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

Embracing Your Enemy Ashley Herr Sermon NotesSermon Series: Acts - Our Story, Our MissionSermon Title: Embracing Your EnemyPassage: Acts 9:10-19,26-27Preacher: Ashley HerrIdentifying Your Enemy (v10-16)WHO is your enemy?WHY do you view them as your enemy? What makes them your enemy?Embrace Your Enemy by Praying for Them (v17-19)Embrace Your Enemy by Forgiving for Them (v26-27)Forgive your enemy because Jesus commands us to forgiveForgive your enemy because forgiveness releases you of their hold over youForgive your enemy because forgiveness is a required step toward reconciliation Forgive your enemy because you are an enemy who has been forgivenReflectionHow 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 5:6-11Sermon Footnotes“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 Recommended Reading:Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer - specifically Chapter 13. The EnemyEscaping Enemy Mode: How Our Brains Unite or Divide Us by Jim Wilder and Ray WoolridgeFollowing Jesus by Henri Nouwen - specifically Chapter 3. The Challenge: Love Your EnemiesForgive by Tim Keller