Why Can’t I Forgive?

Posted on October 18, 2025 by salooper57

When I speak or write on forgiveness, I know that people will respond with questions, and sometimes, objections. The subject hits home. We have all suffered some kind of wrong and we who are disciples of Jesus know that we must forgive. But how? How can I forgive when I am angry, feel betrayed, and cannot trust the person who has hurt me?

One of the reasons we do not forgive is that we misunderstand what constitutes forgiveness. We think that forgiveness means a cessation of anger. If that is so, and I am still angry, I must not have forgiven. But that is not so. Forgiveness makes it possible for me to let go of my anger, but it is not an anger-reliever in the way that ibuprofen is a pain reliever.

If you slap my face, I may forgive you, but my face will still sting. Forgiveness does not make the pain go away. Likewise, forgiveness does not make the anger go away. That takes time, prayer (not just for yourself but for your offender), and the reception of grace.

We’ve been told that to forgive is to forget, and if we have not forgotten, we have not forgiven. Jeremiah 31:34 is sometimes quoted in support of this claim, for God says that he “will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more.” If God forgets my sin when he forgives, mustn’t I forget your sins when I forgive?

But God does not say that he will forget. Rather, he says that he will not remember. In Jewish culture, to remember is more than the unintended recollection of some past event. To remember is to recall, to reimagine, even to reenact some past event. So, when God told the Jews to remember what he had done during their journey through the wilderness, he instructed them to relive it for a week, to build “tabernacles” and stay in them, to reenact the wilderness wanderings. They called it “The Feast of Tabernacles.”

When God says he will not remember, he does not mean that he cannot remember—he does not have amnesia. He means that he will not recall what has happened (our sin) to our harm. He will not use what we have done against us. He chooses not to “relive” our wrongdoing or summon it up to use in judgment against us.

When we forgive, we do the same. It is not that we cannot, but that we will not, remember. When Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, attended an event where a former enemy – someone who had done wrong by her – was present, her friend pointed the wrongdoer out and recalled what the woman had done. Clara seemed not to remember. The woman, surprised, said something like, “Surely, you remember,” and went on to detail the offence. When Clara did not get upset about it, her friend persisted. Finally, Clara said: “I distinctly remember having forgotten that.”

That is what we do when we forgive. It is not that we cannot remember, but that we choose not to remember in order to harm the other person—even in our own minds. To forgive is not to forget, nor is it the cessation of anger. Forgiveness is a covenant before God not to use a person’s sins against them to their harm. When I have forgiven, I will not recall that person’s offence in order to harm them in the eyes of other people, in my own eyes, or by taking vengeance (even the passive-aggressive kind) against them.

There is still more to forgiveness, which I have described elsewhere (https://shaynelooper.com/2022/10/30/as-we-forgive-our-debtors/), but even after people understand what forgiveness entails, they may still struggle to forgive—and not know why. They have decided not to harm the other person in any way, even in their own thoughts, yet they continue to do so. Why isn’t it (forgiveness) working? Why can’t they do it?

One reason may be that, although they have forgiven the offender for the offence – something that took place years ago when he/she did this to me – they have not forgiven the offender for the hurts that offence caused. For example, I might forgive you for telling a lie about me in your foursome on the golf course last summer, but that lie cost me a promotion. It caused a rift between me and a long-time friend. It led people at my church to distrust me.

If I am going to forgive you, I must not only forgive you for what you did, but for what you caused. This is often the missing link in forgiveness, and the reason for our seeming inability to forgive. This kind of forgiveness is costly, but it is the kind that God himself offers. He not only forgives us for what we have done, but for what we have caused. The repercussions of human sin have been vast and inexpressibly harmful, causing even the death of the Lord of heaven and earth, yet God has forgiven. And he is our example (Colossians 3:13).

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Covenant: What It Is, How It Works

Posted on October 15, 2025 by salooper57

We are taking two weeks to try to understand what it means to be in covenant with God. Covenant plays an important role in the story of the Bible because God is conducting his rescue operation for creation in partnership with humans, and that partnership is structured around covenants. A covenant is a solemn agreement that brings two parties into some kind of partnership.

Let me elaborate on that definition. A covenant is a solemn agreement. It is serious. We can see that in an Old Testament story about Israel, just after Joshua led them into the promised land. God told Israel’s leaders that they were not under any circumstance to make a covenant with the people living in Canaan. But when an embassy of Gibeonites arrived, claiming to have come from a distant land, and wanting to enter into covenant with Israel, those leaders were duped. The Gibeonites had been told that Israel would not make a covenant with them if they knew where they were from, so they carried out an elaborate ruse. (You can read about it in Joshua 9.) When Israel learned it was all a lie, they wanted to renege on the covenant, but God would not let them. They had done a foolish thing, but now that they were in covenant, they must uphold it. God takes covenant very seriously.

A word about “partnership” is needed as well. In his generosity, God enters into partnership with us. It is not an equal partnership, as we’ll see. He does almost all the work, and we receive the benefit. But that does not mean that we have no responsibilities. You cannot be in covenant without responsibilities. J. I. Packer described covenant as a “voluntary mutual commitment that binds each party to the other.” God has bound himself to us by covenant.

We’re looking at Genesis 15 today. It shows us something of the actual process by which people in ancient times entered into a covenant. It was a bloody business and seems gruesome to our 21st century sensibilities, but it shows us the solemnity of covenant and the seriousness of breaking it.

The chapter begins this way: “After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” This verse just begs to be put it into context. “After this…” After what?

In the preceding passage, we learn that Abraham had gone to war against five kings. When we read that they were kings, don’t think of the kings of England or of France. These kings didn’t rule over a nation but over a city and its outlying villages, so we’re not talking about massive armies. But they had combined forces and had attacked the city-state where Abraham’s nephew Lot was living. They conquered it and took captives, including Lot and his family. Captives in such wars were either killed or sold into slavery. Abraham was not about to let that happen. Read Genesis 14 sometime; it plays out like an adventure movie.

Abraham was not a king, but he was rich and powerful. He put together an army that included 318 of his own men, plus mercenaries, and he went after the five kings. He and his men caught up to them at night, routed them, and freed the prisoners.

The king of Sodom, where Lot had lived, was delighted to get his people and treasures back and offered Abraham a substantial reward, which would have included the land ruled by the five kings. Abraham declined the offer. In their brief exchange, it is clear that Abraham had no respect the king of Sodom and wanted nothing to do with him. Then Abraham returned home.

So, what might have been going through Abraham’s mind after all this? He had defeated those kings at night in a surprise attack and with the help of mercenaries. But if those same kings were to mount an attack against him now, it would be a very different story. Were they already planning their revenge?

And had he done the right thing in turning down the reward? This operation had cost him a lot of money, and he had no way of recouping it. In the middle of the night, thoughts like these may have plagued Abraham.

That was when the word of the Lord, whose timing is always right, came to Abraham in a vision. This is the first time we read of the word of the Lord coming to a person. It is also the first time we hear of anyone having a vision. The Lord tells Abraham that he is his shield, that is, his protection. He needn’t worry about the five kings seeking vengeance. He also tells Abraham that he is his “very great reward.” He needn’t worry about having enough. He has the Lord, and whoever has the Lord has enough.

But Abraham does not think he has enough. There is one thing he is missing: a son to inherit the land God promised him. So, Abraham says, “O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? …You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

God could have argued with Abraham, or chastised him for his lack of faith, but instead, he satisfied him with a promise: “…a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” Then God took Abraham outside in his vision, showed him the stars, and said, “Count them—if you can.” Of course, he could not: There are something like 10 septillion stars in the universe. (10 septillion is a one followed by 25 zeroes.) Then God told him, you won’t be able to count your descendants either; there will be too many of them.

Abraham was somewhere around 80-years-old at the time. Would he really have children at his age? But the word of the Lord not only informs, it transforms. God’s word not only speaks truth; it makes us capable of believing the truth and acting on it. Abraham believed God, and it was (v. 6) counted to him as righteousness.

Abraham believed God that he would have a son, and yet he turned right around and asked God for proof that he would have the land. I am glad that is included in the Scriptures. It shows me that Abraham was a lot like us. We can believe God one moment and doubt him the next. But God knows that, and he accommodates our weak faith more often than we can imagine.

We would expect God to answer Abraham with a detailed explanation of how the land will be given to him and his descendants. But God gives him something much better: he gives him a covenant. In chapter 12, God promised Abraham descendants and land. Now, God enters into covenant with Abraham as proof that he will fulfill his promises. To Abraham’s mind – to the mind of anyone living in that culture – ratifying a covenant would be the ultimate proof. You couldn’t ask for anything more.

Look at verse 9: “So the LORD said to him…” (This in response to Abraham’s request for proof: You want proof?) “…bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

What kind of proof is a heifer, a goat, and a ram? That does not seem like proof to us, but Abraham understood it perfectly. God was going to make a covenant with him. Abraham brings them to the Lord, and then proceeds to kill and cut in half each of the large animals. I told you that it is a bloody, gruesome business.

It’s also no small task. Leading, killing, and then cutting in half an animal – it’s not like Abraham owned a chain saw – would take time. Killing all these animals and cutting the four-footed one’s in half would require many hours and be exhausting work. After Abraham cuts them in half, he arranges the halves opposite each other (v. 10). Can you visualize what Abraham is doing? He puts one half the heifer here, and the other half there. Half the goat here, and the other half there. Half the ram here, and the other half there. It is almost as if he were creating a path that runs between the animal halves.

That is exactly what he was doing. Ever since the Lord told him to bring these animals, Abraham has understood what he was supposed to do. This is the procedure for making, or as the Hebrew idiom has it, for cutting a covenant. With all this blood and the smell of dead animals rising into the air, carrion birds show up, looking for a meal. So, Abraham, exhausted, has to remain vigilant, and drive away the birds. And he waits.

The afternoon turns into evening, the evening grows dark, and still Abraham waits. What is he waiting for? He is waiting for the arrival of his covenant partner. Abraham knows how this works. The two parties involved in the covenant need to walk down the aisle created by the placement of the animal parts. That is how covenants are ratified.

That seems bizarre to us. Walking between a bunch of dead, smelly animals somehow seals the deal, cements the promise, ratifies the covenant? Yes. But why? Because by walking between the pieces of the dead animals, the covenant partners are saying, “If I do not keep the covenant I have made, may my life be like that of these animals.”

The covenant partners are taking a curse on themselves should their covenant commitments go unfulfilled. I told you that making a covenant is serious business. The most common covenant in American life is the covenant of marriage. At least, that is what people once called it, and that was true whether they were religious or not. But today, that terminology has dropped out of many wedding ceremonies. Maybe that is understandable when one out of two marriages ends in divorce, often after one or both parties have reneged on their covenant vows. No one explained to them the seriousness of the vows they were making.

You know the vows, right? “To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.” That is a covenant promise; making it is serious business.

That’s why, when I officiate a wedding, I tell people that if they write their own vows, I will need to approve them. I won’t let couples recite nonsense to each other, like the bride and groom that promised to be there for each other as “long as love shall last.” Drivel like that won’t help love last. Feelings, regardless of their sincerity and intensity, are bound to ebb and flow, whereas a covenant commitment remains, and that makes lasting love possible.

Now, let’s go back to the text and see what’s happening. Abraham has been waiting for his covenant partner to show up and driving away the carrion birds while he waits. But when evening comes, the birds give up and go back to their nests. Abraham sits down and, tired as he is, falls asleep. His covenant partner has been waiting for this moment. With Abraham asleep and unable to walk the perilous path, the Lord speaks to him again. He tells him, verses 13 and 14, that his descendants will inherit the land but it will take 400 years, and they will be slaves in a foreign land. But when the time is right, they will be freed and will return to take possession of the covenant land.

Now, look at verses 17 and 18: “When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates…”

The covenant is being ratified. But something is wrong. Only one of the covenant partners – the smoking fire pot and a flaming torch represent God who is a consuming fire – passes between the pieces of the animals. It is God, not Abraham, who invites the curse on himself if the covenant vows go unfulfilled. Abraham is asleep. He can’t do anything to help, and that is precisely the point. God is taking it on himself to fulfill this covenant. Whatever Abraham and his descendants do or do not do, God will see to it that the covenant is fulfilled. He has promised to bless all the peoples of the earth through Abraham, and nothing will stop him—cross his heart and hope to die.

So, what do we do with what we’ve seen in this strange passage? For one thing, we ought not settle for second best. Abraham went to war against the five kings in order to rescue Lot and his family. He was not trying to expand his territory or increase his power. He wasn’t looking to gain wealth. But after the battle, the King of Sodom offered Abraham the spoils of war, which included the territory of the five kings.

That territory comprised a good share of the land that God had promised to Abraham. He could have it right now—without the wait. And maybe this was God’s way of keeping his promise. But it would mean cozying up to that slimy, morally corrupt king of Sodom—forming an alliance with him, a covenant. So, what was Abraham to do?

Here’s a similar situation. Adam and Eve are offered the forbidden fruit. If they eat it, they will become like God, knowing good and evil. And isn’t that what God wanted? He made them “in his image.” Isn’t his plan, as we read later in Scripture, to conform all humanity to the glorious likeness of his Son. So why wait? Why not get it now?

Here’s yet another instance of the same kind of situation. Jesus is in the wilderness. The devil takes him to the summit of a high mountain, apparently in a vision, and shows him all the kingdoms of the earth and their splendor. Then he says, “I will give you all this. It will be your kingdom. Then you can do what you’ve always wanted to do: end hunger, end suffering, usher in an age of justice and peace. And all you have to do is bow down and worship me.”

Of course, God was already planning on giving Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth. But why wait? Why not have it now? Why should humanity endure its suffering any longer?

In each case, people can have something immediately that God intends to give them later.  The catch is they have to go against God’s ways to get it. Adam and Eve refused to wait, and they did receive the knowledge of good and evil, but not in the way God intended. Yes, they know good (as do all their children), but only through the lens of evil. If they had obeyed God, they (and we) would have known evil only through the lens of good.

Had Abraham taken the bait, he would have immediately possessed the land that his descendants had to wait 400 years to obtain. However, those descendants would not have learned to trust the Lord; they would not have seen his power; they would not have become his partners in the covenant. But they would have been indebted to the slimy king of Sodom.

Had Jesus taken the bait, he would have had the authority to do the things his heart desired, but it would have been the devil’s kind authority—a usurped authority, a tyrant’s authority. By doing it God’s way, Jesus has been exalted to the highest place and given the name above all names. He will do all that his heart desires, but he will do it with and through us, and so bless all the peoples of the earth.

We are an impatient people, and each new time-saving device that hits the market leaves us even more impatient. That’s a real problem for people who want to know God, because he’s never in a rush. Intimacy is not built on the run. It takes time to build a relationship with God. Are you giving him that time?

Besides that, hurried people make horrid decisions. Perhaps you need to slow down!

I said earlier that when God walked through the sacrificial animals alone, he took the responsibilities of fulfilling the covenant on himself. The God who would become a man – a descendant of Abraham – represented both parties on the perilous walk. God called the curse down on himself should the covenant be broken. And the One who sees the end from the beginning knew exactly where that would lead.

Abraham’s descendants would fail to keep the covenant, but it was God who would bear the curse. Listen to what St. Paul, who understood these things, wrote: “Christ” – Son of God, son of man, seed of Abraham – “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’”

Now listen as Paul explains: “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus…” (Galatians 3:13-14).

God knew what the cost of keeping covenant with people like us would be. And he kept it anyway. That is our God. Let us be his people.

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Covenant: What It Is, How It Works

Posted on October 15, 2025 by salooper57

(Viewing time: 29:29.)

This sermon, based in Genesis 15, reveals what God is like and why is promises are trustworthy. (If you would like to read the sermon rather than watch/listen, click here.

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Covenant Flyover

Posted on October 8, 2025 by salooper57

The concept of “covenant” is important to understand for anyone who cares about the message of the Bible. God’s rescue effort for humanity and all creation is structured around covenant. This sermon surveys the covenant landscape and considers the five principal covenants between God and humans.

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Now You See Me

Posted on October 5, 2025 by salooper57

The Most Staggering Thing Jesus Ever Said

Watch this final sermon in the series, What God Is Like. It is good news!

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Is the Church Even Necessary?

Posted on October 4, 2025 by salooper57

You probably know my answer, but you may not know my reasons.

According to Catholic doctrine, the Church is absolutely necessary. The church father Cyprian declared Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus— “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” After eighteen centuries, that is still official Catholics doctrine. Pope John Paul II affirmed it. Pope Benedict XVI literally wrote the book on it. (Well, it was not a book exactly; it was a 36-page official church declaration.)

Though I would not use Cyprian’s words to stress the importance of the church, I agree that the church is important. A rich and life-transforming knowledge of Christ requires the church. I am not saying that a person needs to attend church services every week, or even attend at all. Christ can transform lives even in circumstances where church attendance is impossible, such as illness, confinement, forced isolation, etc. Nevertheless, the wise God has designed the church to be the medium in which the rich, life-transforming knowledge of Christ is imparted.

In Colossians chapter two, Paul tells believers in Colosse that he has been in a great struggle for them and their neighboring Christians in Laodicea. He struggles so that their hearts may be encouraged as they are “being knit together in love” (KJV). This, Paul knows, will lead to (εἰς in Greek) the “full riches of complete understanding” or, as other versions translate, “the full assurance of understanding,” which will in turn lead to (εἰς again) the “knowledge of the mystery of God—Christ.”

Paul’s ultimate goal is for people to have the knowledge of the mystery of God, which he sums up in one word: “Christ.” If we work backwards from Paul’s ultimate goal, we can see how he expected people to arrive there. Paul understood that the life-transforming knowledge of Christ rests upon “the full riches of complete understanding.” If Christians are to have assurance, it is crucial for them to understand their situation and their story.

I have found that few Christians have a robust understanding of their situation and their story. Without that understanding, it is hard for them to see how the Bible (or a worship service, or a sermon) relates to their lives. They lack the assurance that comes from understanding. They wonder if this is all there is to the Christian life. Other than attending church occasionally (the current norm among self-identifying Evangelicals is 1.3 times a month), their lives are nearly indistinguishable from those of their non-Christian friends.

They need “the full assurance of understanding,” but shouldn’t they already have it if they are reading the Bible and sitting under good teaching? The answer to that question is apparent in Colossians 2:2. The kind of understanding we need comes to people with encouraged hearts. People with discouraged hearts misunderstand what is going on around them. They lack awareness of God and his goodness. If people are ever going to understand the blessing they have in Christ, they need to have encouraged hearts.

As a pastor, I know how important it is for my church family to be encouraged in heart, but that seems like too big a job for me. Will my preaching, teaching, and visiting be enough to encourage our church family’s hearts? Years of preaching, teaching, and visiting suggest that the answer is no. However many sermons I may preach, or podcasts, newsletters, or magazine columns I may produce, I cannot provide the kind of encouragement that leads to understanding, assurance, and the life-transforming knowledge of Christ.

A congregation with encouraged hearts is too big a job for me or for any one of us, but not for all of us—and that is the way God designed it. Together, under the direction of God’s Spirit, we can live and thrive in an encouraged community. This is behind Paul’s goal for the churches to “be encouraged in heart and united in love.” The NIV’s addition of the conjunction “and” in this sentence is misleading, suggesting that being encouraged in heart and united in love are two separate goals. In Greek, there is a participial phrase that (translated literally) runs: “that they may be encouraged in heart, being united in love.”

In other words, peoples’ hearts are encouraged when they are united to each other in love. Being alone discourages our hearts, while being united in love encourages them. And since an encouraged heart leads to the full assurance of understanding, it is critical that our church families are united in love.

There is another thing here. The word translated “united,” like nearly all words, has a range of meanings. This word was sometimes used of marshalling (uniting) disparate facts in order to prove a point. Luke uses it in this way when he says that Saul “baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.” I am not suggesting that Paul intended the word to have that particular sense in Colossians 2. I am saying that when the hearts of a church family are united, the outside world sees powerful “proof” of the reality of God.

In today’s world (as well as yesterday’s), there are many influences working to disunite us. This is not an accident. A church that is united in love will dislodge the devil, conduct itself with assurance, convince doubters, know Christ by experience, and change the world. One of the principal goals of any church must be to unite the hearts of all her people in love. That is certainly God’s goal.

Reaching that goal will require intention and effort from the pastor, the ministry staff, the board, every Sunday School teacher, deacon, treasurer, trustee, worship leader, sound/video tech, and member. Unity is a goal that benefits all of us and requires effort from each of us. But the effort is worth it, for it leads to “the full riches of complete understanding,” which makes possible it possible for us to know “the mystery of God,” which is “Christ” himself.

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Can Erika Kirk Really Forgive Charlie’s Killer?

Posted on September 27, 2025 by salooper57
Erika Kirk delivers remarks during the Memorial Service for Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, Sunday, September 21, 2025.(Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

The actor Tim Allen says that Erika Kirk inspired him to forgive the drunk driver who killed his father when he was only 11. Jimmy Kimmel says that Mrs. Kirk’s act of forgiveness deeply moved him and he wants to follow her example. Maybe we want to follow her example and forgive the people who have hurt us, but how are we supposed to do that?

We make a choice to do it. I suspect that Erika Kirk did not feel like forgiving Tyler Robinson, but she chose to do so. Forgiveness never happens by accident. It is always a choice—usually a choice that goes against the grain of our feelings. If we put off forgiveness until we feel like it, we will never forgive. We must make a choice to forgive, and we must act on it.

But what does that even mean? What are we doing when we forgive someone? Are we saying that what the other person offense didn’t really matter? Not at all. We overlook what does not matter. We forgive what does. We bear with people’s quirks and irritating ways. We forgive their sins (Colossians 3:13). Forgiveness always implies that something has taken place that really matters.

Does the offer of forgiveness indicate that we are no longer hurt or angry? It does not. I suspect the Erika Kirk will have to battle many emotional hours of anger and bitterness. Forgiveness is not a magic wand. You cannot swipe it over your anger or sorrow and make it go away. Forgiveness is more like a door. By forgiving, you open the door so that those negative emotions can leave. You cannot force them through the door, but in time they will often leave of their own accord (so to speak).

Does forgiveness require me to act like the offense never happened? Do I need to remain in functioning relationship with the offender? Do I need to trust the person, possibly exposing myself or my children to further injury?

No. Forgiving someone is not the same thing as trusting them. Once trust has been damaged, it may never be rebuilt, and even if it is, it will take time, sometimes many years.

Does forgiveness mean that I must forget what happened? Forgive and forget – isn’t that what people say? And isn’t that what God does? In the Book of Jeremiah, he promises to “remember their sins no more.” So, if I cannot forget, isn’t that proof that I have not forgiven?

God’s promise to “remember their sins no more” does not mean that he cannot remember their sin, but that he chooses not to remember. God does not have dementia. He will never put a finger to pursed lips and say, “Now, what was it that Shayne Looper did?” That is not what forgiveness means. He knows everything, including every sin I have ever committed, but he chooses not to recall them to my harm.

When we forgive, we are doing the same thing. We are choosing not to use a person’s sin against them to harm them. Does that mean, for example, that we choose not to report a crime against us, like Bishop Myriel did when he forgave Jean Valjean in Les Misérables? Not necessarily. It means that we do not recall the person’s crime because we want to harm them. But allowing someone to evade the punishment they deserve (and may need) could cause them (and others) even greater harm. In situations like this, we must do to others what we would have them do to us, were we in their position; and that requires wisdom born of much prayer.

When Erika Kirk forgave her husband’s killer, she was choosing not to harm him because of what he did to her. That includes harming him in her own mind: rehearsing the evil he has done, fantasizing his suffering, maliciously wanting his ruin, attempting to get other people to hate him, etc. Mrs. Kirk will need to stand upon the choice she has already made, for such thoughts will come. She will need our prayers.

There is another aspect to forgiveness, a potential pitfall about which we must be aware. When we forgive a person, we are not only forgiving what they did but also what they caused. The harm caused to Mrs. Kirk is myriad and lasting. Tyler Robinson took away the father of her children. She no longer has a husband to get up with the 3-year-old when she wakes from a bad dream. The one-year-old lacks a father to rock him and sing to him. When their daughter is 13, Charlie will not be there to go with her to the daddy-daughter dance. When she is 24, Charlie will not be there to walk her down the aisle.

These losses will come to Mrs. Kirk day after day, week after week, year after year. They are not going away. She must be able to forgive her husband’s killer for these things too, or a bitterness will grow in her that will eventually take over her life. The hurt the man caused was only beginning when the report of the assassin’s rifle faded. It will go on, a life-long reminder of what he took from her. And her forgiveness must also go on too, encompassing not only what her husband’s killer did but what he caused.

If this is what forgiveness entails, how can Erika Kirk – or anyone else – ever truly forgive? It would require something like superhuman strength and resolve.

That is exactly what it requires, and we are not superhuman. So, how can we forgive? To do what God calls us to do – whether in forgiveness or in other things he has commanded – we need a connection to God through which his superhuman strength can reach us. That connection is the Spirit—the Spirit that is given to everyone who believes on Jesus and confesses him Lord. In her own strength, Erika Kirk is incapable of living out the forgiveness she has offered. It is a good thing that she isn’t forced to rely on her own strength.

God’s strength, originating from outside us but flowing through us, is necessary to live out the forgiveness that Jesus commanded and modeled—forgiveness which we saw memorably expressed by a grieving widow on Sunday. To those who have been united to God through faith in Jesus Christ, he imparts his strength, enabling them to do what they could never do on their own.

Like forgiving their spouse’s murderer.

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Divided We Fall: Paul, Romans, and a Fractured Faith

Posted on September 20, 2025 by salooper57
Photo by Emmanuel Correia on Pexels.com

I recently read through Romans again, and it was clear to me that the letter owes much of its shape and content to the difficulties that existed in the relationship between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. It is possible to fix on almost any point in the letter and find some kind of reference to the Jew-Gentile relationship.

For example, in the first chapter, in the opening verses, we find reference to the Jewish Messiah, the descendent of David, giving Paul grace to call Gentiles to the obedience of faith. The very Jewish Paul longs for a harvest among the Gentiles. After acknowledging his debt both to Greeks and Barbarians, he shares his hope of making payments on this debt by preaching to the Gentiles in Rome.

Even the famous, theologically rich 16th and 17th verses, which speak of the power of the gospel, do so in the context of Jew and Gentile relations. It is a gospel that brings salvation to everyone who believes: to Jews first and now to Gentiles as well.

Chapter 2 specifically addresses the Jew/Gentile relationship and makes it clear that Gentiles are accepted into the people of God. In chapter 3, both at the beginning and at the end of the New Testament’s most famous passage on atonement theology, Paul brings up Jews and Gentiles. Both are sinners and both are “justified by faith apart from works.”

In chapter 4, Abraham is the example both to the circumcised (the Jew) and to the uncircumcised (the Gentile). Paul makes a point of stressing the fact that Abraham was justified before being circumcised, making the argument that Abraham was declared right with God when he was (effectively) still a Gentile!

In chapter 5, Paul traces sin’s roots back to Adam, from whom both Jews and Gentiles have inherited a sinful nature. (This is a summary statement of a more nuanced argument.) In chapters 6-8, Paul examines the role the Jewish law plays in God’s larger story. While there is no specific mention of Gentiles in these chapters, Paul does address the value of the Jewish law while stressing the limits of its power. We learn that what the Jewish law was incapable of doing, God has done by sending the Messiah.

Chapters 9-11 closely examine the question of God’s relation to the Jews in light of his acceptance of Gentiles. Paul raises the question of whether God’s promises to the Jews have failed. In this section, Paul goes to the Jewish Scriptures (see 9:23-33, 10:18-21, and 11:25-32) to address biblically and poetically the place of Gentiles and Jews in God’s salvation plans.

Chapters 12-14 focus more narrowly on how individuals and churches can live out the message of the gospel, but the relationship between Jew and Gentile has not been forgotten. Paul’s insistence that we who are many form one body in Christ may have originated in the Jew-Gentile issue, which was never far from his mind. In chapter 12, he seems to have Jews in mind when he states that “love is the fulfillment of the law,” and Gentiles in mind when he calls for an end to carousing, drunkenness, and sexual immorality.

In chapter 16, where Paul includes both Jews and Gentiles in his greetings, he lists more than a dozen people with Greek-sounding names, and celebrates their friendship, character, and hard work in the Lord. But before doing so, he relates how Jews who risked their lives (Prisca and Aquila) have served the Gentile churches.

Returning to chapter 15, we learn of Paul’s ministry-long effort to heal the rift between Jews and Gentiles. He has gone throughout Asia and Europe collecting money from Gentile believers to aid Jewish believers going through hardship in Israel. This offering was one of Paul’s greatest efforts. He spent time, thought, and energy to make it possible. He envisioned great results coming out of it: Jews and Gentiles who accept one another to the glory of God (15:7).

It seems to me that in every generation, Satan’s strategy is to divide God’s people. In Paul’s day, the division was most clearly seen between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus. In 1054, the Western and Eastern church effectively divorced, creating a millennium-long split. When Luther nailed his theses to the Wittenburg Church door in 1517, that nail cracked the Western Church wide open, leaving a centuries-long rupture between Catholics and Protestants. One can find good, and perhaps even necessary, reasons for these divisions, yet in all of them, evil was at work.

Today, we see micro and macro fractures between white and black, young and old, male and female, political left and political right, not to mention denominational rifts. (There are something like 1200 distinct Christian groups in the U.S. alone.) But, as Paul himself earlier wrote the Corinthians, we must take steps so “that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes”—schemes to divide and disable the people of Jesus.

The step Paul counseled in 2 Corinthians was forgiveness. We certainly are in need of that. Hate for hate, contempt for contempt, disregard for disregard has only advanced the enemy’s plan. Is there any action we can take in our day that might correspond with Paul’s attempt to heal division—the offering he collected from Gentile churches all over the eastern Mediterranean to relieve the suffering of Jewish believers?

In the New Testament, division in the church is always seen as a terrible thing and is unequivocally condemned. Do we feel about the divisions in today’s church (between black and white, old and young, female and male, left and right) the way Paul would, or do we regard division as something we’ll just have to live with?

Our enemy continues to stay busy, working to divide Christ’s beloved church. Are we doing anything to nullify his efforts, keep the unity of the Spirit, and thereby bring glory to God?

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Church, Faith, Mission, Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Family Business: A Sermon from John 5

Posted on September 18, 2025 by salooper57
Viewing time: 25:16.

In this sermon, we learn that God is always working and that we are invited to join him in the family business. Watch the video or read the text below.

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Karen and I were living near Youngstown, Ohio when our kids were born. After they came into the picture, we started making more frequent trips home to the Cleveland area to visit my parents. Once, while we were home, they told me that the people in the upstairs apartment across the street were selling drugs. Cars would stop, someone would run up the steps, spend (maybe) a minute at the door, and leave. Sometimes this happened during the day but mostly at night.

I don’t remember if my parents told the police what was going on but, if they did, I can imagine them watching to see if the police would raid the drug house that day, or the next, but it didn’t happen. Why didn’t the police do something? That’s what my parents wondered. Days, and weeks, and then months went by without anything happening.

Then, late one night, police surrounded the house, burst in, and caught the drug dealers red-handed. Apparently, they had informants buying drugs from those people all along. They had been building an air-tight case for many months against the dealers and their suppliers. My parents didn’t know it, but something was happening; it just wasn’t in their field of vision. The authorities were at work the entire time.

When bad things happen in our lives, we might think about God the way my parents thought about the police: Why isn’t he doing something? Someday, we’ll discover that he was. But, unlike the police, he wanted us to join him in his work.

We can’t understand why God isn’t doing something about what is important to us. It doesn’t occur to us that he might want us to do something that is important to him. Jesus understood that God is doing something right now. He’s already working in our church, in our neighborhood, in our city, and our world. He is meticulously setting the stage, step by step. He is not just preparing to act (though he is doing that); he is acting right now. There is always some God-thing going on around us. Instead of sitting around, waiting for the Creator of the Universe to make himself useful by working on our thing, we need to work on his. That’s how we seek his kingdom first.

What is most important is not what we are doing, but what he is doing. If you want to get caught up in something big, something important and life-altering, and in the process, get to know God, look for what God is doing and join him in it. I’m not talking about being a lone ranger who does something for God, but about being God’s child, who works with the Father.

Our text is John 5. Let’s read verses 17- 20. Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.”

Now, hold on. In the creation account in Genesis 2, we read: “… the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done” (Genesis 2:1-3).

Genesis tells us God finished what he was doing and “rested from all his work.” So, how can Jesus say that his “Father is always at his work to this very day”? Is he resting or is he working? Isn’t the claim that he rested from his work repeated in Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy? Isn’t it restated in the New Testament as well? Did God retire after the sixth day or didn’t he?

The idea that God created the world and then went on some kind of extended holiday has had enormous influence on religion, philosophy and everyday life, but it is based on a misunderstanding of the biblical text. The author of Genesis was not saying that God finished his big project and then went into hibernation. It is more like: he finished the house, moved in, and now he works from home.

Jesus is very clear: His Father has not retired. He still goes to work every day. The work of creation did not wear God out. He does not need a break after making the septillionth star. He doesn’t want a break. He loves to work. No one has a better work ethic than our Father in heaven.

Jesus understood, and wants us to understand, that his Father is currently at work in the world. He’s busy in septillion places all at once, and he hasn’t even broken a sweat. What if God is already at work in your family? He is! You think you need to make it all turn out right but instead you need to find out what he is doing and join him.

What if God is already at work in our church? He is. We need to find out what he is doing and join him. The same is true in our workplace, our golf league, our favorite coffee shop, and the store where we buy our groceries. Find out what God is doing and do it with him.

If we don’t find out what he’s doing, we may work and fret for nothing. Years ago, Loyston, Tennessee was slated to go out of existence. When the river was dammed to produce electricity, the valley the town occupied would become a 34,000-acre lake. The little town would disappear under the water, so its residents were moved to homes on higher ground.

Now imagine one of those residents stayed away from the town meetings, threw away the flyers, and ignored all the talk about a dam – this electricity nonsense made him mad – and instead began remodeling his house. He painted the exterior and even added on a room. And just about the time he got done, the dam was completed, the waters covered the house, and all his work meant nothing.

It’s as if Noah had decided to build God a temple rather than an ark. He would have done a magnificent job, and his temple would have been one of the wonders of the world. But we would know nothing about because the waters would have washed it – not to mention him and his family – all away. That’s the kind of thing happens when we ignore what God is doing around us and do our own thing instead.

Sometimes, we not only ignore what God is doing but actually get in his way. Parents, for example, fearing that God is not doing anything, step in to save their son from the negative consequences of his choices. But God was using those consequences to bring real, lasting change in his life. Or take the parents who constantly criticize and condemn their daughter to get her to change, but only succeed in closing her heart to them and to God.

Jesus knew that the Father is working. “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38). Jesus was in the family business. He did not do his own thing; he did the Father’s work. Elsewhere he says that his “food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). Getting involved in God’s work was his food: it energized him, satisfied him, and fortified him – and he knew it would do the same for us. When we are working with, rather than apart from, or in opposition to, the Father, things happen around us and in us.

Now you might be thinking, “The Father works. The Son works. We work. Sounds like ‘works salvation’ to me. But we are saved by faith, not by works! St. Paul says so.”

True. But we are saved by faith into works. Paul says that too. It is important that we understand salvation is into a vocation, not a vacation—a vocation in which we join the Father and the Son in the family business. And while we’re doing that, we not only advance their work in the world, their work in us also advances. That’s how God designed it, and it is absolutely brilliant. One of the best ways to get to know God is to start working with him.

But how do we do that? Do we all need to become pastors and evangelists? No. God’s work is not stuck in the sanctuary. Our Father is at work right now at Thor and at Forest River, in the school administration building, and the courthouse. He is at work in art studios, surgical suites, and construction sites. He is working in classrooms and on football fields, and we can join him in his work.

I ask again: how? How do we do that? Jesus can show us how. Our text grows out of a larger narrative in which Jesus had come to Jerusalem for a religious festival and, while there, had spotted a man in a difficult situation. Jesus inquired about him and learned that he had been in a bad way for a long time. So, he talked to the man. After seeing the man, asking about him, and talking to him, Jesus realized he was invited to work with the Father in the man’s life.

How did he realize that? Did he, like Sherlock Holmes, see hidden clues that we mere mortals miss? And what happens to us if we miss those clues? Or what if we think something is a clue and it isn’t? Will we waste our time and money on something that has nothing to do with God?

We can relax. We don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to join in the Father’s work. His work is not a puzzle to be solved. It’s the Family Business, and our Father takes it on himself to send us our assignments. We don’t need to worry about that.

Look at what Jesus says in verse 19: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” Let’s break that down.

First, the Son – and remember who we are talking about: this is the heir of all things, through whom the universe was made, the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, who sustains all things by his powerful word (Hebrews 1:2b-3b), the Son of God himself – says that he can do nothing by (or better, “originating from”) himself. Even the Eternal Son did not say, “What can I think of to do?” Rather, he looked to see what his Father was doing. We must learn to think this way: my Father is already working here. What is my part in the Family Business?

Jesus says he only does what he sees the Father doing and whatever he sees the Father doing he does. There lies the key, but there also lies the problem. Jesus saw the Father doing things and he joined with him in doing them. But he had extraordinary spiritual vision, and we don’t; so, how can we join in?

We’ll get to that in a moment but first notice that this wasn’t dependent upon the Son’s extraordinary spiritual vision. No, the initiative lay with the Father, not the Son. Look at verse 20: “For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” Jesus does not see what the Father is doing because he has extraordinary spiritual vision (though he does); he sees it because the Father shows him what he is doing. In the same way, we won’t see what God is doing because we are smart or spiritual; we’ll see it because he will show us.

Jesus’s relation to the Father is the model for our relationship to him. He said, for example, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). Jesus is our example. Like him, we are sent into the world to join in God’s work, and we can be confident that God will show us what he’s doing. And notice why the Father shows the Son his work: it’s not because he needs someone to do things for him. It’s not because there are not enough volunteers. He shows him what he is doing because he loves him. Whenever God shows us what he is doing, it is because he loves us.

Perhaps you are afraid that you will not see what God is doing even if he shows you. And that is possible. So, is there a recipe we can follow or some kind of formula we can use for seeing what the Father is doing? Is there some kind of sign we need to be looking for?

Some people are always seeing – or think they are seeing – signs. These are puzzle-builder Christians, the mystery-solver types who are susceptible to taking any coincidence as a sign. “Right after the boss told me I was being laid off, I got a call from a California area code; that never happens! Earlier this week, there were cars with California plates parked on either side of mine at the coffee shop. I didn’t realize it at first, but those were signs that God wants us to move to California.”

Don’t look for signs, and don’t go to the Bible as if it were a coded message to tell you what you are supposed to do. Two old friends met at their 30th high school reunion. The one guy had gone to college, became a veterinarian, worked hard, earned lots of money but had recently made some bad investments and was in a serious financial bind. The other guy didn’t go to college, never held a job more than a few years, and yet he was quite prosperous. The first guy asked him how he did it.

He answered, “It’s simple, really. After my mom died, I opened my Bible, dropped my finger on a page, and the word under my finger was oil. So, I invested my inheritance in Exxon Mobil, and I made a bundle. So, I tried the same thing again. My finger stopped on the word Covenant. I had to search around for that one, but I found a company called Covenant Logistics and I invested all the money I made from oil. Over the next two years, their stock more than doubled. So, I decided to try it one more time. The Bible fell open to First Samuel, and my finger touched the word, “Eli.” The only Eli in the stock exchange is Eli Lilly. I invested everything – that was right before the Pandemic – and their stock when from $145 a share to $950. Long story short: I got rich.”

When the friend in financial trouble got back to his hotel that night, he pulled out the Gideon Bible, shut his eyes, let it fall open, and stabbed his finger onto the page. When he opened his eyes, he panicked. His finger rested on the words, “Chapter 11” (as in bankruptcy).

That’s not how God shows us what he is doing—and how he shows us isn’t the important thing anyway. He has a million ways to do that – through thoughts that come during prayer or Bible reading, through chance conversations, through circumstances, through desires, and through Christian friends. How is not important – God has a million how’s. The important thing is Who. God uses his million how’s with select who’s.

Well then, are we back to people with superior spiritual vision? No. the people who see what God is doing are not exceptionally spiritual. They see what God shows them because they, like Jesus, love God and do what he says. This is John 14:21: “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

It is not a formula that is needed. It is a commitment. But more than that, it is a commitment of love. The people who are able to see what God is doing are people who have seen what God is like: the God who is light all the way through; the God who is Father, Rewarder, Giver, and Forgiver; and they love him for it. And they trust him.

If you have not seen what God is like, ask him to reveal himself to you. Read the Bible not for clues or puzzle pieces but to get to know your Father and his ways. If you have not seen this God, look at the Lord Jesus Christ and believe on him. He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15).

One last thing: If you are always in a hurry, you are bound to miss what God is doing. Hurry is the enemy of relationship, including the relationship with God. As much as possible, eliminate hurry from your life.

God is at work all around us right now. Find out what he is working on and join him.

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Going Out of Business: St. Paul and “the Body of Sin”

Posted on September 13, 2025 by salooper57
photo by the blowup on Unsplash

We once lived in a city with a furniture store that was always going out of business. Its windows were plastered with signs that said things like, “Everything Must Go,” “Drastic Markdowns,” “Liquidation Sale!” and of course, “Going Out of Business.” The odd thing was that the store didn’t go out of business. It kept selling furniture and (I suppose) buying new furniture for years.

I took a class on The Epistle to the Romans when I was in college. I remember our professor, who translated Romans for the NIV back in the seventies, telling us that this word was sometimes used to describe first century stores that had gone out of business. It might be helpful to translate Romans 6:6 that way: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might go out of business, that we should no longer be slaves to sin…”

I thought of that store a couple of days ago while reading Romans 6. In the NIV, verse 6 reads: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin…” The word translated, “Might be done away with” appears 27 times in the New Testament and is translated in a dizzying number of ways. The NIV alone renders it as “nullify,” “use up,” “is worthless,” “released,” “come to nothing,” “destroy,” “cease,” “pass away” (the latter two in the same verse!), “disappears,” “put behind,” “fading,” “taken away,” “set aside,” and “abolish.” Other versions use still more words to translate it.

“The body ruled by sin might go out of business.” What could that mean? St. Paul seems to think that the body can be used by sin as a center of production or operation. He calls it (literally) “the body of sin,” as if it belongs to sin, is under its management. This is not a necessary state of affairs; it was brought about by Adam’s rebellion (see Romans 5:11-17). Paul sees it as reversible or, better, as already being reversed.

The idea that the body can be used as a production center for sin is elaborated on in chapter 7, especially in verses 8-19. Sin, as anthropomorphized throughout chapters 6 and 7, has over eight billion production centers currently in operation—that’s even more than Dollar General! But God has a plan for shutting them all down, including the tall, aging one that goes by the name Shayne Looper.

That plan involves the creation of a transtemporal link between us and the Messiah in his death. In that way, “our old self” could be “co-crucified with him” (verse 6). Apparently, the only way to shut down the business is to do away with the local franchise operator (for example, me). That transtemporal link, which is accessed by faith, takes us into Christ’s death and makes it possible to shut down the body of sin permanently. It also takes us into Christ’s resurrection, making it possible to reopen under new management, with a different product line (righteousness instead of sin), and a happy workforce.

All of this is made possible by Jesus’s death and resurrection and is made real by our trust in him. But if it that is so, why have we not yet fully experienced the “closure” of the “body ruled by sin?” Why has the “Going Out of Business” sign been in the window so long?

The new owner has given each of us the responsibility of closing down the business of sin that has been operating in our bodies. We do this as we consider ourselves (that is, act as if we truly are) dead to sin. But this, by itself, is not enough. We must also stop presenting the parts of our body to sin, which happens when sin has become a habit. No wonder it takes so long to go out of business.

There is yet another step. We need to launch the new business even before the old has vacated the premises, or it will never leave. So, Paul tells the Romans to “offer the parts of your body to [God] as instruments of righteousness.” Think of a vast building which the previous owner sublet to hundreds of sleazy businesses—all pushing junk at exorbitant prices. But under the new owner, we are authorized to expel all these trash peddlers and replace them with makers of quality, helpful goods.

Like the furniture store in our former city, the “Going Out of Business” sign has been up for a long time in my life. But unlike the furniture store, “the body ruled by sin” really is going out of business. It has been purchased by Christ and is increasingly coming under his control. I know the day is near when the sign will come down for good.

At present, a soft launch under the leadership of the new owner is underway, and it is going well. Just think what the hard launch, the Grand Reopening, will be like, when the Lord Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:20-21)!

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