Embracing Your Enemy (Acts 9:10-19,26-27)

Acts

Sep 27

Sermon Series: Acts - Our Story, Our Mission

Sermon Title: Embracing Your Enemy

Passage: Acts 9:10-19,26-27

Preacher: Ashley Herr

Forgive your enemy because Jesus commands us to forgive
Forgive your enemy because forgiveness releases you of their hold over you
Forgive your enemy because forgiveness is a required step toward reconciliation
Forgive your enemy because you are an enemy who has been forgiven

How will you respond? What will you do? Will you embrace your enemy by praying for them, forgiving them? Or will you continue to remain enslaved in your self-made prison of anger and resentment? What step of faithful obedience to the words of Jesus is God calling you to take to embrace your enemy? Read Romans 12:14-21.
Why will you embrace your enemy? Read Romans 5:6-11

“An enemy is someone we have defined as being against us in contrast to someone who is for us. Many of us have a strange need to divide the world up into people who are for us and those who are against us. Even more strange is that our identity is often dependent on having enemies. We don’t exist without an enemy. We define ourselves by what we are opposed to. We define the enemy and the enemy is there to define us.” - Henry Nouwen, Following Jesus, p64
“Hating the enemy costs us. We often allow the enemy to have power over us…Feelings of hatred, rejection, jealousy, and resentment enslave us in our self-made prison of fear.” - Henry Nouwen, Following Jesus, p66,67
“In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility, for Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship, p147-148
“Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship, p149