Let us start here with an observation: When people feel guilty or ashamed, they can become the most ready to judge and accuse others. Feeling vulnerable to accusation themselves, they become defensive and are easily prone to implement a strategy based on the idea that the best defense is a good offense. They snap at others. They tend to raise their voices. And most of all they find fault in others around them. Those who feel accused, rightly or wrongly, can easily become zealous accusers.

In effect, a common part of human depravity is a widening circle going from sin to guilt to more sin to deal with the guilt.

The Gospel directly addresses that human problem. That sin and that temptation to sin results from a desire for justification, and the Gospel declares that in Christ we have that vindication. As a result, we can be freely forgiven for all our sins and can leave them behind us in the past. That fact results in new possibilities in how we behave toward others.

The Gospel breaks the cycle of sin to guilt to sin by eradicating the guilt and removing the temptation.

The Precondition for Generosity
Before I go any further, let me make another observation. People who believe themselves to be wealthy are those most likely to be generous. If you have a great deal of money, it is or should be, easier to give some away.

More than Gratitude
We often hear that God has chosen us and saved us so that we should be grateful. This is true, but it is often treated as the one true key to Christian behaviore and obedience to God.

Believe it or not, gratitude can become a form of bondage to the law. Yes, God has been generous to us. But we need to be careful about being motivated or motivating others by the obligation to be grateful. It can become, unless kept in perspective, a desire to repay God and end up all the more legalistic even as it speaks of God’s grace.

Now, I’m sure that there is some Biblical basis for sometimes relating gratitude to good works. Paul speaks of children making repayment to their parents by taking care of them in their old age. It certainly seems possible to have some similar motivation toward God. But the fact is that while the New Testament is filled with exhortations to live by faith, we see virtually no exhortations to live by gratitude.

We can never pay God back, and a debtor’s ethic could easily foster pride and arrogance. Our primary motivation according to the Gospel has to be faith—confidence in what God has given to us and has promised to give us.

Don’t “Gut It Out”
What this means is that we, as Christians, are never supposed to merely “gut it out.” We don’t tell ourselves that we need to simply endure because of our obligation to be grateful. No, we endure because we hope in what God promises in the Gospel.

Hebrews 11, among other passages, makes this extremely clear. It speaks of what the saints do “by faith” and makes quite clear what that means. Noah didn’t come home to his wife one day and say, “Well honey, I know life has been good. But God has told me we have to build a big boat in the middle of dry land, and become a laughingstock to everyone around us. It will take time and money and destroy my credibility but we should do it because we should be grateful to God for making us and besides, he’s God and it is always wrong to disobey God.”

No, he came home, and said, “Honey, God is going to destroy all flesh on the earth, but he’s granted us forgiveness and a way of escape. He’s given me the plans for a boat so that we can float safely on the water until he brings us to a new world!” Noah didn’t gut it out. Noah trusted God and hoped in what was promised to him.

Likewise, when God called Abram to leave his home. Abram didn’t roll up his sleeves and say, “Well this is awful, but if God tells us to leave our home, we’ve just got to do it no matter what. After all, since God’s done so much for us, this gives us a chance to show we’re thankful. No! Abram left his home because he trusted God to do a lot more for him!—to give him a better home and a better future. When God ordered him to sacrifice his son, his only son, he didn’t do it simply by gutting it out and obeying God at the cost of all his hopes. No, Hebrews 11.19 is quite clear: He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead. Abraham’s hope was based on God promise and that is what motivated his obedience.

Likewise Moses did not side with Israel because he thought God was ordering him to be destitute. He did it because of a confident faith and hope in the Gospel. Hebrews 11.24-26:

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.

And even Jesus himself operated by that same faith. Even Jesus, believe it or not, gave himself because of his trust and hope in the Gospel.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.

Now, if anyone should have been able to simply gut it out, to simply obey because God ordered him to do so or simply out of gratitude for past blessing, it should have been Jesus Christ, the Divine Son of God. But that’s not what the inspired word of God tells us is it! No, he did what he did because he hoped in God and new that the path God had for him to trod would leave him infinitely better off than any other course of action.

The Flow
Let me simply walk through this passage and make sure we all grasp the flow.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

This is not simply about imitation but about giving what you’ve been given. You have it to give because God in Christ has been so generous with you. Remember Paul’s earlier words in Ephesians: “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us.”

We are rich! We have received kindness. We have received and are receiving the tenderhearted care of God. We have been forgiven. Paul only explicitly states the last as being something we have received from God, but it implies all three things. God is kind to us in Christ; God is tenderhearted toward us in Christ; God forgives us in Christ. As a result, we can afford to be kind to one another, tenderhearted to one another, and forgiving to one another.

Now, let’s not lose sight of those other words “kind” and “tenderhearted.” It is all too easy to claim that you forgive other people when in fact you are really apathetic about what those people say or do. If you don’t really care about someone, it is not too difficult to say “no problem” or “don’t worry about it,” when they seek your forgiveness about something they said or did against you.

But the Gospel calls people not to be apathetic. We are to deeply love one another, which means in the case of sinful human beings, become vulnerable to being hurt by one another. What Paul writes to the Ephesians should be true of every Church, “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints” (1.15). In that context, in the context of being genuinely kind and tenderhearted, we are exhorted to forgive.

I said that it is all too easy to ignore what people do to you if you are apathetic. I should also warn that it is very difficult to genuinely forgive people unless you care for them. If we aren’t cultivating kindness and tenderheartedness toward each other, then we are fooling ourselves if we have some sort of confidence that we will forgive them when they do manage to hurt us.

Do you find it hard to reach out beyond your own household toward others? Remember that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were completely satisfied with the love of one another and had no compelling need to reach outside themselves in creation and providence. Much less, did they have any reason to reach out in redeeming sinners. Do you realize the amazing inversion of values that occurred at the cross! The Father gave up his only Son to death for the sake of sinful outsiders, strangers and enemies of his family. One can almost see why someone would think of the Gospel as perverse when they realize what it really means.

But that’s your calling. Eventually, Paul will give directions for domestic relationships–husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves. But here he is talking about the congregation as a whole, the new family of God in which we are brothers and sisters to one another through Christ.

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

The “therefore” refers again to what God has done for us, not simply to remind us that we are obligated to live in gratitude, but also to remind us of what we have. If we are God’s sons, then nothing can touch us and no one can ultimately harm us. Paul says here that we are God’s children and that Christ was given for us. He writes the Romans about those same themes and there he says:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If you really believe that about yourself, as God has declared it to you in the Gospel, then does it make any sense at all to hold a grudge against someone else?

God has given you his son–Christ has offered himself up as a sacrifice for us–who can really take anything important away from us?

God is your faithful guardian who promises to avenge every wrong, how can we possibly hold grudges if we trust that promise?

God is the one who sent his son to die for the sins of your brothers and sisters. How can you possibly demand anything more for their sins against you?

Conclusion
We can forgive others because we have been forgiven. We don’t need to prove ourselves better because God has declared us better than we ever could have imagined. We can be generous and care for others because God is generous with us and has made us heirs of all things.

If you have problems forgiving others, what you need is not simply a reminder of your duty to obey God, though that is a factor. You need to also remember that you can afford to forgive others and that God given you the resources to do so. You need to remember what is promised to you both now and at the resurrection in glory.

Believe the Gospel; forgive others as you have been forgiven.