In this episode of the Pastors discuss the concept of forgiveness, exploring what it means to receive and offer forgiveness, and how it is an essential part of the Christian faith. They emphasize that forgiveness is not simple, and requires effort, and that it includes the idea of releasing and dismissing wrongs that have been done by us and by others.
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Transcript
00:00:00:07 – 00:00:25:09
Clint Loveall
Hey, friends, welcome back to the Passenger Talk podcast as we continue with our series of short series on faith resolutions, kind of playing off the idea of the beginning of the year and trying to instill some new patterns, deal with some things that people do, and trying to think about what that might challenge us to think about and to pursue in our own faith inside the church.
00:00:25:10 – 00:00:53:11
Clint Loveall
And today we get to a subject that is really kind of at the heart of the gospel in many ways, the idea of forgiveness. What does it mean to be forgiven? What does it mean to forgive? This is language that is, you know, Michael, just constant in the church. Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, forgive us our debts or trespasses, whichever version we use and forgive those who trespass against us, our debtors.
00:00:54:32 – 00:01:19:30
Clint Loveall
The concept of forgiveness, you know, we treasure the message that we have been forgiven, that we have been the recipients of grace. That’s really in some ways where the presentation of the good news of Jesus starts. But what does it mean and what struggles does it cause and what are the ways in which it is difficult both to receive it and to offer it?
00:01:19:30 – 00:01:43:55
Clint Loveall
And I think there’s a lot to be said when we get past the surface, when we get past, you know, step one, that forgiveness is great. We get to the work. We mention that last week, you know, the idea of a resolution, these are things that are hard. They demand some effort. And so what is it to work toward understanding forgiveness and practicing it?
00:01:43:55 – 00:01:47:29
Clint Loveall
And I think that’s really where we want to focus our time today.
00:01:47:29 – 00:02:25:10
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. Yeah. I think, Clint, that we find ourselves of an interesting intersection culturally because we’re in a moment where people are thinking about better. They’re thinking about how they can make themselves stronger or wealthier or better looking or healthy or whatever frame we want to use. Forgiveness, on one hand, doesn’t seem to fit that metric. I don’t think it seems to fit within that milieu until you recognize that forgiveness really functions as the core foundation.
00:02:25:10 – 00:02:53:02
Michael Gewecke
The building place upon the entire Christian faith. It is the initial recognition that we have been forgiven that then creates the ripples of all of the stages and seasons of discipleship that follow it. And that unto itself is good news. When we hear of grace gift given to us that we didn’t deserve, we find in that, hey, that forgiveness is enjoyable.
00:02:53:02 – 00:03:16:48
Michael Gewecke
I claim that I want that in my life. There’s another step, though. It’s when we recognize that one of the ripples of the forgiveness that has been given to us is the command that we then in turn are to forgive our neighbor. And Clint, you mentioned, and I think very helpfully, that when the disciples ask Jesus to pray, how should we pray?
00:03:16:48 – 00:03:50:29
Michael Gewecke
Jesus responds? And one of the key parts of that prayer, a small prayer, is that we are to forgive as we forgive. I think if you slow down and recognize the as we forgive section of that prayer, you realize how a huge of a burden that actually is that as we pray, we are repeating in Jesus’s words, by the way, this request that we might receive the forgiveness and the measure that we’re willing to give to others.
00:03:50:29 – 00:04:09:09
Michael Gewecke
And if you hear that and we talk about and we have in the back of our mind the disciples who come to Jesus and say, how many times are we supposed to forgive, you know, 770, You know, 70 times seven is what Jesus response. The biblical witness is clear that forgiveness is beyond what you think it should be.
00:04:09:46 – 00:04:28:13
Michael Gewecke
And as we pray for forgiveness ourself, we recognize how much room there is for us in our own personal faith journey to grow in forgiveness. And then maybe if we do our job right here today in the conversation, Clint, people will see how this fits into the faith resolution category.
00:04:28:17 – 00:04:56:20
Clint Loveall
You have said this before, Michael, but I think many people, even people very familiar with the Lord’s Prayer, really don’t stop and think that when we pray those words, we are literally asking God forgive our debt like we forgive those who have sinned against us, forgive our sins as those who have sinned. Use the way that I forgive others as the pattern for how you forgive me.
00:04:56:20 – 00:05:27:34
Clint Loveall
And that’s a terrifying thing to pray. I mean, that is a sobering request to ask God to use my own forgiveness as the measure by which I would receive his forgiveness. That is not something I think that people think about when they pray that. But the scriptural witness is exceedingly clear. Forgiveness is something we receive, but it is never something that is to end there.
00:05:27:34 – 00:06:02:42
Clint Loveall
It is never something that we are to keep it. It is to influence us and to call us to then practice forgiveness toward others. And you know, the difficult truth of that, Michael, is who do we need to forgive people who have wronged us? Yes, people who have actually hurt us. We need forgiveness because we have sinned. We need to forgive others because they have actually done real things that were wrong to us or by us.
00:06:03:07 – 00:06:29:54
Clint Loveall
And and, you know, it’s that sounds obvious. Of course, we only have something to forgive when people have erred, when they have sinned, when they’ve done wrong. But I’m I’m struck by how often when we get to the conversations of forgiveness, particularly when we get to the sensitive and painful parts of it, we say, but that person did.
00:06:30:03 – 00:06:56:22
Clint Loveall
That person hurt me? Yes, they did. They really did that. And forgiveness lives in the space that people really did bad things because that’s where we have the power to forgive them if they didn’t do anything wrong. We don’t need to forgive them. We couldn’t, in fact forgive them because they didn’t sin. If we didn’t send God wouldn’t need to forgive us.
00:06:56:22 – 00:07:18:18
Clint Loveall
And so I think on the front end, we should admit that this is not only a difficult conversation, in some ways it’s a painful one. There are real scars that we carry and real things that have been done to us by others. And our call to forgiveness includes those painful moments. And that makes it a difficult conversation.
00:07:18:34 – 00:07:48:23
Michael Gewecke
It absolutely does. And I think it’s also complicated by the fact that forgiveness may seem elementary, but it’s not simple. It’s certainly not simple in practice, as I hear you communicating there. But I think it also has a kind of complexity in understanding even what it is. And in the New Testament, the language it was written in Greek, the word that we had translated as forgiveness also had the sense of release or dismissing or sending away.
00:07:49:08 – 00:08:29:07
Michael Gewecke
And I don’t know how you think of forgiveness, you know, maybe bring that to mind. Now, if someone asked, you know, give a definition of forgiveness as a person of faith, you know, what would you say? Because if our definition of forgiveness doesn’t include this sense of open handed releasing, that should be worked in to our operative thinking, because that’s part of the real difficulty of it, Clint, is that the wounds and hurts that we have, the wounds they’ve been given to us, the wounds that we’ve created in our own life, that there are many sources for the brokenness that we’ve all experienced and that we carry.
00:08:29:40 – 00:08:53:51
Michael Gewecke
However, these things have come into our circle. The question is, are we willing to let them go? And you would think the answer to that would be an unequivocal yes, I want this gone. You know, I don’t want this in my life anymore. But it’s not that simple. If you are honest with yourself and you look back over your life, you’re going to see times when you were unable or unwilling to let go of a thing.
00:08:53:51 – 00:09:17:24
Michael Gewecke
You’re unwilling to let go of that thing done to you or a thing that has come into your life. And if that is the case, Clint, I just think there comes a moment where we recognize that forgiveness is one of those skills that builds. It’s not a thing you wake up and suddenly you have this spiritual gift that you’re able to let go of the biggest burdens in your life.
00:09:17:24 – 00:09:42:34
Michael Gewecke
It doesn’t work that way. If we’re going to become people whose lives are defined by releasing and by letting go, it’s going to take practice in letting things go. And, you know, that is going to be where we’re going to start finding some thorns on the road. That’s where we’re going to have to make some real choices day to day and why I think it fits the category of resolution that the category of doing, because forgiveness is the work of the people of God.
00:09:43:39 – 00:10:26:27
Clint Loveall
Right. And almost by definition, the people that we most need to forgive are going to be the most difficult to forgive. Those acts will be the ones around which we carry the most resentment, the most anger, the most memory, the most hurt. And when we begin to try and find a path of grace through that in order to allow us to unclench our hands and to drop those things and leave them behind us, that’s going to take some work because we have in many instances nurtured those grudges for a long time.
00:10:26:27 – 00:10:54:54
Clint Loveall
We’ve made our decisions, we’ve made the judgment, we filed the claim, and we don’t want to change. We don’t want to come off of that place where we think we sort of righteously stand. And, you know, the reality is not only spiritual, but practically carrying that kind of negative baggage doesn’t do us any good. It doesn’t allow us to move forward.
00:10:54:54 – 00:11:23:04
Clint Loveall
It creates for us an impact when when we are chained to the events and actions of the past or of events and words of people, actions and words of people, then it becomes very difficult to get past those things without forgiveness. And that doesn’t mean I mean, in no way, shape or form that we condone those things. I mean, in no way, shape or form to imply that that’s easy.
00:11:23:40 – 00:11:53:20
Clint Loveall
Sometimes forgiveness is the result of a long struggle with letting go, with moving past those memories, those difficult moments that we remember. But I think for our health, for us to grow in faith in that area, it is something that has to be pursued. It’s something that has to it demands our effort. And not only that, I think it is the calling of Christ.
00:11:53:40 – 00:12:26:20
Clint Loveall
I mean, the Scriptures are clear that that the God of the universe, through the Savior of the universe, invites us to a life that is marked by the willingness and the desire to practice forgiveness. And, you know, when we even when we don’t want to do that, that is our calling in Jesus Christ. And that alone makes it something that we should give serious attention to.
00:12:27:03 – 00:12:52:17
Michael Gewecke
We must have been doing these conversations long enough because it’s sometimes scary how quickly I find myself leading into the transition with you, because I was really reflecting here upon that scriptural witness and looking here at Luke Chapter 15, very famous Parables of Jesus, where He talks here in the beginning part about the lost sheep, about the hundred, and Jesus says, You know what?
00:12:52:17 – 00:13:16:51
Michael Gewecke
Shepherd will not leave the 99 to go look for the one that in the passage following the woman who has lost a coin and spends the entire day looking and then rejoices because she’s found the coin that’s been lost. The reason why forgiveness is central to the Christian life is because Jesus has determined that there’s not a single sinner not worth pursuing.
00:13:17:09 – 00:14:09:09
Michael Gewecke
There’s not a single wrong that Jesus’s gracious forgiveness is not able to upend. And if we understood that plan, if we were able to recognize the world changing nature of that gift, of that discipline, then I would argue that it puts us in a position where this moves from a good idea, maybe even moves it from a laudable goal, and it moves us into the position of an essential Christian discipline and if you’re willing to take that journey with me, and if you’re willing to consider for just a moment that the forgiveness that Jesus Christ offers for us has been given to us freely.
00:14:09:28 – 00:14:41:49
Michael Gewecke
But it creates a situation of great transformation in our life, that it does something, it makes a difference. And that difference means that it now puts us in the position of being forgiving people. Then the question that naturally rises to the surface, I believe, is the question What are we holding on to? What are the things that we, having been set free, are now called to let go of and to set free in our own lives?
00:14:41:49 – 00:15:06:45
Michael Gewecke
And to your point earlier, I don’t want to repeat a previous theme, Clint, but I think as we consider what it looks like in the New Year to commit to to resolve, to to seek to do this forgiving work, we are not saying that you should rush headlong into it. We’re not saying that you should never climb a mountain a day in your life and then attempt to climb Mount Everest.
00:15:06:45 – 00:15:35:51
Michael Gewecke
That would be foolishness. Don’t don’t reach for the deepest hurt on day one. As we consider and reflect on our lives, there’s a whole range of things from the greatest to the least. And each one of them deserves being let go. And so then begin in a place that is manageable. May your first prayer, God help me forgive, be a prayer of something that won’t start a soul storm.
00:15:35:51 – 00:15:56:24
Michael Gewecke
Right? Allow yourself to build the muscle of forgiveness as you go and as you do that, I think folks will find that. I’m not suggesting it’s going to get easier, but one becomes more practiced in the habit of forgiveness and it becomes a skill that we can rely upon as time goes on.
00:15:56:36 – 00:16:33:36
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think a person once said that they started with Lord, I don’t want to forgive this person, but I want to want to. And you know, I think most of us, Michael, could call to mind a name of someone who has hurt us. And if we’re honest, many Christians carry some grudges. You know, we we could fairly quickly come up with a person that we, you know, or maybe we don’t wish them harm, but we don’t think good things about them.
00:16:33:36 – 00:17:03:23
Clint Loveall
And we’ve kind of written them off, you know, And I think that’s exactly where some of this conversation begins. Are. Are there grudges that we’re nursing? Are there negative feelings towards someone that we’re hauling around with us? And what would it mean to let those go? And it doesn’t always mean in fact, sometimes it can’t mean that that person, that the relationship is reconciled.
00:17:03:23 – 00:17:36:19
Clint Loveall
Reconciliation is a beautiful thing. But if a person is not repentant and they’ve done you harm, then forgiveness may not be toward the end of reestablishing the relationship. You know, you and I had an extensive conversation about this in a previous podcast on forgiveness, but that forgiveness doesn’t always work like that. There’s a sense in which we’d like to believe that it’s practical, and sometimes it is, but sometimes forgiveness is simply about undoing the damage done in my own heart.
00:17:36:19 – 00:18:05:11
Clint Loveall
It may not affect if I forgive a person who’s passed away, I am free, or it doesn’t change anything about the external situation, but it does allow me to free up some room in my heart and my spirit to put positive things in and godly things in instead of those kind of negative and harmful things. And so, yeah, what is it that we seek to accomplish?
00:18:05:11 – 00:18:36:54
Clint Loveall
Well, we seek to accomplish reflecting forgiveness, and it may or may not change things. If a person is not sorry for what they’ve done, it is very unlikely that our forgiving them is going to move the needle in their life. But it may for us. And and regardless, I think there is a danger. Michael, in treating forgiveness as a kind of practical benefit, because sometimes there is sometimes there are wonderful, beautiful things that happen out of forgiveness.
00:18:37:13 – 00:18:53:02
Clint Loveall
But sometimes it’s just the thing that God calls us to do. And so we we need to work on doing it. It doesn’t always have an external effect, but I do think it always has an internal one agreed completely.
00:18:53:02 – 00:19:24:07
Michael Gewecke
And I think that one of the struggles with the conversation about forgiveness is I think that we bring to mind examples or illustrations of times that we have experienced forgiveness in the past. Most of us have had at least one time where we have forgiven someone or we’ve forgiven something that has happened and we have felt that lightness in our chest, the freedom of spirit.
00:19:24:07 – 00:20:04:19
Michael Gewecke
Most of us to have the experience of having held on to things and carried them. Some have done that for a very, very long time. And the weight that that has the thing that I think we underestimate is the kind of strength it takes to let go of a thing. The hurts in our life tend to be things that we hold on to, not because they’re heavy and difficult, but because they’re comforting, because there’s a sense in them oftentimes of as long as we nurse it or we hold on to it, that we get some sense of satisfaction or maybe even retribution against the one who’s harmed us.
00:20:04:28 – 00:20:25:13
Michael Gewecke
There are many reasons. My point being for why we hold on to the things that we hold on to and inevitably the practice of letting those things go is going to require grappling with some of those. It’s going to require us being honest with ourself about what has been so compelling about this thing that we’ve been unable to let go.
00:20:25:33 – 00:20:47:36
Michael Gewecke
But I also don’t want to get bogged down in the conversation and make it seem that your resolution this year I should be looking for hurts to forgive them all. And I think that there is a kind of broadening that we can have even beyond that previous conversation that we have. I’d certainly recommend you looking that up if this this general theme resonates with you at this moment.
00:20:48:03 – 00:21:19:13
Michael Gewecke
But there is a sense in which we as people living in the world could commit in this coming year to live our lives with a greater willingness to free things in our lives. And, you know, it’s very, very easy to sort of identify those deep, dark hurts that we’ve carried and maybe we’ve even nursed over the years. It’s another thing to build into our life a kind of open practice of identifying the small things.
00:21:19:13 – 00:21:56:07
Michael Gewecke
Maybe the thing that your partner does or says or the thing that happens in the grocery store or the conversation you have with a coworker and you find that in that place, you are hurt or you’re finding yourself unable to let go of the minor things that add up. That is a place that we can seek to practice forgiveness, a place where we can try to much like our conversation last week about generosity, we could even put on a bracelet that reminds us every time we look at it to to forgive today.
00:21:56:07 – 00:22:21:00
Michael Gewecke
Or we could start a journal in which we began reflecting upon what are the things today that I need to forgive or ask forgiveness for. That we begin thinking about how we could invite others to have a freer spirit. There are, I think, many, many places where we can begin a journey of forgiveness that are not climbing the huge mountain of ultimate forgiveness.
00:22:21:00 – 00:22:31:03
Michael Gewecke
And I think those would be very fruitful places to start a practice or resolution. The discipleship journey of forgiveness.
00:22:31:03 – 00:23:00:52
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think that’s a helpful image, Michael. The idea that each of us have some limited space of what we carry with us on our journey through life and what do you want to pack? What do you want to give room for? Do you do you want to make room for blessings and for joy? Or do you want to, you know, fill up your suitcase with things that happened ten years ago, 20 years ago, something somebody said last week that they probably didn’t even know.
00:23:00:52 – 00:23:37:49
Clint Loveall
They said, I think, you know, there is a certain oversensitivity that can happen as we if we dwell on the things that bother us, we will have no problem finding them. But as we practice forgiveness, as we learn to be gracious, as we learn to allow grace given to us, to be grace, that we then give to others, I think we find ourselves more able to let those things go more quickly to not not carry them.
00:23:37:49 – 00:23:49:53
Clint Loveall
They don’t turn into grudges. You know, if if you or I or someone listening is spending time thinking about something that happened decades ago.
00:23:49:53 – 00:23:50:10
Michael Gewecke
Right.
00:23:50:18 – 00:24:16:06
Clint Loveall
It it’s likely time to give some thought to why am I why am I still carrying that? Why is that still with me? It’s likely not very helpful. And again, will it change the practical in your day to day life? I’m not sure, but it may change you. And that will have a serious, significant impact.
00:24:16:26 – 00:24:48:32
Michael Gewecke
I think there’s a really surprising road maybe here to resolving to forgive as well, because you might think that that looks like you saying those words. I forgive fill in the blank. But I want to put to you for just a moment that for many of us, the road to forgiveness begins in a variety of other areas. There are some really sneaky sins that lead us to be unable to forgive.
00:24:48:43 – 00:25:15:54
Michael Gewecke
Just to give an example that comes to the top of my mind is it is very hard to forgive someone when you’re nursing envy. It is very hard to let go of things when you harbor a sense of inequity in your life, when you think that person has something, even if it’s an entirely another person. Yet in one area of your life, you foster this idea of comparison.
00:25:16:12 – 00:25:50:29
Michael Gewecke
You foster this idea of maybe for some it’s gossip. This idea that I pass along news about other people. Then you get embroiled in the drama of other people’s lives, so it distracts you from seeing the real brokenness of your own life. If you become fixated on sort of the soap opera of life, you fail to realize the reality of life, Whatever it is for us individually, I think that you might find that it becomes a very surprising packages, but we are able to justify our spirits that are unwilling to forgive.
00:25:50:29 – 00:26:24:16
Michael Gewecke
To do that work because we foster harbor hold on to other sins, other temptations to put ourselves first or to live our own lives at the expense of others. And when we do that, that relational kind of breakage makes it very difficult and in some cases, I think impossible for us to let go of the baggage that we would be free or without the kind of life that would open us to expansive joy or to consistent gratitude.
00:26:24:50 – 00:26:54:32
Michael Gewecke
The way to get there is ultimately through forgiveness. But I wonder, Clint, if some of us maybe might find it helpful to identify one of these other relational sins and to find that a place that maybe as we begin to chip away at that and to confess that to ask for forgiveness for that ourself, we might discover an increasing bandwidth or aptitude to forgive some of those other things in our life.
00:26:55:03 – 00:27:29:45
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I, I think in graciousness or I’m, I don’t think this is probably a word unforgiveness or a lack of forgiveness or an unwillingness to forgive thrives on self. So if I’m prideful, if I think that someone else doesn’t deserve what they have, and I deserve it instead, if I’m angry, whatever it is that points back to myself makes it generally very difficult to offer forgiveness.
00:27:29:45 – 00:27:55:28
Clint Loveall
And one of the things that I’ve found just in my own journey, my own experience, is it’s a very humbling but very helpful realization to understand that there are people out there who are struggling to forgive me that that I have said and done things through the years, some of which I’m aware of and some of I probably don’t even know.
00:27:55:57 – 00:28:39:50
Clint Loveall
And those left marks on other people’s lives. And and they’re still carrying some of those grudges over things that I said and did. And and knowing that knowing that I have hurt people sometimes unintentionally, I think creates a sort of softness, a graciousness to say, yeah, I would love for those people to be able to let that go because I’m sorry that my life interacted poorly with their life and therefore I should then work on letting go of the names and the things I’m carrying with.
00:28:39:52 – 00:29:01:42
Clint Loveall
I don’t need my list. My my list of people who have done things and what they have done is not generally a helpful way to live. And I don’t want to be chained to it. I don’t want to have it as baggage. I don’t want to drag it around with me. I love that idea of just I don’t need this anymore.
00:29:01:42 – 00:29:24:23
Clint Loveall
Just drop that weight and move on without it. And I think, you know, at least for me, Michael, the idea that there are those who are trying to forgive me makes me more gracious and certainly humbles me to think I should I should be quicker to forgive others as well.
00:29:25:04 – 00:30:12:14
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. You know, Clint, I’m aware that what I’m about to say is probably not an easy thing to hear. It’s certainly not an easy thing to say. But not only do we find in those moments, you know, real struggle to let go of things, I think that we would be fools to think that we can consume a steady diet of us versus them, that we can watch news programs and we can read, you know, newspapers or we can read websites and we can look we can be given the most salacious, divisive types of human rhetoric about them, damn them, and that we’re then on the back side of that as people of faith going to
00:30:12:14 – 00:30:57:49
Michael Gewecke
just naturally, effortlessly, easily be able to let go of the things in our own life, if if we are trained to see other people as other and enemy and to not have the compassion and empathy that you’re speaking to, then the ability to forgive is going to be severely hampered. And I think one could make a biblical case that the thing one of the core things that made Jesus so revolutionary to the extent of him being crucified was the fact that he saw even the sinner, even the tax collector working for the Roman PERS or even the prostitute he saw.
00:30:58:04 – 00:31:25:58
Michael Gewecke
They were human. He saw that they were worthy of grace and compassion, that he was able to forgive them because he had this expansive vision and understanding of God’s grace given for all people. He is the perfect example of a God that literally breaks down barriers, in this case, the divine to human barrier. God breaks through it so that God can offer forgiveness and the reality is clean.
00:31:26:03 – 00:31:59:13
Michael Gewecke
It is hard to say and it’s hard to transform. But for many of us, the path to forgiveness this year might be being more choosey about what we let in. It might look like turning some things off. It might look like changing some habits of our time. It might be to say, You know what, I’m not even aware of the ways that my 7:00 TV program influences me, but it’s time for me to consume a different diet and to see if that allows me to see the other with more compassion, to receive more grace for myself, and then share that with another.
00:31:59:27 – 00:32:23:22
Michael Gewecke
Even if they bear some title, whatever title they bear that for, you would be right now difficult to to humanize. I just think when you live in a moment where bubbles are so firm and those walls seem so tight, the echo chamber seems so loud, forgiveness doesn’t thrive in an environment of dehumanization, doesn’t live in a moment of echo chamber.
00:32:23:22 – 00:32:32:15
Michael Gewecke
It lives in a moment of expansive grace and the practice of compassion. And that’s going to take some work, if we’re honest, that will take a resolution.
00:32:33:57 – 00:33:05:47
Clint Loveall
If we are if we are feeding ourselves on a steady diet of anger and accusation, it is very unlikely that that produces in us the fruit of graciousness and openness and forgiveness. Right? I mean, in the same way that the person feeding their eyes and their soul on pornography is very unlikely to bear the fruit of healthy relationship.
00:33:05:47 – 00:33:43:26
Clint Loveall
It is a matter of what we take in is almost always what we put out. And so, yes, if we if we are spending great deals of time and expending much energy on negativity, on self-righteous anger, on accusation and the idea of us and them, it is extremely unlikely that we can couple that with that, we just add grace to that and that the fruit that is produced in that moment is forgiveness.
00:33:43:26 – 00:34:16:30
Clint Loveall
I think you know, there’s in the health industry, there’s this phrase detox, and there is a sense in which many of us need a cleansing of our spirit if we’re going to try to endeavor to do a new thing, a different thing, if we’re going to try and forgive that person who has been always for us very hard and seemingly impossible to forgive, it may take a detoxing of some kind of a spiritual cleansing.
00:34:16:53 – 00:34:44:40
Clint Loveall
And that’s the idea of grace that that we are cleansed by it and therefore we are then able to extend it. And maybe while we have a few minutes left, Michael, that would be a good kind of direction to go toward the end of the conversation. Interestingly enough, there is a significant number of Christians, I think, who are actually pretty good at forgiving others.
00:34:44:40 – 00:35:08:00
Clint Loveall
Yeah, they’re relatively gracious to others, but they hold animosity. They hold they have not been able to forgive themselves. They they’ve dropped the ball in some area of their life. They’ve made mistakes, they’ve had failures, they’ve hurt people. And they and they’ve never gotten over it, just as some of us have never gotten over the actions of others.
00:35:08:18 – 00:35:38:27
Clint Loveall
There are some Christians who have never gotten past their own sin, their own brokenness. And they I think at worst, they hold on to the idea that maybe God can’t forgive them, but they certainly often hold on to the idea that they can’t and won’t forgive themselves. And I think, you know, I just we should lay that on the table for a minute, because if you happen to be one of those people, you need to hear this.
00:35:38:27 – 00:36:02:54
Clint Loveall
You have not done the thing that Jesus can’t forgive. You are the place where the grace of the Almighty God is ineffective. And I know it takes work. I know some of us are hard on ourselves, but you need to hear that this that the cleansing grace of Jesus Christ is for you. It is for real sin. It is for things we’ve done.
00:36:03:12 – 00:36:40:33
Clint Loveall
It is for wrong that we have been a part of or been the instigator of. But it is you are not off limits. And I’m surprised as I talk and have these conversations with people. Michael, how many faithful and I would say good gracious people harbor a sort of sneaky belief that they are the one who is outside of God’s ability forgive and that it’s it’s it’s sad and it’s, you know, theologically it’s it’s a lack of faith.
00:36:40:33 – 00:36:52:55
Clint Loveall
And I don’t mean that as a criticism. I mean that it it’s a shortsightedness about what God has done for us in Jesus. And I think it’s very harmful. And I’m surprised how prevalent it is.
00:36:53:02 – 00:37:38:49
Michael Gewecke
I agree with you completely. There’s a whole contingent of folks who are joining us for this conversation who your comment there inspired thought? Oh, yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah, I can see that in my myself. There are some joining us for this conversation where that stings. Sure to hear that that really connects because you’re exactly right, Clint. There is a whole number of folks who have gone through life with this deep, dark fear that what they have done represents who they are and who they are as redeemable or irredeemable, although that they have walked this path, that they are getting their just desserts and they look at the struggles and suffering of their life and they
00:37:38:49 – 00:38:04:03
Michael Gewecke
think of that as being natural product, of being the kind of person who deserves that. And the gospel of grace is great news, but it is a very difficult medicine, especially if we’re in a moment in life where we are not confident that that grace has been offered to us and. I think that your comment is unbelievably helpful.
00:38:04:03 – 00:38:28:30
Michael Gewecke
And if you’re one of those and that those words stung a little, I think my invitation for you is going to be maybe make that hurt a little bit more and that’s to resolve to slow down and to look in the scriptural witness for the people, read the stories that the actual stories of people that have been forgiven.
00:38:28:30 – 00:38:53:02
Michael Gewecke
I look at David right, that look at the story of the man after God’s own heart as described by the Scriptures, and look at the sins committed and the sins also forgiven. I would invite you to consider this seedy cast of characters that Jesus was accused of hanging out with throughout the Gospels and consider the things he had to say about them.
00:38:53:20 – 00:39:19:13
Michael Gewecke
And I dare you. I dare you, though this will be hard to for a moment, allow yourself to be put into those stories and to ask if it is true for David. If it’s true of the woman. Courtney Adultery in the Gospel of John might that also be true for me? And that is very, very hard to take on, especially if we harbor these deep fears about ourselves.
00:39:19:13 – 00:39:55:10
Michael Gewecke
But Clint, what we discover in the Gospel is confronting good news. It confronts what we think we know and it inverts it. And the only way that we’re going to come to see the light of that gospel is if it reveals some dark places. So if that’s a dark place in your own heart, if this is a fear that you have, if you struggle to forgive yourself, I would invite you to invite your self confidently into the company of those who have been forgiven and to allow that to work on you.
00:39:55:30 – 00:40:29:54
Clint Loveall
I think that’s the closest thing we have to fully understand what the Scripture means by freedom. The idea that you can be free from that kind of doubt, from that kind of struggle. You know, the promise of the gospel is if if you’ve hurt over your sins or if you’ve repented, if you wish they hadn’t happened, you’ve you’ve been sorry enough, you’ve suffered enough, you’ve struggled enough.
00:40:29:54 – 00:41:05:02
Clint Loveall
It is okay to let those things go, to put them away, to put them behind you, to nail them to the cross and be done with them. And and I realize for a lot of people, that’s not a light switch. That’s not a oh, hey, that’s great news. I can do that right now. It is a commitment to say I’m going to trust God enough to believe that my sin, however great, cannot undo his grace that the good news of the Gospel gets the last word.
00:41:05:15 – 00:41:27:50
Clint Loveall
Not my failure. My failure was real. My failure was it. It happened either on purpose or I did it. And I’m responsible for it. And I am forgiven through the grace of Jesus Christ. Both of those things are true and one is more true than the other that that in the last and final word, it’s not my sin, it’s grace.
00:41:27:50 – 00:41:50:11
Clint Loveall
I think that’s the promise of the gospel. I think that’s the picture of scripture. And I think that that is the invitation that we’re given. If we’re carrying those things around and they’re still doing us damage, it’s long enough. You’ve you’ve suffered enough with it. It’s time to be done. And I think, you know, Christ invites us to that kind of freedom.
00:41:50:11 – 00:42:00:34
Clint Loveall
And again, I am I am shocked by how many Christians Michael and I and I use that word very intensely. I mean, people of faith.
00:42:01:06 – 00:42:01:51
Michael Gewecke
That deep faith.
00:42:02:00 – 00:42:23:02
Clint Loveall
Carry some very heavy guilt over the past. And it continues to to crop up and be problematic in their life in ways that that don’t help them pursue discipleship. And so I think the great invitation of scripture is we are forgiving.
00:42:23:20 – 00:42:46:57
Michael Gewecke
Absolutely. And I’m not going to belabor this, but I just watched very briefly a little bit of a tidbit to throw in here. God is not glorified by you glorying in your sinfulness. The temptation that we have to make ourselves and our brokenness great some of us have. That is a great temptation to sort of revel in the darkness that we have and to see that as being inescapable.
00:42:47:07 – 00:43:15:57
Michael Gewecke
Jesus Christ is greater than any darkness that lives inside us. So, yes, there’s an honesty in confessing our brokenness. It’s good to be aware of it, but it is never going to stand before the might of the one who came to offer forgiveness. And so do not allow yourself to make the assumption that in some way you’re making God greater by glorying in your brokenness or in your darkness, that somehow that makes the light brighter.
00:43:15:57 – 00:43:42:37
Michael Gewecke
It doesn’t. It just that’s not how the equation works. The gift has been given to you, and that gift is enough. And so one of the resolutions I think that comes in that is probably honestly to begin with some level of self-reflection, but at some level, I think that most of us find the process of forgiveness of self to at some point involve involve a conversation with someone else.
00:43:42:37 – 00:44:03:27
Michael Gewecke
I think my counsel would be to find whether that be a professional counselor, which is always, I think, the best course of action, or maybe that is with a trusted minister or a very close friend and trusted wise friend, that you can begin to have some of those conversations. I think externalizing some of that because of the unique sinfulness of our own hearts is essential.
00:44:03:50 – 00:44:38:58
Clint Loveall
Yeah. You know, when the day comes and the Christian family is finally gathered all together in one place, there will be remarkable stories of change and people who have been in the worst places and done the worst things and then been redeemed by the grace of Christ. And I only say that to assure you whatever it is that you struggle with, you, not the one who has committed a sin, that the cross of Jesus Christ can’t address it.
00:44:39:19 – 00:45:06:59
Clint Loveall
You didn’t do it. You don’t have that power. We don’t have that ability. None of us have within our life story, a thing that Jesus can’t heal, can’t redeem, can’t forgive. And so that’s a wonderful promise. It’s not easy ground to walk, but it is a wonderful promise. And and a beautiful invitation to give some thought as to how we might move past it.
00:45:07:22 – 00:45:26:40
Michael Gewecke
We want to thank you for continuing along with us along this series. Hope that there’s been something in this topic of forgiveness that is not just an idea for you today, but might open up the possibility of resolving to do something in this coming year towards pursuing forgiveness for others or for self. We of course, invite your feedback.
00:45:26:56 – 00:45:42:18
Michael Gewecke
We would love for you to reach out either through the link in the description or through the comments. If you’re on YouTube, we appreciate getting to make contact with those who are joining us for the conversation. That said, we will continue next week along this series and hope that you’ll join us.
00:45:42:54 – 00:46:05:31
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody. Hey, we want to thank you for listening to this broadcast. We’re grateful for the support and the connections, the relationships we get to make through some of these offerings. We hope that they’ve been helpful. We know that there are lots of choices that you have, lots of things you can listen to. We want to make you aware of some of what we’re doing, and we greatly appreciate you being a part of it.
00:46:05:47 – 00:46:24:39
Michael Gewecke
Absolutely. We want to just thank you for being one of our audio podcast listeners. It’s amazing to have you with us in the midst of our conversations. Of course, I hope you know that you can find the whole archive of all of these conversations at Pastor Taco. We would love for you to join us there. You can find options for subscribing by email.
00:46:24:52 – 00:46:58:17
Michael Gewecke
You can easily share things there with other people who you think might appreciate recordings like this. And of course, we just want to welcome you. If you’re ever interested in joining us for the video podcast, you can do that on YouTube. It is YouTube.com slash AFP, PC Spirit Lake. There you can comment and engage with us or if you would prefer to do that without going to YouTube, you can actually just click the link in the description of this podcast where you will be able to send us form and information and reach out to us.
00:46:58:28 – 00:47:15:09
Michael Gewecke
We’d love to hear from you and engage in conversation with you. Thanks again for taking time to be with us. We look forward to our next conversation and can’t wait to see you then.