Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast, where we are all about sound doctrine for everyday people. My name is Kosti Hinn and I am your host, and today I'm joined by a dear brother and a great friend of mine, Pastor Matt Shackelford from Central Church down in Tennessee, a thriving church. Had the chance to preach with Matt and his team there not more than just a few months back, and the Lord is doing some incredible things in Collierville, Tennessee, just not far from Memphis. Pastor Matt is a contributor here for the gospel, and we're so thrilled to have him on. Pastor Matt, thanks for joining me.
SPEAKER_01Thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00Man, what a joy to be in ministry together. Love it. Grateful for you. Well, Matt, you have spoken a great deal about issues of bitterness and forgiveness. Obviously, you preach every week. You are a biblical counselor, you're a well-educated studier and deliverer of the scriptures. And one of the key topics that we've discussed, and I want you to speak to our audience about is the idea of forgiveness, but bitterness, the roots of bitterness, where bitterness comes from, how to deal with it, battle it, fight it. Because I know, you know as well, in the church today, we are not immune to conflict. And we're not immune to harboring bitterness. And so many Christians can be crippled by bitterness in the local church. It divides us when we don't need to be divided. It can hinder us from being useful in the work of ministry and in the local church and really rob our joy. So why don't you take us on a tour today of bitterness, unforgiveness, and forgiveness and edify the audience for the gospel?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. You know, the first thing to say about forgiveness and unforgiveness is this is a needed subject to talk about in the church. Uh, the church is not immune from falling into the trap of bitterness. It is a long-term hurt, it is a seething resentment, and it is a wound to the church. And uh so often we wonder why the church is so powerless in our time. It's because we don't know how to make peace. We don't know how to make peace with each other. And really, we don't see where the gospel intersects with forgiveness. And we don't see the wound that our unforgiveness is, our bitterness is against the gospel. And so, really, we've got to start with that. This is a problem in the church. This is something in my ministry that I have to talk about nearly every month. You do too. Um, in counseling, this is something that people will come in with resentment and a lot of problems because they cannot release. And our job as biblical counselors is to come alongside those people, help them understand the gospel. Because really, that's the central problem with our resentment, with our bitterness, with our unforgiveness, is that really we have not fully grasped uh the depth of our forgiveness before a holy God. And so that's where we have to go with it. But let's just start with its need. Its need is massive in our culture because let's be honest, this is a culture that loves unforgiveness. This is a culture that enjoys it. I mean, look at our movies for crying out loud. What makes a great movie? The Count of Monte Cristo, brother. Like it's it is a story that we all enjoy. The revenge story, the taken, the count of Monte Cristo, the all of those stories are just the kind of thing that we enjoy. Um, you know, we we enjoy looking at the get-even aspect of any narrative. And so the problem is the gospel is not a get-even sort of thing. Uh, the gospel is uh God takes people who are his enemies and he adopts them and loves them and forgives them and brings them into his family and brings them to his table and releases his grudge. You know, a while back we did a series here at Central Church, and uh we called it dropping your grudge or releasing your grudge. And we had this picture of holding on to a cactus because that that's that's just what it, that's the image. That's what it's like. It's like I'm clinging to this thing where really I'm the one getting hurt. And I think so many of us in our in our daily life, we have a relationship. We have someone in the church, we have a family member, we have someone that we're holding on to a grudge. And and well, that's a real hurt. They really did hurt us, they really did wrong us. And you have them in your life and ministry, I have them in my life and ministry, we have those hurts. And so we have to we have to understand that the gospel doesn't call us to cling on to those hurts and hold on to those hurts. Instead, he calls us, the gospel calls us, and God calls us to release those things because God in Christ forgave and released his garage against us. And he did that on Calvary's Hill. And so, because that is the example we've been given, it is possible. And so, even if it's a real hurt, a painful hurt, an adultery, a slander, a theft, all of that can be forgiven because the gospel has opened the door to reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00Man, I'm Matt, that's so good. And that really lays uh a lot of groundwork, but also offers some answers for people right off the bat. What are some key passages or some key places you would go in the scriptures? If someone said, Oh, that's so good. Yep, he's speaking to me. This is really piercing my heart. I gotta study this more, I gotta dig in more. Where in the word and then also, I know you're a well of wisdom with resources, books to read, and places to go on these issues, but let's start with God's word.
SPEAKER_01So so the Bible itself is a reconciliation story. Uh the Bible, the Bible starts, the Bible starts in the in the book of Genesis, where mankind in Genesis chapter three sinned, and they had they had dinner with the devil, basically. They had uh they had a table, they had a meal together with Satan himself, and uh they sinned against the holy God. And this whole book is about God drawing sinful man back into fellowship. Every feast, uh, every sacrifice, every event uh is is a moment of God pulling us back to the table. This thing ends at the table where Jesus dines with his people. And so throughout it, we're going to see this process of God restoring his people, calling his people back. Many passages passages stick out. The book of Philemon is one. Um, the book of Philemon is a story where Paul is urging Philemon to drop his grudge against a slave, a slave that has stolen from him, a slave that has run away with with valuables off to Rome. And God pursued that slave. God, God restored that slave through the apostle Paul. And now Paul sends him back to his household, back to Philemon to be reconciled. It's a beautiful story of the gospel. And throughout that letter in the New Testament, you get Paul saying, look, Philemon, you have the character of someone who can forgive because you yourself have experienced the forgiveness of God. Wow and because you've been forgiven in the gospel, because you have had a heart and a life that's been restored by Jesus Christ. You know how to do this, you have been equipped for this. It's a very powerful story. But some of the other passages that I would just immediately as a counselor try to take someone to uh are in the gospel accounts. Matthew 18 is a big one. Peter comes in Matthew 18, verse 21, and uh very practical, he says, Lord, my brother's sinning against me. How often do I forgive this jerk, right? How often do I do I forgive my brother? You know, seven times. Magnanimous, Peter, you know, seven, as many as then I don't have to anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And after that, that's the threshold, right? And Jesus blows his mind and says, No, no, as many as 70 times seven, seven times seventy, that's uh an unlimited amount. And then he gives this parable, beautiful parable about a slave. And he said, The kingdom, the kingdom of heaven is like is like a king who wished to settle accounts. And he tells about one slave, and and the one slave owes an impossible amount of money to his king, an impossible debt. And the king forgives that that servant, that slave. But the fellow servant that owes him a little bit less, a lot less by comparison, the slave is unwilling to forgive his fellow servant. And and what's what blows my mind about that passage is is it gives amounts. You know, for the first guy, the first slave, he owes the the debt of a entire region, a province, a national debt. That's the debt that he owes. But for the second, the second slave, it gives an amount here, and the amount's something like several weeks' wages, which by the way, that's a significant debt. Like, like if someone, if someone stole from you a month's worth of wages, that's significant. I mean, I would be a little bit upset. That's a wound. And so I think there's a point here that the debts that that we owe each other and the debts that we commit against each other, they are real debts. We really feel them. But what Jesus is trying to convey here is that as we measure it up to what we owe to God, as we see the difference between those two debts, we owe something to God that He has fully and freely forgiven. How could we possibly hold something that is such a lesser degree of debt to our fellow servants in the church, in our family, in our city? We've got to have the kind of character that looks at what we've been forgiven and be willing to release the debts of our neighbor.
SPEAKER_00And so we're talking. I'm thinking of Ephesians 4, 32. I just turned there and it says, be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. People will most certainly ask, How do I become more tenderhearted? I feel these feelings. I what do you want me to do with my feelings? They're there. How do you get rid of them? Really, what you're describing is a renewed perspective of the gospel. That's right. Your eyes on Christ, but not just a Sunday school answer of like, well, look to Jesus. Okay, what about Jesus? Well, look to him and what he did on your behalf. Now, really, the mirror is up in front of your own eyes, at your own life, your own heart, what you've done. And that can be one of the most convicting moments for any of us. Do you find that the tender heartedness begins at that moment when our pride, which is certainly going to be at the root of some of our bitterness, as we say, well, we are owed this. Right. Does tender heartedness come when we are reminded of what Christ has done for us? Are there any other practical ways to become more tender hearted than that as well?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that verse in Ephesians 4 is a great word to memorize. Um, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. What a great line. Um, you know, it really all comes down to what Christ has done in the gospel. When he made you born again and he created you and re rebirthed you, he actually gave you supernatural ability to do things you could never do in the flesh. He gave you supernatural ability to forgive. And as God in Christ forgave you, you are now supernaturally equipped. You have that new heart of flesh that Ezekiel 36 talks about. The heart of stone is being removed. Now you've got a heart of flesh that that actually longs to walk in forgiveness. You've been taught how to forgive by the forgiveness of your Savior. And so now you have you have an ability to do what you never could have done in the flesh. Now, practically, we could talk a little bit about um conditional forgiveness and unconditional forgiveness. Um it's hard, it's hard to forgive. Yeah. And I think that that a lot of people, as we talk about the subject of forgiveness, there's a couple of ways of looking at it. There's there's unconditional forgiveness, and some people argue for that. Then there's conditional forgiveness. Now, unconditional forgiveness is that forgiveness that says, well, even if even if there's no repentance, if there's no confession from the other person, you still need to forgive. And I get that, I understand that. And then there's conditional forgiveness where there's no true forgiveness or restoration without repentance. And, you know, I I think that can be helpful to think of forgiveness in those two terms, but I think scripture really, really demands both. Um, there are going to be those people in your life and in your ministry who hurt you. Uh, as a pastor, you're going to experience those. Costiano, you probably already have someone who has hurt you. Uh, friends, those of you who are watching online right now, you have that name that is coming up in your mind. I do too. I've had that guy who slandered me behind my back and would refuse to meet with me. And I'm like, hey, brother, let's let's go, let's meet, let's have the conversation. And he never talks to me, but he goes to 20 other people. And, you know, you'll have that person who sends letters and and they do things behind your back. And and but uh I think it was um, oh, I think it was Ken Sandy who called that person the peace faker, right? They they will talk to others, but they won't talk to you. We're all gonna have that person eventually who refuses to be reconciled, who refuses to walk through the forgiveness process, the reconciliation process. What do you do with that person? Well, our passage for that is Mark chapter 11. And Costi, this is a beautiful, so it's soul healing if you can receive this. And maybe you've got that person in your life that you you just can't, for whatever reason, you can't be reconciled with this person. What do you do with them? Well, this is unconditional forgiveness. It says this in chapter 11 of Mark, verse, verse 24 and 25. It says, Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you've received it, it will be yours, verse 25. And whenever you stand praying, okay, so this is like your private prayer life. Wow. This is like the private, the privacy of your morning devotional, 6 a.m., Bible out, coffee steaming. That person comes to your mind, forgive. And if you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. There's this moment, I can just almost see it. There's this moment where I'm I'm pouring over the scriptures, I'm before the Lord, and I'm saying, Lord, I can't meet with this person. They they will not pursue reconciliation, they will not come to me. I can't get the meeting, and they're just slandering me, or they're just, they're just still hurting me, Lord. I just can't, I can't get it to happen. I try to, I've tried to go and do the peacemaker thing where we get the log out of our own eye, we glorify God, we gently restore, we, we, we go and be reconciled, the four G's of peacemaking, but but they just they won't come. Lord, I have to unconditionally forgive them in my heart at 6 a.m. with my Bible and my cup of coffee and no one else in the room, and they're not here. Unconditional forgiveness is still something every Christian is called to walk in, even if you can't get the the physical or the relational conditional forgiveness face to face. So I can forgive from the heart. God calls me to forgive from the heart, even if practically I can't make that meeting happen where I get forgiveness one-on-one.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_00That was gonna be my main question is how do you help people navigate forgiveness and what that looks like? Now, I do want to go to one layer deeper in that, not just the okay, here's what you need to do, you need to forgive. And that that is so well stated, and you've laid it out so clearly. I want to go now to the relational element of those who forgive, they totally do, but they're weary of closeness again, or they are leaning towards putting boundaries in place, and somebody might say, Well, no, no, no, unconditional forgiveness means you just now you just let them have your bank account and let them have your house keys all over again. Um can you speak to that and the reality of forgiveness? Yes, unconditional. Mark chapter 11, 24, 25. And is there a place for boundaries? Is forgiveness allowing something, is just like is understanding agreeing with someone. Just because you understand them, does that mean you you are agreeing and saying this is good and well, and all of this is fine now? Speak to that as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I want to speak to both sides. Let's say that you have committed, um, you have committed the breach uh and you're the one in need of forgiveness. You you're going to have to be slow uh to expect trust again. You know, I've counseled the the man who's cheated on his wife, and he doesn't understand why his wife wants to know where he is all the time. And he gets angry over that. And then on the other side, uh, I've counseled the other side where people they they they don't want to be close anymore. And it takes time, and they'll say, well, this is just going to take time to trust. And I don't think that's un unreasonable. Just because you forgive doesn't mean that there aren't new boundaries. Trust has been lost. Trust has been lost. And that means that it's going to take time and relationship to build that trust back. Hopefully, over time, there's full restoration, there's practical restoration. But but immediate forgiveness doesn't mean that you forego consequences. My son is uh 12. He's about to be 12, and uh his birthday's here in a week or two. And uh I'm already he's already talking about driving. I brought him up here to the parking lot just the other night and just said, okay, son, you can drive around the parking lot. And we drove around the big, you know, the church parking lot, and he just kind of thought that was great. And I'm already picturing to myself, soon Caleb's gonna be driving. And we're getting ready for that, and and he's just getting so tall and he's growing up. Let's say he breaks his curfew. I can forgive my son for breaking his curfew when he gets 16, right? And he's got the he's got the keys to the car. I can forgive that, but that doesn't mean there's not consequences and a process towards rebuilding trust and relationship. And that's a biblical concept, that's a wise wisdom concept. That's not one that that we can shy that we should shy away from. I think that uh that there's trust that must be rebuilt, and the only thing that can be done to build trust is faithfulness over time. It's faithfulness over time.
SPEAKER_00Well said and really practical as well. I hope that helps a lot of you who are listening navigate the difference between unconditional forgiveness and then walking the road of restoration and relationship. Uh Matt, one last question on that before I ask you about some resources that can help people. Are there going to be some relationships that God is okay with us not going back to the same level we once were with someone where we forgive, we even relationally are cordial and loving and encouraging, and we go, yeah, we're gonna be in heaven together. But you think to yourself, you know, I just I don't think I'm gonna get very close to you again. I love you and I'm totally good with you, but I don't want to be close with you anymore.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, those those relationships, we're all gonna have them. There are there are some people who I see patterns in their life, and I hope to see the Lord draw them out of those patterns, but I can't give myself away to that person like I did previously. Um, there's wisdom to that. Uh you should pray over it. Um, but I'll tell you, if there's multiple occurrences where there seem to be patterns there uh of um betrayal and uh patterns of of even just just some sort of of abuse or abuse of a situation, um, you you do yourself no favor by not keeping those guards up. You you need to be wise in this life. Um people are are wounded, people are hurting. And so we have to be wise with with how we walk through those those wounded people and those people who are who are um um not at the place where they are they are safe to be around for you or for your family. And so there will always be those people that you sort of hold a little bit further out, hoping and praying to bring them in closer. But, you know, let's say that you have a situation where you have someone who's hurt you. You may not have them at the closeness that they used to be. And that's okay. That's okay. But it's something that you really need to pray over. Is this relationship one that we can restore? Or is it one that we really have to say, you know what? Um, good and godly people disagree. We're not on the same page. We got to have a Paul and Barnabas moment. That's that's not wrong.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, I look at at Paul and Barnabas and I'm like, look at these godly guys in the Word of God. God intentionally includes their story in scripture where they just have to part ways. But then there's this glorious story in 2 Timothy where the very man that they parted ways over, John Mark. Well, Paul's asking for John Mark now. And it seems to be that he looks at that guy who kind of ruined one of his missionary journeys earlier. Now he looks at him with a lot of hope. And so I think there ought to be this hope in each of our hearts. Even if someone for a season we can't be close to, there ought to be this hope of maybe one day there can be restoration. And I ought to look at people with the hope of what they one day could be. Uh Paul is asking for John Mark at the end of his life and saying, John Mark, I need you. You're useful to me. And I ought to look at the guy who's maybe failing at me in this season and say, Well, maybe there's hope in the next season where this person could be could be helpful to me, could be helpful to my life, my walk with Christ, could be helpful to the cause of Christ. I want to still look at that person with hope.
SPEAKER_00Amen. All right, last question. Can you list off a few resources that are your go-tos that are a blessing to people you counsel, that you assign people in your congregation to read on conflict resolution, peacemaking, forgiveness, all of it.
SPEAKER_01Let me give you just um my homework list. Like if you're struggling with forgiveness, there are some things you ought to read. There's some uh some helpful tools. Um Ken Sandy puts out a pamphlet on peacemaking. It's it's fantastic. And it has this meter on it where you have uh flight responses and fight responses. And in the middle, there's this there's this area where you have peacemaking responses. I would encourage all of you to go online, get that pamphlet. There is some of you that you'll be tempted to run away from the peacemaking process for the forgiveness process. There are some of you who are fighters. You're gonna fight and you are going to uh you're going to just do the thing. You're gonna be that guy who sends letters to multiple people. You're gonna be that guy who's who's out there slandering your brother or your sister. And you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to learn how to have a peacemaking response to seek peace. That pamphlet has been helpful in a lot of counseling rooms for me. Um, his book, The Peacemaker, is a great book on that. Would encourage all of you if you struggle with someone, you have a relationship that you really need the Lord to heal. It's a really helpful exercise to just take a sheet of paper and write out all of the things that God has forgiven you of. Just the first 20 things that come to your mind. Write them out. Why are we doing that? Well, it's the difference between the the guy with 10,000 talents and the guy with a that owed a few talents. You're going to see that that God's actually forgiven you of things that that um you're unforgiving of towards someone else. Isn't it amazing that we we withhold forgiveness from the things that God forgives? Um, how proud is that? How how arrogant is that? We put ourselves in a place of greater value than God. We hold grudges that God releases. That's remarkable. And so I think making that list is going to be helpful. Another exercise we have counselees do is we just ask them to every single day pray for a soft and responsive heart towards that person. Um, if you need to bring someone else into accountability for that, go to a brother and say, Listen, I need help. I've got a hard heart towards my brother. I've got a hard heart towards my sister. I need you to pray and keep me accountable and ask the Lord to soften my heart. I want to encourage you to memorize a couple of verses. Uh, that section you read in Ephesians 4, fantastic. Forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Great passage to memorize, along with Matthew 16, 14 or Matthew 6, 14, along with Colossians 3, 13. I would encourage you to memorize any of those verses. Those are all helpful, and then preach them to your heart. Preach them to your heart. If you are preaching scripture to yourself, uh, that's where the power of God comes to change our lives as we allow the scripture to renew our minds. And so Matthew 6.14, Colossians 3.13, all of those are helpful, helpful resources. So good.
SPEAKER_00Matt, thank you so much for being on. Where can people learn more about your church? Yeah. The ministry there. And if they're in the area around Memphis, anywhere within, you know, whatever distance they're willing to drive, I would drive to go to Central and sit under your preaching ministry if I lived out there. How can they learn more about you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we are we are not the biggest church in town, but we're trying to be a true church. That's that's really what I love to tell people. We're just trying to be a true church. We're going to preach the word of God. We're at centralchurch.com. We're launching a new website today, actually. Our new website goes live. Yeah, that's been a big project. It's been a two-year project that uh my brother Sean has been working on, and it goes live today. And we would love for you to check us out at centralchurch.com, centralchurch.com. And uh you can find sermons, resources, you can find that even the series that I taught on forgiveness at centralchurch.com. We would love for you to be a part of that. We're in Collierville, Tennessee. Collierville, Tennessee.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. And just so we're accurate, because we always want to be truthful on for the gospel. Yeah. Technically, your the square footage of the building, it what might be the largest church in town, 250,000 square feet that you inherited, but you're not a mega church. There's a body there that's growing, of course, and thriving. But when people pull up, I've been to the building, it is monstrous. So you just got a great deal of options there. So one of these days, we're just gonna have to throw a big Bible conference there that we're gonna hang with you guys.
SPEAKER_01We're in. And and we will minister the scriptures in this place. It is um the resources God's given us are uh are truly overwhelming, and we want to steward those well. Um, Central Church is one of the older churches in the state of Tennessee. Wow, and it has a an incredible legacy uh of the gospel. And so we're really thrilled to be able to press that along and really just hold up the flag of the sufficiency of scripture and the glory of God. That's why we exist. It's for the glory of God. And so we're gonna minister the scriptures, we're going to disciple believers, and we're gonna have a lot of fun doing those things as we walk in what God's called us to do.
SPEAKER_00Let's go. I love that. Well, thank you so much for being with us, and thank you all for listening to the For the Gospel podcast. We hope and pray this episode has been a blessing to you and that it liberates you from the bondage of bitterness and points you to the gospel to remember that God has forgiven you much through and in Christ. For more resources, go to forthegospel.org. You can learn about our team, contributors, and great local churches like Central in the Tennessee area. And if you want to check us out on social media, we're on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and we'll be back next Monday with another episode. For now, keep on living for the gospel.