Did Jesus say that?—by Tsepo May
April 9, 2023
Sermon summary:
Did Jesus say, "You don't need to forgive them?" And, "You won't have bad days?"
- You don't need to forgive them. Matthew 6:9-15 The Bible doesn't say, "forgive us our debt: while we hold on to our own grudges.
Matthew 18: 21-25 We need to forgive others from the heart, otherwise God won't forgive us. We need to forgive as the Lord forgave us (Colossians 3:13).
2. You won't have bad days. John 16:20a-22 Jesus says you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices.
In John 16:33, Jesus says in this world you will have many troubles, but that he's overcome the world. Ease and comfort never make you stronger. Jesus set the example of having a bad day—his crucifixion and death, and coming out victorious on the other side.
Watch the full service
here (the sermon starts at 3 mins).
Because Jesus reconciled us to God through the cross, we are called to pursue reconciliation with God, one another, and the world around us.
Jesus reconciles us to the Father and teaches us to extend his grace, helping us forgive one another, heal relationships, and walk together in peace.
The physics of the pendulum Picture an old grandfather clock in a quiet hallway. Its long brass pendulum swings steadily: tick, tock, tick, tock. Now give that pendulum a hard shove to the right. It does not simply glide back to the center and stop. It races right past the middle and sways just as far to the left. Left to its own momentum, a pendulum never rests at either extreme; it finds peace only when it hangs still at the center, held by gravity and its fixed point. The church behaves in much the same way. Push her too far toward one side of a truth and she does not gently settle into balance, she swings. Often for a whole generation toward the opposite error, and then back again, wounding people at both ends of the arc. And here is the crucial thing the clock teaches us: the pendulum comes to rest not by being frozen in place, but by being held. Balance is not the absence of force; it is the fixed point that keeps opposing pulls in tension so that the weight can finally hang still.