10/3/26 IAM in Life

Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

There are conveniently 3 sections to this weeks verse detailing something in Christ that we should all pay attention to. Paul starts here with life instructions that to impact us all. This does not sound hard until you really open your eyes and see what is going on around you & even within yourself. I mean it’s easy to be kind and compassionate when people are being kind and compassionate to you right? But how about when people are insulting you? Slandering you? Or just being this special breed of human being that was placed on the earth called jerks? I mean they were put here to make things interesting in life right?

Being kind being a person of integrity, they’re showing somebody hospitality being considerate, as well as Respectfully. Compassionate is a completely different story because of how desensitized we have become to tragedies in life that have become so commonplace; Yet they’re still tragic and in need of compassion. We see violence throughout the media glorified random acts of malice and in temperament that has superseded the boundaries of self-control period we hear reports on social media and on television of sickness and disease affecting the lives of people who many times did nothing to provoke these things at times not only costing them thousands upon thousands of dollars but even taking their lives. What do we do as a public? Unless our life is directly affected we simply say well and move on.

We take a look at the violence that is happening in our streets, the divisiveness being taught in our schools. We look at the corruption that has been in our government for over 50 years and beyond we Grit our teeth and say well just another day. Even more shocking to me is the prevalence of the indoctrination of ghetto culture and that somehow it’s acceptable to operate and function and a society that is supposedly created with structure and morality and believe that it is acceptable. We have children crying out obscenities, fully aware of what used to be known as the birds and the bees even beyond that seeking it out before the age of 10 years old; and say hey what are you going to do?

Being kind and compassionate in this age as being countercultural.  Jesus prophesied that in this age we would see perilous times. He warned in Matthew 24 of these societal decline. Paul, and second Timothy warned that people would be lovers of self lovers of money and their hearts would grow cold and hard in coordination with what Jesus taught in Matthew 24. But the command remains be kind and compassionate. This is easy to do inside of church walls it’s much more difficult out in the world. Remember Jesus said people would hate you because of me.

Paul exemplifies the example that I’ve tried to make in this ministry repeatedly stuff is going to happen to you. This means people are going to come against you how do I know that? Because he says to forgive.

For you to be given this command that means something’s going to happen to you that is unjustified and unwarranted. Because why else would you have the command to forgive if everybody was acting nice and compassionate to you?

If you ever want to lose your mind and see how it talks with the world is and filled with opportunities for forgiveness take a look at what people say about each other on social media. Before there was social media there were things called chat rooms or forums and there were some devoted to especially divisive topics, And while it is easy about history of divisiveness, slander, disrespect online and in the world there’s two areas in which these things occur that is the worst of it.

I am no stranger to relational pain. Those of you who are close to me and listen to our broadcast and know this first hand that throughout the years I’ve been traumatized literally by toxic relationships mainly in ministry,  but But also outside of ministry and in the family. All families are dysfunctional I just need you to know that. I rarely speak of myself in these broadcasts because you don’t TuneIn to hear about me, you tune in to learn what the word of God has to say or at least you should. But there are family issues and pains that have extended since childhood.

I bring this up to let you know that I can empathize with you when family does you wrong. My family marginalizes you karma minimizes you, looks over you, treat you unequally, and labels you unjustly because you do not do things or think the way that they think you should. Then there’s the force compliance aspect, we saw this in 2020 from the federal government and around the world but it’s also prevalent in family structures, that rational mature adults must comply to the structures of somebody older than them who is trying to rule their lives and don’t understand. There are many avenues we could travel here the point being family hurt is an opportunity to harbor unforgiveness towards a family member. And I’m not even talking about physical abuse or even sexual abuse extortion, blackmail, and other forms of power plays that go on in family structures. There’s plenty of opportunity to not forgive and you have been wronged by family.

Many people believe that the family structure should be the safest environment that you ever encounter. There is another area that sadly is going unaddressed in Christian circles to where violations can and do occur. The trauma that happens in these areas can become quite the blockade to your spiritual life. That arena that I’m Speaking of is the church. How many of us have access to and deal what is known as church hurt?

Church hurt Is a topic that I know all too well as somebody who served in ministry for over 20 years. These are people that are supposed to be trustworthy and too many times we find out that they are not. I guess that means that they’re just as messed up as we are I guess. Jesus undertook this as well. The Pharisees the sadducees and the sanhedrin did not exactly treat him with respect and care. Love was far from them. What I want you to see in this is that while hanging on the cross he asked the father to forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing. This is something that we deal with quite a bit in our own lives.

Especially if you’re generation X, we haven’t exactly had effective leadership to teach us and so we’ve had to learn our own way by the rules we were taught has been kids period now if you’re Gen. X that means come home when the street lights come on otherwise you’re free to navigate and explore and learn on your own you’ve got a tinker and that’s your teacher trial and error. Church hurt is inexcusable no different than family hurt.

I’ve said all of this because we are called in this passage 2 be giving forgiveness due to forgiveness. This means that your motive for forgiveness is not to let somebody off the hook. It isn’t to free them necessarily of the violation because then it would say forget. But Jesus said dwelling in unforgiveness will cost you forgiveness by the father. That Matthew 6: 14-15 if you want the reference. This means harboring unforgiveness will cost you closeness to Jesus. It will cost you answered prayers. It will cost you the favor of God. It will cost you him assigning your steps and covering you. The reason being is you are making yourself God because he has offered something to you through his son that you withhold from somebody else.

That is why Paul says here just as Jesus forgave you. Don’t forget who you are, and I don’t mean your name I don’t mean your family I don’t mean your profession. Once you are covered in the blood you are in Christ which is the basis for the entire series. If you are in Christ that means that you are part of the family of God, you are a child of God, you are an air lifted high upon the throne and given authority that you didn’t earn. So when you won’t forgive you act like the world, you think like the world, because you’re as fallen as the world.

Jesus is calling you to be better than the world, to overcome the world just as he did because you don’t represent you, you don’t represent your family, you don’t represent who employs you, know you represent something higher as a child of God. You represent the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.