A Fruitful Fiasco: Introduction to 1 Thessalonians

Posted on June 11, 2023 by salooper57

This introduction to 1 Thessalonians (the series is titled, Hopeful) goes back to Acts 17, where Luke narrates the exciting story of Paul’s arrival in – and hasty departure from – Thessalonica. We will look at the background of the First Letter to the Thessalonians, its structure, and its themes.

Viewing time: 24 minutes (approx.)

Today, we begin a series on Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians that I’ve titled “Hopeful.” We will have more teaching than preaching today, as we get an overview and introduction to the letter. We’ll look at the letter’s background, structure, and themes -what it’s all about and why it makes a difference to 21st century Christians.

We’ll begin with a little background, which will be helpful when we delve into the letter itself, which we will do next week. Paul is on the second of his three missionary journeys. His partnership with Barnabas has come to an end – a Martin and Lewis, Sonny and Cher, Simon and Garfunkel sad kind of an end – yet the reach of their ministry has effectively doubled. Barnabas and John Mark take the gospel to Cyprus, while Paul enlists Silas to go with him on a tour up the coast, revisiting churches Paul already knew and loved.

Silas was a ministry veteran from the Jerusalem church. He had considerable gifts, a strong character, and a great reputation. Silas is also an excellent writer with a large vocabulary and an impressive style. When it came time for St. Peter to write his first letter, he went to Silas for help (1 Peter 5:12).

When they reached Lystra, where Paul and Barnabas had once planted a church, they met a young disciple named Timothy. Paul knew his mother and grandmother – sterling people – and was so impressed with Timothy that he invited him to join the team. Timothy was young and inexperienced, but he had a great heart, considerable gifts, and was quick to learn. He was also only half-Jewish. His father was a Gentile.

Not too long after Timothy joined the team, Paul had a vision at night, perhaps in a dream, of a man from the Roman province of Macedonia begging for help. The next day, Paul and the team decided that this was a sign from God and booked passage on a freighter headed for Macedonia.

They eventually came to Philippi, which was a Roman colony. The city did not have a Jewish synagogue, so Paul went down to the river on the Sabbath. He wasn’t going fishing – not exactly, at least. He knew that if there were any Jews in Philippi, this would be a likely place for them to come for Sabbath prayers—and he was right. Among them was a businesswoman named Lydia and, as they talked about Christ, she became convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. She became the first convert in the province of Macedonia.

In Philippi, Timothy got to witness the birth of a church and its nurture by Paul and Silas. He was able to see how seasoned veterans plant a church; watched them teach, coach, and pray. It was an amazing experience.

Paul and his companions spent some time in Philippi, teaching the inexperienced converts what it means to be disciples of Jesus and helping the new church get established. The team and the church people became fast friends, and they maintained that friendship throughout Paul’s life.

Everything was going great until Paul and Silas – but mostly Paul, came between a greedy business and its profits. The businesspeople had Paul and Silas arrested. They probably didn’t even know about Timothy, who was still a wet-behind-the-ears junior partner, but Paul and Silas were dragged off by the authorities and beaten. In Roman criminal law, a suspect could be beaten before he was tried. They thought it made him more likely to tell the truth.

The next day, when the two men were released – Acts 16 tells the very interesting story – they reconnected with the team and, glad to be done with all the drama, headed west on the famous road known as the Egnation Way.

That brings us to our text, which is Acts 17:1-9. Let me read it and you can follow along on the screen. “When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,” he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women. But the Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob” – a lynch mob – “and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go.”

Paul, Silas, Timothy, Luke, and whoever else was on the team traveled the Egnation Way through Amphipolis and Apollonia, which were both fairly large cities. Why didn’t they stop there? There were thousands of people in these cities that needed to know about Jesus.

I think the simple answer is they did not have synagogues. Paul was strategic in his approach. The synagogue was his bridgehead into a new community. He was a highly trained Jewish rabbi. Silas was a prophet and a teacher. The presence of a synagogue was to Paul what a landing strip is to a pilot. There were people at the synagogue who were interested in what he had to say. And because many of them were God-fearing Gentiles – Gentiles who worshiped Israel’s God but had not become Jews – he also had a bridge into the Gentile community.

Thessalonica had a synagogue and a sizeable Jewish community. So, Paul passed by Amphipolis and Apollonia knowing that if people came to Christ in Thessalonica, they would take the gospel to these other cities, which is exactly what happened. A wise strategist can be guided by the Spirit and a Spirit-guided person can be strategic. But strategy without the Spirit soon degenerates into selfish ambition.

What this means is that we can be strategic in talking to our friends, family members, and co-workers about Christ and we can depend on the Spirit at the same time. In fact, the Spirit leads most effectively those who think most clearly. Have you thought about – strategized – how best to tells friends and family about Christ?

Paul spoke in the Thessalonian synagogue on three Sabbaths. Since there were also meetings at the synagogue on Mondays and Thursdays, Paul and Silar might have been giving addresses and holding question and answer sessions nine or more times. Some of the Jews were convinced that Jesus was their Messiah. So were a large number – “a great many” would be a quite literal rendering of the Greek – of the God-worshiping Gentiles who attended synagogue, along with quite a few of the city’s prominent women – probably moneyed folk.

Things were going great in Thessalonica … until they weren’t. Luke writes that some Jews who were jealous of Paul’s success (and troubled by the effect it was having on the synagogue), rounded up some bad characters, who started a riot by claiming that Paul and Silas were violating imperial law.

To understand what is going on, you need to know that Thessalonica was a “free city.” That means that the Thessalonians were allowed to rule themselves without any interference from Rome. No imperial troops were stationed there. Free cities enjoyed unparalleled freedoms. For a city that might have been as large as Grand Rapids, this was extraordinary.

But the people knew that if imperial law was being flagrantly violated, all those freedoms could go away in a matter of days. And fomenting revolution by declaring someone other than Caesar king – this Jesus that Paul and Silas proclaimed – was a clear violation of imperial law. That’s what the “bad characters” claimed Paul and Silas were doing (verse 7). So, the mob went to Paul’s and Silas’s last know whereabouts with murderous intent, but in God’s sovereign wisdom, they weren’t there.

But their host was: an almost new believer named Jason. So, they dragged him and his friends before the court. Verse 9 says that they were made to post bond. In other words, Jason and his friends had to give the court money – possibly quite a lot of money – with the idea that if they were caught associating with Paul and Silas again, their bond would be forfeited, and they would be jailed. What this did was force Paul to stay away from Thessalonica to protect Jason and the other Christians. The whole thing was ingeniously diabolic, and in chapter 2 Paul attributes his inability to return to Thessalonica to Satan.

Notice that nothing has been said about Timothy. It’s possible he wasn’t there, but I think it is more likely that he flew under the radar. He was young, for one thing. He was half-Gentile for another. He was not a principal speaker, like Paul or Silas. So, his name was not included in the charges. That meant that while Paul and Silas could not return to Thessalonica without causing trouble for the Christians there, Timothy could come and go as he pleased.

Two more things about the background to the letter. Paul and Silas were forced to leave in a hurry. They had more to say to the church, but no time to say it. They were leaving brand new Christians behind, men and women who were being oppressed and threatened. And that worried Paul. He says in his letter that he reached a point where he could no longer stand it.

And so, he sent Timothy back to find out how the church was doing and, to his joy, found they were doing great. They were going through some rough times, but their faith held. He also learned from Timothy that there were some pretty big gaps left in their understanding of Christian living and Christian doctrine, which was understandable given the short time they had with Paul and Silas.

There were also some gaps regarding Paul’s sudden departure. Friends and family who were hostile to the faith were saying things like, “Those guys came in here, sold you a bill of goods, then left under the cover of night. How much money did they squeeze out of you before the skedaddled?” The Thessalonians didn’t know where Paul and Silas were when the riot started and didn’t see them before they left. So, they lacked a clear answer to these accusations.

Hence the need for a letter. In it, Paul celebrates the Thessalonians’ faith, gently corrects their misunderstandings, and encourages them to stay true to Jesus during the difficult times ahead.

Now to the structure of the letter. Like many of Paul’s letters, it falls into two main parts. It is an oversimplification, but we could say that the first part is doctrine, and the second part is application. Or we could say that the first part is a description of what God has done while the second part is instruction on how people ought to respond. Or the first part, which covers the first three chapters, looks back, while the second part, which covers chapters 4 and 5, looks forward.

Paul constructed the letter to the Thessalonians so that its two main sections are buttressed by three supporting prayers, one at the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end, like a building braced by support pillars. The first prayer (1:2-3) is a thanksgiving prayer for what God had done in the Thessalonians lives through Paul, Silas, and Timothy.

The center prayer (3:11-13) supports Paul’s instruction in the second half of the letter. He prays that the Thessalonians will love each other well, that they will live counterculturally as God’s holy people, and that they will endure with hope until Jesus returns. Love, holiness, and hope are the focus of Paul’s instruction in chapters four and five.

Paul ends the letter with a final pillar prayer in 5:23-24, a hopeful request for God to keep the Thessalonians blameless until Christ returns. I have found these to be some of the most reassuring verses in the Bible. I have meditated on these verses often, sometimes in the middle of the night, and have been deeply encouraged. They are great verses to memorize.

So, what can 21st century Christians get out of this ancient letter that will help navigate life in our complicated world? For one thing, we will see what it means to live counterculturally and get some pointers on how to do it. We are like people dancing an Irish reel at a rave. We are in everyone else’s way, and they are in ours. Our dance is going somewhere, theirs is not. That can make for opposition and temptation.

Paul gives attention to these stress points. The Thessalonian Christians had turned away from their culture’s gods – the things people sacrificed for and considered necessary. I say, “their culture’s,” but understand that meant their parents, their friends, and their coworkers. This led to misunderstandings and conflicts. We in our day face the same kind of thing.

Most people raised in Thessalonica didn’t understand the Christians’ thinking about sex. Christians believed that sex was a wonderful gift within the bounds of marriage, like a fire is a wonderful thing in a fireplace. Thessalonian culture believed that sex was an enjoyable diversion and placed no bounds on it.

That sharp distinction between what Christians and culture believe about sex is present today. Our culture has removed nearly all the protective limits to sex – the fire has escaped the fireplace – and they cannot understand why Christians think that is a mistake. When we say that sex should be reserved for a man and a woman within marriage, they say calls us bigots and haters. It is hard to stand by your convictions when people think you are a bad person. Many American Christians have forsaken their convictions. 1st Thessalonians can help us to stand firm. 

Another important, time-transcending theme in this letter is the emphasis Paul places on hope. When people endure unremitting difficulty, like the Thessalonians (and like some of us), they can lose hope. This letter is full of hope. I don’t know how it ever escaped me, but it wasn’t until this time through that I realized that every chapter of Thessalonians ends on a hopeful note about Christ’s return. Paul ties the believer’s hope to the savior’s coming.

But that raised a question for the Thessalonians, a question which apparently had not been answered before Paul and Silas were forced to leave town. If our hope is that Christ will return and set everything right, where does that leave people who die?

It seems that during the interim between Paul’s hasty departure and the arrival of Timothy, there were deaths in the Thessalonian church. Some scholars believe those deaths were the result of persecution. How unfair it seemed that these people – brothers, sisters, friends – would die for Jesus before they had the chance to be rescued by Jesus. It was a cause of great grief.

In chapter four, Paul responds to this concern. He says, “Your friends won’t miss out. They’ll be with Jesus when he returns.” Nothing, as Paul says in Romans 8, will separate Jesus from the people who love him, not even death. Death is not a problem for God.

Another relevant theme for us from this letter is love. Lockwood has been working for years to create a culture of caring and a climate of love. The Thessalonians had such a culture. In that center pillar prayer, Paul says: “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” In chapter 4 he wrote, “…about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other… Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.” We can learn about a culture of caring from the Letter to the Thessalonians.

It is not easy to pull out application points from an introduction to a new series, so I am only going to give you one thing to do: read the Letter to the Thessalonians – it will only take the average reader about 7 or 8 minutes.  If you are able, read it two or three times over the next few weeks. You will be amazed at the difference that makes in what you get out of this series. You won’t just hear Shayne teach. You will hear God speak. And that is what is important.

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Things My Dad Didn’t Mean to Teach Me: A Tribute (of Sorts)

Posted on June 10, 2023 by salooper57

My dad taught me a lot of things, some intentionally, but most inadvertently. In the intentional column were things like how to tie an improved cinch knot, how to change a tire, and how to bowl. He taught me how to fight, how to ride a bike, and how to use a circular saw.

In the inadvertent column there are some good things, like standing up for people who are being bullied, but also things that were unhelpful and even untrue. He did not do this intentionally – he would have cut his hand off rather than harm me – but he did it nonetheless.

For example, he taught me early on that the world is unsafe. One way he did this was by offering vague, unexplained warnings: “Watch yourself when you are at the YMCA. There are bad men who live there.” Who these bad men were and what they might do was left a mystery. Or “If a stranger wants you to get in his car, run away from him.” Not bad advice, but it added to my sense that the world was out to get me.

When I was in elementary school, my dad made a body-sized punching bag from a sailor’s duffle filled with sawdust and taught my older brother and me how to fight. Of some future opponent, I remember him saying something like, “Don’t turn your back on him until you’ve made sure he can’t get up and hurt you.”

My dad was not wrong to teach me to defend myself or to teach me to be alert to potential dangers, but he taught me a view of the world that left God entirely out of the picture. My dad knew little about God in those days. He believed he was sending me into the world to make it on my own and was convinced I needed a distrustful spirit to succeed.

It wasn’t just the world “out there” that was unsafe; home was too. My dad could grow angry in a moment and for reasons that were not always clear. So, I learned to be guarded and to keep my own counsel. Without intending to, my dad taught me to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself, which has proved a relational handicap throughout life.

In families that believe in God – as most did in those days – parents, especially dads, are the model on which a child constructs his idea of God. The God I believed in was distant, like my dad. Though he occasionally played catch with us, threw the football around, or took us fishing, dad rarely showed much interest in what we were doing—except when report cards came home. He was determined that his sons would measure up.

Another thing my dad taught, both intentionally and not, was that in this life you cannot depend on anyone for anything. You’re on your own in this world. Everyone is out for themselves. Learning this has made trusting others, even God, more difficult.

Dad began to change when my brother was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. He could not fix it – at that time, the mortality rate for this kind of leukemia was about 95 percent – and so was forced to depend on someone else. He turned to God.

My brother died, and it looked like God was no more dependable than anyone else. Yet out of the ashes of that catastrophe a spark of faith flared up in my dad and grew stronger throughout his life. Very slowly, he began to unlearn some of the things he had believed and taught me.

Our relationship, which had been tense since my teen years, improved. I began again to listen to my dad and to learn from him. He showed me that a tough man can develop gentleness. He modeled generosity with his time and money. He demonstrated kindness to his wife, my mother. He developed a love for the Bible. He taught me how a brave man dies with confidence in God.

On this Father’s Day, I remember my dad with gratitude. I am who I am in large part because of him, and because of him I know that I can become more than I’ve been. 

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What the Bible Says to American Culture About Work

Posted on June 9, 2023 by salooper57

In America, work is sometimes an idol and sometimes a bane. In the final session of this class, we look at what the Bible has to say about work, and we compare that to American ideas regarding work.

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Your Labor in the Lord Is Not in Vain (1 Cor. 15:58)

Posted on June 4, 2023 by salooper57

Kevin Looper shows us why the work we do in the Lord is worthwhile.

Viewing time: 24 minutes (approximate)
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A Brief History of Progress: Are We There Yet?

Posted on June 3, 2023 by salooper57

In 1788, Benjamin Franklin wrote to a friend: “I have sometimes wished it had been my destiny to be born two or three centuries hence. For invention and improvement are prolific, and beget more of their kind. The present progress is rapid.”

Franklin expected that people in our day would be living as long as the antediluvian patriarchs, nearer to a millennium than a century. He could expect such a thing because he had a firm belief in progress. But the idea of universal, inevitable progress was fairly new in Franklin’s time.

The theory of progress didn’t enter secular society as a culture-shaping idea until the 18th century. With science delving ever deeper into the physical nature of the universe, and scientific hypotheses proving true, the thought that humans could understand and progressively take control of the world took hold.

Ben Franklin was a contemporary of the Scottish philosopher David Hume who, in 1742 wrote an influential paper titled, Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences. The lectures of another Scottish philosopher, Adam Smith, widely regarded as the father of economics and capitalism, were framed by a conviction of the inevitability of progress.

During the late 1700s, two influential works by the French philosophers Jaques Turgot and Nicolas de Condorcet laid out theories of progress that argued that humanity is evolving, the world is getting better, and that this improvement can be expected to continue. de Condorcet argued that religion was an obstacle to progress that must be cast aside.

That idea was taken up in the French Revolution. Influenced by Voltaire, who claimed that “Every sensible man, every honorable man must hold the Christian religion in horror,” and d’Holbach who said, “It is only by dispelling these clouds and phantoms of religion, that we shall discover Truth, Reason and Morality,” the revolutionaries outlawed religious practice and set out to destroy the Church. 

Prior to the 18th century and outside Europe and America, most people did not believe in universal and inevitable progress. The vast majority of people who have lived on earth have not thought of history as going somewhere. The farmer made progress in plowing the field (though next Spring he would need to plow it again), but humanity itself had no all-encompassing goal toward which to make progress.

There is, however, a minority people group who have always believed the world was headed somewhere: the Jews. In Jewish thought, all humanity is moving toward a goal, which they called, “the day of the Lord.” This is a day of reckoning and of restoration, a day when justice would be established, and God’s rule would commence.

Christians, who inherited many of Judaism’s fundamental beliefs, also saw history moving toward one great goal. They believed in progress, but unlike many 18th century philosophers, they did not think it could be attained by humanity’s rational faculties, but only by God’s actions.

This is a profoundly important distinction. Progress, according to Christian thought, is not measured by humanity’s achievements and goals. It is gauged by humanity’s proximity to God’s goal. But what is God’s goal?

It can be put in different ways. The goal, as originally stated in Genesis, is for his image-bearing humans to govern creation wisely and lovingly. It is, as the book of Revelation puts it, for humans to live with God once again, as they had done before the rebellion. It is for the creation of a new humanity that is conformed to the image of God’s Son—people who think and act like Jesus Christ, who love like he loves and value what he values.

In a sweeping statement, St. Paul puts the goal this way: “to head up all things in Christ—the things in heaven and the things on earth.” This is the goal to which all things are inevitably progressing.

We can ignore this goal, or we can adopt it, but we cannot escape it. Earth is a ship on turbulent seas, but the Captain is at the helm. We can go where we choose while onboard, but the ship will go where the captain chooses and this is the port to which he steers.

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The Progress of History and the History of Progress

Posted on June 2, 2023 by salooper57

Some ideas influence our actions and emotions, and we are not even aware of it. The powerful idea of progress is one. Christians don’t reject the idea of progress, but they understand it differently than does the prevailing culture. This session is from the class, What the Bible Has to Say to American Culture.

Viewing Time: 37:55
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Purposefully Distracted: What the Bible Has to Say to American Culture

Posted on May 28, 2023 by salooper57

Is there a difference between rest and distraction? Is it possible that we need rest but don’t need distraction? Might we be distracting ourselves to death? This class looks at what the Bible says about distraction, careful thinking, and rest.

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Understanding the Decline of Religion in America

Posted on May 27, 2023 by salooper57

According to the Public Religion Research Institute (PPRI), only 16 percent of Americans surveyed say that religion is the most important thing in their lives. This marks a 4 percent drop in one decade. Melissa Deckman of PPRI says that Americans are “increasingly likely to become religiously unaffiliated.”

With the decline of religious affiliation there is a corresponding rise in unbelief. 18 percent of Generation Z identifies as agnostic or atheist – the highest in U.S. history. There have also been significant changes among the religiously affiliated. 21 percent claim to have undergone a change in religious belief, which is a 50 percent increase from just a couple of years ago.

According to the Pew Research group, Christians in the U.S will be a minority within a few decades if the current decline continues. Religion News Service reports that approximately 4,500 churches close each year while only 3,000 new churches launch. Don Feder, writing in the Washington Times, says that these statistics “should set off alarm bells in our heads.”

The alarm bells have been going off around the Christian community for years now. Dire warnings of apostasy have been issued. After a 2,000 year run, a weary Christianity appears to have collapsed onto its death bed to await the end.

But we’ve heard that before. It looked like Christianity’s downfall was at hand in the fourth century under the Emperor Julian. It wasn’t. At the end of the 18th century in France, and in the early and middle years of the twentieth century in Russia and China, leaders attempted to de-Christianize their countries. They closed churches and persecuted believers, but Christianity survived. In fact, there are now more Christians in China than in any other country.

In the years immediately following the Second World War, C. S. Lewis wrote about the so-called “religious predicament” in England. He claimed that among young, educated adults “Plenty of evidence can be produced that religion is in its last decline.” Similarly, plenty of evidence can be, and has been, produced that religion in America is in its last decline.

Lewis, however, believed that people were misinterpreting the evidence. He was not denying the facts – there really were fewer people attending chapels and churches – but he was questioning the interpretation of those facts and the assumptions behind it.

Lewis acknowledged that “In every class and every part of the country the visible practice of Christianity has grown very much less…” Yet Lewis believed that “the religion which has declined was not Christianity. It was a vague theism with a strong …ethical code.”

The great twentieth century thinker Malcolm Muggeridge agreed. In the early 1970s, Muggeridge was predicting “the end of Christendom.” Though he was a devout Christian, he anticipated the end of Christendom as a good thing for Christianity. He, like Lewis, considered Christendom’s “vague theism with ethical code” to be a rival to the true faith and wished it good riddance.

Lewis attributed the decline in the visible practice of Christianity to a change in cultural standards rather than to a change in people’s hearts. He believed that the number of committed Christians – one might call them disciples of Jesus – had remained roughly the same. For example, as soon as society dropped the expectation that “good Christians” would attend chapel services, people who were merely conforming to society’s expectations stopped attending. It is not that they stopped believing; they never really had believed in anything but society’s expectations.

We are seeing something similar in today’s America. In the 1950s and 1960s, society expected good, vaguely theistic people with a strong ethical code to go to church. That expectation has faded, which accounts for much of the decline in the visible practice of Christianity. Yet, committed Christians are still in church, just as they always were.

The good news is that people who are not and never have been committed Christians are waking up to the fact. When they thought they were Christians, they were essentially unreachable. If they are now realizing that they are not, they may prove more open to Christ than ever before.

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Homosexuality and Gender Transitioning (What the Bible Has to Say to American Culture)

Posted on May 26, 2023 by salooper57
Viewing Time: 1:30
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Forgiveness: Doing What Cannot Be Done

Posted on May 21, 2023 by salooper57
Viewing Time: 23 minutes (approx.)

Jesus said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to say, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him” (Luke 17:1-4).

The forgiveness Jesus is talking about is not some passive thing. It is not, “Don’t worry about it. It does not matter.” We can say that about foibles and personality differences, but we can’t say that about sin. It requires forgiveness.

This forgiveness is not passive. It is an active concern for the other person. A response like, “Don’t worry about it; it doesn’t matter,” might mean that to us the person doesn’t matter. That is not love. To love someone enough to tell them they are wrong can be a selfless, generous kind of love.

Of course, it could also be a carping, loveless, kind of selfishness. This is why Paul tells the Galatians that it should be the spiritual who restore brothers and sisters who have fallen into sin. The unspiritual, who follow their own agenda rather than the Spirit, will only make things worse.

Jesus and Paul envisioned loving correction to be a normal part of Christian community. Because “it is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come (more literally, “It is impossible that things that stumbling blocks should not come”), we need to live as a community of restorative love. That does not mean – must never mean – that we are on the lookout for things people do wrong. But when we see a brother or sister hurting themselves or others, and we have checked our motives and want the other person to experience God’s blessing and joy, then we go to them.

Have you ever had a fellow church member come to you and tell you that you are doing wrong? It should not be a rare occurrence. All of us should have had someone do that for us – I say, “for us,” not “to us,” for this is a gift. Yet I doubt many of us have received that gift from a fellow church member.

And if we did, how would we react? With bitterness? Resentment? With a, “Who do you think you are?” attitude? Would we get angry and leave the church?

Jesus envisioned correction like this as normal. When it occurs, it should be received with gratitude and humility. But that is only possible among people who know each other well, trust each other completely, and are thoroughly committed to each other. If you have given me no reason to believe that you are for me, yet you rebuke me, I’ll need to be a spiritual giant not to take offence and reject what you say—even if what you say is true.

I have been talking about the church family for the past few minutes, but this kind of thing ought to happen in our biological families too. Let’s stop being deluded idealists. Our children, our parents, our spouses, our siblings, are going to trip over stumbling blocks, and sometimes when they do, they are going to fall and come crashing into us.

That is when we show them, lovingly, graciously, and gently, what they did and what it caused. “If your brother or sister sins, rebuke them” (verse 3). And since sometimes we will be the ones who stumble and fall, we’ll need them to do that for us.

When they do, it is important that we receive them “in the Lord.” If we receive them in our pride, the result will be ugly. We need to turn to the Lord and humble ourselves. Then we can listen and try to understand. If we still think they are mistaken, we can tell them so, but with such love and humility that we preserve the relationship.

Is that possible? Yes, it is possible “in the Lord,” though it is impossible “in our pride.” Imagine how quickly we might grow, how much progress in Christlikeness we might make, were we to love each other in this way. A person who can receive a rebuke with humility and love, and one who can give a rebuke with humility and love, are both on their way to Christlikeness.

But rebuke is only one side of this exquisite equation. There is also forgiveness. Forgiveness is the birthmark of the spiritually regenerate. Jesus’s family members forgive. Nothing shocks the world more – and the world needs this kind of shock like a person whose heart has flatlined needs a defibrillator. When Jesus forgave the soldiers who were nailing his hands to the cross, he shocked their hearts.

Erik Fitzgerald, a young pastor and father-to-be, lost his wife and their unborn son in a car accident, and was left to raise his toddler daughter on his own. The accident was the fault of the other driver, Matthew Swatzell, who fell asleep at the wheel after a long shift as a firefighter / EMT. The D.A. asked Erik if he wanted to pursue the maximum penalty against Matthew, but Erik chose the lesser charge as a way of demonstrating God’s forgiving love.

Erik and Matthew had not spoken until one day when their paths crossed in a store parking lot. Can you imagine how awkward that must have been? At the sight of Erik, Matthew began to cry. Erik went right over to him and hugged him. Since that day, the two have developed a friendship that defies any explanation except the power of forgiveness that is “in the Lord Jesus.”

Such expressions of forgiveness are impossible while we are living in anger and pride, but they become possible when we are living in the Lord. When we define and moderate our interactions with family, friends, and even enemies through our relationship to Jesus (Perkins) rather than through our hurt, what is possible looks very different.

If someone has hurt me and I say, “I cannot forgive,” that may be true: I cannot because I am not living in the Lord; I am defining my relationship with that person through my hurt and fear rather than through the Lord and therefore cannot forgive.

The way to change that is not (initially at least) to move toward the person, but to move toward the Lord. In our connection to him we are empowered to do what we could not otherwise do. He shares his strength, his love, his wisdom with us. When I was a young boy, I could not reach the eight foot ceiling in our living room … unless my dad lifted me up. I cannot reach forgiveness either, unless my Father lifts me up. That only happens in the Lord.

The way Jesus laid this out for his disciples was shocking. Look at verses 3 and 4: “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

Imagine someone who sins against you – they gossip about you and your friend hears and tells you about it. So, you go to them in love and rebuke them. They admit they did wrong, and you forgive them. So far, you are tracking perfectly with Jesus.

But before you even leave the room, you hear them gossiping about you again! An hour later, your friend tells you they are still at it. Seven times in one day this person repents. Can you really forgive them seven times in one day? Is that even possible? Jesus says it is, but only when you are living in the Lord.

To the disciples, seven times in a day seemed impossible. They cry out, “Increase our faith!” Surely you need to be a giant of faith to forgive like that. But Jesus knows that’s not true. He assures them: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” You don’t need a giant-sized faith to forgive, just real faith – if you are in the Lord. That is where faith is active. It hibernates outside the Lord.

Our families, biological and spiritual, need forgiveness. In some cases, husbands and wives have been divided and resentful for years. Siblings have not spoken to each other. Church members avoid each other. We must dare to do what Jesus has taught us.

You may still believe it is impossible. There’s just too much water under the bridge. You no longer have any affection for the person. You are afraid. They don’t deserve it. They won’t listen. It can’t be done.

Well, try it anyway. This is what Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” We model our forgiveness for others on God’s forgiveness of us. How did he forgive us? I will mention six things.

First, he forgave us in Christ. If you are going to forgive others, it will be in the same way. You will forgive them in the Lord. That is the theme of this message and this Family Month series. In the Lord, we can do things we can never do in our anger or our pride.

Secondly, God forgives all our sins, which is to say no sin is so great as to fall outside the scope of his forgiveness. In Colossians, Paul wrote: “God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins” (Colossians 2:13). All, not just the ones we deemed less serious.

That means we mustn’t say, “I can forgive anything but that!” People who say such things are willing to forgive irritations and annoyances but, biblically speaking, we don’t forgive irritations and annoyances: we bear with them. We forgive sins.

Thirdly, forgiving as God forgives means taking sin seriously. He doesn’t overlook it; doesn’t say “Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal.” He sends his Son to die so that sins might be forgiven. When you forgive someone, you are not saying it doesn’t matter; you are saying it matters enough to warrant the radical and costly act of forgiveness.

This is a major stumbling block for some people. They feel that if they forgive, they’re admitting that what happened to them – the abuse, the infidelity, the deceit, and malice – didn’t matter. But forgiveness means the opposite: it does matter. It matters so much that it cannot be ignored; it can only be forgiven.

Fourthly, God forgives not because we deserve it but because he is forgiving. Some people withhold forgiveness until the offender deserves it. But – and this is important to understand – no one deserves forgiveness. God does not forgive us because we deserve it. Just the opposite: “He does not treat us as our sins deserve” (Ps. 103:10). We don’t forgive people because they deserve it; we forgive because we are the people of Jesus. We forgive because who we are in Christ not because of who the other person is in their sin.

Fifthly, when God forgives us, he does it graciously. The word translated “forgive” in Ephesians 4:32 is χαριζόμaι, from the root word χαριs, meaning, grace.  The idea here is to “grace” people with forgiveness. God is gracious when he forgives.

Some people are not. By the time they’re done forgiving us, we wish we’d never been forgiven. They remind us of what we did; they remind us of the pain we’ve caused. They remind other people of what we’ve done. This is not God’s way. He says, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jer. 31:34). If we forgive as we have been forgiven, we will be gracious to people. We will not intentionally recall their sins. We will certainly be careful not to talk about them to others.

Sixth, and final point about forgiving the way that God forgives: When he says, “I will remember your sins no more,” he does not mean he cannot remember them.

This is important for us to grasp, otherwise we will think we have done something wrong when we’ve tried to forgive but haven’t been able to forget. We’ll think there is something wrong with us because we still feel angry when we see the person who hurt us. If we had forgiven as the God who remembers our sins no more forgives, wouldn’t the memory and the pain be gone? But forgiveness does not cause forgetfulness, and it doesn’t immediately relieve pain.

I had surgery years ago and for a few weeks I hurt more than I did before the surgery. When I saw the surgeon for my follow-up appointment, I told him as much, and he said (and I quote): “Whud’ja expect?” I expected the surgery to fix the problem, not worsen it. But the problem was fixed. In time, the pain would go away – if I didn’t pick at the incision and cause infection.

It is that way when you forgive. The pain persists until the passing of time and the healing life of the Spirit cause it to fade. But by forgiving we have already dealt with the underlying cause. Now we must refuse to bring it up again and again – we must resist the urge to pick at the incision.

***

If, after what we’ve just seen in the Scriptures, you still think that you cannot forgive, it may be that you are not living in the Lord. All kinds of things are possible in the Lord – encountering difficulties (Eph. 4:1), working through disagreements (Phil. 4:2), enduring adversity (1 Thess. 3:8) – that are impossible outside the Lord. Forgiveness is one.

Imagine that you want to learn to swim, and you see that a class is being offered in Coldwater. So, you go to the class with your swimsuit in your gym bag, but the instructor says, “You’re not going to need that tonight. We’re going to teach you to swim right here in the classroom.”

You’re doubtful that you can learn to swim in a classroom, but you’re willing to give it a try. The instructor explains that the very first thing you’ll need to learn is how to tread water. She demonstrates how to cup your hands and push down on the water, and how to scissor-kick your feet. Then she tells everyone: “Now stand up and raise your arms over your head. I want you to reach up with cupped hands and then push down with one arm and then with the other – and don’t forget to scissor-kick with your feet.”

You feel ridiculous and, after about a minute, you feel tired. But your instructor keeps you at it for fifteen minutes. “You never know,” she says, “when your life may depend on being able to tread water for hours.”

You go home that night and tell your family, “I really wanted to swim, but it’s too hard. I can’t get the hang of it. I’m going to quit the class.”

You feel that way because you are trying to tread water when you’re not in water. You have no buoyancy, nothing to hold you up. If you were in a pool or a lake, the water would actually help you. But in a classroom, you are on your own.

It’s that way when you are “in the Lord.” His surrounding presence helps you. But if you are in your pride or in your anger, you are on your own. It is in the Lord that forgiveness becomes possible.

So, if you are a follower of Jesus and sin has caused division between you and someone in your biological or spiritual family, and you have not been able to forgive, you need to reposition yourself in the Lord. If you have been away from him, you will need to admit that and return to him, which will mean leaving some attitudes, commitments, or behaviors behind. If you have been unable or unwilling to forgive, come close to the Lord today.

If you are not a follower of Jesus, I invite you in the name of Jesus to become one, right here, right now. If you’re not ready, not persuaded, but interested to know more, talk to me or to some Christian whose life you admire. But if you are ready, tell that to God right now. I’ll give you a model prayer that you can offer to the Lord. But the words you use are not the important thing. It is your intent to entrust your life to God and become one of his Son Jesus’s people.

Lord, even though you made me, and I am yours, I have gone my own way. I’ve lived for myself and not for you. Please forgive me. Now I choose to come to you by entrusting myself to Jesus, who died for my sins and then rose from the dead. Thank you for making it possible for me to be with you, now and forever. Amen.

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