Forgiveness

On Sunday, Clive was able to preach a message on Forgiveness at Honolulu Christian Church. The reception was as we prayed for.

Clive preached through Ephesians, showing the many blessings that we have in Christ, in other words, the wealth we have in Christ. "With all that we have, how can we not forgive?" seems to be the question.

He then began to "unpack" Ephesians 4 with the emphasis on the "new" way of living. Part of that is dealing with anger. Identifying righteous and unrighteous anger. Not letting the sun go down on either, we need to act upon the former and let go of the latter. We mustn't let the devil get a foothold by neglecting righteous anger or acting out in unrighteous anger. We should not grieve the Holy Spirit by our unwholesome, bitter, wrathful, angry words we might use with one another because of wrongly identifying and wrongly dealing with anger.

4:32 "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."
In fact, Clive equated forgiveness in our hearts to the work which Christ performed on our part for forgiveness.

The illustration Clive used was one from his own life. He told the story of how his eldest brother had once badly beaten their middle brother. And on another occasion, how the eldest brother badly beat their father as well. Clive felt powerless in those days to do or say anything to his brother who was in a drunken rage. Years later, at the funeral of their father of which Clive was the minister as well as a pallbearer, his eldest brother was shattered by the grief and guilt he felt in harming their brother and especially their departed father.

Clive was able to share that because of Christ, he was no longer powerless. Indeed, because of the wealth that he has in Christ, he was able to forgive AND to comfort his eldest brother.



After his message, many people came up to thank him for the Word of God spoken into their lives and were able to share how God has illuminated the unforgiveness in their own hearts. Beautiful.