Dropping The F (Forgiveness) Bomb

Dropping the F-Bomb!

How many of you know that when you receive Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, you receive forgiveness of your sin?

If we are going to learn to be more forgiving and to forgive others, we need to first know that Jesus has forgiven us.

When I was younger, I remember running away from home. I had had enough of my father’s rules and regulations. I decided that I could make it on my own. I could take care of myself. Well, when I got to the end of the block, I remembered was hungry, and so I went back home.

But lets rewind the tape for a while. If you had stopped me on the road and asked me who my father was, I might have told you, “Father? I don’t have a father. I don’t need a father. It’s just me, myself, and I.” I’d have shown my anger and hostility toward my father.

Yet it would be only moments later that I would sit at the same table with the father I had just disowned. Did he know of my insurrection? I think he did. Dads usually do. Was I still his son? Apparently so.

My parents were still there for me. No one else was sitting in my place.

Had you gone and spoken to my dad after you had spoken to me and asked, “Mr. Tamasaka, your son says he has no need of a father. Do you still consider him your son?” What do you think he would have said?

I don’t have to guess what his answer would have been. He called himself my father even when I didn’t call myself his son. His commitment to me was greater than my commitment to him.

When we receive Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, we receive FORGIVENESS of our sin.

Do you need forgiveness of sin?

-----------------------------------

LOOK AT 10 COMMANDMENTS

How many have sinned? All.

LET’S DO AN INFORMAL SURVEY. How many of you have heard of the 10 commandments?

Let’s see how we fare when we hold up our own goodness in light of the 10 commandments.

How many of you have ever lied?

All. What does that make you? A liar.

How many of you have ever stolen anything?

C’mon, you already admitted that you are a liar. All. What does that make you? A thief.

How many of you have ever been so angry at someone that you hated them? Jesus says that when you hate someone you commit murder in your heart. That makes you a lying, thieving, murderer at heart. In order for you to be made right with God, you need someone to pay the price for your sin. That is what Jesus did. He paid the penalty for your sin, and gives you salvation and forgiveness for your sin.

-----------------------------------

Romans 5:8 says, “But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”

Then the Holy Spirit tells us to do something that can be really hard to do. He tells us not only to receive His forgiveness. He wants us to forgive those around us.

I don’t like most sermons I heard about forgiveness because it feels like I am supposed to be a doormat. I feel like everyone is supposed to run all over me as I sing a song of praise to Jesus.

This is what makes the Gospel move. This thing called forgiveness, is what the Gospel is all about. Does forgiveness mean to just let bad people do bad things to us? Just let the Lord take care of it?

Forgiveness is not weakness. It is the ultimate path toward power in Christ!

The people that God has forgiven WILL forgive others.

-----------------------------------

James Garfield was a lay preacher and principal of his denominational college. They say he was ambidextrous and could simultaneously write Greek, with one hand and Latin with the other.

In l880, he was elected president of the United States, but after only six months in office, he was shot in the back with a revolver.

He never lost consciousness. At the hospital, the doctor probed the wound with his little finger to seek the bullet. He couldn't find it, so he tried a silver-tipped probe. Still he couldn't locate the bullet.

They took Garfield back to Washington, D.C. Despite the summer heat, they tried to keep him comfortable. He was growing very weak. Teams of doctors tried to locate the bullet, probing the wound over and over.

In desperation they asked Alexander Graham Bell, who was working on a little device called the telephone, to see if he could locate the metal inside the president's body. He came, he sought, and he too failed.