Be Kind, Tenderhearted and Forgive One Another

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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December 27, 2021

00:05: Andrew, will you open us up with a word of prayer? Father, again, we thank you for this day, Lord.
00:13: We pray, Lord, you be with us, with those that are not here today, with those that are traveling.
00:19: And may the things that we speak about and the things that we think about, Lord, may our worship be pleasing to you.
00:26: We thank you for Christ who died for sinners like us.
00:30: Amen.
01:12: So this I say and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart, and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
01:38: But you did not learn Christ in this way.
01:40: If you indeed have heard him and have taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, that is in reference to your formal manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in its accordance with the lust of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God and has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
02:06: Therefore, laying aside all falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.
02:14: Be angry and do not sin, and do not let the sun go down upon your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.
02:22: He who steals must no longer steal, but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands that which is good, so that he will have something to share with those who are in need.
02:34: And let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such as a word that is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to its hearer.
02:46: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption, and let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, but be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
03:07: Last week, when Andy was speaking, he reminded me of what the one and others are.
03:15: And you know, the one and others are reciprocal.
03:17: You know what I mean by reciprocal? Everybody know what reciprocal means? You love me, I love you.
03:23: It's something that we do together.
03:25: It can't be a one-way street.
03:28: And it was interesting that everything so far that we have spoken of is not only to the quote, not me, Andy, as just being the teacher, but the one teaching it and the one returning it to us.
03:43: So it's a command to all of us.
03:46: And when we get to this part in Ephesians, I want to show you that in verse 31, you have...
03:57: There it is right there.
04:20: What were the other in there? There was three more, wasn't there? Clamor.
04:30: Was another one in there? Evil speaking and malice.
04:35: Evil speaking.
04:54: What is bitterness? How would you define bitterness? Or what is bitterness? We're going to define all of these.
05:06: So if y'all want to think ahead, you can.
05:10: Go ahead.
05:11: Somebody said something back there.
05:15: Holding on to grudges.
05:16: Okay.
05:16: Holding on to grudges.
05:18: Okay.
05:18: What else? Anyone else? I think that's a very good...
05:27: That's a very good definition.
05:30: All right.
05:30: What about wrath? That looks like two ages, don't it? What about wrath? These right here.
05:44: And that heap is like a dragon breathing down my neck right there.
05:49: Okay.
05:52: These are all connected.
05:53: So we can go ahead and do all...
05:56: I think this breeds this, which breeds this.
06:00: So I could have put them in a chain to make them...
06:04: What's anger? Anger.
06:09: Certainly breeds hate.
06:11: Anger.
06:12: Because we can have what's called righteous anger.
06:14: But man, that's a split second.
06:16: Nobody in this room has ever had continual righteous indignation.
06:20: Even we have, quote, righteous indignation toward the wicked.
06:23: Man, it quickly becomes unrighteous when we want to give our retribution out versus God's.
06:31: So anger is an emotion within us normally when we feel like someone has done us wrong.
06:39: That's normally what it is.
06:41: And not always done us wrong, but when we feel we've done wrong.
06:45: Then once we go from this, we go to this.
06:50: Man, I'm going to carry something out on this person.
06:54: All right.
06:55: So when we go from anger to wrath, which is basically an intensified part of the anger, that's when we go to this.
07:04: And what's malice? Ill intent.
07:08: Ill intent.
07:09: Malice of poor thoughts.
07:11: That's it.
07:12: This right here is premeditated what I could do to this person to carry out this malicious intent.
07:22: I don't know if you remember a few weeks ago when we talked about envy.
07:25: Envy carries within that heart.
07:26: Remember Andy said it was better to describe something within the heart.
07:30: Not greed.
07:31: Envy always carries with it malicious intent to do something to you so that I can have what you have.
07:38: That's what it is.
07:38: So malice.
07:39: All right.
07:41: Clamor.
07:46: Does anybody have another translation other than clamor? And I misspelled that, didn't I? It's got Ken James in it.
07:56: It's clamor.
08:01: Does anybody? Andy, what does yours say? It's clamor too? It says clamor.
08:06: It says loud quarreling.
08:09: Okay.
08:10: Quarrelsome.
08:11: Anybody have the NIV in here? Sometimes the NIV, believe it or not, I don't care for it, but sometimes because it carries a thought for thought, it does bring into view what it's trying to convey when we don't understand sometimes what the words, because words do change in meaning sometimes.
08:28: Okay.
08:28: So quarrelsome.
08:30: Right? Have we said any? Yeah.
08:32: That's what it says in the margin, at least in this question, which I have to write by this, so it must be the defining word.
08:44: Yeah, yours is the 85% of the text is reset, and yours is 100%, and mine uses all of the above.
08:57: All right.
08:59: What's this? Slander.
09:02: And I'm even going to put this in here because I don't think anybody's translation says this.
09:07: It may, but I think that conveys the idea more than anything.
09:13: Gossip.
09:14: Speaking bills.
09:16: And, well, sometimes when we think about slander, what is it? Can slander and gossip be true? Certainly.
09:27: Okay.
09:28: What's the purpose behind it? Ill intent.
09:31: Ill intent.
09:33: To do something to make either someone look bad, make yourself look better, and the intent of defaming their character, although it may be well.
09:41: I mean, there's a lot of things that you could say about me that are true in my life that were in the past that if you don't say that that has changed, then it's the intent to attack my character, and I'm sure we could probably say that about everybody in this room.
09:54: So if we don't, sometimes those things have to be premised, and if the point of saying whatever we're saying is to defame that person's character, that's when it becomes slanderous.
10:04: That's in gossip.
10:06: Hey, this right here is a respectable sin that is not dealt with within the church.
10:13: Miss Candy, one time, right at the very beginning, she said, sometimes we just keep our mouth shut.
10:18: That is exactly what we should do sometimes.
10:20: It's just sometimes it's better to just not say anything at all, even though sometimes our intent is, oh, we need to pray for so-and-so because of this.
10:29: Well, how about just say, hey, pray for so-and-so, instead of taking the opportunity to defame their character.
10:38: And the reason why I bring that up, because when you get to, that was in verse 31.
10:43: Now, when we get to verse 32, this is what we're not to do to one another.
10:49: The negative part, not to.
10:51: This is what we are to do to one another.
11:04: What does it mean to be kind? What does it mean to be kind? Okay, not looking at someone's faults.
11:16: What else? Treat someone like you want to be treated.
11:19: Treat someone like you want to be treated.
11:21: What else? I think it goes to intent.
11:25: Desire is to benefit someone else.
11:29: To benefit someone else.
11:31: Okay.
11:31: So we've got, say it again.
11:34: What was it, Rosanna? Would you second? I lost my train of thought.
11:40: Would you second? Treat someone like you want to be treated.
11:43: Okay.
11:44: Kind, kindred, get the same.
11:47: Treat well.
11:48: Right.
11:49: Treat well.
11:52: All right, what did you say, Andy? Seeking to benefit someone else.
11:57: Benefit.
11:58: Yeah.
12:02: Benefit.
12:04: More times than not, and I'm surprised, this is the first time ever I've asked what kind does it mean to nobody has said nice? To be nice.
12:14: You know, nice ain't even in the Bible.
12:17: It ain't.
12:19: Shake it up.
12:21: It won't fall out.
12:23: Because nice has a tendency to be fake.
12:28: Cordial.
12:29: You could have discontent.
12:30: You could have bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor, all sorts of things.
12:33: You can show it in their face and you're going to be nice.
12:38: You can't put on fake kindness.
12:41: And why? Because kindness comes from the heart.
12:45: And that is the fruit of the spirit.
12:47: If we went back to Galatians, what we're not going to do, what was one of those? It was kindness.
12:52: To be kind.
12:53: The Greek word is Christos.
12:56: And if you listen to it, it has the idea of the benefiting one another, the care for someone, to see that they're treated equally, love, compassion.
13:08: That's what it means to be kind.
13:11: And then it says in the next one, tenderhearted.
13:16: Anybody else have somebody just say compassion? Tenderhearted.
13:20: Anybody say compassion? No, no, no, no.
13:26: Tenderhearted.
13:27: The Greek word for that, I'm not going to spell it because it looks crazy, but it sounds funny.
13:31: It's called eusplakanoi.
13:33: And eus is an adverb meaning good or well.
13:37: Splakanoi meaning guts, bowels, internals.
13:41: Okay? So when we think of the inner emotion or affection, that's where the splaknon, meaning, that's the Greek word.
13:50: It sounds weird.
13:52: Bowels of compassion.
13:53: Sure.
13:53: That's where we get it from.
13:55: But it means good, deep feeling.
13:58: That's what it means.
13:59: So when we say someone's tenderhearted, what does it mean? What does it mean to be tenderhearted toward someone? It means compassion.
14:24: Certainly compassion, because that's how some is translated that way.
14:28: So we would say compassion.
14:30: And I may turn over and show you where this word is translated compassion.
14:37: Even the same translations, you could turn over there.
14:41: What else? I'm sorry.
14:54: You empathize with them? Yes, empathy.
14:56: I would say empathy and sympathetic.
14:59: Yep.
15:04: Empathy is deeper than sympathetic.
15:06: But it takes both.
15:08: It can be both.
15:10: Yep.
15:10: It is deeper in the sense that you can feel sorry for someone.
15:13: Empathy is actually feeling for them.
15:15: I thought it was more like doing something for them.
15:17: Not always.
15:18: Every one of these should have an action behind them.
15:22: Is love a noun? No, it's a verb.
15:26: It's both.
15:27: It is.
15:28: It can be, depending on how you're using it.
15:31: If I say I love my wife, well, certainly that is an emotion.
15:37: But if my emotion has no action to it, then what good is it? Okay? I was looking for the past.
15:43: I can't remember.
15:43: I thought it was in Luke 7, 18.
15:45: But it's not.
15:46: It's where Jesus was feeding the 5,000 and the 4,000.
15:52: He also speaks to one of the rulers that comes up to him.
15:57: And it says that Jesus was moved with compassion.
16:02: Uspachnoi is the word that's used.
16:04: He had compassion within himself.
16:06: But what happened when Jesus had compassion? He actually did something.
16:11: So that's why I say love can be a noun.
16:13: If love is never an action, then your love is in vain.
16:19: So faith without work.
16:20: Faith without work.
16:21: That's it.
16:22: You tell your wife you love her, and you don't spend no time with her.
16:24: Or if the wife says she loves you, you don't spend no time with you.
16:27: And there is no compassion or cherishing.
16:31: Well, your word's empty.
16:34: Tell your kids you love them, and then don't provide for them.
16:38: See how they think your love is for them.
16:41: So tender-hearted is compassion.
16:45: Empathetic, sympathetic.
16:47: What else? Is there anything else we can put in there? I think of it in the sense of being sensitive.
16:59: To be consciously aware of.
17:06: Thoughtful, yeah.
17:07: Thank you.
17:08: That was very nice of you to give.
17:10: Thoughtful.
17:11: Thoughtful.
17:25: How hard is it for us to be thoughtful to one another? I'd say it's difficult.
17:33: That's it, man.
17:35: We're selfish people.
17:36: Hey, in and of itself, we're not saying that we don't care about one another.
17:39: But I'm going to tell you, when I'm going through my daily regimen of life, man, my mind is focused on whatever my task is at hand, and I'm not focused on what I'm doing.
17:51: I'm focused on a lot of times the things that I should be.
17:54: In your mind, you could be working and doing things, and still pray without ceasing.
18:00: Hey, even more now, I would say in the last year, my prayer list has grown exponentially.
18:10: Now I understand what it means to pray without ceasing.
18:12: So now when I'm working, pray for these people.
18:15: I haven't made it as a list.
18:17: It's like, man, I'm never going to get through this.
18:19: Every one of you needs to be prayed for something.
18:24: And I don't know how Andy is sometimes, but when I stand up there to give our pastoral prayer, I'm just looking out into the congregation, and sometimes I'm almost speechless, because I just want to start praying for each person that I know has issues, and we all have them.
18:45: So we're going to be compassionate, empathetic, sympathetic, and thoughtful to one another.
18:56: You know what's interesting? Just looking at the way you haven't set up on the board, when you think about it, the ones on the left, the bitterness, those are really fleshy.
19:07: Those are easy.
19:08: I mean, in that sense, they just pop out of us.
19:11: The ones on the right.
19:12: This is normal.
19:13: Yeah.
19:13: Yeah.
19:14: Those things just kind of bubble up out of us in the blink of an eye.
19:20: The other side is where we really always think of bringing every thought into activity.
19:26: It's such a struggle for the right side, and it's so easy for the left side.
19:33: And, again, it's because of what's in us.
19:39: But if we can make that leap, at least in the way we're pressing on towards the right side, and the same with all the other one-anothers, it will have an effect.
19:49: It's just a longer process.
19:51: Sure.
19:52: This is what is our natural bent.
19:56: All right? We are naturally bent towards this disposition apart from Christ.
20:01: Once we come to faith in Christ, we have the ability to put these ones that being deeds of the flesh that begin in the heart, we have the ability to put this away.
20:13: And all you've got to do is just back up.
20:14: And that is why I read this whole section, because he says if you go up to we'll just start at 20.
20:23: He says, But you did not learn Christ in this way.
20:26: If indeed you have heard him and you have been taught in him, just as the truth is in Jesus, then in reference to your former manner of life, here's what you're to do.
20:37: You're to lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God and has been created in the righteousness and holiness of truth.
20:54: Therefore, you lay aside falsehood.
20:57: Speak truth, each one of you, to his neighbor.
21:00: Be angry.
21:01: Do not sin.
21:02: And don't let anger go down on your wrath.
21:04: And don't give an opportunity to the devil.
21:06: And then it goes on to talk about stealing.
21:08: So we have the ability to not do these.
21:11: To where before we did not have the ability, apart from Christ to say no to the consistently, can we? Could we suppress some of our sinful inclinations before Christ for a small length of time for a period? I mean, you take a, you take a person who commits crimes and you put him in prison, he can't commit those crimes before you let that thing out.
21:36: And what happens? It runs wild again.
21:38: But now that we have come to Christ, we have first of all we've got the fruit of the spirit within us and it is kindness.
21:47: And I would say this is love.
21:49: Okay.
21:49: We just in short, this is love.
21:51: We have this now within us.
21:53: Now these are given to us in the fullness of the spirit.
21:57: But do these manifest themselves in its fullness? I say, no, this takes some time to hone these skills.
22:06: Why do you think he says in a, in John about pruning? If you want to have your, the fruit of the spirit to be manifest more, what does God have to do in your life? He's got to cut it back to the quick so that you can learn to be kinder when kindness needs to be extended.
22:25: And how does God do that? He, he prunes us.
22:27: How do we learn to be more tender hearted? Well, one, it's not by not being tender hearted.
22:32: It's learning to be tender hearted.
22:34: All of this has been learning to be in ministering to one another.
22:37: And that can be difficult.
22:38: I don't know about y'all, but I don't minister to everybody.
22:42: It's easy to minister.
22:43: We said it a hundred times.
22:45: Easy to minister to those we get along with, or we have things in common with, but minister to those that we really don't have things in common with.
22:54: And that's difficult at times.
22:56: Cause you don't know what you want, what to say.
22:58: If you're going to take something I say the wrong way, you know, if I joke, is it going to be taken in a wrong way? I mean, we have all those things.
23:07: So we have the ability.
23:09: Let me just turn over to Colossians real quick.
23:11: I just thought about that.
23:25: In Colossians chapter three, he talks about the same thing.
23:30: He, he talks about putting off the old man.
23:34: Let me see if I can find that real quick.
23:46: All right, here we go.
23:47: Chapter three.
23:49: And I'll begin in verse one.
23:51: It says, therefore, if you've been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things that are above.
23:56: Like Andy said a minute ago, we need to be bringing those thoughts and captivity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
24:00: Why? Because we have now been seated and we've been raised in Christ and we're now seated in the heavenly places.
24:06: And in verse two, he says, set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for you have died and your life is now hidden in Christ.
24:13: And when Christ who is, who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.
24:19: Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, which amounts to idolatry.
24:31: For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come on those disobedience.
24:35: And in them, you also once walked when you were living in them, but now you also put them all aside.
24:44: And here it is again, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech.
24:50: Do not lie to one another.
24:52: Since you have laid aside the old self and its evil practices and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge, according to the image of the one who created him.
25:06: A renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek or Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free man, but Christ is in all and in all.
25:18: So here it is.
25:18: Paul not only says this to the church at Ephesians, he says the same thing to the church in Colossians.
25:24: Hey, this is what your old manner of life.
25:27: Cut it out.
25:28: For whatever the purpose is, whatever it is, it's not acceptable anymore.
25:33: Now this is the new manner of life in which everything should flow out of.
25:38: And I do still believe that everything that flows out of us as far as the one another's comes out of having a tender heart because it's rooted in love.
25:46: Now, it says just as God and Christ also has forgiven you.
25:53: The Greek word there is charizomai.
25:56: And if you know anything about Greek or if you ever look in your Greek in charous, you may know what charous is.
26:01: It's the word for grace.
26:04: Anytime we extend forgiveness to someone, just as Christ extended forgiveness to us, that is an act of grace and we are acting Christlike.
26:14: No strings attached.
26:16: We're to forgive one another.
26:17: And why are we to forgive one another? That's it.
26:21: I think that's what Andy was talking about.
26:23: When was last week? Was it last week? Yeah.
26:26: Why do we forgive someone? We've been forgiven so much.
26:30: And he brought up a passage that I have longed to want to preach.
26:33: And it was with about Simon, the, the Pharisee where he has this big party and he invites Jesus to come in and Jesus comes and the, the sinful woman comes in and touches him.
26:50: And he says in his mind, this is what's cool.
26:52: In his mind, he's going, if this man was truly a prophet, he wouldn't let this chick touch him.
26:59: And Jesus says, would you say something? And then he goes on and he says, you know, who, who much is forgiven, much is loved.
27:09: And what does Simon do? No dessert Jesus, time to pack up.
27:13: We're at a dinner party.
27:15: He says, we're done.
27:17: And that is what an act of being more Christ-like when we're being forgive, not forgetful, forgiveful, forgiving.
27:38: Forgiving is what? Extending? Great.
27:45: Okay.
27:45: Keep going.
27:47: Extending grace.
28:02: That's it.
28:03: No strings attached.
28:05: No strings attached.
28:08: Me and Mike Ward are doing a study on prayer in the morning on Tuesday mornings.
28:13: And we spent most of our time dealing with forgiveness this past hour on this past Tuesday.
28:20: And I brought up these things to him about forgiveness.
29:01: Forgiveness comes with three promises.
29:04: Same three that Christ gave us.
29:07: One first promise.
29:11: Never again, never again, will this be brought up never again.
29:27: When Christ forgave us our sins, is he, is he ever going to bring it? Let me, I'm going to clarify what that means to be brought up.
29:32: Does God forget? Does God forget when it says that he cast our sins from the east to the west? Does that mean he he's forgotten what we've done to remember? That's it.
29:44: This is never used again against us for condemnation ever again.
29:50: When Jesus paid that penalty and we were granted forgiveness, it'll be never brought up against us to be held up against us.
29:57: Okay.
29:58: Those Colossians says that those handwriting ordinances that were condemning us were nailed to the cross and they're remembered no more.
30:06: That's what it means that God doesn't forget.
30:11: Now, when we forgive someone, are there still those consequences that may enable that may hinder them from doing things? Sure.
30:19: Tell you right now for God here is because he gets saved and he's been a child molester is a sexual predator.
30:24: He ain't working in a nursery.
30:26: You have a person that's been, uh, crimes of embezzlement or any type of theft or burglary.
30:32: They're not helping out with the books here.
30:34: And I'll even go a step further that if a person has committed such crimes as that, they shouldn't even want to ask to work in those areas.
30:42: Okay.
30:44: So when that, when that, we have the promises never be brought up again, then the promise of not as leverage.
31:00: Anybody know what that means? You send against me now because you did that.
31:15: I'm still struggling with that.
31:17: I can't forget about it.
31:20: I'm going to get you to do this for me.
31:23: That's what that meant.
31:24: You can never hold that against leverage ever again.
31:28: Ever does God hold any, anything against that would leverage.
31:32: Did he make us work for anything? Make us jump through any hoops? No, no.
31:40: Andy.
31:43: Okay.
31:44: I don't know if you were sleeping on me, but never be brought up again.
31:55: Never used as leverage.
31:58: What would be the final promise? Those are what they work together.
32:02: What would be the final promise? It's never going to be brought up.
32:15: Never used as leverage and never speak about it again.
32:30: Never speak about it again.
32:33: Have you ever been praying and you say, Hey God, um, forgive me for this.
32:38: I repent of that.
32:39: He ever says, well, why did you do that? You ever hear that in your spirit? Has he ever, when you start praying, does he ever bring up something that you did yesterday? We do.
32:53: Sure we do.
32:54: Is that God doing that? It's normally us in our narcissistic way, beating ourselves up for something we did yesterday, but that's the never be spoken of again.
33:04: Now, um, in marital counseling, this is difficult.
33:11: We're having to do it here, but Hey, I have had arguments about this right here dealing with, especially if you have a grievous, um, covenant breaking sins, that's hard to go.
33:27: Well, so-and-so he was out late and I just makes me think about what he did or she was gone late and what she did.
33:33: Do you wait a minute? You never bring it up again.
33:35: You're not to use it as leverage against that person and never speak about that situation again.
33:41: Once you've granted forgiveness, I can forgive this be hard to work through this way from here to here.
33:48: God says it's over, but here to here.
33:51: Yeah, this is difficult.
33:59: Sure.
34:00: Yeah.
34:00: The consequences and the residual.
34:02: Yeah.
34:02: I mean, I'm not saying that I'm not saying that, uh, this happens in a second.
34:08: Okay.
34:09: So if anybody's thinking, that's what I'm saying, that's not what I'm saying.
34:12: Sometimes these can take time to work through.
34:16: Okay.
34:17: I mean, I can think of things that has happened here at this church and individuals and working with, Hey man, sometimes I can be difficult, but my responsibility is they got, they sought forgiveness.
34:28: I'm not going to bring it up again when they do something down the road.
34:31: I'm not going to use it as leverage and I ain't going to speak about it again.
34:36: And I'm not talking about just speak about to them.
34:38: I'm not going to talk to you about it either.
34:41: I think that's more so here.
34:44: I've got no reason to tell Andy what so-and-so did to me.
34:47: If Andy wasn't involved.
34:49: You know, what's interesting.
34:51: Yes, sir.
34:54: That is really forgiveness is not an emotional thing.
34:59: It's a thoughtful thing.
35:01: I mean, in other words, we really have to use our minds as you broke it out there, because if it's just an emotional thing or it's just a shallow thing, it will always fall back.
35:13: But if it's, it's an effort of a mind, if I just could, I just want to, and I was thinking about it as you were reading.
35:19: So in Colossians three, it's interesting to me that in between the put off that you read about and to put on that you read about is verse 11, where there was neither Greek, no Jews, nor Barbarian, Scythian, slave or free.
35:36: That is a realization of our mind that we have, have in front of us at all times.
35:44: I just think it's interesting that the do nots and do's are sandwiched in with that verse.
35:49: And even as you're talking, because that really is, that's an effort, not only of our hearts, but of our mind.
35:55: Sure.
35:56: It takes both.
35:58: And we're not going to be able to do it without both.
36:00: Yeah, because if not, you're going to have the conflict of what to do, what your mind's telling you to do versus what your heart's telling you to do until they're working together.
36:07: And too often all we try to do is do it with our hearts and then we fall backwards because it's not really a reality to us.
36:14: It's just, it's something that just emotional more than anything else.
36:18: Sure.
36:18: Hey, I'll even say this when it comes to forgiveness.
36:20: How many of us have swore when we've been grievously sinned against that we, hey, if that person comes to me, because it does, there is a preacher that echoes it to forgiveness.
36:30: Luke says if he sins and he repents, you forgive him.
36:37: Is that not what it says? That's what it says.
36:40: So if somebody sins against you, are we obligated to just forgive them? No, we're not.
36:50: Hang, wait a minute.
36:51: If someone sins against you and they don't come and ask for forgiveness, how are you going to forgive them? By trusting that the Lord forgave me.
37:00: But that, but you, God didn't forgive you until you asked.
37:05: Can you, can you do that? Can you not grant forgiveness without being bitter? Well, we're in a situation now where I've had to forgive someone and move on because the bitterness of it was just making me focus on it.
37:21: Can there be forgiveness without reconciliation? Well, I had to do my part to forgive him.
37:26: You'll never be reconciled to that person if they don't want to reconcile.
37:29: Forgiveness is two parts.
37:31: So you can be willing and ready to forgive.
37:34: And I think that's the attitude we should have.
37:36: Hey, if y'all disagree with me on that, I'm fine with that.
37:38: You want to arm wrestle about it later, we can.
37:40: But the Bible nowhere says just forgive.
37:44: Nowhere.
37:46: God forgave you when he gave you the ability to ask for forgiveness and believe.
37:52: God didn't just forgive everybody, did he? Man, I about had an apoplectic seizure yesterday when a guy on TV said, on TV said that, hey, we just need to be thankful that Jesus came into the world to reconcile, to reconcile all of mankind to himself.
38:08: You know what he just said? He just said that God forgave everybody.
38:13: That's a universalist.
38:16: Okay.
38:16: We're to have the heart of forgiveness is one willing and ready to forgive someone when asked.
38:25: I have no problem saying this.
38:27: I had to call Keith, a guy that had sinned grievously against me and my family.
38:32: Hurt, slandered, all that.
38:33: He called me.
38:34: And I really did think that I was willing and ready to forgive that man when he, when he called and here for this guy for maybe six years and he called and I had to, I got off the phone and had to call Keith.
38:50: I said, Hey man, you need to pray for me.
38:52: I don't want to forgive this man.
38:56: And I know that's sinful.
38:58: And I thought in my heart of hearts that I was willing and ready and I don't want to, I want him to look like Rocky the raccoon.
39:06: That's what I want him to look like.
39:08: I said, so would you pray for me? And he did.
39:11: And then I wind up, God changing my heart about two days later, standing up there.
39:17: They were given the ministration of the elements and my heart was just absolutely broken.
39:25: That how much I had been forgiven all the things that I had done and I was going to hold this against this man.
39:33: Was I hurt? Yep.
39:35: But do you know what? It's over.
39:38: It's over.
39:39: Forgive him, move on.
39:41: Whatever God does with that man and whatever it is, that's between him and the Lord.
39:44: But I was released of that.
39:47: Asked for forgiveness for being unforgiven.
39:50: Unforgivable is what I was being.
39:52: Will I ever have reconciliation with that person? Here it is.
40:01: He's asked for forgiveness.
40:03: But I had, I said, Jim, are you ready? He said, I'll come to you.
40:08: Wherever you're at.
40:09: I said, I'll fly to where you're at, man.
40:11: Let's be reconciled to one another.
40:13: And I have not got a phone call.
40:16: He is unwilling to reconcile.
40:19: Now I said, you want the, you wanted the in your mind that there's no animosity between us two anymore.
40:26: And I did believe that's what he wanted.
40:28: I mean, I really did.
40:29: I think it was more this way than it was this way.
40:33: But we'll never be reconciled.
40:35: You show me anywhere in scripture where somebody was that forgiveness with no reconciliation.
40:40: We'll just take church discipline.
40:44: It's church discipline is forgiveness granted by the body without reconciliation.
40:50: I don't care.
40:50: Andy, do you know anywhere where forgiveness is granted apart from reconciliation? I don't.
40:58: And those are the words of Jesus.
40:59: If he repents, forgive him.
41:02: But man, we just got to be, uh, not let this happen.
41:10: Hey, if you disagree with me, I'm fine with that.
41:13: You just have to show me in scripture where that, where what I said was wrong.
41:18: I'm not going to forgive you for that.
41:23: Okay.
41:27: So questions, comments.
41:33: Well, the thing with this, this, this whole, all this, that we, these one and others.
41:38: Yes, sir.
41:40: Have you noticed that they're at the, they're in the second half of this, this letter.
41:46: So you got the first half.
41:48: It's all, all of what got all the indicatives.
41:51: Yep.
41:51: God has done for us.
41:52: And then all the imperative imperative.
41:54: So it's pouring in there, these last three chapters.
41:57: And, but we can't, we're not grounded in the first three.
42:00: We're never going to get the second.
42:02: That's right.
42:03: Yeah.
42:03: We have to know where our position in Christ is.
42:05: That's why anytime indicatives or something is indicating, and we got to go indicating what Christ has done in our stead.
42:11: It's every time.
42:13: Indicatives imperatives come together.
42:15: God never commands us to do something.
42:17: We're unable to do in Christ.
42:19: Let me back that up.
42:20: Okay.
42:20: In Christ.
42:21: Okay.
42:22: All right.
42:23: You ready? I'll pray for us and we can get father God.
42:27: Thank you so much that in Christ forgiveness has been granted.
42:30: Thank you Lord, that you were tenderhearted to us.
42:33: Thank you that you were kind to us father for you say that it was the loving kindness of God that led us to repentance.
42:40: And father, that is so true.
42:41: Father, thank you that you sent your son into the world to be the very exposition of love and compassion and concern towards a obstinate people.
42:51: Father, thank you for what you're going to do in the service today, prepare Keith for his time of preaching and strengthen him and keep him from error in Christ's name.
42:59: Amen.
43:18: Yeah.
43:44: And it is hot in here.
43:57: Okay.
44:09: Why would you need to purchase that? They, they, you know, I'm sorry.
44:25: So we meet see what the arrangements will be.