November 7th, 2024
Hello everyone, and welcome to this week’s video. I’m recording this from the 24-7 prayer gathering in Rotterdam. This has been an inspiring few days as we’ve heard stories of God at work throughout the world sharing stories of the Gospel moving from culture to culture and nation to nation. There is something uniquely enriching about a gathering where over 37 nations are represented in person and another 50 or so online. It’s a small taste of heaven, where people from every tribe and nation and language will worship God in perfect harmony.
But driving around the Netherlands there are many signs of a darker past. Much of Rotterdam was flattened during the war.The Nazi occupiers treated the Dutch terribly. The brutality continued right up to and including their withdrawal, when they knew the game was up. The older generation here find it very difficult to either forgive or forget such treatment. Theirs is a challenge from history, but the speakers at this conference reminded us of other challenging international relationships. A speaker for South Africa spoke of the need of people to forgive their colonial oppressors, who not only engaged in economic exploitation but diminished them as human beings. A speaker from Ukraine spoke of the challenge of faith in the face of relentless Russian aggression.
It is a clear fact of life that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Sinful people like you and me hurt other sinful people. We are sinned against and sinning. If you give sinners weapons you get wars, all the more brutal as the technology of destruction improves.
There are examples of blood feuds between different tribes and families where the original slight has been lost in the mists of time. A slight, real or perceived, was paid back with interest, which was then paid back with further interest. Grudges turned into festering conflict. Pain morphed into a desire for justice which became a thirst for revenge. Whilst not turning violent, many of us will have had the experience of neighbour disputes, relational breakdown and alienation where a resolution is hard to find. People can have legitimate cause to complain against us, but we can also hold our failures against ourselves. Shame is a powerful influence on conduct. We can carry burdens from past failures and deliberate acts done in moments of madness when we lost control of our temper. Things once said that can’t be taken back. Carrying a sense of condemnation predisposes us to continue acting in the same way. I have done a terrible thing becomes I am a terrible person. There is a big difference between conviction and condemnation. Conviction is a work of the Spirit that exposes things we would rather hide, in order that we may bring them to Christ for healing and forgiveness. Condemnation merely leaves us with the burden of our failings and ongoing guilt. Shame leads to despair. I sense many people in our society live with that.
All this by way of introduction to this week’s stanza of the creed, “We believe in the forgiveness of sins”. As Psalm 130: 3 says, “If you, Lord, kept a record of our sins, Lord, who could stand”. But the good news of the Gospel is that He doesn’t. Something objective happens in Christ’s crucifixion whose benefits can be seized by anyone who wants them. God accepts in Himself the justice for all human wrongdoing so we can avoid it. In Peter’s sermon to the House of Cornelius in Acts 10: 43 he states, “all the prophets testify that everyone who trusts in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins through his name”. Paul writes in Romans 4: 7, “blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.”
Difficult though it may be to countenance, the only way out for many of our relational issues is forgiveness. Not only of those who have wronged us, but of ourselves as well. I wouldn’t presume to say what that looks like for the older generation here in The Netherlands, or the poor people of Ukraine, or the grieving homeless Palestinian, Israeli hostage or those who have lost loved ones in the countless wars and disputes around our world today. I do know that bitterness and hate will only make things worse, both for victim and perpetrator. And I do know that there is a power in the Gospel greater than our own pain and shame made available in Christ and translated into human experience in the power of the Holy Spirit. We believe in the forgiveness of sins. This is the heart of the Gospel.
+Richard