This Means War

FIGHT WITH FORGIVENESS

Pastor Hope Flask

October 5, 2025

Main Scriptures: Matthew 18:21-35

Additional Scriptures: John 16:7-11, 1 John 1:9, 4:11, 1 Corinthians 13:5, 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, 1 Peter 4:8, Colossians 3:13

POINTS:

• How would the devil divide the church? ChatGPT’s answers:

1. Replace Christ-centeredness with ego-centeredness 2. Turn minor doctrines into major battles 3. Create tribalism among denominations 4. Promote moral failure and hide it 5. Normalize hypocrisy 6. Politicize the pulpit 7. Divide across generations, cultures, and classes 8. Replace repentance with self-righteousness 9. Undermine prayer and the Word 10. Isolate, offend, repeat

• We all owe a debt to God that we can never repay, so we live in a state of perpetual self-denial. The Holy Spirit brings us into a courtroom and confronts our self-denial.

• The King forgave the servant, but the servant never left the courtroom.

• Mental courtroom: a self-imposed prison where our bitterness constantly tortures us.

• Once we are in the mental courtroom with one person, we will eventually be in there with more and more people.

• During the day, our thinking is focused on building, and at night, it is focused on processing what we’ve built.

• Bitterness creates ruts in our brains, and we get stuck in a rut that scripture calls a stronghold.

• A divine weapon of warfare is the kindness of God, because it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance.

• Forgiveness: exercising the compassion of Christ by paying the debt ourselves with love.

• When we consistently practice forgiveness, we begin to grasp more and more what it took for Christ to pay our debt.

• Instead of isolate, offend, repeat, we forgive, love, and keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.