Grace and Forgiveness

Welcome to Man Talk, brought to you by TAWCMN, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination, and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy, and a white guy. Welcome to Man Talk Radio, and we are excited that you are listening here today.

And we got a subject, Roy. You know, we were talking earlier and we are going to talk about grace and forgiveness because we don't have enough of that in society today. Exactly, Will. And you know, it's not just as we were talking earlier, it seems to be worse in the church than it does outside. I've got friends outside the church that oftentimes seem to have more grace and forgiveness than some of the people in the church. And that's very true.

That's very true. But you know, I think grace is something that we know it's defined as unmerited favor, something, you know, that God gives us and we can't give anything back in return. But forgiveness now, you know, that goes a little bit deeper.

It does. Something that you consciously choose to do versus constantly choosing not to do it, right? So forgiveness, you say, I'm going to forgive you.

You made a conscious choice to do that. Now it doesn't mean we're not necessarily going to forget something right away, but God too can eventually subside to where that's very deep in the memory bank. So it's no longer an issue. Yeah. And of course, if you don't bring it up, you know, then it won't be an issue. Exactly. If you quit scratching the scab, it's no longer a problem, right?

That's right. You got to let it heal. You got to let it heal. So what is, what would you define grace as? Well, like you said, unmerited, something that was unmerited, right? So I think grace is where you know somebody's done something wrong. You see it, you watch it, you could have maybe prevented it, but you didn't, but you just, you show grace in that you allow, you don't change your opinion about that person. That one, that one event doesn't define that person. You show grace, you give unmerited time with forgiveness, but you give unmerited compassion and understanding.

Yeah. And see, understanding I think is the key because throughout all through our proverbs, you know, you have knowledge, wisdom and understanding. And I think a lot of times we have the knowledge in regards to what we have to do, but a lot of times our flesh get in the way, you know, and so our flesh prevents us from saying and doing the things that God want us to do in order for us to get back into fellowship with him. Because see, if we're not, if we're not administering grace to someone else, then we're out of fellowship with God.

Right. And the same thing for forgiveness, right? If we're not willing to forgive others, then how can we expect our Heavenly Father to forgive us? And, and you know, in Psalms 25 and 18, it talks about, this is a Psalm of David and he says, look on my affliction and my pain and forgive all my sins. So while he was, while he was going through the things that he was going through with Saul and, you know, chasing him down and trying to kill him and everything.

And you know, that, I think it was stir someone up to write a lot of what we see written in the book of Psalms. Right. And what's interesting about David is he never went after, never went after him. Right. He just, he was stayed on the run because that was what God needed him to do rather than retaliate, turn back and go after him. Right. Exactly.

So, which is pretty incredible. You know, because I think the way David looked at it is he said that I'm, I'm not going to touch or kill the Lord's anointed. So he understood that it was the Lord who anointed King Saul. And so he was, even though he had him and he actually cut a little bit of his garment to show him, Hey, you know, while you were over here, I could, yeah, but I didn't because again, he recognized that it was God at work and this was God's servant. And so in a sense, he was, he was extending grace by all intents and purposes, right? He was extending grace to Saul because he knew that God had him undergirded and David knew that God had him protected.

That's right. Whatever the end result was, it was what God was going to make happen or allow to happen. And he did because, you know, when it comes to us and we comes to people, you know, in the church, I don't think we understand and actually exercise the grace that Jesus Christ showed us to other people. And I guess, what is it that we need to do in order to sort of like get over that hump, you know, to show more grace to others for those in congregation with us or those who are our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ? Well, if we think about the whole term Christian, which has been so watered down in our society compared to what it was originally. And so that's why we now talk about being followers of Christ or Christ followers. But if you think about the whole example that Christ set, if we're truly going to be Christ-like then that should be the very first thing we're doing is extending grace and forgiveness and loving on those folks that have fallen short or that have come upon hard times or whatever it may be. Because as we know in today's society, the first strike, i.e. the first bit of information is all that anybody hears.

You know, we were talking about this earlier in this particular situation like we've got coming up, we've got an event coming up here in the first of the year and there was some conversation about a guest and people have already declared based on media a particular perception. They've already created a perception without showing grace as we talked about, right? Show grace. We're all broken. We're all sinners. Just some are doing much better on the journey than others and some people have done nothing wrong in the particular times that we talk to them or see things because media has so exploited what may look or appear to be a potential problem. Well, everybody rushes to the conclusion that it is a problem. Yeah, and you know, we have a tendency to use the media as... The gospel, quote unquote.

Well, the judge, jury, and execution is what we do. Yeah, exactly. See, when we hear it, you know, and all of a sudden we come back and we say, well, if the media said it, there must be some truth. It has to be true.

Yeah. You know, if it's on the internet, it's got to be true. Folks, trust me, there's a lot of stuff on the internet that's untrue or not quite accurate. So they're not quite accurate. Takes you down a position of misleading or misinformation, which can be a sin of omission as we've talked about in the past.

Conveniently left out. So it takes you down a whole different line of thinking. And you know, we were talking about again earlier that YouTube, for example, that there, I heard a number the other day that it was 1.2 billion views on YouTube around the globe every 24 hours, every single day.

1.2 billion, that's crazy. You know, and I'm going, we are saturated with video, information, technological advances, medical advances. I mean, we're just so saturated with all of these things. And I think what it does is it takes our mind away from the greater purpose in which Christ have called us on the journey in order to fulfill the great commission, which is the greater purpose. Exactly. You know, we need to set aside a lot of what we think we're doing for the kingdom and ensure that we are following those things that God outlined in his word. It almost sounds like you're saying we should be in this world, but not of this.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Because in Psalms 85 and verse number five, it says, for you, Lord are good and ready to forgive and abundant in mercy. And that's just, that's just wonderful. So for being Christlike, then we're ready to forgive and we're abundant in mercy. We're abundant in mercy to all of those who call upon you.

See, that's the stipulation. There you go. See, now there's some who are calling upon him, but they don't know him. Yeah. So, and if they don't know him, then he's not listening because he said, my sheep hear my voice and a stranger they would not hear.

No one will come to the father except through the son. That's right. So, you know, uh, all of this, you know, that that's going on in the church. A lot of it too is, is showing impartiality. It is.

It really is. You know, the scripture tells us about not showing favoritism, right? So, and I think that that's another thing we've so-and-so's got more money to contribute. So we're going to make sure and take care of them or so-and-so's in a particular position. So therefore we're going to make sure that they are protected at all costs, uh, not following scripture, but just doing back and being part of the world instead of being in the world, not being of the world. Exactly.

Yeah. And so what, what, what the challenge is if you're listening to the program right now, back to what Will said, 1.2 billion views a day back to the man talk challenge is that how much time are you spending with the Lord? How much time are you spending in the word?

Because if it was 1.2 billion views a day, that means a lot of people to listen or spending time on YouTube each day or any other social media form. And we've talked about that in the past. If you're not in the word and you're not praying and you're not doing the normal disciplines of a disciple and a follower of Christ, Satan's going to have a playground.

He's going to run havoc in your life. And you're in your mind, you know, you're not, you're not renewing your mind as you know, the word of God tell us in Romans 12, you know, that we, we have to wake up, you know, and, but if we're allowing ourselves to be saturated by all of the other stuff, then what we're doing is, and that's what we're doing. We're stuffing our mind with stuff.

So we're not being about the father's business. And as a result, when situations and circumstances and things come our way, what do we have to fall back on if we don't have the word deposited in our heart? Because that's the only thing that is the absolute only thing that is our offensive weapon when it comes to spiritual warfare against the enemy. It's the word of God. It's the, it's the sword of the spirit. And so if we put that down, meaning that we're not putting the word of God in us, so the Holy Spirit can use it in a time when we need it, then where are we?

Right. Well, we're lost. We're lost because when those challenges come, we're not going to have the word of God to reassure us because then we're going to be out there searching. We're going to be thinking God's left us when indeed he's not left us. We just not put the word inside to guard against all these things we're going to be going against. And we're vulnerable. Very vulnerable. We make ourselves vulnerable. And as a result of this vulnerability, now there are avenues for Satan to run wild to come on in. See, we basically are opening up the gate.

Right. So if you're listening out there today, think about forgiveness. Think about the challenge of grace.

We challenge you today. If you're listening, you are challenged to go out and forgive somebody. And extend that grace.

And extend that grace factor. And most likely it's going to start somewhere in your family, because if you're listening, it's typically... Absolutely. You got something going on in your family, that'd be a great place to start with your spouse or your children. So we'll be back in just a few moments. Thank you so much for joining us today. TAWCMM would love to have you join their community of men for breakfast every first and third Friday of every month. They have Bible discussions and fellowship after the best breakfast in town. The meeting location is at their gracious Host Church, First Christian Church in Kernersville, 1130 North Main Street in Kernersville.

They have a hard start at seven o'clock and a hard stop at eight o'clock. First time visitors eat for free. Join your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Affordable chiropractic in High Point. As you might tell from their name, affordable chiropractic, even for the cash patient. Dr. Jeff Rickey has been caring for patients in High Point for 34 years. Physical therapy such as ultrasound and spinal decompression for disc conditions such as herniation, comprehensive care for auto accident injury patients with no out-of-pocket expense. Remember, affordable chiropractic on West Lexington Avenue in High Point.

Call 336-885-1987. Welcome back to man talk. Yeah, if you heard that, you're going to have to get that part fixed. We got a little bit of a glitch there. So that's what the white guy was chime in about. But you know, Roy, we were talking about forgiveness. We were talking about grace and extending grace and forgiveness. And here in the book of John, chapter 20 and verse number 23, it says, if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain, this is the thing now, if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. So forgiving releases you of carrying any burden on yourself because we don't need to be carrying these burdens. We're not made to carry these burdens. Jesus told us to cast all our cares upon Him because He cared for us. So if we release these things, then that free us from having fellowship with the Father. And it casts all of those things on the shoulders of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And see, that's the thing I believe, Roy, that if we are so concentrated on the hurt that people have caused us, that we forget about the forgiveness and we forget about the grace. Well, that's society in general, Will. We're focused on the negative. And I think that's hardwired from the time we've, especially with the explosion of the media, like we've talked about, nothing's positive anymore.

You can flip any headline you want to. For every 50 stories that's negative, there might be one positive article or some feel good write up about something. So therefore the negativity breeds itself. So if that's all we're used to and we're living in that world, it goes back to being in the world but not of the world, but we've become part of the world when we're constantly looking at the negative and the downside. And we're chasing that is what we end up doing. We're chasing the hidden skeleton in everybody's story.

And everybody has that skeleton. So the question is, why are we putting more effort into doing it forgiving and showing grace and showing the love of Christ? Exactly. And how are people ever going to see the love of Christ if we're acting the same way as the world does?

That's right. And that's one thing, you know, I've talked about before and we've continued stress on the show. What is your Monday through Saturday face look like? If you're a church attender, do you, are you the same person Monday through Saturday that you are on Sunday with the people that see a church on Sunday, recognize the man or woman that they see Monday through Saturday?

And you know, for the most part, it's not. It's a different face. And you know, we have folks out there who are listening and they're probably looking at their spouse right now, you know, saying, is that you he talking about?

I didn't think you knew these guys. But see, generally if, but if we're talking about someone else, then we should first look at ourselves and say, Hey, am I doing this? Am I the one who is imitating and I'm, I'm putting on the plastic face, you know, on Sunday and Wednesday or whenever we had, you have midweek service.

And then on the rest of the days, it's just look out, Joe, here I come. Right. Well, that goes back to splinter versus the log, right? Why, why are you looking at the splinter in your brother's eye when the logs still in your own eye, right?

Exactly. So I focus on self and if you want to judge something, judge yourself more harshly so that you can say, okay, okay father, I'm not where I need to be. So you'll be convicted about what you need to do to get in line with what God wants us to be doing. And when I say judge yourself more harshly, be more observant to what you're doing wrong and where you can improve life and the way you treat others and show grace or forgiveness. So, Hey, listen, we were, we know this is resonating with a bunch of you out there because this is 90% of the problems in marriages. Can't forgive, can't move over, can't forget past that. Can't get past that my child did this or my dad did that or my mom's done this. And it's a difficult thing. It's naturally, you can't do it by yourself because Satan's got to, he continues to ring the bell. He's going to continue to keep you distracted like we talked in the past. And if you focus on God first, see key first kingdom God and his righteousness, seek him first and then get in the word.

Then all this other stuff will fall in behind it. The ability to forgive, the ability to show grace because you're starting to model Christ. You know, Jesus didn't do anything what he didn't go to the father first for guidance and direction. And you know, that's, that's Matthew 6 33 about the kingdom seeking first the kingdom of God.

But you know, when a person is experiencing hurt, and so now I'm sort of going to go to this other side when they experiencing hurt and we all have experienced hurt, you know, we, people have hurt us and we have hurt other people. But see, it's the conviction because you were talking about earlier, if you're focusing on, if focus more on the log than the splinter, you know, then we, if, as we draw closer to the Lord, then what will happen is the Holy Spirit will convict us. And see, see conviction is not the same as condemnation. You are not condemned. If you are born again, child of God, you are not condemned anymore. But the spirit of God does convict. And the reason why he convicts is so to bring you back in line with his word. Right. And that conviction is a healthy thing. And that's, it could almost say it's, it's a spiritual conscience for all intents and purposes because the conviction is coming from the Holy Spirit, right?

Yes. That's what's nudging your heart. Say, look, you're out, you're out of line here. This is not right.

You need to make this right. And thank God for the conviction. Amen.

Because if we didn't have it, then we would just continue to be on the road that we're on thinking that whatever we're doing is fine. And, uh, during the weekday and then on Sunday I can come in and fall down at the altar and, you know, cry and do all these things. But the spirit of God, exactly.

Whoa, whoa. Did we step on somebody's toes? You're not going to tell me people going down to the altar crying on Sunday and then going right back to the same thing they've always been doing. That's exactly what I'm saying to see someone out there.

They know that this is you. We're, we're, we're talking about because when we're talking about things of this nature, forgiveness and grace, it's a broad, very broad category, but it also shows what kind of character you have as an individual when you are ready to forgive. Well, you know, the first of our shows breaking down the walls, race and denomination list.

I'm going to throw a challenge question out there. What about the white man that did something to you as a black man? You know, what would it be 20 years ago or just last week or have you forgiven that man?

Vice versa. What about the, you as the white man, a black man has done something to you. Are you holding that to your vest or you continue to hold onto those things or perceived that something was done to you? Maybe it really wasn't something that had been black to black or white to white. Wouldn't have been taken the same way. Wouldn't have been judged the same way.

So if you're thinking about that right now, just encouraging, ask yourself that question. My holding onto something from a long time ago, we had Jerome and Michael with us a few weeks back and we talked about the thing with discrimination and biased and some very hurtful things, you know, and by their own admission, they've gotten through those things. They've had to forgive and move on, but same holds true for both sides.

Could be any one of us have done or done something or gone through something, but if you hold onto it, it's unhealthy. That's right. And so you can't move forward in Christ if you are continuing to hold on because he wants you again to cast those things upon him because he's the one who is caring for us. He's the one who wants to carry the burden.

We are not designed. That's right. Our burdens to him. That's right.

We're not designed to bear these things because if we continue to bear them these burdens, then what happens is Satan's got the playground and distraction. He's got an avenue, got an avenue. So he's going to make you feel that something's going to happen. His condition or events going to happen.

He's going to be able to capitalize on that and make you think, well, what's the use? I'm never going to get through this. I'm giving up. Listen what James chapter five says and verse 15 when it talks about the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up. And if he had committed sins, he will be forgiven. So faith is the sort of like the, the, the power that drives the gear of forgiveness and grace. Right. And so in order for that gear to start turning in your life, the more faith you exercise, the faster and but more efficient that gear is going to turn. So will it be a fair statement to say that faith is a conscious decision, but to follow what you can't see, right? You know that my scripture belief in things unseen versus an emotion or feeling about what I'm doing.

Exactly. So it's the conscious decision versus the emotion. So from the conscious decision comes the emotions and the feelings. As you walk this thing out, God will bless your heart, will renew your mind, but you have to make that what we always refer to as the step in the natural and let God come along on a supernatural. So you as the individual needs to make that first step and in faith that God's going to take me through this journey and heal me. And as a result of that, the emotions and the feelings will come along with that, but they won't stay.

That's just kind of a result of doing the right thing. And then God will always be with you, but don't confuse loving God with a high or low feeling. Yeah, because see emotionalism, and I think we have a lot of that in the church today. We have individuals who come to the local church service and it's almost like they have to get into this emotional high. Now, and what I'm saying here is I believe that all of that is not the Spirit of God. Now, I believe that a person can, God can move upon them and they just come out and break out with hands, praise in the air. If they want to dance in the Spirit, that's fine. But I think that you have to be careful because I get caught up in the pandemonium. That's right. It's just a fine line, right? Yeah.

Make sure there's the Spirit moving during the will of God and not doing that. It sounds like we may need to continue this. I think we are. So next week, the next week's conversation, we're going to talk about what's going on in the marketplace.

A few big names out there that start to talk about following Christ. What's the impact going to be? Is it real? We don't know.

Of course we don't know. We don't know man's heart, but it sure looks like he's excited, the one we're thinking of, and we'll be back next week to talk to you about this. All right. Please join us. Thanks for listening. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Find us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk. This is the Truth Network.