Friendship and Forgiveness

Friends are nice, forgiveness is better. I have truck-fulls of sinning experience. I have gotten angry at God and called him names; I have made up fantasies in my mind about people where they did or said mean things about me and I wanted them dead—all made in the factory of my imagination; I have specifically provoked people by doing things in front of them that I know is hurtful to them—not too dissimilar to a 3-year-old testing his parents words ‘no’; I have neglected to do things that I know, because God commands them, I should do . . . but openly decide they are dumb; I have put my hope in basketball and football; I sometimes worship food; I cuss; I drink alcohol; I smoke; I am arrogant and think I am better than you and lots of times feel like if I was the only person on the planet left, God just did a good thing.

I love my friends, and I’d do most anything for them, but forgiveness is better. When someone hurts me and sins against me I can forgive them; when I sin against them and hurt them, they, if they chose, can forgive me. What about God’s forgiveness towards sinful people such as my self-exposed . . . self? But forgiveness is not around to keep the world a better place. Forgiveness is around because we are and God is. Do you know that fundamentally when we sin against one another we are sinning against God? This is why friendliness—people-to-people--is different from forgiveness—God-to-people. How is it that when I wish my friend would die and that I could have his car I am sinning against God? Because every human is made in God’s very image, so when we transgress against one another we are declaring something about God: he is not worth respecting and loving. Look at David in the bible, the one who killed Goliath. He slept with another man’s wife, got her pregnant and then set-up and commanded the murder of her husband who was faithful to serving David as king and, as far as we know, faithful to his wife. Clearly the sin is against the man whom he killed, correct? Then why would David, from Psalm 51, in his confession of sin and repentance to God say, ‘against you, and you alone have I sinned?’ Friend, it is not that you just thought poorly of your friend or neighbor or the guy who just cut in front of you at Chick-fil-a, you have thought poorly of God in doing so. Our God-damning sins need God-pleading forgiveness. That is why God in Jesus Christ was damned, he willing claimed our sin and punishment as his own and was killed and separated from God his Father. Jesus, as the apostle Paul says, ‘became sin for us.’

I’ll still sin, probably before the sun goes down today I’ll have my own personal collection of new ones. Sure, I will forgive me friends, but there is nothing that can compare to forgiveness from God. The sins I have and will commit all are forgotten by God, for those who believe that Christ died for their sins. Rest assured, you will not be able to bear the weight of life until you have begged forgiveness from God, whom you have in all things transgressed against. God will never be forever lost by those who earnestly seek him.