they think they have been forgiven little, they love little. Now that takes us back to our passage in 1st Corinthians 13.

Starting point is 00:09:21 Love does not keep a record of wrongs. Love forgives. So how do I get the power to forgive other people? Well, according to Jesus' teaching in Luke 7, we get the power to forgive other people when we realize how much we've been forgiven. How do I get the power to forgive people who've hurt me? Well, I realize how much God is forgiven me in Jesus when I've hurt him. See, if I don't think I've been forgiven all that much by Jesus,

Starting point is 00:09:55 if I have a little Jesus on a little stepstool cross, a little booster seat cross, then it's going to be incredibly difficult, maybe impossible for me to forgive other people who've hurt me. I'm going to love them little. I'm going to keep a record of wrongs, and I'm going to continue to talk about them around town. When I get in an argument with them, I'm going to bring up their whole history of all the things they've done wrong. I'm never going to let them off the hook for it. But when I realize how much God has forgiven me in Christ, when that feels close to my heart,

Starting point is 00:10:30 then I'm going to be the kind of person who can forgive others and not make them pay, who can say, I don't hold that against. you, I release you from that because Jesus has released me from that. The key to loving other people in a way that doesn't keep a record of wrongs but forgives them is not to focus on the other person and how good they are or how bad they are. The power comes from focusing not on them, but on Jesus and what he's done for us on the cross. The more working. convicted, the more we see all that God has done for us in Christ, all that He has forgiven us, then we will want to love others by not keeping a record of wrongs.

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Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Forgiveness Really Means | Redefining Love (1 Cor. 13)

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