The forgiveness of sins gives eternal life. This is a discipline out of which a Christian will never grow out. To look for something bigger, better, or more advanced in the faith is arrogant and wrong. All love, peace, and life is found in the simple act of forgiveness.
Read Matthew 6:5-13
Every other religion on Earth teaches that living a 'good life' is what will bring salvation, or nirvana, or happiness. Our sinful mind cannot get over the notion that we have to do something, anything, to secure our spiritual life. We anchor ourselves to our good works, and try to get through the storms of life our on the power of that line. We think in our minds that if we “just” could pray a little more, or “just” swear less, or “just” keep from breaking any of the bigger sins, the small sins we commit daily will be outweighed, and we will save ourselves by our good deeds. Fortunately, our works can never supply anything more than the illusion of security. When storms of temptation and trials arrive, we quickly find our own good deeds to be flimsy, and our hearts quickly despair. Our minds cannot see beyond the illusion of a balance between good and bad actions, so deliverance comes by faith alone.
If we are to see our salvation through the eyes of faith, we shall see that regardless of how much we sin, and regardless of how much good we do, we cannot hope to even come close to God. He is so far better than and above us that even what we consider our best works of righteousness, he considers them to be revolting. As it says in Isaiah 64:6, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” What we consider to be our best is trash compared to God, and we cannot build on even that as a firm foundation. We are born into a sinful world, and if we rest upon our own power, we are damned to stay away from God for all eternity. Even the most humanly righteous person is hopelessly far from God. Once we recognize that nothing we do can change our situation, we can either despair or find forgiveness.
Read Matthew 9:1-8
Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.
This is the good news that Jesus brings to us all. We are released from the despair of trying to do it on our own, which we know deep down to be impossible. The oppressive weight of trying to move our lives to a better place is taken away. All of our sins are forgiven. We no longer have to walk under the weight of the sins that drag us down, and more importantly, we don't have to try and support the bad things we have done with the good things we have done. Suddenly, everything is stripped away. The good, the bad, and the ugly all disappear in a flash as Jesus forgives us. In their place, we find instead happiness and peace.
When I was a junior in high school, my relationship with my mother was strained to say the least. She grew up on a farm where she learned a strong work ethic and was the youngest of four girls. She met my father after she moved to CA for college, and they married and had me a few years later. Because she was in a family of only girls, I was the first male between the ages of one and twenty-two with whom she had ever had a close relationship. This started our relationship off on a bad foot, and the fact that I inherited her stubbornness but not her work ethic only made things worse. As a child, I identified myself with my intelligence, and in being able to come up with better solutions to problems than my peers. Submission to parental authority was no problem for me, as long as the parent in question could defend before a grand jury that their solution to whatever problem had arisen was superior to my own. I soon began to believe that I knew better how to parent a teenage son than she did, and our relationship became hostile. I questioned her at every turn. When she asked me to do something, right that very second, I would question why it had to be done then, when it was perfectly logical to do it later while I didn't have something mildly entertaining to do. When she replied that I had to do it her way because she was my mother and that was that, I would point out that her reason did not follow from the argument, and therefore was invalid. I was an unbearable child. We clashed over everything from the dishes to school work to where I would go to college and on what time frame I would be applying. Most of the time it ended in yelling and one of us storming out, and sometimes with both of us in tears.
My sin was that of pride. I didn't think of her first. I did not obey because she was my mother. I KNEW I was right and that everything would be much better if she would submit to me instead of the other way around. If only my perfect plan could be implemented, things would run smoothly and happily, because I knew best.
It took me many years to finally submit my pride to God. During my senior year, I took my sin to God and asked for forgiveness, because my right way wasn't fixing the problem; it was only making it worse. I needed Him to fix the situation, because I didn't want a terrible relationship with my mother. A funny thing happened when I was forgiven my sin of pride and my righteousness of knowing a better way of doing things. I shut my mouth when she told me to do something, and I did it her way. I did it her inferior way, knowing that I had a better way, but I still did it her way without telling her what I thought of her way. She stopped yelling at me, and we stopped clashing. I gradually learned to obey in love, and to my surprise, the love I was able to express made her inferior way better than my superior way would ever have been.
When we confess our sins, God who is righteous and just will forgive us. Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven. Everything is taken and replaced with Gods peace. Gone is the fear and anxiety about those situations we are trying to control. Gone is the guilt about what we have done. Gone is the blindness to the truth, the blindfold of sin that covers our eyes and keeps us from seeing the fullness of Gods grace he want to give us. Sin is pure unhappiness, and forgiveness pure happiness. Once we ask forgiveness, we receive it. Upon receiving it, we feel the simple comfort and hear the words of Jesus: Be joyful! No longer feel guilt because of your sins, or feel the anxiety from not having done enough good, you are forgiven EVERYTHING. This is the free gift made available to us by the cross, death, and resurrection of Christ. We are free from guilt, free from the muck of our lives, free from all types of performance. Nothing we could do would ever earn us this freedom, and nothing we could do would ever make us worthy of it. It is completely free, and completely from Gods love and goodness alone. In our freely received forgiveness we can rejoice.
Read Psalm 130
God will redeem us from our sin because he is good and loves us. Once I was freed from my sin of pride and stubbornness with my mother, a weight was lifted off of my heart and mind. I found the happiness in our relationship that I wanted, but it was much purer and better than I had hoped. In forgiveness there is delight and happiness. Every day we need forgiveness because every day our sinful nature tries to take back control from God and we try to fix our own lives with our own good deeds. Notice that Jesus forgives the man his sins and says “take heart, your sins are forgiven” but ALSO lays out that when we pray, we should ask “forgive us our sins.” Forgiveness never ends, and we should never stop asking for it. Every day we have to give our sin and striving back over to God so that we can find his peace.
So I must ask myself, where is my sin and striving today? Where is there something I need to give to God and ask forgiveness? When I do, he will replace my guilt and anxiety with Joy.
Where in your life do you need to ask forgiveness? Where is the weight of your sin too heavy to bear? He wants to take it away. Where is your best effort far short of success? Jesus has taken away all striving, and given salvation freely to each of us, when none of us could earn or deserve it. This is the good news of the Gospel, that Christ died to eliminate the weight of sin and striving, and replace it with his eternal peace and joy.
I am going to read a Psalm and then start some songs. This time is for you to do whatever business you need with God. He wants to wash you cleaner than fresh snow. He wants you to rejoice in his forgiveness. Father, forgive us our sins.
Read Psalm 32
Listen to "Jealous Kind" by Jars of Clay
Labels: forgiveness, sermon
