The Call To Forgive

The Call to Forgive

Tonight’s message contains thoughts that I’ve had since early in the week.

It is a message for you and a message for me.

It is a message that will speak to you and it speaks to me.

It is a message that will cause us to face feelings that maybe, have been pushed away, or covered over. Maybe for so long that we have forgotten about them until that issue rises up again.

It is a message that will help us to handle these feelings the Bible way and will bring healing to our heart.

Tonight’s message is titled "The Call to Forgive."

Eph 4:31-32

31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

(KJV)

At some point in time you have been hurt.

Some of us here tonight are hurt right now.

And all of us here will be hurt in the future.

So how do we handle the hurt,

how do we deal with the emotions and the feelings?

The answer lies with the act of forgiving.

To forgive someone is to give up resentment, to pardon or to excuse.

It is in forgiveness that the offense is removed, its been excused, its been pardoned.

There is no feelings of revenge or hope that they offending party will receive back what they deserve. You have forgiven them so there is nothing to be vengeful for.

Its not an issue any longer the account is settle because of forgiveness.

1. The fleshes response to offense.

The flesh wants to make the offender suffer as much or more than we have.

We think and even say, "I hope they get what they deserve." "They better watch out they don’t know who they are messing with." "Who do they think they are, I'll show them."

The problem with this is that this attitude is contrary to the nature and the message of the Bible.

Its contrary to the message of Jesus himself.

Matt 18:21-22

21 Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

(KJV)

It is contrary to the example of the early church.

Acts 7:58-60

58 And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.

59 And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

60 And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

(KJV)

Eusebius tells us that in about the year 66 A.D., James the Just, the brother of our Lord, was pushed off the pinnacle of the temple by the Jews who had become angered with him for his Christian testimony. The pinnacle was the point in the wall around the temple that jutted out over the Kidron Valley. There is a drop of about a hundred feet from the height of that wall straight down into the Valley.

Eusebius says that the fall did not kill him, and that he managed to stumble to his knees to pray for his murderers. So they finished the job by stoning him to death, and he joined the band of martyrs.

Forgiveness is to be the attitude that we have towards those who cast stones at us. But what the flesh wants to do is pick up the stones and through them back hoping to deliver a damaging blow.

Or we pick up the stones and tuck them away somewhere and wait for just the right time to throw them back through the air at the offender.

Well that’s what the flesh wants to do and that’s why we respond the way we do sometimes, because its the flesh responding. The flesh being defensive and becoming offensive.

2. That's not how we are to respond, that's not how we are to live.

Gal 5:25

25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

(KJV)

Allow the dynamic nature that is within you to respond

Don’t just say that you are born again, but live the NEW LIFE, let the NEW nature respond.

Don’t just say you are a Christian but be Christ like.

Don’t respond the flesh way, but respond the Bible way.

Live and walk in the Spirit.

That’s Gods way for you, that’s were he wants you to live, that’s what he has for your life.