Forgiveness Is an Act of War
Last week I was talking to a wife in our church who was really frustrated with her husband. She told me that he had repeatedly communicated poorly that week. He’d also been careless with responsibilities around the house in ways that made her already long and difficult days with small kids even harder. Then, when she tried to talk to him about the issues, he didn’t listen well, and so misinterpreted her, assuming that she was mad when she wasn’t (not yet anyway) and defending himself with excuses. Then, when he realized he had misread her tone and demeanor, and taken it too personally, he withdrew and sank into self-pity (instead of just confessing, taking responsibility, and owning some next steps). What made it all worse for her was that the sins were so familiar, sins she’d received and forgiven a hundred times before.
Well, by God’s grace, the husband humbled himself and asked for forgiveness again. And, by God’s grace, this wife was ready and glad to forgive him again.
She was ready and glad to forgive me. I was that husband.
And the fresh, sincere grace Faye showed me in those moments reminded me of a verse in 2 Corinthians 2:11, the apostle Paul warns us not to “be outwitted by Satan” or “ignorant of his designs.” Satan is a liar — and he’s a good liar. And he’s studying each of you and your weaknesses, looking for places and moments where you’re especially vulnerable. He wants to get you to sin, because he hates you and wants to ruin you. So don’t be fooled by him, Paul warns us.
What may surprise us here in 2 Corinthians 2, though, is what actually keeps us from being outwitted by Satan. Do you want to guard yourself against the lies of the devil? Listen carefully to what Paul writes,
“What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.”
Paul was specifically talking about forgiveness. Do you want to know what Satan’s schemes are?
He wants you to hold a grudge. He wants you to stay bitter. He wants you to believe that vengeance is yours — and not God’s. Forgiveness outwits Satan, and forgiveness subverts his wickedness. Forgiveness, then, is an act of spiritual warfare.
And any act of warfare will be hard. In fact, forgiveness may be the hardest thing some of us ever have to do. And because it can be so hard, God gives us a great big reason to forgive, a reason so big that it eclipses all of our hesitations and excuses when it comes to forgiveness. We forgive because he first forgave us:
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).
We forgive because God crushed his own Son for our forgiveness. Knowing who Satan was and what he wants and how he works, God chose to fight him with a broken body and spilled blood. God chose to forgive.
And Satan hates what God did that day (and what we do whenever we forgive). He’s an accuser, hurling our sins against us, and so forgiveness offends everything he stands for. It defies his life’s work. To him, forgiveness is hostility. That means to withhold forgiveness is to play right into his hands, to fall for his terrible plan, to join his side of the war.
So, my exhortation for us this morning, Cities Church, is that we not be outwitted by Satan, but forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven us.