Is Repentance a Condition for Forgiveness, or Should We Forgive Unconditionally? (Luke 17:3-4)

Luke 17:3-4 ties forgiveness to repentance: "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him...and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” So, is repentance a condition for forgiveness, or should we forgive unconditionally? Unfortunately, scholars don’t agree. There are two groups: One group says forgive unconditionally whether people repent or not. This is known as unconditional forgiveness. Another group says forgive if people repent. This is known as conditional forgiveness. I am in this camp. https://youtu.be/6SRLoujqDQA Is repentance a condition for forgiveness, or should we forgive people unconditionally? Luke 17:3-4 says, "If he repents, forgive him." Table of contentsRebuke sin to help produce repentanceAssociate forgiveness with a reconciled relationshipForgiveness doesn’t always mean the same relationshipWe should not forgive unconditionally before the person repentsAssociate unforgiveness with an unreconciled relationship versus mistreatmentIf we forgive unconditionally it can hinder repentance Luke 17:3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and IF HE REPENTS, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I REPENT,’ YOU MUST FORGIVE HIM.” Twice we are told to forgive our brother IF HE REPENTS. This begs the question: What if he doesn’t repent? In other words, is repentance a condition for forgiveness or should we forgive unconditionally? I have been asked this question and I have wondered about it myself, so I was glad to have a week to work on this sermon and try to figure out the answer. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before we answer this important question, we need to back up and get some momentum into it…and this brings us to lesson one… Rebuke sin to help produce repentance Repentance is one of the themes of verses three and four occurring two times. We are told to rebuke sin to help produce repentance. This is the desired outcome. Because we want to see people repent, we should persuade versus condemn. Let me explain the difference between the two… We shouldn’t condemn people by saying: I can’t imagine God ever forgiving you. If God forgave someone like you it would make Him a bad God. You are the worst person in the world. I have never met anyone as sinful as you in my life. This is what it means to condemn people. Instead, we want to rebuke people in a way that persuades them to repent. We do this with God’s Word, because it revels the truth about sin. Here are the five steps I recommend when rebuking sin, and I put them on your bulletin. Please look with me: First, find verses addressing the sin. Second, share the verses with the person. If possible, ask the person to read the verses aloud. Third, ask the person to explain the verses: “What do you think these verses mean? What are they forbidding?” Fourth, ask the person if they disobeyed the verses: “Have you done anything these verses forbid?” Fifth, ask the person the proper response to disobeying God’s Word. Hopefully they will say repent, but if not, then you might have to give them that answer and tell them what it means to repent. Persuading people to repent is little more than persuading them to see their sin the way God sees it. Not that I have everything figured out or always pray the way I should, but if you have heard me pray for people under church discipline, I typically pray something like, “Help them see their sin the way You see it.” Also, notice it says… If your brother sins, rebuke him, and IF HE REPENTS. The verse communicates that it is not a guarantee that people will repent. This might seem discouraging, but it should be encouraging. God is letting you know you could do everything right and people still might not repent. It is not your fault. One more important point regarding people repenting… It is almost always a bad idea to say the words: “It’s okay.” Let’s say someone sins against you. God works in the person’s heart to convict them about what they did. They haven’t repented yet, but they are close. They come to you to apologize for what they did, and you are so blessed by their humility you say, “It’s okay.” But if they sinned, it is not okay. In fact, if God was convicting them that they sinned, but you tell them it’s okay, you are telling them the opposite of what God is telling them. You could be working against their repentance and undermining what God is doing in their heart. We say, “It’s okay,” because we want to encourage people, and it is especially attractive to do so when they are humble and apologetic. Here’s the good news… We can still be encouraging…while supporting what God is doing in their life. We can say: That was humble of you. Thank you for apologizing. I remember when I sinned against someone, and I had to go apologize too. Your example encourages me. I’m challenged to search my own heart and see what I need to repent of. Just as the word repents is one of the themes in verses three and four, the other theme is forgiveness… Luke 17:3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, FORGIVE HIM, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ YOU MUST FORGIVE HIM.” We are told that if people repent, we must forgive [them]…and this brings us to lesson two… Associate forgiveness with a reconciled relationship Forgiveness is about reconciling with people who have sinned against us. It is a commitment to graciously pardon the person who sinned and not hold the sin against them. We are choosing to reconcile instead. Now listen to these verses that tell us our forgiveness should resemble God’s forgiveness: Matthew 6:12 Forgive us our debts, AS WE ALSO HAVE FORGIVEN OUR DEBTORS. We expect God to forgive us like we forgive others. Ephesians 4:32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, AS GOD IN CHRIST FORGAVE YOU. Colossians 3:13 Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; AS THE LORD HAS FORGIVEN YOU, SO YOU ALSO MUST FORGIVE. We are commanded to forgive others like God forgives us. So, we should think about how God forgives us when forgiving others. With that in mind, sometimes you hear people associate forgiving with forgetting: “Forgiving means forgetting.” I know forgiving would be much easier if we could simply choose to forget what people have done…but we can’t do that. And God doesn’t do this either when He forgives us. You might remember a sermon I preached on July 31st titled, “I Will Remember Their Sins No More.” God doesn’t forget our sins, but He chooses not to remember them. We can’t do this perfectly like God, but we can choose to try not to dwell on people’s sins against us. Now let me ask you a question and tell you ahead of time there is a right and wrong answer. I just want to say that to warn anyone who might blurt out the wrong answer! Is forgiveness primarily about feelings or actions toward people? Actions! We can’t control how we feel toward people, but we can control how we act toward them. If forgiveness was about how we feel toward people, we wouldn’t be able to choose to forgive, because we can’t control how we feel. But we can choose to forgive people because we can control how we act. Because we can’t choose to forget what people have done, we might not have the best feelings toward them when we forgive and reconcile. When we forgive people, it doesn’t mean the negative feelings go away. We still frequently have to resist the temptation to be angry, bitter, or retaliate. But we can still forgive them, because we can choose to treat them well. Here’s why I stress this… When we have forgiven people, it is tempting to think we haven’t if we still struggle with certain feelings. We might think, “I want to believe I have forgiven this person, but I am still hurt. I feel angry at times. I am tempted to retaliate. I have to resist becoming bitter. I must not have forgiven the person.” That’s not necessarily true. If someone said to me, “I want to believe I have forgiven this person, but I don’t like the way I feel toward them at times, how do I know I have forgiven them?” I would ask, “How have you treated the person? Have you been unkind and mistreated them? Then it seems like you have not forgiven them. Or have you resisted hostile feelings and acted in a kind and reconciled way? Then it seems like you have forgiven them…regardless of how you are feeling.” The good news about reconciling with people whom we don’t have the best feelings toward, is that our feelings typically follow our actions. We can’t control our feelings…directly. But we can control them indirectly. If we choose to be kind to people who have sinned against us, we typically find our feelings toward them following our actions. We find our feelings changing from hostility to affection. Now there are some important qualifications regarding a reconciled relationship, which we need to discuss, and this brings us to lesson three… Forgiveness doesn’t always mean the same relationship We can forgive people, be reconciled, and be kind…but the relationship doesn’t have to be the same as it was before: Forgiveness does not always mean a relationship is identical to the previous relationship. Forgiveness does not always mean all consequences are eliminated. And this is another similarity with God’s forgiveness… God forgives us, but there can still be consequences. Many Christians are forgiven but live with the consequences of sins they committed. Let me give you two examples of what this could look like…