Accepting Forgiveness
Let’s open our bibles this morning to Psalm 103. In this Psalm, David is praising God for his tremendous love for His people. We’ll come back to this in just a minute.
Now, we all know that David wasn’t perfect. Let’s take a look at one of his most famous stories. One day he sent his men off to battle while he stayed behind. He sees a woman named Bathsheba bathing on a rooftop and sends for her. They lay together and the woman becomes pregnant. So David sends for her husband, Uriah, to come home so that he can try to get him to sleep with his wife Bathsheba to cover up what he had done. Instead, Uriah sleeps at the door to the king’s house because the men were in the field and he felt that he should not be so privileged. David tries again, but Uriah still refuses to go home to lay with his wife. So, David sends Uriah back to the battlefront with a note sent to Joab saying that Uriah should be move to the front line of the fiercest battle so that he would be killed. This is done and word gets back to David that Uriah is now dead. So, David sends for Bathsheba and marries her.
That is the shortened version of the story, and there is more to it, but I wanted to use this as an illustration of something very bad that David had done. He committed adultery, got the woman pregnant, tried to cover it up, and when that failed, he had the woman’s husband killed and then went and married her.
But, we know that David is also known as a “Man after God’s own Heart.” Why is that? Read Psalm 103 and you’ll have the answer. For now, we’re going to look at verse 12. “As far as the East is from the West, So far has he removed our transgressions from us.”
A couple of months ago, I was in here listening to Ken preach and one of the things that he was talking about was how God forgives us of our sins and casts them away as far as the East is from the West; as far as the depths of the deepest ocean. Now I ask you today, how many of you are out there in the ocean with our fishing nets and poles hanging on to the guilt of sin? How many are still carrying around the guilt of something you’ve done that you haven’t allowed yourselves to be forgiven for?
How many people have ever carried around a loaded rucksack? Something so loaded down you could hardly pick it up. How easy would it be for you to run a marathon with something like that on your back? Not very easy, right?
But for some reason, that is what a lot of us are trying to do today. We are carrying around guilt for one thing or another in our lives and it just weighs us down. God doesn’t want that for us! He wants us to run the good race, right?
One of the problems that we as Christians have is accepting forgiveness. We can offer it to others, we can ask God for it for ourselves, but often times we never forgive ourselves or allow ourselves to be forgiven.
Sometimes what we do is we come into the sanctuary on a Sunday morning and we worship, we pray, we feel God’s presence and allow him to touch us. We ask for His forgiveness and thank him knowing that we’ve been forgiven. We drop our burdens and we feel renewed. Then what happens is the service concludes and we start heading toward the door. We shake some hands, talk a little bit with our friends, hang out in the cafeteria and have some cake and coffee. Then we start to leave and just as we get to the door, we reach down and pick up the burden that we just dropped off. A lot of times, we don’t do it on purpose; we do it out of habit. We are so used to living with the burden, with the guilt, that we don’t allow ourselves to be relieved of it. We drag it right out the door with us and we begin another weeklong journey of just trying to make it to the next Sunday without adding any additional weight to our pack.
Brothers and Sisters, that is NOT how God wants us to live; that is NOT what God wants for our lives. What we need to do is accept and trust that God has forgiven us. We need that in our lives if we are going to be able to step out into what God has called us to do. Matthew 11:28 tells us “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
Do you think that David would have been the man we know him as now if he had continued to carry the burden for what he had done? I don’t think so. Something like that would eat at you and tear you apart. Instead, David repented, begged for forgiveness, then rejoiced in that forgiveness that he received from God. He rejoiced knowing that he was forgiven and he rejoiced because he knew and experienced God’s love and mercy in his life. God then continued to bless him and use him throughout his life.
One of the fundamentals of Christianity is the belief that Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross to save us from sin; he died so that each one of us could be forgiven. His death, his blood was the price that was required so that we could enter into the gates of heaven. Guess what? He rose again! He defeated and set us free from the power of sin! He set us free from the guilt and the shame! Hallelujah! Amen!
Everybody, please turn to Hebrews 10, where we’ll be reading verses 10-23. I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation.
“For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.
Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.
And the Holy Spirit also testifies that this is so. For he says,
“This is the new covenant I will make with my people on that day, says the LORD: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”
Then he says, “I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.”
And when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices.
And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.
Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.”
(Hebrews 10:10-23 NLT-SE)
God has forgiven you! What we need to do beyond that is live in that promise and allow ourselves to be forgiven. We need to lay our sins and burdens at the foot of the cross and walk lighter. We need to remove the weight from our rucksacks so we can win the race! And not just until we get to the back door; we need to allow them to be cast away without looking back; we need to allow them to sink to the bottom of the ocean without hanging on to them. We need to walk in the power and freedom that Jesus himself died to give us.
Romans 4:25 tells us: “He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.”
The enemy will try to tell you that you are not worthy; that what you have done is unforgivable. Don’t believe that for a second. Don’t allow him a foothold in your life! God needs you to walk unhindered by condemnation.
Let’s look at another example in the Bible - anybody ever heard of a guy named Paul? He was first known throughout the lands as Saul. What was he known for? Hunting down and persecuting Christians wherever he could find them. Not a very nice guy if you happened to be a Christian, right?
But one day as he was traveling to Damascus to continue his persecution, Jesus came to him and Saul was never the same. He came to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior. God then used Saul, later Paul, to spread Christianity throughout the region. Paul became a major player in the Christian movement. Do you think he would have been able to do that had he not allowed himself to be forgiven for the persecution he had been so fervently involved with? No way! Instead he stepped out in the grace and forgiveness of Christ and began to help change the world and share God’s love and message throughout the region.
Isn’t that what we are here for, too? To share the message of Christ and allow others to witness Christ in us?
So take the opportunity today to once and for all drop that burden and leave it behind. Remember and dwell in the joy that is in Jesus. Don’t allow the enemy that foothold in your life; remove the shackles, remove the chains, run the race.
