ViewPoint: An Urgent Choice

Revive sits down with Gregg Simmons, pastor of Church at the Cross in Grapevine, Texas, to discuss the consequences of bitterness and the real heart of forgiveness.

R: Gregg, you've pastored for a number of years. How often does the topic of forgiveness come up?

GS: To tell you the truth, the majority of pastoral counseling that I do, whether regarding individual or marital struggles, relates back to this issue. Bitterness, or the lack of forgiveness,
may be the greatest sin of the 21st-century American church.

R: What does bitterness look like? GS: It manifests itself in different ways. In families, a wife might distance herself emotionally from her husband, resulting in a chain of events that leads to separation or divorce. I've seen it in children distancing themselves from their parents over issues like lack of affection or anger-based discipline.

I see it among church members—people who have different agendas for their church—who find themselves disagreeing with each other and letting it become personal. And, of course, there are those who become bitter against God; that shows up as a lack of passion in worship or a lack of interest in prayer and Bible study. They may go through the motions of being a Christian, but it's mostly out of guilt or duty. They have left their
first love for Him.

R: So when you identify bitterness as a root problem in someone's life, what do you counsel first?

GS: I take them to Ephesians 4:31-32. Verse 31 warns about the consequences of unforgiveness: destructive responses like wrath, anger, slander, and malice. Then verse 32 issues the command to forgive in a Christlike manner.

A major point people often don't understand is that forgiveness is an act of obedience, not an emotion. They'll think to themselves, "When I stop hurting, I will choose to forgive."

God's order of things is the opposite: Make the decision to forgive first; then you are in a position to receive His grace and to experience healing.

R: But how do people overcome that emotional barrier? If they don't feel merciful, isn't it hypocritical to say they've forgiven?

GS: Sometimes I use a simple illustration to answer that. I don't "feel" like paying taxes. Does that make me a hypocritical taxpayer? No, because paying taxes is about obedience to the government, not about my feelings toward it.

I rarely feel like forgiving when I've been hurt or offended, but I have to make the choice to obey God anyway. Forgiveness has nothing to do with my feelings or even the other person's worthiness to receive forgiveness—it has to do with a choice God has commanded me to make.

R: Sure. But when someone looks back at you and says, "Gregg, I can't do it . . ."

GS: Well, that's a common response. "I can't. He or she has hurt me too deeply." To their surprise, I agree with them. You can't forgive.

Then I ask, "Could Christ forgive?" They say yes. "Has Christ forgiven me?" Yes. "Does Christ live in me today?" Yes. I encourage them to dip into the reservoir of God's forgiveness in their own life, and out of His abundance to extend that grace to others.

R: So the power to forgive isn't generated by strong willpower or simply ignoring the hurt. It comes from Christ in us. That makes a lot of sense, but it seems like some people worry that they'll be taken advantage of. What if the other person just keeps doing us wrong?

GS: Peter came to Christ in Matthew 18, complaining that someone had offended him seven times. A teaching of the day was that forgiving a person three times was enough; so Peter may have been looking for a pat on the back, that he would voluntarily take his "forgiveness limit" up to seven.

Jesus shocked them all when he told Peter to forgive, not seven times, but "seventy times seven" times—essentially unlimited forgiveness. He went on to explain through a parable that any refusal to extend forgiveness results in imprisonment (verses 21-35).

R: So how do I treat the individual that keeps causing offenses?

GS: Our souls aren't simply emotional sponges. We have to respond to the hurt somehow. We can reciprocate—pain for pain, hurt for hurt, anger for anger.

Or, as Ephesians 4:32 commands, we can be kind to one another. We can do for others what Christ has done for us.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies rather than hate them. So I have to choose to respond in a constructive way. It's hard to hate someone I'm praying for on a regular basis. In addition to praying for that person, it's important to look for opportunities to demonstrate undeserved kindness to them.

R: If one of our readers is on the fence out there, considering forgiveness but still tempted to just toss this magazine and sweep the issue under the rug for a few more years, what would you say to him or her?

GS: The longer you withhold forgiveness, the more difficult it will be to forgive.

One of the immediate consequences of unforgiveness is that it breaks our personal fellowship with God. In Matthew 6:14-15, Jesus reminds us that our willingness to forgive others is tied to our ability to experience God's forgiveness in our own lives.

Another painful consequence is referenced in Hebrews 12:15. A root of bitterness can defile many. Left unchecked, bitterness spreads into my family relationships, friendships, workplace, and even into the fellowship of my local church.

My choice to not forgive could be defiling people I care about. This is one reason the Lord attaches a sense of urgency to the command to forgive. In Matthew 5:23-24, Jesus reminds us that if we find ourselves in the act of worship (making an offering) and there remember that someone has something against us, we should go immediately to be reconciled.