The Gateway to Freedom and Peace – Forgiveness – Purity 748

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a sunset over Lake Ontario captured in the entranceway of a trellis gate comes to us from a friend who visited the lighthouse near Sodus Point back on May 30th. Well, it is Friday again, and I thought this photo was a good one to represent the day that is the gateway to the weekend. It is my prayer that my friends will enjoy the journey of today that will deliver us into the wonderful weekend that lies just beyond our scheduled workday. Sometimes we can just enjoy the transition on a Friday, even when we don't have any big plans for the weekend. So today I hope you progressively rejoice and give thanks for this day that the Lord has made. As the day runs its course and our work responsibilities are accomplished or put to rest until we pick them up again on Monday. Speaking of taking responsibility and putting things to rest, uh, last night I had the pleasure of leading a Freedom in Christ discipleship course meeting on Zoom where we discussed one of the most essential keys in experiencing our freedom in Christ: forgiveness. Our responsibility as Christians is to show that we understand and appreciate the forgiveness God has given us through faith in Jesus Christ by forgiving others. Right after Jesus taught his original disciples to pray what we know as the Our Father, or the Lord's Prayer, he showed the fundamental place that forgiveness is to hold in our lives as Christians by telling us in Matthew 6:14-15, 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 your trespasses. Here Christ makes our responsibility to forgive others their trespasses clear. If we don't forgive others, God won't forgive us. While I know that God's grace is amazing and he will determine who is saved according to their faith in Christ, it appears that those who come to faith in his son should appreciate the free gift of their salvation and forgiveness to the point that they will be transformed by it and will forgive others for the things done to them. Forgiveness is always a tough lesson, and that is why Christ and the apostles taught so much about it. Acceptance of our forgiveness for all the things we have done is hard enough in, in a world that loves to condemn and label people according to their mistakes. Satan loves to condemn us for the wrong we have done and likes to keep us from the freedom that comes from knowing that God has forgiven our sins when we place our faith in Jesus. Instead of walking in the peace that comes from our being forgiven, saved, and given a new life, Satan likes to keep us believing the lie that we are no good, rotten sinners with no hope. He wants to keep us in chains of guilt to keep us from sharing the good news of forgiveness and salvation through faith alone, and to make it easier to drive us into despair and back into those vicious cycles of sin, guilt, condemnation, and temptation that leads— lead right— lead us right back to sin. The world's— the worldly false doctrine of everyone is basically a good person, or there is no such thing as sin, are other ways that the world system and the forces of darkness will keep us from the freedom God wants us to enjoy. Instead of repenting of the wrong we have done and receiving forgiveness, the world and the enemy tell us to not listen to our God-given consciences that tell us our— tell our hearts what is right and wrong, and tells us to make up our own morality with such pithy lies as if it feels good, how can it be wrong? Deceived, the worldly encourage one another in their sins and encourage each other to deny God and his righteous standards altogether. Romans 1:28-32 says that those who deny God will be abandoned to their sins, saying, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. They are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. Yeah, once you deny God and his standards of morality, anything goes, and you approve of others who do the same things. And one of those things, if you noticed, is to be unforgiving. Listed right along with all those, those other deeds of the wicked, being unforgiving is not something that God wants us to be. The phrase unforgiving Christian is an oxymoron. Those words, like jumbled shrimp, seem to contradict one another, and the Word of God indicates that unforgiveness and being a Christian don't go together. When we come to faith in Christ, we are forgiven of everything we ever— we have ever done or will do. And having received such a great gift of total forgiveness, we are to accept it and no longer condemn ourselves for the mistakes we have made or will make. Romans 8:1, my life verse, says, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. When we come to faith in Christ and walk in the Spirit, the accusations and condemnations of the world and the devil no longer apply to us. Repeat after me: Through faith in Christ, I have been forgiven. Therefore, I am in Christ, and none of the world's criticisms for my past or for the mistakes I will make in the future are no longer valid, and I am— and I have been forgiven by the highest authority in the universe and have been made a new creation by him. And as his word says, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. So accept your new life by accepting your forgiveness, turning away from those sinful behaviors of the past, and living according to the way of the Lord that leads to a life that is defined by the fruit of the Spirit: of peace, love, joy, goodness, faithfulness, kindness, gentleness, patience, and self-control. When we walk in the Spirit, those fruit grow in our lives, and they help us to forgive the wrongs done against us and to let go of the bitterness that comes from holding grudges against others for things they have done. God promises in, in Romans 12:19 that he will repay all the injustices of the world with his righteous vengeance, or he will bring people to repentance through his Son. So surrender those who have hurt and offended you to God by forgiving them of their trespasses against you. Forgiving others of their trespasses releases the pain and bitterness and allows you to walk in the freedom that the Lord wants you to know. So forgive all who hurt, offended, and wronged you in the past, and keep walking and talking with God so you can also forgive those who may trespass against you today. Today's Bible verses come to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses are Psalm 25:8-10, and they say: The Lord is good and does what is right. He shows the proper path to those who go astray. He leads the humble in doing right, teaching them his way. The Lord leads with unfailing love and faithfulness all who keep his covenant and obey his demands. Today's Bible verse assures us that the Lord is good and does what is right, and he shows us the way in which we should go, that he leads all those who follow him with unfailing love and faithfulness. In Christ, God made a new covenant. We place our faith in Christ as our Lord and Savior, we become part of the new— that new covenant, the covenant that forgives us of our sins and welcomes us into the family of God through adoption. If we sincerely put our faith in Christ, we will be forever changed in an instant. We are given a new life, new and eternal life, and if our profession of faith is true, we receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit who will convict us to turn from our sins and to start following the ways of the Lord and how we live our lives. These verses are Old Testament verses where people had had to have faith in a coming Messiah. But even without knowing who the Messiah would be or when he would come, God's faithfulness is testified by the psalmist, who is assured that God is good and will do what is right. And they describe how he leads the humble into doing what is right and living according to his way with unfailing love and faithfulness. Um, God God has always been faithful and encouraged people to be right with him by obeying his commands and walking in his ways. That didn't change with the coming of Christ. If anything, we are— have benefited greatly as this one piece of the mystery of life and eternity has been solved. We know to put our faith in Christ specifically. In him we have the assurance of our salvation, but a relationship with God also includes being adopted into his family and following his ways. So rejoice over the free gift of your salvation, but humble yourself— it was a free gift after all— and let the Lord lead you in doing what is right by reading his word and applying his wisdom to your life. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and Brothers and Sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life, and it's on the chapter on missions, and today's sections basically touch on the roots of the student volunteer movement, and the Brethren were born, the student volunteer movement is born, and the student flame ignited businesses and churches. So if you want to read about that movement, um, and what Piper has to say about it, go to mtforchrist.org and you'll see that excerpt at the bottom of today's blog post. And, um, that's today's message. Uh, we do, we do, uh, uh, encourage everyone to have a wonderful weekend, of course, and we encourage people to Get on the path of Christian discipleship by doing this blog and podcast. One thing we do as part of it is we share our teachings that we did back in 2021 for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. So if you're not familiar with that material, we invite you to listen to it on our podcast or to watch those teachings. Really, they're just audio teachings, but they're on YouTube too. As we have a YouTube channel. It's MT for Christ 24/7, just like the podcast name. So we encourage you to do that because of the freedom that lies from following the Lord, the peace that comes from forgiving others their sins and resolving these personal and spiritual conflicts. That lesson on forgiveness basically sets people up to go through the Steps to Freedom in Christ because it's, it's one of the essential steps in becoming free and experiencing your freedom. This weekend, one of the participants will be going through the steps on Saturday, tomorrow, and he's got some things to forgive, let me tell you. I don't know the entire testimony, but he brought up some interesting points last night, and you can feel, you know, you can hear the hurt in his voice when he talks about how people have done wrong things against him and his family, and how some of these things are in process, that they're currently happening. And, you know, quite frankly, I was, you know, I was like, yikes, this is tough because this is real life. And, you know, this is real hurt, real pain, real difficulties that people are facing. And, you know, the last thing I want to do is turn into one of those Christians that just, you know, say, "Just forget, brother," or whatever. I mean, you know, to just sort of be blasé about it. And so what do you do? What do you do when somebody comes at you with that? Well, what I do is I remember what I had to forgive. And so First, we point to Jesus, of course. He had to forgive people who were, you know, he was perfect, he was holy, he was good, and people were really mean and evil to Jesus. They took his life, you know, and they tortured him. He didn't do anything wrong and he suffered greatly. So, you know, seeing that, you know, should, you know, move our emotions and draw us, you know, and to realize we've been forgiven so much. And let's say Christ suffered, we should, you know, should, you know, learn from that and, uh, you know, forgive others. But, but sometimes, you know, you know, you just think that's sort of like Christian doctrine, like, yeah, yeah. Um, but, um, so I, I shared part of my testimony and the things I had to forgive of people betraying me and things that were done wrong against me and how some of the situations continue to this day. And I still have to forgive, and sometimes I have to remind myself that I forgive. But when I do that, I have peace. I've let it go. I know that God will do what's right, so I release it to him. I forgive, and the hurt and the bitterness is gone. It's been laid aside. I said goodbye to that. You know, in trauma, we say goodbye to things. Goodbye. To the pain and the hurt. And sometimes we have to, you know, goodbye to the relationships we've lost, whether in death or just, you know, through broken relationships. We say goodbye and we move on. And we do that, you know, knowing that we're going to go in the way the Lord directs us, into the peaceful path that he has laid out for us, where we can accept um, you know, the things that we can't change, um, and rely on him to carry us through. So that's what we try to do here, to keep it real and not to preach too much, and show that this is real life. And, and that, that's where the value of our faith comes in, is when you realize, um, the truth that lies behind the, the doctrines of grace, the things in the Bible that this stuff is really to be applied to us and not to be taken as some holy thing that doesn't apply to us. This— these teachings, you know, Jesus was a real person and he taught real people how to live. And so we're supposed to take the things that he says in his word and, and that are put down by the apostles in his word and, and to apply them to our lives. That's what what our faith is supposed to be, not just something we go, "Oh yeah, that's nice," and then move along with how the world works. You know, this is a revolutionary act of being a Christian, that we have rejected— we reject the world system and the ways of the enemy that has corrupted the world, and we choose to follow the one who is holy and to adopt his ways. So, you know, it couldn't be more counter— countercultural, countercultural than that. Um, so we— but we encourage it because of the, the peace that comes from it, the fruit of the Spirit that grows from it. So, uh, I think that's enough, uh, today for that. Um, but, uh, I do wish everyone a happy weekend, or, you know, a wonderful weekend. And, uh, let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you for the, the, the, the gifts, uh, you've given us through, through the knowledge of your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and the fact that when we apply your ways to our lives, we, we find the, the abundant life that you want us to have, and we get motivated to share it with other people, to spread your love throughout the, the world. Uh, Lord, we pray for you— we pray for everyone, uh, listening today. We pray for them to receive, uh, the wisdom, uh, and the blessings, uh, that they need, Lord. Um, we— or the strength to endure. Um, Lord, we, we— you— we know you, uh, are aware of everything that's going on and that you are with us, Lord. So we just pray for you to, to move things, um, for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purpose. We pray for you to go before us today, Lord, to open our eyes to the beauty of this world and the things that we have benefited, you know, that we have received from you.. And we pray for you to show us the things that we need to do in this workday to help us, you know, be the best worker, best mother, best father, best person that we can be to represent not just our own goodness but to point to the glory, that of your glory, Lord. It's all done because of you, not to lift ourselves up but to point people to the hope that we found in Christ. Lord, we thank you, we love you, we praise you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.