Day 133: Loving Enemies, Forgiving All

May 13

Today's Connected Passages: 

• Genesis 32:1-21, 33:1-20; 
• Exodus 23:4-5, Leviticus 19:16-18, 
• Deuteronomy 32:32-47; 
• Job 31:29-30 
• Psalm  7:1-11; 35:1-28; 
• Proverbs 16:7; 17:13; 20:22, 24:17-20; 24:28-29; 25:21-22 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Canon Connected, where we read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections of the Bible. Today is day number 133 of the Canon Connected, and I am so glad you decided to join us today. Today we are starting a four-day series that's really on its own, I would say, plus a fifth day that will contrast to these four days, so kind of a five-part series in truth, before we get to a different topic. But today, uh and the net three days after today are gonna we're gonna be talking about um loving your enemies and forgiving everybody. Um these are very uh strong and dominant, you know, biblical themes, I would say. It's really the heart of of Christianity, truly that you know Jesus died for us while we were his enemies, you know, while we were ungodly. Um and it is true that forgiveness is the heart of Christianity, God's you know, saving relationship to us. I mean, is it it's forgiveness, that's what it is, because we are sinful. And as a result, we are absolutely supposed to be people who do love enemies and forgive people. Um again, there's so much to this, there are four days of readings, and truly we probably could have done more, as I've said many times, but we have space constraints and time constraints, you know, based on a number of verses and things like that. But there's no doubt, though, over the next four days, you'll see it's clear and it's emphatic that because we are forgiven and because God loved us when we were his enemies, and we're if you're a child of God, you're not now, you are a child of his. Um, he loves you as you would, as he loves a child, and he loves everybody, even when they are his enemies. Um, but as we study these, these things you're gonna see that I mean, these the one naturally flows from the other. Be holy as I'm holy is something God has always said, Old and New Testament. And one of the ways we're holy, meaning distinct and set apart, different than the world, is that we love our enemies and we forgive people. And so um the readings today um really got us started with a very interesting and very uh and very unusual note with Esau forgiving Jacob. And by the way, the fifth day is gonna be on how there are times in Christianity self-defense is okay. We're gonna talk about that um in uh in on a fifth reading because I don't want anybody to think that uh the Bible supports the idea that forgiving people means you can't ever defend yourself. That's just not biblical at all. But these four days are about this, and we begin, as I said, uh with the idea that Jacob obviously did Esau wrong. And so we started with um Genesis 32 again to set the context. We really could have gone all the way back to Genesis 25, because that's where the story begins, where Esau feels like he's been wronged by Jacob for the very first time. And of course, you know, we've talked we talked about this weeks ago. Esau was godless, so he was definitely not innocent at all. And yet, because of what happens with the birthright and the and the and the family blessing for the firstborn, it's clear Jacob knows that that Esau's mad with him and he's he's terrified to face him. That's what he says in chapter 32. And then the most interesting thing, maybe in the entire Bible to me, at least from a moral and you know, and black and white is is often not the case in in Christianity, that so much of it is gray and confusing and and and life being turned on its head. One of the most interesting things in that sense happens in all the Bible, and that is Esau forgives Jacob. I don't know how to read it any other way. Just the way that he greeted him, or he w he himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother. But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. And when Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, Who are these with you? Like, tell me about your family. And uh it is it is crazy how Esau responds to him. Because as we studied, you know, weeks ago, um, Esau was godless. You know, we've studied this multiple times. We studied this with um the original stories when we talked about Jacob and Esau, but also in a whole reading on how r um remorse does not equal repentance. And we saw a lot about what the Bible has to say, even in the New Testament, about Esau, and yet he still found in his heart to forgive his brother. Um and I I even says at one point, for I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God. That's what Jacob says about Esau, and you have accepted me. This doesn't really make any sense, of course, but it's there, and I think it is instructive for us to see how even a godless person in the Bible was able to forgive. It truly reminds me of how with the Tower of Babel, and this is something that my former pastor and mentor David used to used to explain with Genesis chapter 11, that I don't even think I mentioned this when we studied the Tower of Babel four months ago in this reading plan. But when the Tower of Babel was being built, God said, because they're unified, nothing can be done to stop them. And those were people that did not have the approval or the acceptance, or truly, even in an overt sense, the help of God. So if godless people can work together to achieve something, imagine what Christians can do if we're unified and we have the Holy Spirit, God living within us. Same way here, if Esau can forgive his brother being godless, imagine what a child of God who has the Holy Spirit living within them can do in regards to those who hurt us. And we see a, again, just an avalanche of passages, Old and New Testament, wide variety of genres, as always, almost always, that teach that we can do what Esau did. Exodus 23 gives a very, you know, very unique one to me. This is the kind of thing I don't often think about with forgiveness. I think more about stories and more about New Testament epistles, Paul teaching about it, but the law said, if you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it. You shall rescue it with him. Be nice to your enemy and his donkey. And you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You should not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. At one point in Leviticus 19, God God uses love your neighbor as yourself in regards to the sojourner, the immigrant. And this here's with your enemy. And this is a phrase again Jesus used in the New Testament to say this is the second great command. Here's part of the context, two different contexts in Leviticus 19, and one of them is love your enemy, don't bear grudges. Oh, that's so hard, I know. And we're gonna talk about this in a real way. This is not just gonna be we need to do this, so let's do it. We're gonna talk through over the next four days how hard this can be. If there's anything that I understand that the Bible tells us to do that is counter-cultural and counter me, counter-goutey against me, hard for me to do is to not bear a grudge, even when I think I've forgiven somebody, to not continue to allow the emotion and thoughts and the experiences just flood my heart and soul and my mind, and to not want the bad things to happen to them, and not want to just seethe, you know, even quietly sometimes in my my quiet moments, and not want bad things for the people who have hurt me. Deuteronomy 32. This is the context again, because this is what it really boils down to. You know, one reason why God says don't covet is because he wants you to be happy in him and not long for anything because you're happy in him and you're you're satisfied in him. He is enough. Okay, and in the same way here, we do not want to take revenge on people because we trust him. We are again, we should find peace in him, knowing that he is going to exact revenge on people. And it may not happen in our timetable, and I think it probably often doesn't. But he tells us not to take vengeance because he will take vengeance, and this is repeated a lot. We'll see this idea, Old and New Testament, several times over the next four days. We don't take revenge because revenge belongs to God. We can trust him. All right, that even goes all the way back to months ago in the waiting that we talked about. You know, well, there was one passage in the Psalms that says we don't exact revenge because we wait on God. Wait on him, he'll take care of it. Um He doesn't need us to do that because He alone knows how to perfectly execute justice. We do not, especially when we've been wronged. That's when our emotions absolutely will betray us the hardest. Okay. Job 31. This is something Job uses again in his spiritual resume, his defense to God about why he should never have suffered. If I have rejoiced at the ruin of him who hated me, or exalted when evil overtook him, I have not let my mouth sin by asking for his life with a curse. Job, many things. You know, he talks about his sexual purity even in his mind. He talks about caring about the poor, and he talks about caring about his own servants, and he there he talks about how I have not exacted revenge on people that have hurt me or hated me. And then David, Psalm 7 and Psalm 35. And I'll say this because again, I know I've got a lot of listeners that may wonder, you know, would you talk about the imprecatory psalms on the heels of this? That seems like it could be something, you know, that uh that would go well as a contrast to, you know, love your enemies, because David did have, he did write psalms where he wished, you know, I mean, God to judge his enemies. We're gonna do those. Those are in a different series uh later in October on the Kings, you know, of the Old Testament and David's life and Solomon's life. And we're gonna do David's impregatory psalms uh uh so months from now, a few months from now. That could have been a contrast to this, though, but with these psalms that we've studied today, they're not impregatory psalms. There are parts of them where David does want God's vengeance on these people, but we also see David and his love and forgiveness of his enemies in these in these passages as well. He says in Psalm 7, if uh he says, If I have done this, if there is any wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. And then in Psalm 35, which again he starts off with, you know, Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me, fight against those who fight against me. It's okay to think that. Again, it's five months from now, we're going to study in Pregatory Psalms and what that means for us, what that looks like in our lives today. But here, though, he doesn't stay there. He says in verse 12, They repay me evil for good, my soul is bereft. But I, in verse 13, when they were sick, I wore sackcloth, I afflicted myself with fasting, I pray with my head bowed on my chest, I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother as one who laments his mother. I bowed down in mourning. And of course they did not treat him the same, but at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered. But David here in his heart still finds all of these ideas that we're talking about loving enemies, forgiving, not rip not responding with evil with evil, you know, not responding insult with insult, persecution with persecution, but instead responding with, you know, forgiveness. Proverbs 16, 7, when a ways man please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Oh, is that convicting? Oh man, this is this is some of the hardest parts of the Bible to put into practice to me. Easy to understand. I don't I don't have much trouble again by God's grace and for his glory, the Holy Spirit, guidance into all truth. There are many passages in the Bible I struggle with, and I need commentary, and I need I need silence, and I need I need God to really speak. And even after when I have all that, sometimes I still don't understand because the Bible's humbling. You know, it humbles me. These passages, these next four days, I don't have a lot of, you know, it doesn't take a lot of interpretive ingenuity, okay? It's so obvious what it's saying, and yet it is so hard to put into practice because of our ego, because of our sin nature. Then he won't say Proverbs 17, if anyone returns evil for good, evil will not depart from his house. That's pretty plain, right? Proverbs 20, do not say I will repay evil. Wait for the Lord, all right, and he will deliver you. That's what I was referring to earlier. Then Proverbs 24, do not stumble, or do not do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let your heart not be glad when he stumbles. Um, fret not because of your evil doers, and do not be envious of the wicked, for an evil man has no future. Again, God will take care of them. Alright, and then Proverbs 25, which is quoted multiple times in the rest of the Bible, it's not in the connect that specific connection is not today, it's in the in it's in the totality of the four days, and I really wish I would have put these directly together. But again, I have messed up a lot in my mind in putting this reading plan together, but it's room for improvement next year. But Proverbs 25 has direct quotation connections in the rest of the Bible. If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For you will heap, you know, heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you. One of the things I think it's okay to talk about in light of, you know, Esau being a part of today's readings, as well as David, you know, in Psalm 7 and 35, you know, at times wanting God to contend with his enemies. That I'll talk about, and we'll touch on this some a little bit over the next four days, but I do want to make it clear because we're talking about this, and it's so very specific, that forgiving people and loving your enemies does not mean you stay in relationship with them. Okay. We're gonna do a whole series on confrontation and how in in the Bible sometimes confrontation meant you have nothing to do with people because of their sin. And it's not because you want to get revenge on them, it's because you allow them to see, to feel shame and to see what it's like whenever they are outside of the church. Paul even handed a man over to Satan in 1 Corinthians 5. So forgiveness and loving your enemies does not mean you have to stay in, to use modern terminology, toxic relationships, okay? Please understand, I don't believe that at all. Forgiveness is absolutely a powerful Christian, you know, um, Christian action. It's a powerful Christian value. It is something the world typically does not understand. And loving your enemies, definitely not, typically speaking. Um, you may find a here and there somebody who, you know, will follow, you know, like a Gandhi teaching or whatever. But typically speaking, the world wants to get revenge. The world wants to, you know, eye for an eye, you know, in the sense of I do it, not the government, not a judge. And so it's a very hard teaching. We have to put it into practice, okay? It is imperative that Christians do it. We're gonna see in later readings this week. Jesus said, if you don't forgive people, I'm not gonna forgive you. It's that simple. And yet, I do want to make this footnote, and I'll make it a couple of times. Forgiveness in loving your enemies does not mean you have to trust people, and it doesn't mean you have to stay in close proximity to them. Okay, so I think that's biblical as well. We've we're gonna we've talked about that a little bit and we'll talk about it some more. But we are gonna delve into this again even more, again, just day after day after day after day. Four days of this. So come back and be with us tomorrow on day number 134 as we continue to read the connections, see the connections, study the connections. Thank you.