“Do I have to forgive if my friend doesn’t want me to forgive him?”

Steve Brown:
Do I have to forgive if my friend doesn’t want me to forgive him? The answer to that, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you think laughter isn’t spiritual or that faithfulness to God means conformity to Christian stereotypes, then this program probably isn’t for you. But if you’re looking for honest Biblical answers to hard questions, then welcome to Key Life. Here’s our host, author, and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeTruth.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. You doing all right?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing all right. You doing all right?

Pete Alwinson:
I’m doing all right.

Steve Brown:
You always ask me that first when we do these Friday programs.

Pete Alwinson:
Well.

Steve Brown:
That’s cause I’m so old and you’re checking.

Pete Alwinson:
You going to go swimming today?

Steve Brown:
I did.

Pete Alwinson:
As long as you’re working out?

Steve Brown:
I did yesterday.

Pete Alwinson:
Good.

Steve Brown:
Are you going to work out?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Well, it’s not so important for you.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
It’s really important for me.

Pete Alwinson:
Come on, man.

Steve Brown:
How’s your shoulder?

Pete Alwinson:
Doing better. I can’t hit anybody with it. I mean, with my arm, can’t use it.

Steve Brown:
But you’ll get there.

Pete Alwinson:
I’m out of a sling. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Pete had rotator cuff surgery and that is no fun. The last time he was in the studio, you were in a sling and I was thinking about hitting you on that side to see if you were faking it. Listen, go to ForgeTruth.com that is a great website, and it’s quite deep, and you’ll be impressed. The podcast is an amazing podcast, and if you haven’t read the book, Like Father Like Son, it’s a life changing book. Pete comes in every Friday, and we answer questions, as you know. And we love your questions, and you. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, and record your question, and sometimes we put your voice on the air. You can send your question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
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in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

and if you want to e-mail your question, you can e-mail it to [email protected] and those are the places where if you can make a contribution to this ministry, we would very much appreciate it. This is expensive, and all the bills have been paid because some of you guys were so faithful. So, if you can, be faithful, and I promise we’ll be as faithful with your gift as you were in giving, we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. If you can’t help us financially, we understand. Do pray for this ministry. Pete, why don’t you pray and we’ll get to some of these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
I will. Hey, by the way, you did a gathering with us, an event with us.

Steve Brown:
I had a great time. I love your ministry.

Pete Alwinson:
And we need to, guys could, people could go to ForgeTruth.com it was a good time to sit down and talking with you.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it was a good time.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your grace and your mercy in our lives. Thank you, Father, for Steve. Thank you for him being my friend and mentor for so many years. And just pray that you continue to use him in a powerful way in the Key Life ministry in America and around the world. Lord, may your grace continue to sink deeply into our lives. May we understand more and more of what grace really is. And how it sets us free and energizes us. What a joy it is to be your daughters and your sons because of your grace and your work, Jesus. Lord, be with all of your people who are listening. Lord, we all need you. We all need your power. We all need your comfort. We all need, Lord, whatever you want to do in our life. We trust you, and we ask for your grace now. We commit this broadcast to you. We pray these things in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, this is an e-mail. Can you forgive someone without their first coming to you to ask for forgiveness without their knowing? That’s a good question.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s theoretically, what do you think? Is that possible?

Steve Brown:
I’d say absolutely. Sure it is.

Pete Alwinson:
Have you ever done it?

Steve Brown:
A lot. Listen, this stuff works. You can’t forgive until you’ve been forgiven and you can only forgive to the degree to which you have been forgiven. And I’ve been forgiven a lot, which makes me a good forgiver. You know, there are people that say, well, they’re not repentant, that’s irrelevant.

Pete Alwinson:
But it does seem as though it’s easier to forgive if somebody comes and says, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I offended you. It is easier, isn’t it?

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
But it’s not required.

Steve Brown:
No, it really isn’t. The forgiveness thing is standalone. And there’s no wiggle room. You know, and I’ve told you, and probably said on this broadcast, I forgive by contract. Sometimes my feelings don’t fit in with what I’m asking, and I say, God, I want you to kill them. I mean, they did really bad stuff. But I know what you say, so I’m going to ask that you would bless them with every blessing, draw them to yourself, and make this a contract before you. Regardless of my feelings and if you could conform my heart to this contract. You know, that’s kind of cool. And he does that. He really does.

Pete Alwinson:
He does. And it’s important to grasp that he does that he enables us to forgive. That forgiveness is a point in time and a continual process.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. That’s good.

Pete Alwinson:
Because I think we want to say to our people who are listening. You know, we love you guys and we know all of you are different and some temperament types are just typically more forgiving. Some of you don’t get as upset as others and some of you forgive easier. It’s just natural. But then those of you who forgive easily, more naturally, that one person that really gets you and sticks the knife in your back, you might, it might take you years to forgive that person. And so, I just say, I know, because it’s

Steve Brown:
Be in the process.

Pete Alwinson:
Be in the process. Just stay with it, and then let God do His grace over time. You’ll be better, they’ll be better, God will be glorified.

Steve Brown:
Oh, that’s true. And that’s good stuff. How do you hear God’s voice? This is an e-mail. And when he speaks, does he speak in Hebrew?

Pete Alwinson:
No, but he does have a voice similar to yours. Have you had anybody say that?

Steve Brown:
I would prefer they said, they’re always saying, you have a great voice. And I say, I know that. Have you noticed how good looking I am?

Pete Alwinson:
And of course it’s true.

Steve Brown:
Oh, of course. No, we sometimes forget that God has spoken clearly in his word. And you need to be spending time in the word because that’s God’s love letter to his own people. But he speaks on other occasions too. You know, there are times when it comes with a feeling that you can’t shake. And if you follow through, I’ve gone to visit a lady who died the next day, cause I couldn’t drive by her house and I was going to some other place. This was on Cape Cod and I tried to go get to the church and I couldn’t. So, I pulled in her driveway, sat down. We had a nice visit. She brought up death, I gave her the promises and we prayed together and she died the next day. And that was God’s leading. God still leads.

Pete Alwinson:
He still leads. He leads through His Word. He leads through His Spirit. But a lot of times we are so focused on our agendas that we’re not, we don’t allow Him to interrupt us.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
And so, start the conversation in your daily appointment with God in the morning and try to keep listening throughout the day, back and forth.

Steve Brown:
Let me know. And I think God does that. And another way he does that is he does it through your brothers and your sisters in Christ and your family.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, we have, you’ve spoken into my life, our friend Brad sitting across the table. People in our network, God uses.

Steve Brown:
That is so true. That’s why we’ve got to be honest with each other. We need to say, look, you can’t do that. Are you crazy?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s right.

Steve Brown:
Because I did it before, and I was crazy. So, you’re very fortunate to have me here to tell you not to do that. And those are normal conversations where God is involved. And we need to be aware of those too.

Pete Alwinson:
Interesting, you bring up that sometimes we don’t want to enter into other Christians lives by telling them the gut level truth.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, you do that, it’s like jumping off a cliff. Don’t jump off that cliff.

Steve Brown:
I know. I’ve seen people, but you know, once you understand what it means to be a Christian, it takes the sting out of it. Because you can’t speak into somebody else’s life from a life that is pure. There aren’t any.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And so, if I’m going to talk to my brother, I’ve got to remember that I’m probably a bigger sinner than he is, and that will ameliorate what I say to him about his sin, and he’ll know it. The problem is, we’ve got this idea that there are good people and bad people. There aren’t. The Scriptures say that’s universal. And because it is, we can repent before God and we can repent before our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Pete Alwinson:
Grace enables us to do all of that.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it really does. Now, let me see if I can find a question that is simple and quick because we have one minute. Is there any other way of salvation other than Jesus?

Pete Alwinson:
No.

Steve Brown:
That’s good.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s easy. And that’s quick. So, maybe I can ask you, is there anything that you need to ask forgiveness from me. Going back to the forgiveness things. Have you done anything behind my back that you should repent of?

Steve Brown:
And I don’t have time. It’s a long list. We just don’t have time on this broadcast to go, no, I haven’t, of course not. Are you crazy?

Pete Alwinson:
You have always been gracious to me.

Steve Brown:
All right. Let me see. Is it normal to struggle with doubt?

Pete Alwinson:
I think it is, much more than people want to let on.

I believe, help thou my unbelief.

I think we do struggle at times.

Steve Brown:
And I think every Christian has to pray that prayer on occasion. You know what we believe is crazy. It really is. We’ve lived it for so long, it just seems normal. But for somebody who hasn’t been a part of it, they want to say, are you crazy? There’s something wrong with you. And because the Christian faith is so counterintuitive, it goes in directions we never expected. Grace really is amazing. And because we believe so many things that are almost unbelievable. And we need to stop sometimes and sometimes we doubt.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Lord, I believe help my unbelief.

Pete Alwinson:
Going back to the word, Romans 10 tells us, is what gives us that ability to have our faith rejuvenated. Sometimes I lose faith because I’m just plain tired and I need to go to bed.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, I don’t want to be religious anymore.

Pete Alwinson:
You know?

Steve Brown:
I’m going to bed. Hey guys, Yeah, it’s okay to doubt. It’s not okay to think that doubt is okay, because faith is a gift. We’ve got to go. But first, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.