Forgiveness is our personal act to release individuals who sinned against us from our personal right to collect on the moral debt for their offense, with or without their participation in the process. Reconciliation, however, is when you move toward another and work to restore a broken relationship. We must work beyond guilt and shame as a community to fully embrace the life and freedom Jesus offers.

Forgiveness is releasing the personal right to pay back the one who has hurt me and absorbing the pain with God’s help. The process of forgiving someone can be laced with deep and powerful emotions. The memory of the wound and the offender has the ability to influence my behavior—relationally, emotionally, and spiritually. One of the hopes in the journey of forgiveness is to move from anger and hatred to love and compassion.

Receiving and granting forgiveness are some of the central actions of every disciple of Jesus. Forgiveness is not just releasing the personal right to payback the one who has hurt me, it is also personally absorbing the pain with God’s help. But it doesn’t stop there—God wants to take the wounds and pain of our lives and turn them for good. When forgiveness happens, we act in grace; when it doesn't, we transfer our pain to others.

Forgiveness is one of the most counter-cultural practices in the life of Jesus. When we forgive, we choose to release those who have sinned against us from our right to collect on the moral debt of their sin. A community practicing the way of Jesus not only practices this with one another, but lives this way in the world around us. If we are to engage forgiveness in a healthy way, we must understand what it is and what it isn't.

We are not just sent as incarnational representatives of Jesus, but we are sent everywhere as resurrectional ambassadors for Jesus. Just as Paul steadfastly refused to command the early Christians not to eat meat sacrificed to idols because of the way it would insulate the first-century church, we must be intentional in engaging every nook and cranny of the world with the love and power of Jesus.

We are called to “go” and make disciples as Jesus instructed us. However, as His disciples, we are also called to model our lives after His. In The Message, John 1:14 addresses the Incarnation stating that Jesus “became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” Thus, we too are called to not simply stand by watching from a distance; rather, we are called to be like Jesus and engage people right where they are.

Jesus used parties (meaning fun gatherings of any size) to welcome lost people and to invite them closer to Him. As Jesus’ followers, we can use the same strategy, especially this summer as people begin to “thaw out” from the worst of the pandemic. Let’s seek to be generous, accepting and highly intentional about creating relational environments where the Gospel can be shared through word and deed!

As a conclusion to YAC’s two-year study in the Gospel of Matthew, we take time today to simply listen as key passages from this book are read over us.

On Friday, God died. On Sunday, a very real human resurrected and will now live eternally. The incredible story of the death and life of God becomes the cornerstone for the message of hope that goes out to all people. This singular event creates a chain reaction that continues to impact every part of the world to this day. The invitation is for us: Where do we fit in the story?

In an incredible twist of irony, the One who is life Himself experiences death. The wage for sin is death, which was the judgment pronounced after the first Adam sinned. However, Jesus as the second Adam bears the punishment as the perfect sacrifice. At the cross, every shadow found in the law is brought to reality, justice is fulfilled, and we can know that, in Jesus’ death, death itself is conquered forever.