Forgiveness Of Sin

Charlie Brown is quite certain that Lucy's offer to hold the football for him to kick

will end just like the other attempts. She will pull the ball away just as she kicks, and he

will end up flat on his back. She assures him that she is a changed person and that he can

trust her. He accepts Lucy at her word and comes running to kick the ball. But sure

enough, as he kicks she does it again and pulls the ball away. He flies through the air and

smashes to the ground, and Lucy bends over Charlie to say, "I admire you, Charlie

Brown. You have such faith in human nature."

Poor Charlie is made to look like a fool, but the fact is, followers of Christ are

expected to be fools like this for Christ's sake. Jesus made it perfectly plain that the

practice of forgiveness was to be perpetual. In Matt. 18:21 Peter comes to Jesus and

asks, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as 7times?"

In verse 22 Jesus answers, "I do not say to you 7 times, but 70 times 7." We can

only look at such radical teaching and say in the words of Lucy, "Lord, you have such

faith in human nature."

Jesus not only taught radical forgiveness, but He practiced it. We see this in these

first words He spoke from the cross. In these first of His final words He expresses a

forgiveness far greater than the 70 times 7 that He expects us to express. Forgiving

those who so cruelly crucified Him not only revealed His faith in human nature, but it

opened up to the whole world an insight into His nature as the Son of God.

We do not understand God, or the Gospel, until we grasp the significance of

forgiveness of sin. God's plan cannot be fulfilled without it, and we cannot be saved

without it, nor can we live the Christian life without it. Forgiveness is not a subject out on

the edge of Christian truth. It is at the very center. Maybe those at the cross did not

hear Jesus in His prayer of forgiveness, but they heard the Gospel of forgiveness later.

In Acts 5:30-31 Peter says to the leaders of Israel, "The God of our fathers raise Jesus

whom you killed by hanging Him on a tree. God exalted Him at His right hand as leader

and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins."

The Gospel of forgiveness was the message of the early church. God commissioned

the Apostle Paul to preach the message of forgiveness of sin to the Gentiles also. Paul

speaking before King Agrippa tells of the message he received from Christ when He was

saved. The Lord was sending him to the Gentiles, and Acts 26:18 has Jesus saying, "To

open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan

to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are

sanctified by faith in me." Note how forgiveness of sin is a key factor in the Gospel. It

was a major message that Jesus wanted spread into all the world.

When Paul preached in Antioch where many, both Jews and Gentiles responded to the

Gospel, he concluded that fruitful sermon with this great news in Acts 13:38-39, "Let it

be known to you therefore, brethren, that through this man forgiveness of sins is

proclaimed to you, and by Him everyone who believes is freed from everything from

which you could not be freed by the law of Moses." Forgiveness of sin was the key

message in Paul's preaching and writing. He writes in Eph. 1:7, "In Him we have

redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of His

grace." In Col. 1:14 he ends his statement of things to be thankful for with, "In whom we

have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

We could go on and on showing how the whole of Christian theology has been

influenced by the truth of forgiveness of sin. Those words of Jesus from the cross,

"Father forgive them," laid a foundation on which the church has been building ever

since. We want to examine what forgiveness means to us. First of all,

I. FORGIVENESS MEANS FREEDOM.

We just read of how Paul said that forgiveness in Christ frees us from everything

from which the law of Moses could not set us free. If the Son makes you free, you arefree indeed, and the Son makes us free through forgiveness. Where there is no

forgiveness of sin, there is only bondage. Much, if not most, of the world not only lacks