All Things Together For Good: Chap. 5 Pt. 3

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All Things Together for Good: Chap. 5 Pt. 4

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So, we are in chapter 5, we're going to start part 3. Pastor Chris left off with the test of love to God, and it was subheading 4, so I just want to read this to you to let you know where we're at.

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He says, We love God's picture. We love his image shining in the saints. Everyone who loves the

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Father loves his children, too. 1 John 5. It is possible to love a saint, yet not to love him as a saint.

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We may love him for something else, for his ingenuity, or because he is affable and bountiful.

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A beast loves a man, but not as he is a man, but because he feeds him and gives him preventer.

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But to love a saint as he is a saint, this is a sign of love to God. If we love a saint for his saintship, as having something of God in him, then we love him in these four cases.

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So, what do you guys think of that? Why does anyone, or should anyone, love anyone else?

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Yes? Because he loves God. Because he loves God, okay. That should be our primary reason.

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Sure. It's not necessarily because it's people.

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Right. Zach? Don't all Christians or believers in Christ have the

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Holy Spirit in them? Or God in them? So, what was the question again?

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Why should we love anyone at all? Yeah, because if you love somebody else and you're, you know.

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Oh, if God could love you. Hold on. It's okay. He's okay. If you love somebody else, it's a man made in God's image.

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Thank you. We love people because they're image bearers of God. He's knit them together in their mother's womb.

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Right? And we're image bearers. Was that what you were going to say, Lauren? Well, I was thinking because of God, if we're supposed to try and be like how

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Jesus was, like if he could love us, like we should be able to love each other too.

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Sure. I mean, if we are born into this world and we're all

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God's creation, right? There's a big difference between being God's creation and God's children.

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Right? to become God's children, you need to be adopted into his family. 1 John 1 says, to those who received him, he gave the right to become children of God, right?

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So all of humanity is God's creation, but not all of humanity are

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God's children. So we love saints, but we love sinners also.

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I mean, saints are sinners. We love believers and we love unbelievers. Why? Because they're created in the image of God, right?

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It's very similar to an artist. Like a lot of people like Thomas Kinkade pictures.

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Do you ever see those Thomas Kinkade pictures? No one. Great, thanks. Okay, good.

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Nobody raised their hand. All right, there's one in our church, right? So you look at the art and you recognize that's

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Thomas Kinkade. Like it's a very distinct looking picture. They had a gallery down in Port Jeff.

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You'd go down and you'd look at them, and you're like, these are all Thomas Kinkade paintings. And you love those paintings, right, because they're a reflection.

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Well, they look beautiful to you, and you recognize the artist's talents, gifts, and abilities in doing those paintings.

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Every single human being is like a painting that God created. It's like a person that he knit together and put together.

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Now they may use the gifts that God's given them for good, okay, for God's glory, or they may use them for evil, but either way there's still a human being created in the image of God, and we should love them, right?

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So what he's telling us here is everyone who loves the Father loves his children as well, okay, and this is specific to the church.

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We're to love our brothers and sisters in Christ differently than we love unbelievers.

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The same way when the room is full of people and there's all kinds of kids here,

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I can say, oh, I love all these kids, but that's different than the way I say I love my kids.

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There's a different love there. There's a familial love that I have for my children that I don't have for all of the other kids, right?

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So there's differing loves in God, and there's different loves in us as human beings.

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However, all human beings are created in God's image, and if we love the Creator, we love the image of him in that person.

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Make sense? All right, good. We love the saints, though in some lesser things they differ from us.

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Perhaps another Christian has not so much light as you, and that may make him err in some things.

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Will you presently unsaint him because he cannot come up to your light? Where there is union in fundamentals, there ought to be union in affections.

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And I looked at this and I'm like, this guy's prophetic, like he's talking about unfriending people. Like, did they have like a

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Facebook back in the 1700s? You unsaint them? Wow.

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Right? So what is he trying to tell us here? Perfect.

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Perfect. Right? Just because somebody doesn't measure up to your standard, or has different sins than you have, that's no need to look down your nose at them and say, oh, look at this guy.

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Because once you say, oh, look at this guy, you've sinned. Right? If we're to love each other as image bearers of God, and you see your brother sinning, or your sister sinning, you go to them.

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Right? You want to help them, pray for them, assist them in whatever way it is that they need.

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You're talking down about them to other saints is putting down people who are made in the image of God.

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That would be like standing in front of, well, not as bad, but it would be like standing in front of Thomas Kincaid and saying, these pictures that you painted, beautiful.

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This one, horrible. Look at this thing. Why on earth did you paint this? It's horrible.

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Right? When we talk down about our brothers and sisters, or those people created in the image of God, saying the same thing.

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We're tearing down, you know, the image of God that he created in the image.

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And what is that a sign of? Pride. Pride. Me.

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They don't measure up to my standard. What you got to remember is, you don't measure up to God's standard.

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None of us do. Right? So what does Micah 6 8 say? This one you got to burn into your mind.

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Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God. Now that's not to say that there are times when certain believers, okay, are teaching heresy.

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We should come out against those. Them. Not them as people, but their teaching.

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We want to attack the teaching, not the person. We want to tear down the error, but build the person up.

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So in some way, shape, or form, maybe we could get them to see the error of their ways, and they would turn back to the truth.

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Right? So it's important that when we're talking about other people, Scripture says, let everything you say be for the edification of the other person.

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You want to build them up, not tear them down. Okay? What does he mean when he says, where there is union in fundamentals, there ought to be union in affections.

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Yes? Right. The fundamental precepts of the faith.

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Right? And what do we have here that helps us with that? A confession of faith.

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Right? In order to become a member of this church, you have to go through the confession and agree to it.

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Now, there may be specific points or certain points in the confession that you say, I'm not tracking with this, but if you agree, okay,

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I may not be tracking with this, but I'm not going to teach against it. I understand that this is what the church holds to.

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So that when we have a disagreement amongst ourselves, theologically, we can go back to the confession and say, look, this is what we're united around.

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This is our common confession. Right? We're not going to come in, and I was in a situation where I was in a church, they taught all different kinds of things, and we couldn't actually do a study of a book in the

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Bible because there were too many views. So what the church is designed to do, the church is the college of Jesus Christ.

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It's the school of Christ. So in that situation, because we came from all different views and everybody sincerely held these views and sincerely good people, we couldn't even study a book of the

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Bible. How are you going to grow in Christ if you can't study a book of the Bible? You can't.

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So the confession is very, very important for us. It's that it's union in the fundamentals, so that we can rally around that and say, okay, we have a common faith.

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You're my brother, you're my sister, and we come together. Okay. We love the saints, though they are persecuted.

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We love precious metal, though it is in the furnace. Paul bore in his body the marks of the

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Lord Jesus. Those marks were, like the soldier's scars, honorable. We must love a saint as well as in chains, as in scarlet.

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If we love Christ, we love his persecuted members. Right? What is that telling us?

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We should show our love to the saints no matter their circumstances. Excellent. Absolutely. You know, no matter where they are, no matter what they're doing.

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You know, there are some saints that we esteem. You know, unfortunately, I'd say in the past 15 -20 years, we have celebrity pastors.

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You know, guys who are elevated and, you know, put on a pedestal and, you know, we start honoring them more than what we should.

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And John Piper wrote a book about this. He says, brothers, we are not professionals. You know, guard your heart.

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You start putting somebody up on a pedestal like that, that's gonna affect their mind.

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Don't let that go to your head. And it can happen like that. I've seen people, it swells their head, and now all of a sudden they think who they are.

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We have to guard against that. We're all brothers and sisters in Christ. We each have a different function, a different office that we walk in, but none is greater than the other.

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Right? Lest we fall into, you know, Roman Catholicism, where the

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Pope, we got to kiss his finger and bow down to him. You know, you have to guard against that.

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What did the angel say to the Apostle John when he kneeled down in front of him?

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He said, get up. I'm not God. I'm, you know, I'm like you. Don't do that.

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So you have to be careful that we don't start elevating certain pastors or teachers above everyone or everything else.

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Or start taking their teaching and saying, and just agreeing with everything they say because they're a good teacher.

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You have to hold each guy accountable because no one on this earth has perfect theology.

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You know, I don't have perfect theology. If I knew what was wrong, I would change my understanding, but I don't know where my theology is wrong.

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That's why we need each other. Right? I have blind spots. You guys have blind spots. That's why we do mentoring group.

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That's why we do Bible study. We try to come to the best understanding that we can of the Scriptures. Yes? So I think of what he's talking against here is maybe like, the similar analogy would be like prosperity gospel where if you don't have, you're not prosperous, that God's judging you.

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That means that God's judging you. Yes. Which is obviously not reality, but maybe that's kind of what he's getting at.

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That definitely is one of the points that he's hitting you, and I'm glad you brought that up, because in those circumstances, the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, a sign of God's favor upon you is that you're healthy and wealthy and prosperous.

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But what about the person who isn't healthy? We look down on them, well, they must not have as much faith as this guy.

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Yeah, no, it weighs on people.

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In charismatic churches, you know, you're told that speaking in tongues is the gift of the

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Holy Spirit. And if you haven't spoken in tongues, get yourself, closet yourself with God until it happens.

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And I did this for a while, and I started saying to myself, and I wasn't speaking in tongues, thankfully, right?

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But you start thinking to yourself, maybe there's something that I'm missing. Maybe I'm not a

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Christian. Maybe I'm not, I don't have faith. Maybe I don't have this understanding.

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I need this special knowledge, and that gets into Gnosticism. You know, it's a downward spiral.

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Yes, Mike? I was thinking, if you study, always say the right things at the right time.

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So just keeping that in mind, it's important to know that we go astray, and we need to be humble, match up our lives, and when we preach, it's true.

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It's always good to be in groups like this, where you feel comfortable enough to go up to somebody and say, listen, you said this.

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I'm not seeing that in the scriptures. Can you help me? You know, you don't want to start condemning somebody. Oh, look what you did.

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It's all wrong. No, no, no. You know, gently go up to them. What is this? I don't see this.

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This is what I see. How did you come to this conclusion? Because you might be wrong. The person might be wrong, or you might be wrong.

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And you help one another to get to the right answer. Steve? In the book of James, he instructs us not to give better chairs or seats to those who are of different social status.

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Yes, that's an excellent point. Again, it's always best to bring scriptures into it, and the one in James would be perfect, right?

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So you don't want to treat somebody who is wealthy better than somebody who's not.

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What does your wealth have to do with your salvation? Nothing. Nothing.

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I'm trying to think of the proverb. Riches do not profit in the day of death.

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Righteousness delivers from death. Riches do not profit on the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.

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You are rich when you're righteous. Now you need perfect righteousness. Where does that come from?

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Christ. Right. Don't think you're going to stand before the throne in your own righteousness and be like, woohoo,

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I'm in. No. You need the perfect righteousness of Christ. Right?

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Okay. Good stuff. Let's keep moving. If this is love to God, when we love his image sparkling in the saints, oh then, how few lovers of God are to be found.

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Do they love God, who hate those who are like God? Do they love Christ's person, who are filled with the spirit of revenge against his people?

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How can that wife be said to love her husband, who tears his picture? What greater crime than holiness, if the devil is the judge?

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Wicked men seem to bear great reverence to the departed saints. They canonize dead saints, but persecute living saints.

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In vain do men stand up at the creed and tell the world they believe in God, when they abominate one of the articles of the creed, namely the communion of saints.

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Surely there is not a greater sign of a man ripe for hell than this, not only to lack grace, but to hate it.

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Boy, he doesn't mince words there, right? So, what do you think he's getting at here?

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Think of Jesus when he was condemning the Pharisees, that they persecuted the saints, they killed the saints and everything.

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Elevating them, but then John the Baptist came and did the same kind of thing.

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Excellent example. Absolutely. So, how do we do that in today's age?

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Do we do that? Yes. Where? Where's the best place do you see people doing this all the time?

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Well, that's not a Christian environment, but yes, they don't like each other, either side.

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Yes. Fake book, right? Right? Everybody's posing on fake book, you know, putting up the pictures of where they've been and you think they got this unbelievable lifestyle, and they don't.

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They're just putting that stuff up to make it look like they do. But the problem is, you get these people on Facebook who are going back and forth theologically.

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Now, it's one thing to go back and forth theologically in a humble, loving way. It's another thing to attack the person vociferously and attack their character and say things like, how could you possibly believe this?

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How stupid. You're now tearing someone down.

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And I think, you know, taking things out of context. Because character plays a big part in deleting.

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Sure. Absolutely. Yes. I think this also applies to when someone's really pursuing out their holiness and righteousness.

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It seems that people seem to feel resentful, especially if they're being called out on sin or something like that, out of love and things like that.

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And when they're being encouraged to have more holiness, we tend to kind of be resentful and throw it back and maybe feel a certain way towards that individual.

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Right. Are you willing to receive correction? Yeah, exactly. Correct a believer and he'll grow in his understanding,

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Proverbs says, paraphrased. Correct an unbeliever and he hardens his heart all the more.

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He's upset. When you correct a believer, they're happy. They're like, thank you for pointing that out.

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It hurts to know that you were wrong and you were thinking this one particular way for a while.

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And someone comes along and has to change your mindset. But it's for the better.

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Right now, you're thinking God's thoughts after him. You're thinking correctly. In fact, your sister

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Erica, we were having a conversation in the sanctuary after service last week. And Baba Radha had said, oh, yeah, when

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Paul got knocked off his horse. I'm like, there's no horse. He's like, oh, no, he got knocked off.

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There's no horse. Well, what happened? I said he got knocked down, but he wasn't on a horse. I said, you know, that's how that's that's, you know,

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God opened his eyes and he went from being sold to being Paul. And then Erica corrected me.

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Just he didn't have a name change. That was always his name. That's just the Greek translation of the

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Hebrew of the Hebrew name. And I'm like, hmm, thank you. You know, there's room for learning for everybody.

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And, you know, you look at it and it's like, oh, how did I believe that? You know, and I've been telling people that.

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And it's like you can't undo that. So I got to be very careful with our words, especially, you know, what does the scripture say?

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You're going to get a stricter judgment as a teacher. So you start teaching those things.

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It's very difficult to unteach that. How am I going to reach all the people that I told that to and all the people that they told it to?

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So now what we got to do is correct it and say Saul is Paul in Greek. Now, he used the

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Greek name going forward because he wanted to identify with those people. Remember, he says, I want to be all things to all people.

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So when he was in the group with the Greeks, he's Paul, Greek Paul. When he's in the synagogues, he's still

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Saul. Right. So he's using both names, but he's using them strategically. Right.

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It was different with Peter. Right. Peter was Peter. He was Simon. And then

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Jesus renamed him Peter. Thou art Peter. Right. So it was a difference.

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So what we have, the whole lesson here is just to make sure and be humble and accepting of correction.

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We all need correction. And the moment you think you don't need correction, you need more correction.

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Right. Okay. Yes, brother. I don't know.

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I just thought of Joseph and his brothers. He showed so much love and mercy.

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Even who died? Joseph's father. Jacob. Thank you.

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Jacob died in the brother's world. Now the wrath of Joseph is going to come. Now he's going to get us back.

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Now that his dad died. Yeah. I come up with a story that, oh, before dad died, he said, don't do anything to us.

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How convenient. But Joseph was graceful to his brothers. Very.

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Right. And again, that's a picture. Joseph is a picture, a type and shadow of Christ.

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Right. His very brothers were the one who wanted to kill him, threw him in the pit.

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And now they got to stand in front of him. And, you know, the story, Joseph weeps. He knows that those are his brothers.

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Right. And then what does he do? He plays with them for a little while, but then he loves them.

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He brings them. He provides for them. Blesses them. Right. If that's not a picture of Jesus, Jesus is our older brother.

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Right. In Adam. He's our older brother. He's the last Adam. So we were the ones who put

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Jesus on the cross. Our sin is what put him on the cross. Our sin is what he died for.

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Right. You ever hear that term? Oh, I love you to death. He's the only one who meant it. And did it.

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Right. Let's go. Another blessed sign of genuine love to God is to entertain good thoughts of God.

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He who loves his friend interprets what his friend does in the best sense. Love thinks no evil.

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Malice interprets all in the worst sense. Love interprets all in the best sense.

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Love is an excellent commentator upon God's providence. It thinks no evil. What do you think about that?

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Because we live in an age of, you know, being cynical, but at the same time, you know, we should, um, hold to, you know, love, bearing all things, holding all things, not trusting in the person's simple nature, but trusting in the spirit of God working in that person.

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Right. Bringing about fruit. Lauren? Well, I was just going to say,

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I think it's the hardest because like when, when we're feeling like, let's say you are not in like the best place with a person, even though you love them, you speak out of emotion, like current emotion.

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And I think, aren't we like taught, we're not supposed to act or say things based off of like frivolous feelings, but like hold to the standard of like the characters and what is fruitful.

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Sure. Yeah. Look, I think what he's addressing here is ascribing ill motive to the other person without knowing what their real motive was.

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Right. So somebody wrongs us and we think, oh, they did that intentionally.

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They plan this out. Look at what happened, blah, blah. And you start creating this scenario in your head that has no basis in truth whatsoever.

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And then you start looking at that person as if what you thought is true and you're ascribing ill motive to their hearts without asking them first.

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You know, we have to learn how to lovingly confront one another. You know, I think a good way to do it would be, hey, you know, brother, sister,

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I heard you say this. What did you mean by that? You know, like I think

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I might be taking it the wrong way. What did you mean? And give them an opportunity to tell you what they meant.

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I can. I remember a time when I was emailing a good friend of mine back and forth and he had sent me some kind of devotion and, you know, it was pertinent to what was going on in my situation.

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So I emailed back and said, thanks. I really needed that. He heard, thanks.

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I really needed that. Right. So he emails me back.

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What's wrong? I'm sorry. Now I'm like, what are you sorry for?

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That's why we have emojis now. Emojis. Emojis. So that's how easily, now he wasn't thinking ill of me and I didn't type it to him as in like, ah, you know, why did he send me that?

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It's just communication sometimes. So we have to be careful not to ascribe ill motive to somebody when they don't mean ill motive towards us.

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Yes, brother. It brings back the love your neighbor as yourself.

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How would I want to be treated in that situation? Which then reminds me of our judicial system, which is based on Christian biblical principles where the person is innocent until proven guilty, presumed innocent until proven guilty.

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The benefit of the doubt is always given to the accused up until the end.

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Right. Right. Absolutely. Giving somebody the benefit of the doubt before condemning them.

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Now do you think it's a sin to do that? To do what specifically? Condemn somebody?

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No. If they deserve it. Without knowing, like somebody...

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No. No. Right? That's bearing false witness. You may not tell anybody, but you're telling yourself a story that's not true.

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But if somebody wrongs you, it's not intentionally wrong.

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Sure. Well, the first thing, you want to read Matthew chapter 18. If somebody wrongs you or does something that is not right and you go to them and say, hey, brother, you said this, you did this, how am

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I to take it? Right. You know, if he's like, well, and he's not willing to listen to you or apologize for the way he's wronged you, then you bring two or three other people with you and go to him and say, look, this is the situation.

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Let's talk it out amongst ourselves. If that doesn't work, then you bring it to the church, the elders first.

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The elders get involved and try to mediate the situation. If that doesn't work and this person is still unwilling to repent or apologize or whatever it is, then it's brought to the church.

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At that point, that's a serious issue because at that point, that person could be removed from the body, removed from the church.

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And obviously, the goal is not to remove people.

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The goal is to reconcile with people. When one part of the body hurts, the whole body hurts.

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The hand can't say to the foot, I don't need you. We need each other. Each part of the body is like a

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Lego, right? You've heard that one before, right? We're all integral into this structure that God's building and we need one another.

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So you want to make sure you reconcile and pull people close before you push them away. Give them ample opportunity to repent or apologize.

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Give them the benefit of the doubt because that's what I would want if I was in that situation.

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Let's say I did wrong somebody and maybe I just didn't realize it. I snubbed them unintentionally, right?

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And now the person who was snubbed comes to me, what'd you do? Oh my goodness,

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I'm so sorry. That was unintentional. I did not mean that. Or, yeah, it was intentional.

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I meant it and here's why. Well, that's not good. But that can happen.

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Somebody could intentionally snub somebody. You think it's beyond anybody in here, in the church's heart to do that?

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Don't. See, that's what we have to keep in mind. All of our hearts are capable of incredible evil beyond what we can imagine.

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So I could be in the very same situation and I would look for mercy. I would look for the benefit of the doubt and somebody to help me and correct me and move me along.

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Yes? I was reading a while ago, a couple of years ago, J. Adams' book. And he talks about the person who feels wrong has the duty to go up to the individual and confront them.

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Because, like you mentioned, there's times where you might not even know that you did something that a person can take offense to.

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And then that can create bitterness within your heart and further separate you guys and lead to bad things or whatever.

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But that's something that I never had thought of. Because you get wrong and you just immediately want to push that person away and forget that person.

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But we have that duty of actually having to go up to that person and let them know, I feel wronged by you and this is why.

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I was going to say, a couple of things that come to my mind in regards to it.

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Obviously, the intention of the confrontation should never – the focus of it in love shouldn't necessarily be to, well,

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I want to be – I was wrong, so I want to be righted in this. The motivation should be, my brother has a problem that needs help and I need to go help him realize the problem.

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So the problem – that's kind of the focus of making, not my own vindication, but helping to advance somebody else.

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But then the other thing that I think of also is that giving people the benefit of the doubt sometimes means letting love cover the sin as well.

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If we went and confronted everybody about every wrong, it would be a waste of time.

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It would be a long line down the street. I mean, I know I make stupid jokes sometimes and if I was confronted with any of them, it would be a problem.

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I make stupid jokes a lot of times and nobody laughs at them from the pulpit. It's awfully lonely up there. I'm like, it's silent.

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I'll laugh at them. Thank you, thank you. No, I'm glad you said the first half of what you said because my next question to Remy was going to be, okay, is that loving?

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When you go to somebody who's wronged you, the goal is to get that person to see it so that he reconciles with God.

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You show him his sin and you do it out of love for him, not so that you get the satisfaction of, oh, he apologized to me.

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No, he reconciled with God and now I see him walking closer with God, walking in righteousness.

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And then my relationship with that person is strengthened. His relationship with God is strengthened and the whole church is strengthened.

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So yeah, great point. We have to do that in love. We can't do it for selfish reasons.

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Oh, I want this guy to be, he offended me. Isn't that the big thing in today's culture? He offended, they offended me.

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Who cares? Big deal. You realize what a couple of generations ago, there was like 18 year old kids fighting in World War II.

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You're worried about being offended because somebody didn't say the right word to you? Are you out of your mind? Somebody didn't like your post on Facebook.

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Yeah, somebody didn't, right. Let's cancel them out. It's the cancel culture.

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Think about how vindictive that is. Just because somebody doesn't agree with you or has offended you in some kind of way.

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It's fascist, but it's Marxist in the sense that it starts dividing people. The very thing that Martin Luther King Jr.

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fought against, segregation, is now what society is trying to bring back and call it good.

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Well, we're going to have black church and white church. We're going to have black entertainment and white entertainment.

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Isn't that segregation? Yeah, only they're going to make the oppressors.

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Right, exactly. Right, and that's intersectionality. Yes, Mike. Thinking about forgiveness, at least in my experience,

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I think we can get a false sense of closure. And we can kind of tell ourselves why if we get an apology from somebody, if they've sinned against you, sinned against God, get that apology, then we're vindicated for our own reasons.

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A lot of times you don't get an apology, and that's the way

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God humbled you. You basically forgiving them for not asking for an apology is a way that you can grow and that you can extend grace to them, as well as learn that it's not about you being vindicated.

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It's about your sanctification as well as the other person's. As long as they're reconciled to God, that's an important thing.

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You're right. And we would actually get to that in a couple more slides, but we're probably going to end in a minute or two.

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But just to address what you said, sometimes the other person isn't going to apologize or see your way.

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Now, what's the title of this book? All Things Together for Good.

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That person not apologizing to you and not seeing eye -to -eye with you, is that for your good?

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Yes. Because you're going to have to learn how to love people who don't see eye -to -eye with you and who don't apologize to you.

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Now, it doesn't mean that you have to forgive them for that offense. You pray that they do.

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But here's the question. Do I now start talking about this guy behind his back, or do

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I start talking to God about him and saying, Lord, open his eyes.

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Draw him close to you. Break his heart with what breaks yours. If I truly love him,

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I'm going to try to draw closer to him. I'm going to try to draw closer to God and pray for him.

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Today's culture is, you offend me, we're going to separate. That's not what is supposed to happen in the church.

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Somebody gets offended or there's an issue, you have to draw closer together. And I've seen it several times in my short time as a pastor.

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Sometimes when there's issues and people want to separate, and we have to bring them together. Because bringing them together is where the issue gets dealt with.

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And then we can forgive and we see God's hand move in the midst of it and reconcile to people who did not want to be reconciled.

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And that's the power of the Holy Spirit. Charismatics are talking about casting out demons.

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We see it at a counseling table. The two people who just were not getting along are now reconciled and love each other.

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Praise God. Yes? Somebody had their hand up. Zach, did you have your hand up? Yeah, I mean,

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I feel like we should probably move on from this. But, so we were saying before, like, if you don't get along with somebody, eventually, you know, you bring three people, they don't agree, you bring them to the church.

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Or this person doesn't even believe. Well, no, no, you're not going to bring an unbeliever into the elders.

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You're going to bring people who are members of the church. Right, so I'm saying, like, in life, you have to handle somebody that just potentially wrongs you.

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And, you know, they don't have any higher power. You love on them.

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You love on them. To the point where, listen, to the point where they recognize, they recognize that you're going out of your way for them.

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And they question you. Zach, why are you treating me like this? Right?

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You scared me. Like, you want them to know that even though you disagree with them, and even though they wronged you, okay, you're not, you're going to, as a believer, you're going to pursue them in love.

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You're not going to repay evil with evil. You're not going to take, you're not going to take revenge on them.

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You're going to show them the same love that Christ showed you. Did Christ show you love when you deserved it or didn't deserve it?

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Right. So how are we to show Christ to the world around us if we act like the world around us?

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In the world around us, somebody wrongs you, you wrong them. Somebody does something to you, you run the other way.

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We have to run. Listen, when a natural disaster happens, okay, worldwide, no matter where it is, who are the first people to run in?

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The church. The church. The Christians. Right. Salvation Army, Samaritan's Purse, World Vision.

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You got all these charities that come in and send tons of people in.

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We run into danger. That's why so many people are looking to get out of New York, and I'm like, why?

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This is a fertile ground. Right? This is a harvest that needs to be harvested.

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We need harvesters to go in, because the harvest is ripe.

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We need laborers to bring the harvest in. You can go down south. You can go out west. You can go all these places where there are all

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Christian communities. Now what are you going to do with your talents, gifts, and abilities? Where are you going to be able to store up the most treasures for heaven?

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Here. Here, in the darkness, where it'll let our light shine.

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What's going on, Remy? Oh, wait. Lauren, you had your hand up. Oh, I was just like, I have, when you can tell that they're just saying it to, let me just say it to appease her, and like, to get it, how they're saying it, they're not actually sorry.

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So like, I know forgiveness is never deserved, but how do you really forgive someone who like, you know, is just saying it to say it?

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Well, you got to let them know that you know that. Say, listen, I heard you say those words. And they're going to say that I'm holding a grudge on them.

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Well, no. Just say, listen. I heard you, I heard you say those words, but I'm not seeing it backed up in true action.

43:43

Right? Like, I used to tell the story, you know, with my, if my kids were fighting with each other, one did something to the other.

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I can make my daughter say I'm sorry to my son. I can't make her mean it. Right? She can mouth the words, but it may not actually happen in her heart.

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So you have to let that person know, listen, you know, I care about you. You've wronged me.

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You said you're sorry, but you're continuing to do it where you're continuing to. So what should

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I, you know, how should I take that? Also, like if you want to forgive someone and like, sometimes like you, you do because like you, sometimes the person is sorry, but then it's just like, and like you say, oh,

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I forgive you. But then, and like, sometimes I'll like, I'll try and pray about it. Like that resentment or that feeling that like I'm upset with them doesn't really go away.

44:37

So like, what, what are you supposed to do? I mean, I don't like praying, but.

44:43

Sure. You can, you continue in prayer. You get godly counsel. You have people praying for you.

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You read God's word. You recognize that you're going to bear the same scars as Jesus. Right?

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He died for people who reject him. He died for the people who put him on the cross.

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You know, again, all things together for good. Maybe God's using that to show you, hey, look, you're not going to always get the response that you want, but I'm going to give you the response that you need.

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This is going to shape and mold you and sanctify you. Right? When, you know, when you're in a gym working out, you got to put weight on the bar.

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Right? Sometimes it hurts. Right? But that's what strengthens you.

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It's the same thing in this situation. Sometimes people coming at you and not doing what you expect them to do.

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We live in a sinful world, and we have to learn how to navigate through that with the correct worldview and with a

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Christ -centered vision. You got a question? I was just going to comment on something, and it's like what you said, you know, just because, like, you don't have to necessarily forgive someone.

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And what I mean is, like, we're supposed to forgive how God forgives, and God does not forgive apart from repentance.

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Right? So, you know, you can withhold that forgiveness from someone, but in the meantime, you know, you're praying that, like you mentioned before, the goal is for them to be reconciled to God.

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Right? They sinned against you. They sinned against God. So you want them to be reconciled to Him, and as they're reconciled to Him, you know, it'll flow out from that that they'll apologize to you.

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But if they're not Christian? If they're not Christian, then... You got to pity them. You got to pity them. Romans 12, 19 says,

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Dearly beloved, do not avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto rather it is written, Vengeance is mine,

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I will repay, save the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirsts, give him drink. For in doing so, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

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Be not overcome in evil, but overcome in evil with good. Amen. I would also say, specifically in the instance of when somebody does repent, but we still can't let go of that anger that we have or the resentment that we have, aside from praying for the strength for forgiveness, but praying specifically for that person,

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I know that that's helped me in the past when I've struggled with arguments with people. I focus my prayers specifically on that person, and it kind of helps to rebuild the love in your heart,

47:14

I think. Excellent. I think that's the question. As I'm struggling with this person, do

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I truly love them? If I truly love them, my heart would be for them, to pray for them, to get them to understand or see things differently, to see how they affected me.

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But again... Even if you're past it, and they repented, but you're still hanging on to it,

47:42

I think you still... That's unforgiveness. Yeah, but you need to pray. Sure.

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For them and for yourself. Yes. Absolutely. And when you pray for that person, that starts to change your heart towards them and recognize, look, we talked about it earlier, a couple slides ago, they're image bearers of God, and if they're believers, they're our brothers and sisters in Christ.

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Christ died for that person. Right? Good. Last question. I think it's really important to remember it's not just a one -time thing.

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We can say the words and mean it at the time, but something's going to bring it up.

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We can hold on to things. So to continually look to how

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God gives us what gives the strength and the ability to overlook and to...

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So is it seven times? Seven times we cry together? Seven times 70.

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Seven times 70? 478, 479.

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You know, when you recognize just how much God is forgiving you, how dare you not forgive somebody who's sincerely asking you for forgiveness?

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If somebody's sincerely asking you for forgiveness, you have to give it to them, even if you don't feel like it.

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Right? I mean, look at how often, how much you've sinned, and how much love and forgiveness

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God has shown you. We have to mirror that to the world. And when we do, right, that's when we pray.

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May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. There's no unforgiveness in heaven. Yes? Hmm. Yes, right.

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The one servant owed the guy a thousand denarii, he let him go, and then he finds, you know, somebody that owed him a hundred, and he's holding his feet to the fire.

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Right? Not letting him out until he pays it. God's going to look at those people and say, really? Look at what

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I've forgiven you for, and you're going to hold this against them?

50:17

Something trivial? No good. All right, this was good. This was good. We didn't get through many slides, and we don't have many people, but we had a good conversation.