8.22-Overcoming the spiritual scars of racism, forgiveness for the asking with no bitter taste left in anybody’s mouth

8.22-8.22-Overcoming the spiritual scars of racism, forgiveness for the asking with no bitter taste left in anybody’s mouth

We must look forward to converted disciples to accomplish with their own people what we cannot.

John 4.

¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

John 4.

³⁹ From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.”

We must expect to be discounted by some of our hometown friends.  Some will discount us and this plan.  It is God’s plan and we must stay with it even when we are weary.

“Oswald Chambers directly challenged this notion that talk of grace in the face of social injustice was soft, and that talk of forgiveness in the face of real human suffering is cheap by reminding his readers of the costliness of grace to God –
Beware of the pleasant view of God that says that God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only ground for forgiveness and reconciliation is the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, meant the agony of Calvary for God. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made it possible.
 On the cross we see the costly display of God’s love. On the cross we witness God’s struggle with the evil that inhabits us and surrounds us.  On the cross we see what God was prepared to do to break down the walls that separate us from Himself, and from one another.  So, don’t tell me that grace is soft or that forgiveness is cheap.  God’s self-sacrifice on Calvary’s cross was God’s way of stepping into the brokenness of this world and into the anguish of human suffering to do something about it.  And it’s this grace that changes hearts.  It’s this grace that heals wounds.  It’s this grace that restores lives.  It’s this grace that beachheads shalom.  And once we’ve experienced this grace ourselves, then we become its agents.   Once we have been forgiven, then we know how forgiveness works, what forgiveness costs, and why forgiveness matters.  It’s forgiveness that turns hearts around.  It’s forgiveness that turns hate to hope.  It’s forgiveness that turns hurt to healing.  It’s forgiveness that turns alienation to reconciliation.  It’s forgiveness that turns fear to moral courage. It’s forgiveness that restores relationships, rebuilds trust, and refashions the future.”

Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be.   Either we will live out of the forgiveness that we ourselves have received and learn how to extend it to others without hesitation or qualification, or we won’t, and we will stay stuck in our grievances, resentments, and disappointments with ourselves and each other.  Without grace, nothing changes.

This is true on every level of our lives. It’s true for what’s happening in our homes. It’s true for what’s happening in our church.  It’s true for what’s happening in our society.  It’s true for what’s happening in our world. And it speaks to every situation that we face – from the building tensions between North Korea and the United States, to the racism that was on display yesterday in Virginia and that is still at work in our country, to the grudges that we can’t seem to ever let go of around here, to the injuries that we inflict and sustain in our most intimate relationships as husbands and wives, as parents and children, as brothers and sisters.  Without grace, nothing changes.

Based on what the Risen Christ told His disciples about forgiveness on Easter Sunday evening, Pastor Jerry Cook told every person who ever stepped inside the church he pastored for so many years up in Portland, Oregon, that no matter how miserably they had failed or how blatantly they had sinned, unreserved forgiveness was theirs for the asking with no bitter taste left in anybody’s mouth (11). You see, whatever else a church is, it’s got to be a place of grace.  And whatever else we do as Christians, we’ve got to be able to forgive each other just as God in Jesus Christ has forgiven us.  The credibility of the Gospel depends on it. Without grace, nothing changes. So – “I’m sorry. Please forgive me for any way that I may have sinned against you…” And know that “I forgive you for any way that you may have sinned against me…”

Douglas B. Skinner, Pastor Northway Christian Church, Blog, Soundings 8.13.17, Sermon 8.13,17