Hello friends and welcome back to Take Heart, a pastoral podcast here on the Eschatology Matters Network, where we open the scriptures and learn to live faithfully, thoughtfully, and compassionately before the Lord. I'm your host, Corey Wing. Last time we talked about loving your enemies and how that doesn't mean compromising truth but rather embodying bold truth and grace as followers of Christ. Today we're going to take the next step because if loving your enemies is the posture then forgiveness is the action. And I want to talk to you about just how powerful and how freeing biblical forgiveness really is. Let's begin with a simple observation. Most people today talk about forgiveness as something that's optional, like a friendly suggestion. But in scripture forgiveness is not optional, it's commanded. In Colossians 3 verse 13 Paul writes quote, 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. Not should consider not when you feel ready but must forgive. Now immediately we feel the weight of that don't we? Because, well, forgiveness can be incredibly difficult, especially if and when the wound is deep. Betrayal, slander, neglect, abuse, broken trust, or maybe worse. Some of you carry very real pain and the Bible does not pretend those wounds are small or not real at all. But it doesn't insist that forgiveness is a necessity. Why? Well, because unforgiveness doesn't just hold the other person captive in your mind, it also holds you captive. Let's go to the words of Jesus in Matthew 6 verses 14 and 15 where our Lord says quote, if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. In quote, my friends, those are sobering words. Jesus is not saying that we earn God's forgiveness by forgiving others. No, but what he is saying is that a heart that refuses to forgive reveals something that is deeply wrong. A heart that, well, hasn't fully grasped the mercy that you yourself have received. Look, here's the foundation of all Christian forgiveness. We forgive because we have been forgiven. Ephesians 432 puts it this way and it's quite beautiful actually quote, be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another just as God in Christ Jesus forgave you. In quote, that phrase as God in Christ Jesus forgave you, well, that's everything. How has God forgiven you? Well, fully, freely, repeatedly, and of course, at great cost to himself. God did not forgive you because you deserved it. He forgave you because of his matchless grace. And that should change how we think about forgiving others. But before I get ahead of myself, let's look at this more closely. What is biblical forgiveness? Well, first, forgiveness is not pretending that the sin didn't happen. The Bible never calls evil no big deal. In fact, the cross of Christ shows just how serious sin actually is. If sin could be overlooked, then Jesus would not have needed to die. So forgiveness is certainly never denial. Second, forgiveness is not the same as trust. Forgiveness can and should and must be granted as immediately as possible. Trust must be rebuilt over time. You can forgive someone and still recognize that boundaries are necessary, even healthy. And third, forgiveness does not mean removing all consequences. God forgives, and yet in his wisdom, there are still earthly consequences for sin. Look, if I were to go rob a bank, I can seek God's forgiveness and have it granted by him immediately upon confession. Remember what we see in 1 John 1 9, quote, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But that does not remove the fact that I will spend time in prison for bank robbery. So what is forgiveness? And it's core forgiveness is a decision to release someone from the personal debt that they owe you. It's saying, look, I won't hold this over you. I will not seek personal vengeance. I am not going to nurse this grievance as a weapon in my mind or in my heart. And that leads us to something crucial. Forgive us is not just about freeing them. As I said earlier, it's also about freeing yourself. Hebrews 12 verse 15 warns us, quote, see to it that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled. End quote. Now that text says that bitterness is like a root. It grows underground. Of course, hidden at first, subtle. But over time, it begins to surface in all kinds of ways through cynicism and harshness, suspicion, constant irritation, or just coldness towards others. Look, unfortunately, this coldness often begins to direct itself towards those that you love the most. But you haven't who had nothing to do actually with the hurt that you're currently experiencing. And that's the tragedy of it all. But here's the danger. When you hold on to bitterness, you begin to interpret everything through the lens of that past hurt. You become guarded, skeptical, and hardened. Not just toward the person that hurts you, but eventually toward everyone, you're unforgiven as slowly starts to reshape your heart. It imprisons you. But forgiveness, well, my friends, forgiveness breaks those chains and allows you to move on with openness and compassion. Let's look at Romans 12 19 where Paul tells us, quote, beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. End quote. Now this is one of the most freeing truths in all of scripture. You don't have to be the judge, the jury, and the executioner. You don't have to settle the score at all, actually. You don't have to carry the burden of making everything right. God will handle all justice. And he will do so perfectly, righteousness, and without any error. And when you truly believe that, well, it allows you to release your grip. Because one of the reasons we struggle to forgive is that we feel like if we let it go, then well, justice won't be done. But the gospel tells us that either your sin was paid for at the cross, or it will be paid for any eternal judgment. That's true of everyone. So make no mistake. Sin will be dealt with. So that leaves us free to forgive. Now let's be honest about something else. Forgiveness is not always a one-time event. Sometimes it's a daily battle. Jesus says in Luke 17 verses 3 and 4 that if someone sends against you repeatedly in repentance, you're to forgive again and again and again. How many times? Seven times? No, 70 times seven. Which again is not the magic number. It's Jesus saying it's endless. And why? Well, because forgiveness is not just a moment, it's a posture of the heart. You may need to revisit that decision again and again and again. And you may need to say again, Lord, I realize that, you know, this has been coming back and I have to keep giving it to you, Lord, over and over. And you know what? That's okay. That doesn't mean that you've failed. It means that you're fighting for obedience. It also means that if you fail and sin does creep back into your heart, well, now you are the one requiring God's forgiveness. And of course, God will once again give it to you. And in so doing, he will also give you a shining example of what it looks like so that you can get back up and try again. Now let's connect this back to our previous episode on loving your enemies. Look, you cannot truly love your enemies if you refuse to forgive them and you cannot forgive them in your own strength. So, this is where the Holy Spirit comes in. In Galatians 5, we learn about the fruit of the Spirit. And of those fruit, we have these three included love, kindness, and gentleness. Now forgiveness flows out of those same supernatural works. If you're left to yourself, let's be honest, you will justify bitterness. You will mentally or maybe even verbally rehearse the offense over and over again. You'll build a case in your mind as to why you were right and they were wrong and you're so hurt. But the Spirit works in you to say, look, remember the things of which you have been forgiven. And slowly, you begin to loosen your grip. Look, I'm not saying that your pain isn't real. Please hear me. I know, I know that it is. I too have experienced very real pain and hurt in my life. But what I want you to see is that Christ is more real than your pain. And because of that reality, we are set free to forgive. So let me close with this from Psalm 103 verses 10 to 12, where the Psalmist tells us, quote, he does not deal with us according to our sins nor repeat, pay us according to our iniquities as far as the East is from the West. So far does he remove our transgressions from us. In quote, that my friends is how God has forgiven you completely, freely, and forever. And as recipients of that kind of mercy, we are called to extend it to others, not perfectly, but genuinely. So wherever you are today, let me encourage you. Is there someone you need to forgive? Is there a root of bitterness that you've been holding onto that's broke through and is now starting to wreak havoc in your life? Well, then my friends, take heart. You don't have to carry it anymore. Bring it to Christ. Remember his mercy. Trust his justice and walk in the freedom of his forgiveness. Let's pray. Father, we do come before you. We repent that we are unforgiving. It's as simple as that. We get it wrong all the time, Lord. You tell us to forgive. Sometimes maybe when it's easy, we do, but a lot of times we just don't. And we feel incapable of it. And in our humanity, of course, we are. And we often too often forget that you have enabled and empowered us by your Holy Spirit to do things that are supernatural. So, oh, Lord, help us to be forgiving. I would never say, Lord, give us opportunities to forgive because, of course, Lord, I know what that would mean. But this world will certainly give them. And when it does, when this world inevitably through its brokenness, through its sin, gives us reasons to forgive, oh, Father, supernaturally enable us to be forgiving. To show others the Christ-like love and compassion that comes with true, honest repentance and forgiveness. Let us free others the way you freed us. And in so doing, point them towards the greater forgiveness that's found in Jesus Christ so that their souls can be cleansed and their sin debt can be erased. Oh, Lord, we ask all these things in Christ, precious, powerful. And yes, forgiving name. Amen. Well, I've told you in the first couple of episodes that our goal with this new show is that we would also answer your question. Well, we received our first viewer question this week. It was kind of masked as a comment with a question in it. But it comes from our viewer at the Jake Legion who asks, and I quote, you listed off one-on-one interactions with people who you may call your enemy, the person on the other side of the screen, the person who cuts you off in traffic, et cetera. He goes on to say, it would have been nice to know what were to do with enemies on a macro scale. How are we to approach having 30 million anti-Christ foreigners in our country? Are these also future brothers, as I said last week, or are they militaristic invaders? In quote, oh, man, this is a great question. And I'm going to attempt to answer it as biiblically as I can. When it comes to forgiving our enemies and loving our enemies, unfortunately, the Bible doesn't give us any exceptions. And I'll first kind of tackle the example that he gives. He talks about 30 million foreign invaders that have come here to America over the last couple of administrations. But really, it's honestly happened over the last number of decades. And I think there's a little bit of a logical fallacy happening there, whether intentional or unintentional, and I suspect that it's probably unintentional, of course. I don't know that if there are indeed 30 million illegal immigrants or undocumented immigrants here in this nation, and there could be easily my assumption and my true belief is most of them have come here for the reasons that all immigrants come to this country for a better life. Because wherever they call their original home cannot offer them the opportunities, does not have the freedoms, perhaps is a war torn or has huge economic issues that don't provide for any opportunities for furthering their family life or having a future. Are there bad actors? Of course there are. But I would offer this quick shift and idea that if we have an enemy when it comes to those 30 million immigrants, it would be the politicians who have enabled it and empowered it and pushed towards it. They may be actual enemies of the state, enemies of what we've built here as a Christianized America, and I do fundamentally think that they are trying to change things. But I default back to what I said earlier. We don't have an out necessarily given by scripture to not love them. Now, if you watched my episode last week and you've watched this episode, I try to be very careful to say that that does not mean they can't be held accountable. That doesn't mean that there can't be punishment, that there shouldn't be consequence. They should be voted out of office immediately if not sooner. They should be impeached. If they've done something illegal, they should be imprisoned. If they've committed capital crimes, well, there's judgments for that. As Christians, I believe the imprecatory prayers are appropriate. I pray them. I've prayed them at my church over our congregation even or in front of maybe it's a better way of saying it of our congregation, let our congregation and imprecatory prayers. If you don't know what an imprecatory prayer is, it's a prayer, and we see these most often in the book of Psalms, but another place is too, it's a prayer that is asking God to judge evil. It says things like, Lord, break the teeth of the wicked, bring their plans to nothing. I think we always need to season that because we're called to love our enemies with Lord, turn your enemies into your friends. Oh, Lord, save them, but if they will not be saved, if they will not turn, then Lord, do justice. Do justice. Do that, which is righteous. Bring about justice over the wicked. Break their teeth. And I think that's an appropriate response. But I think it's also important that we look at another scripture. We look at the book of Jonah. He's a minor prophet in the Old Testament. Many of you will be familiar with the small four chapter book of Jonah. The most exciting part of Jonah, of course, is in that story. He is swallowed by a great fish. And in his disobedience to God, God tells him to go and preach the gospel to the Ninevites or the city of Nineveh. Well, the city of Nineveh was one of the capital cities of the kingdom of Assyria. And if you don't know, Assyria was one of the most powerful empires of the ancient world, and they were brutal. They were known for their incredible brutality. They took slaves and they were just an awful, awful empire of people. And they were a great enemy against the Israelites. They would eventually be the nation that would destroy the northern kingdom of Israel. It would be the Babylonians, of course, who would destroy the southern kingdom of Judah. And so when God says to Jonah, go and preach the gospel to the Ninevites, Jonah flees in the other direction. He has no interest in taking the good news of Jesus or of Yahweh to these pagan peoples. He would rather that they go to hell. Through the book and, of course, through Jonah being ingested into the belly of the great fish, he changes his mind. And he eventually does indeed take the story of Yahweh and the gospel to the Ninevites. And the most incredible thing happens. The king of the Assyrians rips his clothing, puts ash on his head, repents to God and tells the whole city to do the same. And yes, God forgives them. And then Jonah moops at the end of the book, upset that God did exactly what he knew he would do. Jonah was angry that God forgave his enemies. And God reprimands him at the end of the book. Were the Assyrians awful? Yes. Were they true enemies in your way of speaking? Corporate enemies of the corporate nation of Israel? Yes, they were. They had done a horrible things to them. And judgment for them would come. One of the other minor prophets will tell us all about that. It will come. God will get his reckoning. But that was not for Jonah to take. So should we just hand our nation over to those who would not be here for the right reasons or who would like to take over our nation and take it from us? Well, no. We should seek to do what is lawful and right. And then because we're in a country that allows for it, vote in politicians that do what is in our best interest. Pray for them. Ask God to change their hearts. Ask him to bring to end the wicked machinations of the evil. And then leave it in his hands. I hope that's helpful. May not be the full answer you're looking for, but I hope that at least gets you down the right path towards an answer that you're going to find sufficient. Well, thanks for tuning in to take heart. If this episode has encouraged you, please share it with someone who may need it. And until next time, I hope that you rest in the mercy of Christ, that you extend that mercy to others. And of course, that you take heart. God bless. Our sponsors steadfastsigars.com promo code escatalog10 rockwallbibles.com bonaface media Grayson Truth Press Grayson Truth Records