Life of Paul Part 6 - The Beauty of Forgiveness

How about taking a Bible, let's open it together, to the book of Acts in the New Testament, Acts chapter 9, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, fifth book in the New Testament, Acts chapter 9, as we continue in our study of the life of the great man, the Apostle Paul. Now maybe you read in the paper this week that they caught the guy responsible for that famous road rage incident that they had out in California last year, and if you didn't hear about it, here's what happened. There was a lady from Nevada who was on her way to the San Jose airport. She was traveling with her little white dog, a little white bichon, 18 pound bichon in the front seat with her, and she was on the airport road going to the San Jose airport. Traffic was terrible, and all of a sudden by accident, of course, she runs into this guy in front of her in a brand new black shiny SUV. Well, the guy leaps out of his car, just runs back to her car, he's furious that she damaged his car, he starts yelling at her and screaming at her, and so in an attempt to calm him down, she put down the passenger window of her car and started to try to reason with him, and he was so mad and so furious that he reached inside the car and grabbed the little 18 pound dog and lobbed the dog over top of her car into oncoming traffic. The dog was hit four or five times and killed, and they've been looking for the guy for a year, they finally caught up with him. Now what lesson do we learn from this incident?

You say, well Lon, the lesson I learn is never let your dog ride in the front seat. Well, no, that's not the lesson. The lesson is that the desire for revenge, the desire to hurt people back when they've hurt us, runs very deep in the human spirit. And we're going to be talking about that today as we look at an incident from the life of the apostle Paul. We're going to talk about it first as it applied to him, and then of course we're going to talk about how it applies to you and me as followers of Christ here in the 21st century.

So let's look together, a little bit of background before we dig in. Remember that the apostle Paul has come in to know Jesus in a real and personal way. He then has spent three years out in the desert of Arabia seeking the face of God, and now he returns to Damascus as a fearless spokesman for Jesus Christ.

That's where we pick up chapter 9 verse 22. And Paul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Messiah. Now let's just stop for a moment and ask, how is it that he proved this in such a way that it was so convincing that he baffled all these Jewish people and they couldn't argue with him? Well, the word translated prove here gives us the clue as to how he did this.

The word literally means to place alongside. And what happened here is that the way Paul proved the Messiahship of Jesus is that he placed the Old Testament Scriptures alongside the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. And when people compared the two, they could see how Jesus fulfilled every single prediction prophecy of the Messiah in the Old Testament. That's how we proved it, comparing the life of Jesus to the Old Testament Scriptures, putting them alongside each other so you could see how Jesus had to be the predicted Messiah of the Old Testament. Well, verse 23, and after many days, the Jews conspired to kill him.

Day after night, they kept close watch on the city gates in order to do that. But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket to an opening in the city wall. And now Paul heads back to Jerusalem for the very first time in three years. But let's not forget how he left Jerusalem three years earlier. Acts chapter nine, verse one, and Paul was breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples when he had been in Jerusalem three years before. Acts chapter eight, verse three, and Paul began to destroy the church in Jerusalem, going from house to house. He dragged off men and women and put them in prison.

That's what he did three years before. Acts chapter 26, verse 10, Paul's own words. I put many of the followers of Christ in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them, Paul said. Many a time, I went from one synagogue in Jerusalem to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blasphemy. This is the Paul who left Jerusalem three years before, leaving in his wake a ton of suffering, abuse, brutalization, torture, and murder. And so here he comes back to town.

Let's see what happens. Verse 26, Acts chapter nine. And when he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was really a disciple. Now, when he came to Jerusalem, he wanted to meet up with all the apostles. He wanted to meet up with John and James and Peter. Friends, they didn't want anything to do with him. He wanted to meet up with the Christian community there in town. They didn't want anything to do with him, and they thought he was a wolf in sheep's clothing, and they wanted no parts of him at all. Verse 27, but Barnabas.

Don't you love that? But Barnabas. Ah, but Barnabas. What did Barnabas do? Barnabas took Paul and brought him to the apostles and told them how Paul on his journey had seen the Lord, and how the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. You know, Barnabas was a wonderful guy. Into the plot steps this wonderful soul named Barnabas. Now, what do we know about this man Barnabas? Well, we're going to talk a lot more about him later, but what we know about Barnabas is that his real name was not Barnabas. His real name was Joseph. He was a Jewish man.

He came from Cyprus, an island off the coast, and he had come. He had become a follower of Christ. He had come to Jerusalem to identify with the Jewish community, the Christian community there in Jerusalem, and as the apostles got to know him, they nicknamed him this name Barnabas. Now, what does Barnabas mean? Well, Barnabas means literally in Aramaic the son of encouragement, and the reason they nicknamed him this is because this was the temperament of the man.

This was the nature of the man. Barnabas was a natural born encourager. Barnabas was like a big old shaggy dog who just wanted to lick everybody all over and just lick everybody up.

He was just one of those kind of people. Barnabas was the guy where if you messed up, he'd be the first person over there to put his arm around you, where if you let people down, he'd be the guy who'd be over there to stand up for you, where if you hurt people, he'd be the first guy to forgive you, and friends, if you had ravaged the early church in Jerusalem and if you now came back to town claiming to be a follower of Christ, Barnabas was the guy who would be the first one there to believe in you and to reach out to you, and that's what he did. So Barnabas, he escorts Paul to meet Peter and James and John. He vouches for Paul in front of them all, and do you realize the risk that he took here? I mean, what if Paul really were a wolf in sheep's clothing?

What if all this was a setup? Hey, you know, he took a risk, but thank God for Barnabas. Just think how much different the history of the Christian world would have been if nobody had reached out to Paul, if Paul had left Jerusalem feeling disillusioned and upset and angry and alienated from the Christian community there.

Just think how different the history of the world could have been. Thank God for Barnabas. Well, what happens next? Verse 28, so Paul stayed with the Christians there in Jerusalem. They embraced him, and he moved about freely speaking boldly in the name of the Lord, and he talked and debated with the Grecian Jews, the Hellenistic Jews. These were the same people who Stephen had been speaking to, and these were the same guys who stoned Stephen to death.

Check it out, Acts 6 and 7. And so Paul went right back to these people. Don't forget, he was there when that happened. He was watching as they stoned Stephen to death.

He goes right back to them, and he says, hey, fellas, guess what? Stephen was right all the time. He was right. You need to believe this. You think they were excited about Paul coming back?

No, no, no. Look what it says here. And they tried to kill him. And these people were nobody to be trifled with.

I mean, these people like playing with cobras. I mean, they killed Stephen. They would kill Paul. They hated Paul worse than they hated Stephen. Because in their mind, Paul was a rabbi who became a traitor. And so the brothers, verse 30, when the brothers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. And then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. Well, I guess so, because the one man wrecking machine is not around anymore. Yeah, of course.

And the church was strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit and in grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord. Now we're going to pick up and continue on in the life of the Apostle Paul in the weeks to come. But we want to stop right now because we have a very important question that we need to ask. And everybody here, you all know the question, right? Yeah? Yeah? Okay.

Ready? Deep breath. Here we go.

One, two, three. Right. Say, Lon, so what? Barnabas, a wonderful guy. I love him.

I wish I had 50 of him as friends. But what difference does any of this make from my life here in the 21st century? Well, let's see if we can answer that question. How many of us here, I want you to raise your hand. How many of us here have taken those dreaded SAT tests at some point in your life?

Raise your hand. All right. Are those things annoying or what?

They're terrible. Although I got to tell you, I actually did pretty well on the very last one I took. I got a 1440, which I'd like to point out to you is higher than any of my sons has ever gotten. And I'm very proud of that. Now, they always say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it was easier back then. And I say, no, it wasn't any easier back then. I'm just smarter than you guys are.

So maybe one of them will top me, but I don't think so. Anyway, you know, the most annoying part of this whole annoying test are those stupid things called the analogies. You remember those things? Are those things miserable? This is to this like this is to what?

You remember those things? And the problem is all four answered either. They either all four look right or they all four look wrong.

I could never figure those things out. So I just guessed. I just figured, oh, well, I got a 25 percent chance. Let's take a shot at it and see how we do here.

And obviously, on the last test, I must have figured out something right because I did OK on that one. Now, in order for us to understand the feelings about Paul in the city of Jerusalem when he came back, I want us to do one of these analogies because I don't know a better way to explain it than this. So here's the analogy. Paul was to the Christians in Jerusalem like Hitler was to the Jews in Europe.

You say, Lon, that is an awful strong analogy. Well, friends, there were some awful strong feelings about the apostle Paul back in Jerusalem. Think about remember what this guy had done. This guy had carried on a program of wholesale genocide against the followers of Christ that lived in the city. He arrested them. He imprisoned them. He tortured them.

He abused them. He brutalized them. And, friends, he killed them. He killed them without pity. He killed them without compassion.

He killed them without remorse. And he thought he was doing God a service when he killed these people. Thanks to Paul, when he came back to Jerusalem three years after he left, there were scores of disabled Christians there in Jerusalem all because of Paul's activities. There were scores of Christian widows in town all because of Paul's activities. There were scores of Christian orphans in town all because of Paul's activities. There were some very strong feelings about this man in town.

And so he comes back, but here's the point that I want you to see. In spite of the hurt that Paul had caused in that town, these followers of Christ who lived there found it in their hearts to forgive him. They found it in their hearts not just to forgive him but to embrace him and make him part of the community, so much so that when his life was threatened, look, verse 30 says, the brothers got him out of town.

They looked on him as being their brother. Now, folks, this is a beautiful thing that happened in Jerusalem. Forgiveness is a beautiful thing because there is no greater torture in the world than the torture of unresolved relationships. There is no prison more debilitating anywhere in the world than the one whose bars are made up of bitterness and hatred and revenge and rage at other people.

I love what one doctor said, and I quote. He said, an unforgiving spirit is a far greater threat to our overall health and well-being than all the viruses, bacteria, and carcinogenic agents in the world combined, end of quote. And he's right. And this is why God calls us in the Bible as followers of Christ to a lifestyle that is characterized by forgiveness. Look, Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other even as in Christ God forgave you. Now, you know, in an audience this size, I would be very surprised if there were a single person in this audience who has never spent time in this prison we talked about whose bars are rage and bitterness and anger at people for what they've done to us.

In fact, you know, there are probably some people who are still in that prison today as you sit here. Prisoners of an unforgiving spirit, a bitter spirit towards a dad or a mom for what they did to you, towards a wife, an ex-wife or an ex-husband, towards an ex-boyfriend or an ex-girlfriend or a student at school or some coworker at the office or a relative or a neighbor. And my friend, I'm here to tell you that God wants to set you free. God wants to liberate you.

And the weight of freedom is by the road of forgiveness. And he said, well, Lon, I understand what you're saying, but I have two questions. My questions are, number one, why should I?

Why should I? And number two, how can I? I mean, where does the motivation come from, first of all, and where does the power come from to do this? And I'd like to answer those two questions as we close. Let's look at the first one. Where does the motivation come from for us to forgive other people?

You say, yeah, Lon, where? I mean, why should I forgive them? After what they did to me, after what they did to my family, they don't deserve to be forgiven.

Friends, could I say something to you? You are absolutely right. They do not deserve to be forgiven.

I agree with you. Do you think the apostle Paul deserved to be forgiven after what he had done in Jerusalem to all the followers of Christ there? Of course not. Can I point out to you when Jesus forgave you the day you came to Christ? Did you deserve to be forgiven? No. All the times that the Lord's forgiven you since then. Did you deserve to be forgiven?

No. And you need motivation. I need motivation to forgive. Hey, I've got some wonderful motivation if you know Christ in a personal way. Look what the Bible says. Ephesians 4 32. Forgive, even as in Christ, God forgave you.

Colossians chapter 3 verse 13. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. The Lord forgave us even though we didn't deserve to be forgiven. God says that's the way I want you to forgive. You need motivation to forgive. I've got some wonderful motivation for us. That motivation is the cross. The cross.

What Jesus did for you and me on the cross. Many of you know Corrie Ten Boom. But just in case you don't, let me just review a little bit about her life for you. Corrie Ten Boom was a young lady that grew up in Holland with her mom, her dad, and her younger sister, Betsy. They were not Jewish people, but in the beginning of World War II, they hid Jewish people from the Nazis until eventually they were caught. All four of them were shipped off to concentration camp. Her mom and her dad were sent to one camp. She and her sister were sent to another camp. Her mom died in concentration camp. Her dad died in the camps. Her younger sister, Betsy, died in the camps.

Corrie was the only one to survive. And while she was in the concentration camp, she writes about this one guard who was just unbelievably brutal to her and her sister. Unmerciful in his treatment of her and her sister.

Just beyond description, the cruelty that he practiced towards the two of them, he singled them out and in particular was mean to them. Well, Miss Ten Boom then goes on to say years later, many years after the war, she was in Germany at a church. She had spoken at a church.

And at the end of the service, she was standing down in the front just talking to people. And she looked up the aisle, the middle aisle of this church, and coming slowly towards her was this elderly man. And she said his face looked strangely familiar, but she didn't recognize him until he got up close. And suddenly she realized this was the prison guard that had been so incredibly cruel to her and her sister. She said as she stood there and watched him come towards her, all the feelings of pain and agony that he had caused came back and fear.

She said she began to be gripped by fear of this man again. And the man walked right down to the front of the church, according to Miss Ten Boom, and stood right in front of her. And he looked her in the face and he said to her, Miss Ten Boom, I've come here to ask you to forgive me for what I did to you and your sister in the camps. Quoting Corrie Ten Boom now, she said, here he stood before me, seeking my mercy and forgiveness just as I had stood before Jesus Christ one day, begging him for his mercy and forgiveness. As I looked at this man, I thought, in light of what God has done for me, what else can I do but forgive him?

End of quote. And she reached out with her arms and he reached out and they hugged each other in the front of this church. And she said, we stood there and we both wept uncontrollably, just wept on one another's shoulders. I wish I'd have been there to see that scene, the scene of healing that God brought to these two people. Folks, God wants to bring that kind of healing to your life. And will the person that you forgive, will they be deserving? Of course not. Was what they did to you OK?

No, it wasn't OK. But you see, what what we have to understand is that Jesus forgave us, even though we didn't deserve it. And we have the capacity, not just the capacity, we have the command from God to do the same. Why should you forgive? Because Jesus forgave you. You say, well, I understand that, but you know what?

That's wonderful preaching. But the truth is, I'm not sure I can. The truth is, I don't know if I can get there. The truth is they hurt me so badly. The truth is they wounded me so deeply. I don't know if I can do this.

Last night, I had a guy come up to me after the Saturday night service and he was in tears. And I said, what's wrong? And he said, I wanted to tell you that I have tried and tried and tried to forgive my ex-wife for what she did to me. And I can't. And I said to him, you know, you have just put your finger on the key issue.

You put your finger right on the problem. The problem is you've been trying and trying and trying in your own energy and in your own strength to do this. And you can't because the wounds too deep. You can't get to it. You can't fix it.

I said, the way this has to go if you're going to have success is you've got to go to God and admit that you can't forgive your ex-wife. And instead of trying, you've got to stop trying in your own energy. And instead, you've got to start trusting God to reach down in there where only he can get to. No doctor can get to it. No therapist can get to it. No drug can get to it.

You can't even get to it. Only God. You've got to trust God to get down in there and do a healing work in your spirit and give you the power to forgive. Where does the power to forgive come from, number two?

Hey, friends, it comes supernaturally from God himself. I love this verse of scripture, Second Chronicles, chapter 20, verse 12. Here's what Jehoshaphat prayed. He said, Oh, God, we have no power to face the enemy attacking us. We don't even know what to do. We're helpless, but our eyes are upon thee. And friends, when it comes to people who've hurt us deeply, this needs to be our prayer. Lord, I don't have the power to forgive this person.

I don't even know how to go at it. But, Lord, my eyes are on you. Reach down inside of me where nobody else can get to and heal me so I can forgive. They said, Well, Lon, how does this work? I mean, what's the dynamic here? How does God do this inside of us?

Folks, I don't know. I don't know exactly how it works, but that doesn't mean it isn't real. I mean, I don't know how penicillin works, but I know if I take it long enough, my sore throat goes away. And frankly, I don't care how penicillin works as long as it does the job. And I don't really care how God does this inside of us as long as He gets the job done. But I'm here to tell you I've been down this road and I can certify to you if you'll approach God like this, God will heal that hurt and give you the power to forgive.

If you're here and you've never trusted Jesus in a real and personal way, may I stop for a moment and say to you that, friends, this is important information for you to have because what this means is when you come into a personal relationship with Christ, you don't just get forgiveness of sin. You don't just get a ticket to heaven, but you get access to power that you've never experienced in your life before, power that can allow you to rise above the limitations of your human capacities and live on a level above where you can take yourself with all of your trying, with all of your effort. You'll never get there. There's power available in a relationship with Jesus Christ. And if you need that power, and we all do, you will never get it through the power of positive thinking. You'll never get it through pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but you can have access to it when you come in a personal relationship with Jesus. Hope you'll think about that.

Like I said earlier, I've seen this work. You know, many of you know I did my doctoral work up at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and for four years I slept up there three days a week on the train, in the car, and I had a full-time job. I just wasn't a student.

I had a family to support. But in addition to my job, I slept up there three days a week and went to class for four years doing doctoral work, passed all my comprehensive exams, and then went to work on my dissertation, and it was 1980, and McLean Bible Church invited me to come here and be the pastor. So I applied for non-resident status. This is something you do, you know, when you've only got your dissertation left to go and you can move out of the area and work on your dissertation. So I got five years of non-resident status, and I came here to McLean. Every Thursday I'd go down to Catholic University to the library, and I'd spend the whole day Thursday working on my dissertation. Well, in five years I had 100 pages done. I wasn't finished yet, but it was pretty good.

I thought it was pretty good anyway. And I went up to see my professor, my advisor, to ask him to extend my non-residency status. Now, if you've ever done this, you know extending a non-residency status is cookie cutter. I mean, nobody thinks about that.

It's done all the time. It's not a big deal. So I expected him to say, sure, sure, fine, not a problem. I had my dissertation in front of me, the 100 pages.

We were sitting there. He walked in the room, and he said, Mr. Solomon. I said, yes, sir.

His name was Dr. Hillers. I said, yes, sir, Dr. Hillers. He said, I know you've come up here to apply to have your non-residency extended. I said, yes, sir. He said, well, I've decided not to do that.

I said, what? He said, I've decided not to do that. I was flabbergasted.

Couldn't believe it. I was like, what do you mean you decided not to do it? He said, well, Mr. Solomon, I have come to the conclusion that you are not doctoral level material. I said, oh, really? He said, yes. So he said, I'm not extending your non-residency status.

He said, it's over. I said, well, Dr. Hillers, it sure would have been nice if you'd have told me that four or five years ago that you didn't think I was doctoral level material before I spent all the time coming up here. And oh, by the way, I passed all the comprehensive exams, and I got 100 pages of my dissertation done, and you've never said a word about this.

I mean, how could I get all that done and not be doctoral level material? He said, Mr. Solomon, I do not have to explain my decision to you. I said, okay. I said, can I appeal this?

Is there some way I can appeal it? He said, yes, you can. I said, well, who would I appeal to? He said, you'd appeal to the faculty committee of the College of Arts and Sciences. I said, okay, I'm going to do it. And I said, and if I win, what happens then? He said, they send it back to the chairman of the department here for action.

I said, well, who's the chairman of the department? He said, I am. I said, no, really. He said, yeah. Ooh, that was bad news at that moment. So I said, so what you're really saying to me is it's over. He said, I already said that to you.

It's over. Well, I had some feelings about this guy after that. I mean, they weren't good feelings.

A furious would be a mild word. And I knew that was wrong. And I would pray about this. And I would go, oh, God, I know it's not right to feel this way about this man. I know I need to forgive him. But I tell you, I would read the man's name in the paper or I'd read it on a scholarly article.

I'd need Tums. You understand what I'm saying? It was bad. And I tried and tried and tried to forgive this guy. And I just, every time I tried, I could not do it. And finally, I had to go to the Lord and say, Lord, I can't do this. I just can't do it. You're going to have to give me the capacity to forgive this man.

And how you do it, I don't know. But you're going to have to give me the power to do this. Now, friends, it didn't happen in the first 24 hours I prayed this or the first 48 hours. But I can tell you today, if I met Dr. Hiller somewhere, I could shake the man's hand. I could smile at him. I could have a conversation with him.

I would not need Tums to do it. And it wasn't OK what he did to me then. But it's OK now. God has healed it. It's OK now. I've forgiven him. It's ancient history. And I'm not telling you that it's OK what people did to you back then that caused that hurt. It isn't. And I'm not saying they deserve to be forgiven. We already covered that ground.

They don't. But what I'm saying to you is those things don't really matter. You can forgive anyway. And God will give you the power to forgive anyway if you'll ask Him. God wants to set you free. So if there's a prison guard or two in your life, if there's a Dr. Hiller's or two in your life, the good news is you don't have to be a prisoner of bitterness, anger, malice, and rage over what they did to you. You can be free. So that as Paul said, Romans chapter 12, we can be at peace with all men. God will set you free if you want.

But you can't try. You've got to trust Him to do inside of you something you can't do for yourself. Let's pray together. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I want to give you just a moment. If you need to talk to God about beginning the process of forgiveness for some prison guard in your life, for some Dr. Hiller's in your life, the process of trusting Him to heal you on the inside by His power, why don't you tell God that right now? Lord Jesus, you know that in a world like ours, people get hurt. Every one of us here has been hurt. And some of us have been hurt in small ways where in our own energy and strength we can just put it behind us and go on.

But some of us have been hurt so deeply that that's not working for us. Lord, thanks for reminding us today that if you could give power to those early followers of Christ in Jerusalem to forgive Paul, you can give power to us to forgive anybody. So Lord, grant that we might come to you today and begin that process of letting You heal us up, making it okay now so that we can forgive and walk out of prison and become free. God, do this work in our hearts, I pray, by Your supernatural power and set us free, I pray, that we might serve You with all of our heart. And we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.