Tana City Church Preaching
Kim Midgley | We must forgive
I often thought about local churches and how they should be built because God called me to kind of serve His churches, a pastor and as a pastor you care about the church deeply. And for me, I really want to know how is it that we would build the church so that it's healthy. And after looking at churches for a few years, I realized that's way too big a thing for one of us. And I started to listen and learn more and think less that I could do such a thing. And now I understand after many years that it's actually more up to you than it is up to me. And Michael Eaton was one of the guys that put this thought in my mind because I came from a church movement that focused on planting churches all around the world and planted thousands of churches together. And we relied heavily on a good ecclesiological basis. Our ecclesiology was very solid. We believed in a church planting model or a paxon. It would be good to bring health to a local church. And I must say a good leadership model or a good church government does actually help facilitate a healthy church. Michael Eaton really sealed the deal for me when he said it's not healthy patterns that make healthy churches, it's healthy people. And I realized it's true because you could have the best formula for your ministry and it could still be totally destroyed by somebody who comes with a rebellious, stubborn and repented heart that just so is division or betterness or whatever. So ultimately what I'm talking about this morning then is the responsibility that falls on you to be a healthy believer so that the church can be a healthy church. And the heading of my message this morning is that the gospel changes our relationships. I'm going to pray and then I'm going to share what God put on my heart for us. Heavenly Father, as we spend some time hearing your word this morning, I ask Holy Spirit that you would come and cut our hearts deeply to heal us, to help us to understand how to live our lives so that we can honor you in every way or in Jesus name. Amen. So it takes far more than programs and ministries and in fact what it really takes is that the gospel is at work in all of our hearts constantly. And I want to explain to you just how to look for that evidence in your own life so that you can be healthy inside of your own soul. Because I believe if we could say like this, like this song, like for him, it is well with my soul through all the seasons that we go through in a local church in our lives. If we could say it is well with my soul, meaning there is peace between me and God, there is peace between me and myself, there is peace between me and my fellow man. If we could live like that, we would be a healthy community of believers. And what actually sabotages that is when we fall prey to other schemes, schemes like the devil wanting us to stress and wrestle over money and live for material of comfort or cold anger and bitterness towards people or remember something that offended you and all those other things that come in would seek to destabilize the peace God once in your soul. So if you're able to say it is well with my soul, I think you've got it. I think you're in that place. And I would like to be a person who, when I put my head down on my pillow, I'm blessed to have a pillow for my head, when I put my head down on my pillow, I want to know that there is nothing in my heart against anyone. I'm not angry with God and I'm not angry with my spouse. That's where it starts. I'm not angry with some guy who cut me off in the traffic or swore at me. I don't want to be sucked into holding on to things that are baggage in my heart and in my mind. And so I will put my head down even if I'm looking at many challenges, many responsibilities, many mountains too big for me to climb or to move. I still want to lay down and say I put peace in my heart between me and God and between me and other people. We should not be harboring deceit or ill will or toxic habits or secrets. We should not be gossiping or backstabbing or carrying graduates or feeling always angry. That's not how we should be. And yet it often happens that those things creep into our hearts like little, I don't know, illegal immigrants that just want to take up residence in your heart and live there so that you're constantly going back to that person. I have an issue with them or I'm angry with them or I can't get over what they do. So we shouldn't be in that place. You shouldn't be in a place where you carry something against someone. And though someone might have done something really bad and it might be something really difficult to process, I believe the gospel and God himself will give you grace and power to overcome those offenses. And you see, this is necessary because relationships are not just a bit of roses. When God calls us to be part of a community of saints, of believers or part of his family, he won't allow you to go live in your own sort of tent in the garden. If you go after and you try and leave the people of God, he will always want you to come back to the people of God. Some people got hurt in church, some people got angry with church leadership, some people left the church, but they couldn't for long because they realized this isn't where they're supposed to be. They're supposed to be in fellowship, in community, in relationship with peace. And so God wants us not to set up a whole bunch of separate little tents and camps and places for us to exist, but to exist together with peace. So when I offend you, you're going to have to get over it. If I say the wrong thing, you're going to have to forgive me. And when I say you're going to have to, you might say, how could you put that demand on me? How could someone other than you come and say, this is what you must do? I'm going to show you that this is very much part of scripture and part of the gospel. Consider Philemon is actually there's a guy in the Bible, Philemon, who Paul wrote a letter to, because Philemon's slave servant had left him. And the miracle of the story is that Paul somehow met both of them. That he knew Philemon and then he later met Onissimus, the slave, the runaway slave, and he, it seems he led Onissimus to the Lord, basically witnessed him, got him to accept Christ as his savior. Onissimus became a believer, and Paul realised that there was this broken relationship between Philemon and Onissimus, and he wouldn't leave it alone. He wouldn't just say, oh, well, that's something they can work out. It's up to them to do as they please, you know, if Philemon wants to prosecute, he can prosecute. That would be how many people would counsel the situation. They'd say, well, Philemon's got his rights because Onissimus was his servant, and so the Lord says that you can, you know, punish this slave for running away, and probably I think he was a stole from Philemon. So there's all kinds of ways that this could have been dealt with, but what we see here is that God was already planning something incredible, because he created this sovereign triangle of relationship where Paul knew both of them, and we see what Paul starts to do in how it deals with Philemon, and we learn something about what God wants from us. So I'm going to read it to you. It's a whole book in the Bible. It's also just one chapter, I think, trying to give you some heads up. It's 25 verses. I love reading lots of Scripture. It's because I know that we don't read our Bibles enough. And that we read the Bible like an hour a day. I'm not putting my hand up, not that good. You thought every pastor read this Bible an hour a day, didn't you? Well, I wish I did, but I don't. So I thought Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved fellow worker, and Atheria, our sister, and Archipas, our fellow soldier, and the church in your house, graced to you in peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So he opens his letter and he just writes who he is, who he's with, who he's writing to. And notice this incredible relational nature of the church. It's not, I'm Paul writing to you, Philemon, because you don't live in a single one-to-one set of relationships. We live in a many-to-many set of relationships. This is community. And so when you think something is just a matter between you and me, it often isn't. You think this matters just personally, it probably isn't. You think this just affects me, all, and you, Philemon. But no, there's lots of people who know us. There's lots of people who are going to be affected if you don't sort out to relationships. And so Paul starts the letter that's dealing with a very particular issue, pretending it appears only to Philemon, but actually it's not. It's for the community. I thank my God always when I remember you and my praise, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints. And I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. So now as he writes to Philemon here, first this guy, and Philemon is reading this letter, and you know what's really taking place behind the scenes is? Onissimus, who was Philemon's slave serving, stole from Philemon and ran away and headed for Rome to get lost in the big city. Paul himself has never actually come here to Colosse where Philemon lives. But Paul has met Onissimus in Rome and converted him. Now, guess who Paul sent with the letter to take the letter to Onissimus? I mean, to Philemon. It was Onissimus. So what's happening is Philemon who has the right to kill this runaway servant who stole from him and doesn't even know he's become a brother, is meeting the runaway slave, returned to him with the letter from Paul. So imagine the confusion about what's going on and the uncertainty about how to respond. What I love about this is Paul has such faith in the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit in a believeless life that he's willing to give Onissimus this letter to take and deliver to Philemon. I will for sure have what's happened first and said, "I'm sending the guide to you. You remember that guy who ran away? I've got him with me and he got saved and now, just before he comes back, I would want to build that bridge again. I would want to repair that bridge." But this is that moment taking place. This is this critical moment where Philemon has to make an immediate decision here. In front of him is Onissimus. Does he check him in jail? Does he exact what's rightfully his revenge to exact what does he read this letter? Well, this is what he would read if you read the letter, which I trust he did. So Paul writes two very, very key verses now after his, after his affirmed Philemon for his love and for his faithfulness. Paul writes this in verse 8 and 9. "Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you. Our Paul and old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus." So he says to Philemon, "I've got something to tell you and I'm actually bold enough to command you to do what's required. Something is required and all knows he has the authority. Where does the authority come from? From God, because there is a demand that God puts upon a believer's life. And Paul knows that demand would come upon Philemon, so he could command Philemon to do what is right. But he says, "Rather than exercise that I prefer to appeal to you, I call an old man, now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus. I appeal to you for my child, Onissimus, whose father I became in my prison." There it is. He says, "Spercially, I'm this guy's father. I led him to the Lord. I became his father while I was in prison. Somehow Paul met Onissimus and led him to the Lord. And now Paul is appealing on his behalf to Philemon, calling him my child." Philemon must be reading this and looking at Onissimus and looking at Philemon. This is you've met Paul, all who I know found you. I couldn't even catch you when you ran away. And now Paul says, using a play on words because Onissimus' name for a guy, it has this meaning that relates to useful and useless. And he says, "Formally, he was useless to you. But now he is indeed useful to you and me." So, meaning he wasn't actually a perfect slave. He was an unbeliever who stole and ran away. So, he was actually useless to you. But now he's become a believer. He's totally different. Onissimus is now useful to you and me. So, that just is a bit of an in-joke about using his name. So, I'm sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel. But I prefer to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord. So, Paul's saying, "This guy now that he's a believer is a blessing to me, I would have happily kept him, but actually I'm sending him to you because you must be the one who forgives him and decides what to do with him." Well, this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while that you might have him back forever. An incredible perspective on the sovereignty of God. Paul's actually writing to Philemon the offended party and saying, "It's possible that this guy stole and ran away and it looked like it was all the devils doing, but actually behind the scenes God had planned for him to get saved and come back even better than he was." For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while that you might have him back forever. No longer as a bond servant, but more than a bond servant, as a beloved brother, especially to me and how much more to you both in the flesh and in the Lord. So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. If he's wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I'll Paul write this with my own hand, I will repay it. To say nothing of your owing me, even your own self. Wow, Paul is just what a tough friend to have. He basically just says, "Well, you owe me your very life because Paul had led Philemon to the Lord." So if not for Paul, Philemon would still be kind of on the road to hell. He would be an unbeliever and Paul saying, "Well, you owe me your life because I shed the gospel with you and you believe." So Paul's really exerting his relational capital. He's flexing that mess already has in the relationship he has with Philemon. I think about these cultures and I look at the collectivist nature of the culture of Israel at the time of Jesus. And I wonder how people used to operate. It would have been a lot like Madagascar where what was important was who you know and how they can help you. And you would often be going to the right person to get the favor you needed to get something done. And most people in a collectivist culture will exercise those kind of relationships for whose benefit. That's what we do in Madagascar. You want a visa, you need to know someone, you go talk to him, you exercise some kind of a... You might follow the law, but you also make sure there's someone in the office that knows you because that's why things happen more smoothly. So you get what you want. What's glorious about this reductive view of the collectivist culture is that Paul is exercising his relational capital on behalf of Onesimus. He's putting a heavy pressure on Philemon for the sake of not Paul, he's risking offending Philemon for the sake of Onesimus. I realize that the gospel is embedded in the story because we are actually the runaway slaves who left our father, God in heaven. And we just went off to do our own thing. And then Jesus came and found us like Paul found on Hisimus. And Jesus goes back and intercedes to the Father for us and says, "You know what, I want you to have a right relationship again, and if there's any death that's owed, I'll pay. I'm going to pay for you to be restored in a relationship." And Paul says this, he says to Philemon, "If Onesimus owes you anything, I'll pay it." Wow, that's incredible. What kind of a quality of relationship is that somebody so desperately wants these two parties reconciled with each other, that he has a third party who will foot the both. That's what Jesus did for us. That's what Jesus did for us. He came and he said, "I'm prepared to pay your debt so you can be reconciled to your father." So then Paul goes on and says, "Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you and the Lord, refresh my heart and Christ. I would love to have that attitude with you today. If you have been carrying some kind of a grudge against someone, if you've had some kind of a negative ill will towards another believer and it's still co-colating in your heart, I want to come to you with Paul's boldness and I want to say, "Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord, refresh my heart and Christ." All that means Paul is saying, "Do the right thing, finally, man. Don't make me try to force this upon you, choose it, freely. Do the right thing." Confident of your obedience are right to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. Wow, this is like a 110% story. It's not just a, you know, just make an apology and leave it at that or receive his apology and just leave it at that. So, rebuild the relationship and take it further than it's ever been. Forgive and receive only stimulus back. It's a step of obedience. It's not a choice in the sense of what is right. It's not like you are free to do as you please. As a Christian, you're not free to carry unforgiveness in your heart. It's not your right because you're offended. You're not entitled to feel better against that person who's sinned against you. You have been genuinely hurt, but you have no right to hold on to the hurt. You can go and get therapy. Like you're not supposed to be getting therapy forever. You're supposed to be healed and forgive because God forgave you. So, it's not something that you have the right to hold on to your anger against the person you're angry with. You don't. You don't have that right. If you do that, if you continue to despise someone in your heart, if you continue to want to do them harm ill, if you continue to gossip about them behind their back, if you continue to carry resentment in your heart, you are disobedient. It's not just that unforgiveness makes you a prisoner. It also makes you a sinner. It makes you a rebelling sinner. It makes you somebody who is on the wrong side of God. So, confident of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say. At the same time, prepare a guest room for me. For I'm hoping that through your prayers, I'll be graciously given to you. It's like, "Okay, Fariman, I'm also in prison, but because you pray for me, pray me out of prison so I can come visit and impose myself on you. Use your spare room and eat your food." Let's collect to this culture at its finest. We were told when we did apostolic mission trips into Africa and never give your phone number or your address to the African guy. Look, I'm white in European looking, but I lived born and grown up in Africa and I was in Tanzania and they warned me, "Don't give this guy your address because this guy in Tanzania will arrive at your house in Pretoria unannounced and say, "I'm here." Open your house, I'm coming to stay. Well, it's not so evil, actually. If you were any brothers, you would be like, "Cool, come in. Eat with me. Live with stay in my spare room." And if you're a truly brothers, often a welcome has been, you know, expanded a week or two later. You would say, "Now I'm going to rebuke you if you don't get out. It's time for you to move on now." We have to have robust relationships, and Paul has this robust relationship with Philemon. He knows that he can say these things because he knows how genuine Philemon is as a believer. How would you feel if your hospitality was tested like that? But Paul understands we can actually lean on one another because we are a community. community. So he says, "At the same time, while you're processing the stuff with Ganesimis, prepare a guest room for me, for I'm hoping that through your prayers I'll be graciously given to you." Epaphras, Pfelep, President, and Christ Jesus sends greetings to you in Sotam, Mark, Aristarchus, Demis, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your Spirit. So he closes with this whole, there's a team of us here, you've got a bunch of guys in the church in your house there, and I'm glad to be here. And I will put it to you that this is one of the most relational letters you can find in the Bible, and it is incredibly skillful in balancing authority with invitation. And this is what a lot of Christian leadership requires, is that you have a skillful way to balance authority with invitation. Because while Paul knows he can command Phalemon to do what he's right and he almost is, he's saying, "Phalemon, it's not good enough, let you just do what's right. You must choose to do what's right. You mustn't do it by coercion or compulsion. You must do it by conviction. You must own this situation with Elisimis. You must accept him back." Paul is not taking a side with either party, but he is not neutral either. Isn't it wonderful when you look at the relationship situation. Paul isn't trying to unpack and untangle exactly who did what's and who's right and who's wrong. It's very clear to Paul that Elisimis stood wrong and Phalemon could do wrong. How would Phalemon do wrong by not forgiving Elisimis? But Paul is on the side of both, so it's not that he's neutral. He's not just someone saying, "I'm observing from the outside." He's coming into the relationship and he's saying, "I am with Elisimis. He's my child and receive him as he would receive me." But he's not standing only there. He's standing with Phalemon and he's saying, "Phalemon, if you receive Elisimis back, you stand to win a brother and someone more than you had before." And so Paul sees in this negotiation that in the kingdom of God there is a win-win. He's not neutral, he's actually on both sides. He's not just standing between the two of them, trying to stop them. He's actually standing on each side trying to put them together. And that's how Jesus functions in our lives. He wants for us the best that we could get, but we only get it when we reconcile to his father. He wants for his father the best, the bride, the daughter, the church. And he comes and he says, "I'll pay for her with my blood. I'll pay for her with my blood and I'll sanctify her." And he presents us to God the Father, the Father presents us to the Son as a bride. It's magnificent. So in these pictures what you see is not normal. It's not normal human thinking. It's not that you should approach your life looking for counselors and what to be called mediation. That's just objective and neutral. You actually in the kingdom find a mediation that goes to another level and says that the solution that God wants for you is a blessing to you and the other part. And it's a win for both of you when you understand this. And so at the end of the day this is what Paul is doing. He could insist, but instead he wants to win for the human's heart. And why could, just to examine for a moment more, because I won't preach a whole lot longer anyway, but Paul could insist, in what way is this legitimate? Well, I want to put it to you, propose that biblical gospel makes a demand on us to live a changed life. See, forgiveness is offered to us by God, but also expected from us as a people. So God offers forgiveness to you, for your sins, but then he also expects you to forgive others of their sins. And I know that in Jesus' own words when he teaches us to pray, because this is what Matthew 6 verse 11 to 15 says, "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we have, we also have forgiven our debtors." It's a past tense done deal. It's not, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those," now as we have forgiven those who sinned against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others, their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if we do not forgive others, their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. That's not the part that we used to say in this group. We used to always stop, you know, somewhere a little bit before that. And so what I wanted you to see for a moment is not that I'm threatening you that God's not going to forgive you. I'm just showing you that the expectation is there from God on his people to be a forgiving people. And that means, like all approached by Limon, the word of God could approach you, I can approach you and say, you don't get to hold on to unforgiveness. You get to deal with it. You get to process it, to pray, to weep, to shout and scream before God that you must forgive those that have wronged you. Let's see how it worked in Paul's life. One Corinthians 15 verse 10, Paul writes, "But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain." So he says, "Who I am is by the grace of God, and the grace of God has not been in vain, meaning it's done something, it's achieved something. So the grace of God has an out working in a person's life. It's not just that you come to Jesus and then you stay exactly as you are, but now you're going to heaven so everything's going to be fine." So God, when you come to him, he comes into your life, puts his Holy Spirit inside of you, and then begins to transform you day by day, increasingly into the likeness of Christ. And so as you become conformed to the image of Christ, you yourself are being transformed. And this is actually a process of God's grace at work in your life. And so Paul in 2 Corinthians 6 verse 1, I'm going to read a few verses here from 2 Corinthians 6, Paul writes this in 2 Corinthians 6 verse 1, "Working together with him, then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain." It's possible in a sense that you might resist this, or in some way the grace of God wouldn't have its right out working. But that's not what should happen. For he says, "In a favorable time I've listened to you, and in a day of salvation I've helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry. But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way, by great endurance in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, by truthful speech, and the power of God with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left, through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as imposters and yet are true, as undone and yet well known, as dying and behold we live, as punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything." That description he just ran through is a description of somebody's life who has been lived for the gospel in the face of opposition, people who beat him, people imprison him, times where he's hungry because nobody fed him, times where he's slanted, times where he's received well, times where he's welcomed, where he's fruitful, where he's comfortable, and times where there's storms and time, it's the whole of life, honor and dishonor, slander and praise. Whatever you notice is absent in all of that, there's no vengefulness, there's no baggage listed there like, "Now I have to be cynical, and now I just don't trust these guys anymore, and now I can't work with them." Not that at all, he's just saying, "We've gone through beatings, imprisonments, riots, labor, sleepless nights, hunger, each par for the course, it's the nature of life." And he says, "We've spoken freely to you, Corinthians, our heart is wide open. What happens to you when you've been a Christian for too long? You've seen too much church politics, seen too many ministries, have seen too many guys mess up. You can become cynical, you can become guarded, you can become analytical and close-hearted, you can become cold, and you can become an independent guy." He just says, "No, I'm not going to be part of anything because even as my temptation, I look at things and I say people are just disappointing people." Like Paul says, after we've been through all of these things, our hearts, we've spoken freely to you, our hearts is wide open. What's the condition of your heart? Is it closing off? Is it getting hard and crusty? Is it a little bit cynical and distrusting? Is it guarded now because it's been hurt too many times? After all those hurts, after all those betrayals, after all those traumas, Paul says we want in with you. We want relationship with you, our hearts wide open. Who is your heart not open to? In what way have you closed your life down? And then he says to them, "You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. You're holding back your affection. You're holding back your love. You're giving less of yourself. If we are going to be a healthy church, I don't want you to be restricted in your affections for one another. You know what that means? It means I want you to love one another. I want you to speak affirmingly with love of each other. So if you go out of here and you say, "I was having a chat with this guy." I used to be like, "He's my brother. I was feeling good feelings on Sunday when I had tea in coffee and I had that conversation." It's not like, I don't know those guys. I can't like those guys. The body of Christ is meant to be filled with people who have a deep affection for one another. There's another church down the road in their meeting right now. They're not part of a TCC anything. They're part of another denomination. I love those guys. I want them to do well. I want them to be preaching the gospel today and I want them to be a healthy community. And when I meet them, I want to feel like I'm meeting family, even if they're just cousins. I'm not biological cousins. I mean like spiritual because that's it. Do you get this? Now this is only possible. If you understand the demands that Scripture puts on us, not to hold gracious, not to hold unforgiveness, not to remain cynical but to open our hearts wide. Paul said to find him on you most to receive onissimus back. I don't know what needs to be repaid in your life but I just felt this is what I needed to preach this morning. Won't you stand? The band can come up.