Forgiveness and Reconciliation

I'm going to speak a little bit today about a topic I think that is important as we consider this upcoming Passover and Spring Holy Days season. The reality is, as we go through life, we gather wounds. We gather wounds. And you know, the amount of wounds that you gather, it's dependent on a lot of different factors. It often has to do with the stability of your family of origin, your perspective toward life challenges, the choices that you make in life, and sadly, as we all know all too well, the decisions that other people, the other decisions and choices that other people make in life that happen to have a direct impact on us. That just the way that we connect as humans can cause wounds. We connect in social groups, and we build those social groups, and we sort those social groups into our preferred groupings based upon interest and occupation and compatibility. And in the way that we do that, it virtually guarantees that if we're not careful, someone can be excluded and somebody can be hurt by that exclusion. Even if it's unintended, even if it was not at the least bit intended by anyone, there can be hurt that comes from being excluded from these groups. I think we've all also experienced being on the receiving end of an ill-thought-out statement, something that someone has said without thinking or in anger. And I think if we're honest, we've all likely been in a place where we have been the one who has provided that ill-thought statement that wounds someone whom we love. Now, these things, these wounds that we collect, they're often done unintentionally. Sometimes, I think we don't even necessarily realize that we've caused a hurt to someone else. And sometimes we might even hear that someone has been hurt by something that we've said or done, and we think to ourselves, that is ridiculous. You are upset over that. But we also recognize that at times the hurt that people experience is purposeful. It's been intended to either bring someone down to establish control or balance of power in such a way that they're able to exploit someone or guilt a person into responding in a certain way. Thankfully, those instances of abuse are rare. They are rare, but they do happen. As we have all traveled through life, we have collected a number of wounds.

And quite frankly, we've created a number of wounds as well. You know, God designed an incredible system in our human body that heals us of these things and that processes these things. And it's it's a fascinating process that the body undergoes to close up an injury that happens to our skin.

First off, the bleeding stops. And there is a multi-step process that goes into play to stop the bleeding of that particular area. You have platelets in your blood, and those platelets, as they circulate, they attach themselves to the edges of that wound. They cling to the edges of that injured vessel, and they kind of gum up the edges a little bit.

But what they're doing is they're building a foundation for additional platelets to grab a hold of. So they get a hold of that little edges of the wound, and they build this little pile of platelets. And then as more platelets come on, eventually you start to create what's known as a platelet plug. And it kind of prevents the blood from really gushing out of that particular wound. Now, what's cool too is that as those platelets do that, there is a release of these little chemical clotting factors that encourage a molecule known as fibrin to start to interweave with that plug of platelets.

As time goes on, these molecules of fibrin interweave with these platelets, and they begin to solidify one another into this plug that prevents the bleeding of that particular wound. You know, as time goes on, there's more and more fibrin that gets added. Collagen begins to come back in. Collagen's the same stuff that our skin is made of normally, but it's a little bit different when it builds in an area of injury.

In the old skin, the collagen fibers are woven like a basket. You know, they come up and over, and there's this weaving, so to speak, that occurs in that collagen fiber that enables it to really, you know, really, really hold. It makes our skin very strong to begin with.

Well, when you replace collagen, when collagen rebuilds and comes in and forms a scar, in the original, they're going in every direction. You know, all these little molecules of collagen and these fibers of collagen are going in every direction. But when it's replaced, when you have a scar that's been formed, when you have a scar that builds over an injury, all of those collagen molecules and fibers all kind of go in the same direction.

And as a result of building new collagen, building new skin tissue, oftentimes there are structures that would have been in that skin that are not ordinarily there. For example, hair follicles typically do not grow in scar tissue. Sweat glands typically do not grow in scar tissue. And so you can also have situations where pigmentation is affected, where, you know, you end up with something that is much lighter than the skin around it. As a result of all of that, scars tend to be noticeable.

They tend to be very visible reminders of an injury. I think, you know, if I asked you to think back over your life and think about an incident that you have or a scar that you have, you know, most of you can likely think of and reference exactly where you were, exactly what you were doing, and how that scar took place. Because those kind of things are indelibly marked on our memory. They're indelibly marked on the life that we've had. Oftentimes, those scars remind you of the pain. They remind you of the situation itself that you experienced. And at times, those reminders can be hard.

My wife and I, when we first got married, and all shortly after we got married, I should say, we lived in a tiny little apartment over off of Church Street for a few months before we moved over to Park Avenue and lived in a rental home that Bruce and Linda Hansen's parents owned. And they were fantastic landlords. We loved the house.

We loved the yard. A huge, big backyard, great garden, you know, big old kiwi trees in the back. Some of you remember maybe coming over and visiting there at one point in time when we lived there. But it was the first home that we owned, or that we owned, I should say, that we lived in that had a backyard that we needed to do maintenance on.

Our apartment, they would come out and mow it every, you know, couple of weeks or something. We didn't have to really worry about it. But in this case, it was the first one that we actually had to take care of ourselves. So we did what every homeowner does. They go out, they find themselves a lawn mower, and do what you can to kind of keep up on lawn maintenance. Well, the backyard of this particular house, off to one side of it, there was a set of laundry drying tea bars.

And so many of you that have lived in older homes, you've seen these sort of things. Many of you probably have them in your own backyard, but it's a way to be able to then hang your laundry out on the line so it can dry during the summer. And it has the tea bars, and it has the lines, and the lines all connect up to the tea bar. And for most of you, I'm telling you something you're intimately familiar with.

But for those of you that are a little bit younger, you might be looking at me like, wait, what? Use the sun to dry clothes? Yes, you do. It works remarkably well.

So I'm mowing around the tea bars one day, one morning, and I happened to kind of weave my way underneath and around the little tea bar piece, and there was a divot in the lawn right behind that tea bar. And for whatever reason, I managed to get the wheel of the lawnmower right down in that little pit, and it just stopped the lawnmower dead. Just completely stopped it.

And I kind of hesitated a little bit and thought, well, I gotta get some leverage to get this thing out of here. And to get leverage, you gotta kind of push down on the back of the mower to lift the front. So I stood up as I had gone underneath this particular tea bar. I just full force smacked the top of my head into this tea bar that was there. And at first, I didn't realize the level of damage that I had done, and I also didn't realize at that point in time that I had not hit the tea bar, the round part of the bar.

Instead, I had stood directly up into about two inches of rusty bolt that was sticking out the backside of this tea bar. Split second later, I knew exactly what had happened because I had blood all down my face. It was in my eye, and I was heading in for the bathroom, shouting for Shannon to come in and kind of make sure that things were okay. Got into the bathroom. It was covered in blood at that point. You know, it was a mess.

Managed to start getting things cleaned up, and I realized what I'd done was I had gashed a pretty deep laceration that was about an inch and a half long into my scalp. And I argued back and forth with Shannon like a typical husband does of, ah, it's fine. I don't need to go to the hospital. And she told me at that point, essentially, that she could see the white of my skull, that it was winking at her.

And I said, well, okay, we probably should go in. Thankfully, you know, a few hours later, a couple dozen stitches and probably a tetanus shot, I think, if I recall, we were headed back home. Now, the scar is still there. The reminder of that injury is still there. And if I can part my hair in enough ways, usually I can find it, though I had a hard time finding it this morning. So it may have faded enough over the years that it's not as noticeable now.

But thankfully, the doctor had very steady hands. He did a phenomenal job bringing everything back together. The inside stitches really helped to hold. And then the outside, he was able to kind of clip away skin and make a nice straight scar that has faded mostly with time and is hardly noticeable today. But had I not decided to go in, and I decided that I would just leave that inch and a half inch gash in my head, wait for the bleeding to stop and just let it kind of heal on its own, it would have caused a much larger and a much more problematic scar.

There may have been complications, there may have been infections, there could have been damage. It could have caused me nothing but trouble going forward. Brethren, our emotional scars can be much the same. Often, the wounds that we collect in life, they don't heal as easily. And I say heal with quotation marks. They don't heal as easily. Over time, it heals, quote unquote, but sometimes they don't heal right.

And we're left with something that causes us issues and causes us damage going forward in our lives. Our relationships with others suffer, sometimes not just the one that hurt us, but anyone that we come into contact with is damaged by these scars that have been present in our present in our life. Now, whether you heal the wound effectively or not, the scar will still be there. But the big question is, how noticeable will it be? How noticeable will it be? How noticeable will it be to you? To your friends? To your family? How much damage will that wound cause as it heals? The title of the message today is Forgiveness and Reconciliation.

What I'd like to do is take the remainder of our time today to explore these topics as we come into the Passover and as we kind of consider these things, this topic of reconciliation and forgiveness from a standpoint of God to us, and also what that means for us as we interact with one another. Forgiveness and reconciliation are two related topics. They are intertwined, yet they are distinct.

God's provided us with a gift of both with an expectation that as much as possible we heal the damage between one another. We patch up our wounds as we patch up our own relationship with God, and we are healed and we are renewed. Let's start today by turning over to Matthew 6.

Start today by taking a look at Matthew 6. As we progress through this, I hope to build to a point where we can take away an application for this Passover and Spring Holy Day season of what we need to be doing, what we need to be taking care of with regards to us. But to do that, we need to understand how this operates with regards to God. In Matthew 6, you'd go ahead and once again turn over there. We're going to pick it up in verse 9 of Matthew 6. Matthew 6 and verse 9. And we'll read through verse 13, and this is where we see what is known as the model prayer. This is where we see the the recording that Christ gave us with regards to what our prayer should look like.

So, Matthew 6 and verse 9. Matthew 6 and verse 9 says, the glory forever. Amen. Now, certain faiths really use this prayer from a standpoint of complete verbatim, that you repeat this prayer in certain ways and that the words themselves have power. And that's not what Christ is saying here, and we know that. We know that Christ is giving us, to a certain extent, a degree of category, so to speak, to consider when we come before God in prayer that we thank Him for His protection, that we thank Him for His providence and His blessings in our life. We thank Him for His deliverance from Satan and from temptation. We ask for ongoing blessings. We acknowledge His magnificence. But I want you to notice one concept in here that's written in verse 12. In verse 12, He addresses the importance and the concept of forgiveness.

And it's written, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And it's really easy as we read that, and especially as we read the model prayer as a whole, it's really easy to read past that and not catch it in the context of the whole thing. But brethren, that is a conditional statement. That's a conditional phrase. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And if there was any question as to the conditionality, quote-unquote, of that statement, Christ makes it abundantly clear in verses 14 and 15 in Matthew 6. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you or forgive, sorry, your trespasses. Once again, if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Matthew 6 verses 14 to 15. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Brethren, we're not offered forgiveness on any other terms. Those are the terms that we are provided. And so God's expectation of us is that we will forgive one another our trespasses. God does not desire for there to be hurts and wounds and grudges and frustrations among his people that go back for decades. That is not God's desire. God's desire is that we forgive one another and that we establish a restored and reconciled relationship with our brother. In fact, he's explicit about the restoration that he expects among his people. Let's turn to Ephesians 4, and we'll pick it up in verse 26. Ephesians 4 and verse 26. Ephesians 4. And we'll go ahead and begin in verse 26.

Ephesians 4 and verse 26. Without my glasses, this is about impossible. I have to take the glasses off because of the ring light. I'm doing this with exceptionally small text in this new Bible.

Verse 26 of Ephesians 4 under a heading of not grieving the Spirit. It starts in 25 with, you know, therefore putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin.

It doesn't say that anger in and of itself is a sin, but it says be angry and do not sin. There is righteous indignation. Christ was righteously in dignity at times.

It says, do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. So there is a principle in Scripture in Ephesians 4 and verse 26 that reminds us of repairing the relationship expeditiously. That we don't put it off and put it off and put it off and put it off and put it off. Instead, don't let the sun go down on your wrath. You know, deal with the situation. Take care of the situation. Matthew 5 verse 24, we'll just reference it. Matthew 5 and verse 24, he tells us that if we have something against our brother, if we have something that we have just grind in our gears against one of our brothers, there's been conflict. If there's been something along those lines that even if we are on our way to the altar to offer our offering, that we should put it down and we should go and reconcile with our brother and then come to God. God's serious about us patching things up with one another, taking care of the hurts and the wounds that we provide, ensuring that we do what we can to restore a right relationship between us. Now why? Why? Why is it such a big deal? It's such a big deal because of the forgiveness that we've been provided. It's such a big deal because of the reconciliation that we have been provided because of the sins that we've committed and how they have been washed away by the blood of Christ and we have had that relationship with God the Father restored through that sacrifice on our behalf. Brethren, when we withhold forgiveness from someone else, we're rejecting that gift. When we refuse to forgive someone who's wounded us or who has wronged us, we are actively preventing God from pouring out that forgiveness on our behalf.

When we refuse to work through the damage that comes from those wounds. Some of the wounds that we experience in our life go back 25, 30, 40, 50 years and when we don't heal the damage that comes from those wounds, we bleed on everyone else around us. And when we bleed on everyone else around us, we are not appropriately acknowledging the gift of God and allowing His healing power to work in us. Brethren, we have a responsibility and that forgiveness is conditional and it is critical. It's an absolutely critical aspect of our relationship with God. You know, as we come into the Passover season this year and as we once again commemorate the blood of Christ on our behalf and that He has, you know, remitted our sins through His blood and as we examine ourselves and as we consider the places in our life that need repair, is there forgiveness that you are withholding from someone? Are there hurts and wounds that are still raw and open? That are just still raw? Are you appropriately acknowledging the sacrifice of Christ in your life and the healing that He offers you through that sacrifice? The reconciliation that you've been provided and are you able to then in turn offer that reconciliation to others? You know, as we stated at the beginning of the message today, forgiveness and reconciliation, they're related, but they're not the same thing. They're related, but they're not the same thing. Let's go to Colossians 1. Let's go ahead and turn over to the book of Colossians. The book of Colossians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.

The book of Colossians. And we'll go ahead and pick it up in chapter 1 of Colossians. Just a quick, just brief kind of cap as you're turning to that. You're not too far away, but this particular epistle to the church in Colossae was likely written during Paul's first imprisonment in Rome, which dates the letter early 60s AD. The city itself was founded along a river in what's modern day Turkey, and it was one stop along a major east-west trading route in the Lycus River Valley, which is actually just a stone's throw, you know, colloquially from the city of Laodicea. They weren't really far from Laodicea. Paul actually references that in this epistle at the end. He says, be sure and share this epistle with the brethren in Laodicea. It doesn't appear that Paul is the one that raised this group up in Colossae. He was actually an Ephesus at that point in time, and it's believed that Epaphras, who's mentioned in the opening of this letter and periodically kind of throughout, is the one who brought the gospel message to Colossae and served them after learning it from Paul, potentially in Ephesus. Epaphras is also the one who, as far as we can tell from the epistle, is the one that brought the concerns that he had to Paul in Rome, which necessitated him writing the epistle. So Paul is in this really tough position of needing to write, to correct, and to encourage, and to inspire the brethren with very little personal connection with the group that he's writing to in Colossae. Now, as often was the case in New Testament churches, there was this constant battle between the truth and false teachings. This is nothing new. We know that what we experience in the modern era of the church today is the same thing that our brethren experienced during the time of the New Testament church. In fact, it parallels the New Testament church in many ways, but there was a constant battle against false teachings. And in this particular case, they seem to be dealing with some form of an early form of Gnostic teachings.

And throughout that letter, Paul is subtly, and frankly not so subtly at times, defending against those false teachings. But inside of all of that, all that's going on in this letter, inside of all of that, Paul takes the time to really talk about the importance of reconciliation and what it is. In Colossians 1 and verse 19, so if you want to find Colossians 1 and verse 19, he, in the process of addressing these Gnostic thoughts, he's also hammering in this idea of reconciliation. And so he's kind of bringing all this together into one big connected concept. So in Colossians 1 and verse 19, it says, For it pleased the Father, for it pleased the Father, that in him all the fullness should dwell, in him all the fullness should dwell, referencing Jesus Christ here, because that was what was contextually being referenced above, and by him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of the cross.

And you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight. If indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister. So the blood of Jesus Christ, as we can see from what Paul has written here, the blood of Christ shed for you and for me, made peace between us and God the Father. It enabled us to have our sins remitted, to have them cleansed and washed from us, and it restored this estranged relationship that we had with our Creator. We were in a state of alienation, we were estranged from Him, we were enemies. And we were enemies as a result of our mind and of our wicked works, on the carnal thoughts and the actions of our mind and of our heart. Yet, through the atoning sacrifice of Christ, that act that he took on for us, we are reconciled to God. We are brought back into a right relationship with God the Father, and peace has been made between those two parties. It took the death of Jesus Christ to do that. Note what Paul says in verse 23. Notice what he says in verse 23, that this reconciliation presents us before God holy and blameless and above reproach if, if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not removed from the hope of the gospel which you heard. There are terms. There are terms to this right relationship. And Scripture is clear on so many of these terms that we are learning and growing and being more like Jesus Christ, that we are putting on righteousness, that we are allowing His Spirit to lead us, and that we are exhibiting fruits of His Spirit. And it goes on and on and on and on and on as to what the terms are to the agreement that we signed up for when we were baptized.

There is an expectation by God of a continuance in that restored relationship. You might say a change of behavior or a newness of life is expected. The act of reconciliation writes the relationship. It heals the breach. It makes peace. But the need for that restoration is continual.

Every time we stray, we deviate in our thoughts, we deviate in our actions. It requires us to return to God in repentance, make a change of our mind, and make a change of our actions, and then follow through as a result. Let's turn over to 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5.

We'll take a look here at a letter that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. Actually, this letter predates by about five years the letter that he wrote to Colossae.

This concept of reconciliation was central to many of Paul's epistles. In fact, you can find references to it and concepts of it in a lot of his epistles to the New Testament churches and to those churches in Asia Minor. As we take a look at this concept in 2 Corinthians 5, this was a central concept to Paul's writings, this idea of reconciliation. In 2 Corinthians 5, he really describes it well. In 2 Corinthians 5, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 12. 2 Corinthians 5.

2 Corinthians 5.

And verse 12. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 12. It says, For we do not commend ourselves again to you, but give you opportunity to boast on our behalf, that you may have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart.

For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. Or if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus, that if one died for all, then all died. And he died for all, that those who live, those who were given that ability to go forward and live in his way, should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. You know, Christ's death was for all. As a result of that, Paul writes that those who live as a result of his death, the expectation is, because your sins have been forgiven, because you've been reconciled to God, you should no longer live for yourself. Instead, you should live for him who died for you and rose again. Verse 16 says, Therefore, from now on we regard no one, according to the flesh, guard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, and behold, all things have become new.

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, or the word ministry there is service, the service of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

God has provided this service of reconciliation to us, given us a message, so to speak, of reconciliation, so that we can go out into the world around us. We can go out into our congregations, and into our families, and into our workplaces, and into our schools, and we can show the world by our word, and by our example, what a reconciled relationship and a restored relationship looks like.

Why is that so important? You take a look at the world around you, and you examine pop culture and other things that we experience in the world.

Forgiveness is something that doesn't happen often. I think a lot of people think forgiveness is something that is a good idea. I think people think that forgiveness is something that is nice, and it's a good thought right up until they have to forgive someone of something.

And then, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that this situation, that's different. I can't forgive this situation because this and this and this. So when you take a look at the world around us, and when you take a look at the interactions and people in the world, just recently in the middle of all of this quarantine, I saw that somehow, somewhere, and some of you may know more about this than I do, but apparently Kanye and Taylor Swift's beef is still going on. And they were releasing audio, and they were still, and everybody's siding with Taylor, siding with, and in the middle of all this quarantine, I'm thinking to myself, who cares? Who cares?

It never got patched up. It should have been patched up. It should have been forgiven. It should have been moved on. And it never was. And so when the world looks like that, when you can let somebody, when you can forgive someone for the wrong that they've done to you, or you can reconcile a relationship that was estranged and almost gone, it's noticed. It's something that people recognize and they see. Now, why is it so important that we do it? Well, because God reconciled us to Him. He reconciled us to Him. While we were still enemies, He didn't count or indet our sins against us, a record of our trespasses in that regard, He released them. He put them away. He sent them away. He forgave those debts. And because of that, because of that being done on our behalf, we can be reconciled to others and we can operate in the way that Christ did. Paul goes on in verse 20 of 2 Corinthians 5. He says, now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. He says, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Paul writes, because of this, he and his companions are ambassadors for Christ. God is pleading through Paul and through his companions to those in Corinth, in Colossae, in Ephesus, and through their example to us to be reconciled to God, to restore that relationship between us and God. To return to Him in repentance and to have that relationship, the blood of Jesus Christ poured out and restored for us. Brethren, we too are ambassadors of Jesus Christ in this modern era. We're representatives of His kingdom on this earth and we're individuals who are living by His way of life today in this quote-unquote foreign country in which we live. And we are doing what we can and we're doing our level best and I hope we're doing our level best each and every day to do what we can to represent our country of origin, to represent that kingdom in God's ways and its culture to the world around us and to those whom we interact with.

You know, as such, this particular concept of reconciliation among our human relationships and the aspects of forgiveness that go with it are just essential. They're absolutely essential because we are reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus Christ. That right relationship is established through His sacrifice. Our sins are forgiven and we're brought into peace with God the Father as a result of that act. But the expectation of God as a result of that act is that we will change. In here, we will change as a result of that reconciliation. That we will shift our behaviors, that we will shift our attitudes, that we will shift our mindset to be more like His Son, Jesus Christ, as we go through our life. And really, that those who interact with us will see Him in us and will see Him in the way that we treat others and the way that we interact with others. Paul stated in verse 21, just as a reminder, he said that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. So when we talk about reconciliation, when we consider what that is and what it means and how it operates, we're talking about restoration.

We're talking about restoring a right relationship. And I think reality is, in this life, there are wounds, there are hurts, there are scars. Even among the elect of God, you know, if we were all capable of living God's way perfectly, there would be no hurt.

If we were capable of living it perfectly, there would be no harm, there would be no hurt, there would be no need for restoration of relationships because we would not have damaged them in the first place. But that's not reality now. That's not reality right now.

There's a reality like that coming, but it's not here today. And so we have injuries, we have wounds, we have scars, we have, you know, issues that we cause and that we create and that have been created for us that we deal with.

So where do these issues come from? Where do they originate? Let's turn over to James 4. James 4. We'll take a look at kind of where these things come from, and we've been to this passage before. This isn't a, you know, obscure passage that no one's ever heard of, but I want to draw some concepts out of this that help us to understand kind of generally where we're headed today. James 4. And we'll pick it up in verse 1.

James 4 and verse 1. James 4 and verse 1 says, Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and can't have, you murder and covet and cannot obtain, you fight and war, and yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. He gets kind of strong here in verse 4. Adulters and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or, verse 5, do you think the scripture says in vain that the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously but he gives more grace? Therefore, he says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. The conflicts that we have with one another, the issues that we have with one another, come from the works of our flesh.

And they come from our friendship with the world. The more we are aligned with the world and the less we are aligned with God, these things are going to come up among us. As we align ourselves more with the world and we pull away from God, we are going to cause more conflict, more wars, more fights, more wounds, and more scars. The closer we are to God, the more we are allowing his spirit to dwell on us, the better off all of us are.

So what's the solution? In verse 7, he gives you the solution. He says, therefore, submit to God. Allow his spirit to lead you. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Says, Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Says, Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up. So, submitting ourselves to God, resisting the influence of the devil in our lives, and kind of resisting those poles of the flesh, cleansing our hands in this time of coronavirus, right? 20 seconds with something. No, but cleansing our hands and ensuring that we are purifying our hearts in a regularly repentant relationship with God brings us into a closer relationship with Him, which in turn helps us to reconcile with our brother and to be able to reconcile with one another.

But a key to that is this idea of humility. It is very difficult to reconcile a relationship when there is pride involved. It's very, very difficult to reconcile a relationship when there is pride involved. Humility is necessary. You know, when we're reconciling with God or when we're reconciling with our brother, we've got to be humble. We've got to be humble. We've got to be submissive and humble, ultimately, which is a lesson that we do have opportunity to learn with the Passover service and the foot washing ceremony.

So this reconciliation that we experience is a restoration of a relationship that's been damaged. We're not really capable of restoring or reconciling relationships with one another unless we first reconcile our relationship with God and restore it. For us to even be capable of going out and fixing a relationship or healing scars or healing some of these different things that have come up in our lives over the years, we have to be restored and reconciled to God the Father in that relationship through Christ's sacrifice on our behalf.

We have to first go to Him in order to be able to be reconciled with our brother. In fact, once we've gone to Him, once we've reconciled and restored our relationship with God and we're in a good place with God, then and only then are we even capable of beginning the process that we see outlined in Matthew 18. If we start that process in Matthew 18 without being right with God, without being reconciled in that way, it's not going to end well because we're not in the right mindset to even have that conversation, to even approach our brother.

It requires us to be in this repentant, reconciled place with God in order to be spiritually in a state where we now can reconcile with one another. Now, as we recognize, as we go through life once again, we gather these wounds and the wounds that we've collected over the years, they can vary in their depth and their severity. Some of the wounds that we experience are superficial. They're not real serious. I just got one of the things we're learning about our dog and our cats. We have two cats. They do not like our dog at all. In fact, as far as they are concerned, we have ruined their life. The dog is in the house. The dog is an indoor dog as well as the cats. And right now, it is a standoff, every opportunity that they have. Well, I made the mistake of getting in between my cat and my dog about, I guess it's been a little over a week ago now, and kind of got them all talked down, but the cat was still way arched and way upset. And I was trying to get him out of the house and so stupid me, I reached down and grabbed him by the scruff, to which case he quickly turned into a whirling ball of claws and teeth. I was bit a couple of times and I was all scratched up. Those were superficial. You know, those weren't super deep wounds. They healed quickly. I'm still minorly upset with my cat, but they healed mostly quickly. But sometimes those wounds can be deep. They can be serious. And when they're not fully healed, they are painful. They are raw, and they're open, and it takes a long time for them to heal emotionally, the same thing.

They can be painful, and they can be raw, and they can still be open years and years and years and years later. And it's those wounds that we experience that bleed all over everybody. It's those wounds that we have, those large, deep, severe, serious wounds that have not been dealt with that bleed all over the people we love.

These are the kind of wounds that cause continued infliction of wounds on other people, on ourselves, because we haven't taken care of and we haven't processed the hurts and the wrongs that we've experienced fully. You know, this time of year, as we come into the Passover in the spring Holy Day season, we reflect on the bondage that God has delivered us from. He delivered His people Israel from captivity in Egypt, you know, from their bondage in Egypt in a miraculous fashion. You know, multitude of plagues, you know, led them out by pillar of cloud and fire, part of the Red Sea. I mean, miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle. And He still continues to redeem and deliver His people today. In fact, from bondage, even today, He delivers us from a bondage to sin. He delivers us from bondage to sinful attitudes. He delivers us from all sorts of bondage.

But His sin and sinful attitudes, the only bondage that God delivers us from.

Author James Smead, and I want this quote to resonate. James Smead once said, forgiveness is setting a prisoner free and discovering that that prisoner was you. Forgiveness is setting a prisoner free and discovering that the prisoner was you.

Brethren, Christ died for you and me. He died so that we might be cleansed of our sin, that we might be forgiven in the eyes of the Father, and that peace may be restored between us and God.

But He also died so that you are capable of forgiving those who hurt you, who wounded you in their ignorance, or in their sin, or in their transgression. His blood made that forgiveness possible. And frankly, brethren, not just possible. His blood on our behalf made that forgiveness mandatory. It's not optional. It's mandatory. But forgiveness, and I think this is an important distinction. Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation in human relationships.

Sometimes when we talk about this topic, and I wanted to make sure and address this, because it always comes up whenever you talk about forgiveness. Because people will look at it, and they'll say, well, what about, you know, I know I'm supposed to forgive people. I know I'm supposed to take, but am I supposed to let them back into my life? You know, whenever we discuss forgiveness, what do you do with someone who continues to cause, continues to sin, continues to cause damage, continues to behave badly? You know that forgiveness is necessary, and you know that theoretically, if all went well, you would want to restore that relationship. But are we supposed to then turn around and just blindly let that person back into our lives? No, not necessarily.

Forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things. You're obligated to forgive. You have to recognize the sin. Christ and Stephen both pointed out while they were being killed that they forgave the men who were putting them to death. Just as Christ forgave us while we were still enemies. You know, we were against him when he died for us. Now we forgive them. We don't hold a grudge. We don't harbor ill will. We don't hope that, you know, they get hit by a bus. We recognize they're in their sin. They're ignorant of the way of God, or maybe they do understand the way of God, and yet they're in a sinful, sinful place. But by not harboring that ill will, by not having that grudge, and by allowing them forgiveness, you release yourself from the sway that that person holds over you with the thing that they have done. But I think it's important to recognize reconciliation of that relationship is not all on you. It's on them to conform to the terms which have been set forth. That reconciliation is only able to occur if the other person is willing to change and grow. And if they are willing to actively pursue a restoration of that relationship, again, according to the terms. You know, we go a little bit further down in Matthew, and Peter asks Christ the question, well, how many times do I forgive my brother? And Christ says, look, 70 times 7. And that doesn't mean 490 and then 491, man. That's it. It's being said to be continually. You just you forgive again and again and again and again and again, releasing them from the debt that they have against you out of your compassion and your love for them. But you may not reach a point where their actions change enough to allow for a full reconciliation of that relationship. In fact, we referenced an example of that earlier. Let's turn over to Matthew 18 and take a look at it in context. Matthew 18. Matthew 18. And we see God provides for us a kind of blueprint, so to speak, to work through the issues that we have with one another. And once again, we mentioned earlier the importance of ensuring that we are right with God before we can even start this process. That's step one, is that we have to be in the right place to be able to be in a restored relationship, in a reconciled relationship with God. But once that's in place, then you can begin to go down this road. But there is an example here in Matthew 18 where a person's actions didn't change enough to allow for a full reconciliation of that relationship. Matthew 18 and verse 15. We'll go ahead and pick it up here. Matthew 18 and verse 15 says, Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, as God has operated throughout scripture by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established.

Verse 17, if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Now, the system that God put into place to restore relationships between one another largely puts the onus of responsibility on the shoulders of the offender. But it's important to recognize, and we realize this, I just want to make sure, but it's important to note this system that God has put into place to take care of offenses and to deal with these wounds and these scars is being operated on with the ultimate goal of restoring your brother. In love, gaining your brother back. That's the goal of this whole system.

We don't use this system to set terms to the relationship that are going to be particularly onerous. It's not a system that's designed to browbeat somebody into submission or punish them for their transgressions or coerce somebody by turning others against them. Unfortunately, this scripture has been used for that. That's not what it's intended to do. It's intended to reconcile two estranged parties who have been separated by instance of offense and to restore peace between them. That's the system here to gain your brother back after an offense.

But notice verse 17. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. If he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Unfortunately, it may reach a point where it is simply not possible to fully reconcile the relationship.

Not because the offended party isn't willing to forgive and isn't willing to reconcile, but because the offending party is unwilling to meet the terms. They're unwilling to hear their brother. They're unwilling to hear the witnesses. They're unwilling to hear the church.

Maybe the sin they're experiencing is habitual. Maybe they're convicted. They've done nothing wrong.

But they are unwilling to change. They're unwilling to express remorse whatsoever, despite repeated opportunities to do so. And at that point, Christ's instruction, not Matthew's instruction, Christ's instruction, is to let them be to you as an unbeliever or a tax collector.

Now why? Well, because they were unwilling to see the pain that they caused. They were unwilling to make the necessary changes to restore the relationship. Essentially, what Matthew 18 states is that it's your responsibility to forgive them, to release them from the debt that they have against or that, yeah, they have against you. Sorry. To release them from the debt from their, from their, from the transgression that they have caused. That's your responsibility. You have to, you know, put yourself in a place where you can release that burden of being wounded and imprisoned as a result of what they've done. But if they are unwilling to make necessary changes, we don't continue to put ourselves in a situation where you will continue to be wounded by their actions.

Where possible, I say where possible, where possible, the goal is a fully reconciled relationship. But in certain scenarios, as we see in Matthew 18, that may simply not be possible.

Now, I would hope, really truly hope, that the need for this level of response is one that is very, very rare. I would hope and pray that if someone were to come to you to let you know of an offense that you had had against them, that you would hear them with compassion. You'd hear them with sorrow as to how our words and our actions were interpreted, and that you would do what you could to patch up that relationship and to restore peace between the two of you. And the reason that is so important is because that's the example that we were provided. That's what we were given. Jesus Christ gave His life to patch up our relationship with the Father. We sinned, we transgressed, we separated ourselves from God, and we caused offense. We are forgiven by His blood, provided we're able to abide by the terms and willing to abide by the terms of our baptismal covenant, that we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, as our Lord and Master, High Priest and King, and that provided action then follows that belief and we are actively changing to become more like Him each and every day. We are able to be in a reconciled relationship with the Father.

We have to come under those terms. We have to come under and submit ourselves to Him, because those were the terms of the agreement that we made at baptism.

We said when we signed that little document, quote-unquote, through the process of baptism, we said that we would change. We said that we would become more like Jesus Christ. We said that we would love one another as He loved us. We said that we would put away the things of the flesh, and that we would allow His Spirit to dwell in us. And that covenant is one that we revisit and that we renew every year at this time. So, brethren, as we come into the spring Holy Day season, as we take the Passover this next week and commemorate the days of 11 bread later this next week, take some time to really reflect on the covenant that we've entered into. Consider your relationships with one another. Consider the wounds that you may have received and those that we may have provided to others. Forgive the trespasses of your brothers and your sisters, just as Christ has forgiven you. Release those burdens. Let His blood heal those scars, and really endeavor this coming year to continuing to restore a reconciled relationship with God and with man.