Are We Supposed to Forgive and Forget?

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Last week we started by asking the question, what is your word worth? Do you keep your promises? It’s better to be poor with integrity than get out of poverty by dishonesty. We saw the standard for morality is found in the living Word of God. Don’t do foolish things and then blame God when it doesn’t work out the way you want it to. We finished by talking about lying. It’s never good, right, or acceptable and that was the whole truth. This morning, we’ll do some review and dig into the topic of forgiveness.

Pro. 19:6-11 says, “Many will seek the favor of a generous man, and every man is a friend to him who gives gifts. All the brothers of a poor man hate him; how much more do his friends abandon him! He pursues them with words, but they are gone. He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; he who keeps understanding will find good. A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who tells lies will perish. Luxury is not fitting for a fool; much less for a slave to rule over princes. A man’s discretion makes him slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression.”

This is not a new principle. We saw this briefly last week. “Many will seek the favor or a generous man, and every man is a friend to him who gives gifts. All the brothers of a poor man hate him; how much more do his friends abandon him; He pursues them with words, but they are gone.” This just goes to reaffirm the idea that rich people attract others. Rich people can get places with their money. People fawn over rich people. Just look at the entertainment and sports industries. Because of their fame and fortune, society seeks these people out for guidance, wisdom, their ideas, and their opinions. I’ve always thought it strange that celebrities and sports figures frequently are asked their opinion on matters they know nothing about. They’re sought out simply because they are famous. What is this infatuation we have with celebrities? We even have paparazzi follow them around taking pictures like we don’t know they go to the beach, or go shopping, or go out to eat. They tell us what movie or concert they went to, what they ate and if they’ve gained any weight. While rich people are sought after, have you ever thought about the fact that no one is taking pictures of the other side? Nobody follows the poor around. In fact, sometimes they are told to move along. They’re told they can’t be in public places. This is the exact application Solomon is talking about.

We hear a lot that God is no respecter of persons. That’s true, but when we use it in that application it refers to a Jew and Gentile comparison. “For there is no partiality with God.” (Rom. 2:11) Acts 10 records two visions: one that Cornelius had and one that Peter had. Cornelius’ vision included Peter coming to see him. Peter’s vision included a sheet coming down from the sky that had all kinds of four footed animals and creeping things in it. As he was contemplating the vision, the Spirit told him that three men sent by Cornelius were looking for him. Cornelius was of the Italian Cohort and is widely believed to be the first Gentile convert to Christ. In Acts 10:34 after Peter was told to go the home of Cornelius, he said, “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality.” But Solomon is talking about the tendency we have. Ja. 2:1-7 speaks about what Solomon is talking about. It says, “My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?” It is wrong to demonstrate favor because a person is rich. This is yet another example of how riches can affect a relationship with Christ. If this happens in the church, rich people can get the idea that God favors them which is very far from the truth.

Let’s do a quick review. “He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; he who keeps understanding will find good.” Remember that, “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.” (Eph. 5:29) Make an effort to gain wisdom; it will benefit your soul. Verse 9 is a direct restatement of v. 5.

Solomon gets pretty critical in the next verse. He says, “Luxury is not fitting for a fool; much less for a slave to rule over princes.” Luxury is a state of great comfort. Obviously what one considers luxurious might not be so to another. Our facilities here are quite plain and simple, nothing we would consider fancy. Compare our church to a common church in Southeast Romania, and it is quite luxurious. We have heating and air conditioning, indoor plumbing, running water, and padded seats. All of which are missing from your common village church in Romania. When we mention luxury, it can be attributed to a house, a car, a boat, or really anything that is over the top for the common person. Solomon says it makes no sense for a fool to live in the lap of luxury. The fool is out of place. He doesn’t know how to handle it because he has lived a life of foolishness. Think about the lottery winner. A January article on cleveland.com said about 70% of lottery winners end up bankrupt. “People who were little, ordinary people all of a sudden become extraordinary,” said Steve Lewit, CEO of Wealth Financial Group in Chicago. “They’re euphoric. They lose all sense of reality. They think they’re invincible and powerful. They think they’re Superman.” That certainly describes a fool, doesn’t it?

It is equally out of place for a, “Slave to rule over princes.” The fool we can get, but this part is challenging to understand. The best I can come up with is to compare this to the workplace. Employees are not slaves and supervisors and managers are not royalty, but this seems a good application. If given the chance, most entry level employees lack the breadth of knowledge and experience to effectively manage the company. Although they may say or think they can, they really can’t. They are most likely unqualified to lead so a leadership position is inappropriate. That’s what Solomon is saying. Over the years, they might gain the knowledge necessary to fill that position, but not right now.

Another review. “A man’s discretion makes him slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression.” We’ve seen this principle before in Proverbs. “He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick-tempered exalts folly.” (Pro. 14:29) And in Pro. 16:32: “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.” It’s the same thing again, but with a modification I want to spend some time on. Solomon is reminding us of the spiritual gift of self-control. It’s easy to let yourself go and lose control. It’s easy to be angry right up until you realize what a fool you’ve made of yourself. Many of us can quote the Bible passage that tells us, “Be angry, and yet do not sin,” but we rarely quote the rest of the verse that gives us the rationale behind the command. That snippet is found in one of the most comprehensive chapters in Scripture regarding our daily lives. We looked at several verses a couple of weeks ago and it’s found in Ephesians 4. Paul painstakingly walks us through the rationale behind his words. The pinnacle of his reasoning is found in v. 22-24. “In reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” Former manner of life goes with the old self. The old self was being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit. The new self is renewed in the mind. The new self is in the likeness of God. The new self is created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Listen to the reason we’re not supposed to sin when we get angry: “do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.” (Eph. 4:26b-27) If you get angry and you sin, you give the devil an opportunity. Opportunity is also translated place. Give the devil an inch and he’ll take a mile. Entertain one thought and he’ll flood your mind. The opposite of the discrete man is found in Pro. 14:17: “A quick-tempered man acts foolishly, and a man of evil devices is hated.” It is far wiser to be slow to anger. It’s far wiser to consider your words. It’s far wiser to take a breath before speaking. The guy that is slow to anger, “It is to his glory to overlook a transgression.” Overlook here literally means ignore. Before you jump to conclusions, this does not mean that we should forgive and forget – a principle not found in the Bible. Should we forgive? Absolutely. Even if the person isn’t going to change? Absolutely. Even if the person doesn’t ask for it? Absolutely. Maybe you’re thinking that God forgets our sin. Heb. 8:12 says, “For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”         That sounds an awful lot like forgive and forget. Let’s think about this for a second. Can God, who knows all things and sees all things, really forget something? The short answer is no, so what are we talking about?

When you put your faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross to atone for sin, you are positionally justified. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, it is just as if you had never sinned. The reason God forgets is because He looks at us and sees the atonement Christ made. Rom. 8:1 says, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We aren’t condemned for sin. Once you enter into an authentic relationship with Christ, it’s not a matter of heaven and hell. You are positionally safe, but you have to align that with other verses that talk about God’s desire that we put off the old self that fulfilled the desires of the flesh and we put on the new self. God doesn’t want us to sin and that should be our desire. So forgive and forget is not a viable reality. Is it hard to move forward? Paul said it like this: “Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.” (Phil. 3:13) Don’t let Satan hold you hostage to your past. Overlook transgressions doesn’t mean that we throw wisdom out the window. The easiest way to understand this is to illustrate it. If someone has a history of theft, do we forgive him? Absolutely, but we aren’t going to make him the treasurer. If someone demonstrates a lack of discretion on social media, do we forgive them? Of course, but they aren’t going to be an administrator on our Facebook page. I think you get the idea. Forgiving behavior does not mean that appropriate consequences will not be handed down either by the church, the law, or your friends. What I find strange is that people who are suffering as a result of their decisions complain about the consequences from those decisions.

We did some review about money and learned that God doesn’t care how much you have. God’s position on money hasn’t changed and it shouldn’t impress us if people have a lot of money. It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury. It just doesn’t make sense and even if somehow they enter into a luxurious lifestyle, it won’t last long. We saw the importance of self-control. It is one of the bench marks of salvation. We went through the 4^th Chapter of Ephesians. It’s a chapter I encourage you to review from time to time. Forgetting a wrong-doing does not mean no consequences will result. As an authentic believer, you are positionally secure in Jesus Christ. Because of this, you need to walk in a manner worthy of your calling.