Redeemer Bible Church Blog

“Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” —Colossians 4:2
 
“But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” —1 Timothy 6:6-8
Thanksgiving is such an important and distinctly Christian holiday. It’s right and good to set aside a time every year to stop our normal activities to give thanks. I trust that yesterday was a such a time for you, your friends, and family.

Thankfulness is a Christian virtue constantly emphasized in scripture – from thank offerings in the Old Testament, to Jesus’s regular pattern of giving thanks in prayer, to constant commendations in the New Testament to live a life of thankfulness. Your heart of thankfulness reflects your belief in the goodness and faithfulness of God. If God is good and merciful, then it holds that what He provides for His children will be good. A good God provides good things for His children whom He loves. For this we should be thankful.

Does God’s goodness mean that He will give us all we want when we want it? Does any good parent give their children all they want whenever they want it? No! A child given their every desire when they want it is called a spoiled child. Children raised in this way become the most ungrateful people, usually demanding of others what is unreasonable to give. Receiving more does not equal a thankful or content heart. A godly parent will be generous, but also teach a child the virtue of self-control by reigning in their desires. Thankfulness and contentment are twin virtues that enable each other. A content heart can be thankful. A thankful heart can be content. God is good, generous, and merciful. He will provide your needs according to His good purposes for your life. As you follow after Christ Jesus, waiting on His timing and purposes in your life, may the Holy Spirit cultivate thankfulness and contentment in your heart.

We should recognize that due to the sinful nature of our hearts we are bent toward greed, covetousness, and discontent. We should pray for a thankful heart and ask God to help us by the Holy Spirit to be truly content people. I encourage you to cultivate Christian patterns of thankfulness in your life. Genuinely pray with thanksgiving before each meal (Matt 14:19, Luke 24:30, and many others) and make thanksgiving an intentional, regular part of your personal and family prayers (Philippians 4:6).

Let’s walk by faith in thanksgiving and contentment!
Pastor Vic

Psalm 2   

    Why do the nations rage
        and the peoples plot in vain? 
    The kings of the earth set themselves,
        and the rulers take counsel together,
        against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, 
    “Let us burst their bonds apart
        and cast away their cords from us.”

    He who sits in the heavens laughs;
        the Lord holds them in derision. 
    Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
        and terrify them in his fury, saying, 
    “As for me, I have set my King
        on Zion, my holy hill.”

    I will tell of the decree:
    The LORD said to me, “You are my Son;
        today I have begotten you. 
    Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
        and the ends of the earth your possession. 
    You shall break them with a rod of iron
        and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

    Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
        be warned, O rulers of the earth. 
    Serve the LORD with fear,
        and rejoice with trembling. 
    Kiss the Son,
        lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
        for his wrath is quickly kindled.
    Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

We are less than a week away from a major national mid-term election. I have spoken in past weeks to the Christian role in civic engagement. This week I would like to remind us, per Psalm 2, that the Lord still reigns from heaven and that proud, manipulating, and ungodly political rulers are nothing new. The picture of Almighty God laughing at those who plot against Him is powerful.

During this time of year, I believe we need to be reminded of a few things. First, above all things, we preach the gospel. We openly speak to others about the hope of eternal salvation by the forgiveness of sins through the grace of Jesus Christ. We believe that the kingdom of God is coming through the preaching of the gospel, and no scheming ruler of the past, present, or future can stop this plan. Second, we find our identity in Christ. Once we come to salvation in Jesus, our identity is firmly rooted in who we are and who we are becoming in Jesus. The central defining part of our person is that we are a disciple of Jesus Christ. Everything else is seen through this lens, and this lens casts a light of love, hope, and peace over our lives. We rest in our new relationship to Jesus.

Third, we find our primary community in our immediate family, then flowing into the local church. Instead of wanting to escape family, Christians want to lean into their spouse and children. Christians rightly desire the formation of marriages and want large families. These families then associate together in the local church. The local church is not just a traditional American past-time. The local Christian church is designed by God for His glory through gathered preaching, musical worship, and prayer. But the local church is also a powerful engine for community and deep relationships. The complementing spiritual and natural gifts that the Lord combines in the local church produce a joint strength.

Fourth, as Christians we live in obedience to God’s moral will. As Christians we do not self-define right and wrong. As Christians we do not allow loud groups in society to define moral right and wrong. We do not accept that civil government has the right to ultimately define moral right and wrong. As Christians we obey the moral will of God, expecting that it will put us greatly at odds with the world.

I believe it’s particularly important to keep these things in mind at this time of year. We participate in government to influence government. Voting is a fundamental part of this influence. However, our hope is not in government. Our identity is not tied into party affiliation. Political associations are not our primary community. Our hope is not tied to a candidate. Party platforms do not determine our moral values. This time of year, the pull of politics is strong. Many people in our day have been influenced by 24-hour news cycles to become obsessed with politics. This is an easy thing to identify. You’re obsessed with what you cannot stop thinking and talking about. If people know that you’re going to turn the conversation to politics if it lasts longer than five minutes – then you’re obsessed with politics. If this describes you, I urge you to revisit the four fundamentals above.

We must keep our eyes on Jesus, preach the gospel, bear one another’s burdens, care for widows and orphans, enjoy the goodness of God, obey His will and from this base participate in government. We should be people that may talk about politics, but are certain to talk about Jesus and His church. The watching world should squarely associate us with Christ and His purposes in the world.

Next Tuesday I urge you to pray, vote according to Christian virtue (if you need candidate position clarity, please visit The Family Foundation of Virginia), then go on preaching the gospel and loving your neighbor. Remember that the Lord reigns and the local church is God’s plan for reaching the nations with His good news!

Blessed are all who take refuge in Christ,
Pastor Vic

“Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” Ephesians 4:29

I’ve been in Los Angeles all week. I go there a few times a year, and each trip shows more indication of moral and societal decline. There was a marked increase this trip in the homeless encamped under the over-passes and openly sleeping on mattresses sometimes hanging out into the streets. Homeless tents were lined up along many sidewalks and inoperable RVs parked in parallel spaces as permanent living quarters. I’ve experienced all this before in Portland, OR and many foreign countries, but seeing the obvious deterioration of Los Angeles hit home on a trip to Walmart.

Mid-way through the week I needed to make a Walmart run for a razor. I went to the toiletries area to buy my usual Walmart generic brand disposable razor and found all the razors behind sliding locked doors. After walking around to find an associate to open the locker it became clear items on nearly every isle were in similar lockers. After finding a store worker, I was told that only managers had access to the lockers, and one would have to be paged. I went back to the razor locker and waited. After a while an associate came and unlocked my generic disposable razor but would not give me the razor. I was told the $8 five-pack of razors could be picked up and purchased at customer service when I finished the rest of my shopping.

What I was facing is the reality of a city over-run with theft. Literally everything that wasn’t locked down was being stolen. This store was not in a “bad” section of town but had hired armed guards at multiple places in the lobby of the store and clearly didn’t even trust its own store associates to not steal from their employer. Walmart is in many ways a gauge for the general state of public society. This visit disturbed me. Where do you go from here? You can’t lock down everything in a store, or you don’t have a store anymore. Only so much can be written-off to theft, and off-set by raising prices before the store is not profitable and must be closed. Reports of such store closures are all over the news for cities like Los Angeles.

This was not an isolated situation. Even the Whole Foods Market I passed through to get a to-go dinner had an armed guard in the check-out area and homeless people wandering the isles pulling bags and suitcases behind them. People around me had clearly grown accustomed to this, like those living in a third-world country slowly declining by imperceptible degrees. At some point you ask yourself, “How did this city become like this, and what does the future hold?” Part of the answer relates to a return to basic law-enforcement principles that have been abandoned by the city at large, but this is not the foundational answer.

It’s obvious that LA is an intensely materialistic, sensual, and non-Christian place. It has descended into an every-man-for-himself place of isolation with more and more private walled-off yards, bars on the windows, locked and guarded lobby areas, and other overt signs of crime and community distrust. We must make the connection between intentionally rejecting Christian ethics and the decline of society. Los Angeles, California is one of the most taxed and government regulated cities in the world, but this has not resulted in it becoming a better place.

There are only two final authority options – God or government. Individuals will choose one or the other. Society will reflect the choices of the people. Those who believe in and submit themselves to the authority of Jesus Christ will experience a growing peace and provision in their lives, resulting in an outward stability in society as people live according to God’s will. Those who reject the gospel and the authority of Jesus over their lives will descend into personal, then societal, chaos and struggle.

The experience of this week relates to the culture of Los Angeles. It’s something that makes me want to leave the city, but it also stirs in me a sense of missional need. As Christians, we know that stealing and selfishness relates to the lost soul. For a person to instead put in an honest day of work, then hold by some to be generous to the poor is a thing of personal Christian virtue. What would it take for this to become an honest, virtuous, and personally generous city? No election can reverse this tide, only the reviving work of the Holy Spirit can convict and then save this city. As Christians, we must pray for cities like this, and develop a missional heart toward the people who live there.

We should not think that our community is immune to these same struggles. I was in Lowe’s last week in Fredericksburg and the associate helping me find a roll of wire was upset that his inventory system showed five rolls in stock, but not a single roll was on the shelf. He said that despite the cable-locks, people will climb the shelves, throw the wire off the upper shelves, and steal the unlocked rolls. We don’t have armed guards and in-store lockers in Fredericksburg yet, but they will be here soon if we don’t pick up our passion for preaching the gospel.

There is a God, the Bible is true, and salvation is only found by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We must not withdraw from the world and put our hope in government. We must speak up about the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. We must tell others about the cross and resurrection. We must never be ashamed of the cross or the ethic of Christ. We must openly associate ourselves with Jesus, raise our children in his ways, commit ourselves to the local church and understand the powerful force for good that Christians together play in our local societies.

May the Lord strengthen us to be salt and light in the world, bringing revival in His time.

I rejoice in the work of Jesus in our midst and pray for the gospel to go forth in power,
Pastor Vic

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” Psalm 20:7

Last week I spoke to the role of the Christian participating in a democratic government and to the importance of representing Christian moral matters. I would like to continue now with the unbroken connection between sexual sin and abortion. There is a clear reason why those who advocate for sexual sin also advocate for abortion. Advocates of one are advocates for the other. As I mentioned last week, God designed sex and marriage. He designed sex between a biological male and a biological female to produce children. Even with all of our technological and scientific advancement, human beings have been unable to re-engineer God’s design of childbearing through sex.

Be reminded that according to God’s plan this should be a beautiful process. A man pursues a woman, they build a relationship of love that honors the Lord remaining sexually pure. They plan a life together and are joined in Christian marriage. After marriage the union is consummated sexually and the possibility of children becomes real at any time. If the wife becomes pregnant, the child is born into a family and received with joy. When this process is repeated generation after generation, family is produced. Each generation becomes a platform of stability helping the subsequent generation. This is the way marriage, children, and family were designed to function. Many today call this repressive. I call it a path of blessing, stability, and joy.

When sex is turned into a recreational activity for personal pleasure, unwanted children are conceived. There are various ways to control conceiving, but all are imperfect. There are ways to sterilize men and women, but those processes cannot be reliably reversed. Concerning sterilization, even non-Christians realize there is something good about children. Most are uncomfortable being sterilized before having children, knowing that some day they may want a child – but only on their terms and when deemed convenient. As human beings we can bring death, but we cannot bring life. We can end the process of childbearing through sterilization, but cannot undo that process to recreate what God had made.

The result of this is millions upon millions of unwanted children being conceived in America every year. These children are not ‘accidents,’ these children (except in cases of rape or abuse) are products of willful choices people made with the hope that the sex act would not produce what God designed it to produce. Abortion at its base is an insurance policy to protect the right of Americans to be sexually active with anyone they want any time they want – with no consequences. People are willing to kill, repeatedly, to maintain their pursuit of sexual pleasure and affluence.

This is directly related to affluence because children are expensive. Pro-abortion advocates openly argue that it’s justified to kill a child to relieve the parent(s) of the future financial ‘burden’ of raising that child. They argue that it’s justified to kill an unborn child to keep one’s schooling on-track to protect future earnings. It’s even been argued recently that it’s justified to kill an unborn child to keep a sports season from being interrupted. In the end, abortion advocates in America are prepared to kill an unborn child for any reason, or no reason at all. I hope I don’t need to say much more to illustrate how far away from God’s will and design we have fallen in the hardness of our hearts.

Let me be plain. Christians cannot name the name of Christ and also advocate for the killing of the unborn. Our God is a God of life and declares children a blessing. Our God is a God who calls for self-sacrifice, not self-indulgence. Our God is a God who commands self-control for our own good. We must support candidates that work to move our country toward pro-life laws and regulations.

Lastly, we should seek limited government. Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-25 are very clear that God has ordained government to play an important roll in the ordering of society. We should be thankful for and submit to good governance that promotes peace and freedom. However, these passages are also clear that human government is not the highest or final authority, but is a delegated authority from God. The authority of civil rulers only goes as far as God allows. They have no authority to do what God has forbidden and they must not leave off what God requires. Civil government is not the final moral authority. Right and wrong flow from the character of the Lord our God and the moral order cannot be remade by voting or judicial decisions. In the end, human government will be submissive to the final authority of God.

We live in an increasingly atheistic day. Even if people are not open atheists, many are practical atheists – they live as if there is no God even if they say with their mouth there is a God. Atheists put human government in the place of God. Most importantly, any problem or difficulty too large for the individual atheist to handle is pressed into the hands of government. Great hope is placed in government to fix the struggles and brokenness of humanity. A hope that government will stop criminal unrest, will lift the poor out of their misery, will direct education into producing an age of peace and prosperity, and order society to some form of utopia.

However, just the opposite is always true. The more people turn away from God and put their faith in government, the more government increases and the influence of the local Christian church decreases. As the authority of government increases more resource and freedom is taken from the people that government is supposed to serve. Over time, the government becomes more of a self-serving bureaucracy and the corruption of the people running the government becomes more apparent. The more power is consolidated into the hands of that ruling elite, the more they feel they actually do have the power of God.

All Christians should understand the necessity of limited government, and that government begins with the moral restraint of the soul before God. Society cannot function without a fear of God and interior moral restraint. No amount of police or laws can restrain a populace that lacks inner moral restraint produced by a fear of God. The attempt to restrain a godless population leads to a radical increase in laws proportionally decreasing personal freedom. Whereas a God-fearing society needs far less laws due to their own personal moral restraint, which allows for much greater personal freedom. As Christians we should seek an increase of personal godliness and a limited civil government.

In closing, please remember the verse at the top of this devotional. As Christians we don’t put our faith and trust in implements of human government. Our hope is in our Savior Jesus Christ and in His coming kingdom. Our highest allegiance is to our Lord Jesus Christ, and we know that His purposes will prevail. We should also remember that elections are a reflection of the heart of a nation. Elections are not the primary cause of change in a nation, they are a result. I have committed my life to ministry in the church, because only God can change the heart. It is through the salvation of Jesus Christ that sins are forgiven, and people pass from death to life. It is only by revival of the soul through a renewed fear of God that any substantial change will occur in this country. We should seek this revival and this change.

Christians rightly want to get involved. People want to do something to help. I urge you friend, give a little time to politics if you feel you should, but devote your life to serving Christ Jesus in the local church. If you really want to make a difference, teach a children’s Bible class for years. Be a youth small group leader. Come to prayer meeting and plead with God to call lost sinners to repentance. Tell your co-worker about Jesus and invite him or her to church. It is in Christ alone we will find salvation!

We trust in the Lord our God,
Pastor Vic

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” Psalm 20:7

Mid-term election season is just a few weeks away. I begin this article with Psalm 20:7 because the overarching issue that we must never lose sight of during election cycles is that nations do not rise and fall related to politicians, war, or economics. Nations rise and fall according to their fear of the Lord, or lack thereof. In all of this, the Kingdom of God is coming. This kingdom was inaugurated by the ministry of Jesus, continues to unfold now, and will be completed in the second coming of Jesus. The purposes of God cannot be derailed by the sinfulness of humanity (Psalm 2). I say that to put election season in perspective. Political involvement as a citizen is important, but of secondary importance to the Christian’s citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20).

Election season always gets a little crazy, and when emotions and anxieties rise it’s important to focus on fundamental truths. I want to remind us, as Christians, about some of these fundamentals. First, it is an unusual privilege historically that citizens have a peaceful way to participate in the direction of their government. We should be thankful for this opportunity. Our voting process is not perfect, and is always being pushed, pulled, and refined as a part of the political process itself. But no system of people is perfect or static – meaning unchanging over time. This can be compared to our justice system, which is also flawed as a system devised and directed by sinful human beings. However, I would rather cast a vote or go to court in the United States than in any other country in the world. This system is held accountable and continually refined through the engagement of citizens. The most basic form of civic engagement is voting. I encourage you to make an informed decision and vote in the upcoming November 8 midterm election.

Engagement in the political process through voting is the honest effort as a Christian to see progress made publicly toward a more just, free, equitable, and virtuous society. As Christians, we believe the roots of all these good things are found in the character of the Lord God. Therefore, we seek honorable, virtuous, and courageous people of Christian character to hold public office. We seek progress not completion. No election will ‘win the day.’ No election is ‘the most important in our lifetime.’ Each election is an indication of the direction of the hearts of the people in the nation. I encourage you to be an engaged, virtuous, courageous, and peaceful Christian.

Second, casting a vote for a candidate is not a wholesale endorsement of everything that person has ever done or will do. Every ballot has a very limited number of candidates on it. Casting a vote relates to supporting the candidate who is most likely to act toward justice, freedom, virtue, and equality. I think the only time we would be justified in not voting would be if there were only candidates that did not meet any of these criteria. Thankfully, we are not in a time like that yet. Apathy or ‘being tired of the process’ is not an excuse for a Christian to withdraw and choose to not be involved with the world around them. If all the hype is too much for you, then turn off TV news, change your internet habits, and go to trusted sources when you need to, so you can cast an informed vote. Twenty-four-hour news organizations have a major financial motive to present every news story as a crisis emergency. They want you to leave the TV on forever to make sure you don’t miss any breaking crisis and they make millions of dollars. In reality, every day is not a crisis and those who choose to live this way are robbed of much of the joy of living a peaceful and fruitful Christian life. I believe this is particularly a temptation for our seniors who have more discretionary time on their hands and can be drawn into this cycle of living in ‘Newsstand Crisis Mode.’

The next three fundamentals relate to how a Christian should vote. I will cover one this week and two more next week.

The first issue that should be in sight for Christians voting next month relates to sexual ethics. There are many lists of sin in the Old and New Testaments and nearly every one of them recognize sexual immorality. The bottom line is that the Bible clearly places how we conduct ourselves sexually in the moral category. Sexual actions are not neutral. Sexual actions are not just a matter of personal taste. Sexual actions are either according to the will of God and blessed, or against the will of God and sinful. The Bible is abundantly clear that from the creation of the world to this day God created the sexual relationship to only exist between a biological man and a biological woman within the covenant relationship of marriage. This is biblical sexual morality. Every other conceivable sexual union is out of bounds and is sinful.

Sexuality is blessed, joyful, binding, and life producing only within the design of marriage. In any other context this emotionally powerful and biologically important (producing children, transmitting disease, etc.) action produces anxiety, separation, economic hardship, disease, and even death. People argue that this is terribly narrow because they do not really believe the sexual relationship is designed by God. No one argues that a gasoline engine is restrictive. It was designed to run on gasoline and will only run on gasoline. If you pour diesel, kerosene, cooking oil, water, pancake syrup, or any other liquid in the fuel tank it will not run. So it is with marriage. God’s design cannot be altered.

It goes without saying that biblical sexuality is under a full aggressive assault from almost every corner of society. If this nation abandons biblical sexuality, it speaks to the soul of our nation. God has never, and will never, bless a sexually depraved and decadent nation. As Christians, we know that how we conduct ourselves sexually matters. We should also hold our leaders to this moral standard. As Christians, it’s not enough to be fiscally conservative. What we primarily stand for as Christians is moral holiness. In voting we must stand against, and vote against, the onslaught of LGBTQ positions and platforms. This is not a political matter, or a matter of phobia, or a matter of anger – this is a matter of being faithful to biblical Christian morality. A Christian cannot vote to support, fund, or praise what God has declared to be sinful.

Next week, I will discuss the connection of sexual morality to abortion and matters of limited government.

May the Lord make us wise and help us to be light in darkness,
Pastor Vic

“The Connected Parent: Real Life Strategies for Building Trust and Attachment”
By Karyn Purvis, PhD. & Lisa Qualls

I highly recommend that you read “The Connected Parent.” This book was specifically written to help adoptive and foster parents care for traumatized children, but it is filled with excellent, biblically sound, practical advice for how to connect with the hearts of children. This compassionate and practical advice is helpful for parents with children of any age and would also be helpful to any grandparent in their interaction with grandchildren. As we parent, it’s wise to regularly read new resources to freshen up our outlook on parenting. Regularly reading new material will cause you to re-examine blind spots in your habits and perhaps give you new possible solutions to particular points of struggle.

This book is written as a two-part conversation between Dr. Purvis and Lisa Smith. This book represents the culmination of Dr. Purvis’ remarkable life and work, but it was not completed by Lisa Qualls until after Dr. Purvis’ death from cancer. Dr. Purvis cites and explains the scientific research-based reasons for each of her conclusions, while Qualls explains the practical outworking of each principle in a busy home.

The entire book focuses on ‘Trust-Based Relational Intervention.’ The important focus that jumps off the pages to me as having been so essentially true in raising our children, is the vital need for connection with your children. As parents and grandparents, we must authentically connect with the hearts of our children. As we care for, train, educate, and direct our children, along the way our heart as a parent must truly connect with the hearts of our children. This is difficult to quantify, but every parent or grandparent knows what distance or nearness feels like. Dr. Purvis instructs the reader in a clear, compelling, and personally experienced way how to make these connections with traumatized and struggling children. However, the advice she gives is also generally helpful to parenting, even if you are not raising a particularly traumatized child. 

The authors write about:

1. Empowering: They begin by speaking to the basic science of nutrition, hydration, food, and sensory input. If a child’s nutrition, hydration, and stimulation are all wrong, the parent is fighting an uphill battle in connecting with their child and correcting problem behavior. Simple steps are given to help correct some of these major imbalances.
2. Connecting: Parents meet the connection needs of their child by focusing on the relationship in every interaction. The goal is not behavior modification in the child, but first establishing authentic relationship between parent and child so further parenting guidance is possible.
3. Correcting: This part of the book is specifically focused on traumatized children. Standard parental discipline is both ineffective and inappropriate in the lives of most traumatized children. Dr. Purvis speaks to the fear and detachment of children that are trying to protect themselves from further hurt. Disarming this fear is vital, so the child can develop trust with the parent and through relationship enjoy a balanced childhood.

You may not be parenting a traumatized child, but many in our church are. We want to be a church that constantly is working to care for orphaned children. We want to demonstrate the sacrificial love of Jesus by helping the weakest and outcast of our society. This will involve everyone at Redeemer grasping these concepts to a certain extent. Everyone needs to read a book like this to develop compassion for traumatized children and to take even a few small steps toward knowing how to care for and react to children with these needs.

This book does not cover traditional aspects of discipline. It’s not an all-encompassing parenting book, but it’s extremely valuable for those that feel detachment from their children and are struggling with how to bridge that gap.

“And calling to Him a child He put him in the midst of them and said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea … So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” —Matthew 18:2-6, 14

May the Lord help us as parents to love our children well that they may each come to salvation,
Pastor Vic

Church,            
Periodically it’s important that we all be reminded of Jesus’ mandate to forgive each other. In Christ we have been forgiven all our sins by grace through faith. Because of the grace shown to us, we must also be willing to forgive those around us. The forgiveness of a Christian is supposed to follow after the incredible mercy of Jesus. We are required to forgive others over and over again, because we ourselves have been forgiven much more by Jesus.

In this teaching there is no room for bearing grudges. There is no place for conditional love – “if you do this for me, I’ll do that for you.” Instead, it’s very clear. You have been forgiven, so you must forgive others. If you refuse to forgive another person, and instead choose to remain in anger, nurse hopes of retribution, or simply cut the person off from your life, you are not displaying the love of Christ. If this goes on for a long time it should give you grave concern over the condition of your soul (v.35).

No passage better teaches this than Jesus’ ‘Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.’ I hope you will read this parable and consider if it describes any aspect of your life. Take seriously the final warning in verse 35. By the work of the Holy Spirit in you, you must forgive – from the heart.

Matthew 18:21-35 — The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’  So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’  He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.  When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

May the Lord give us authentic love for each other, a love that will forgive like Christ,
Pastor Vic