FAITH LIKE A CHILD - 3
MY GOD FORGIVES ME
December 15, 2013
Have you ever heard someone say, "The only way I'm going to be able to land this promotion is if I employ the work ethic of a 2-year-old?" Nobody?
Or have you ever watched a sporting event and heard the coach say, "The only way we're going to win the National Championship is if we employ the team work of 3 year olds." Never!
Anybody ever say, "I'm in such financial ruin, the only way I'm going to dig myself out of this is if I earn like a child."
You don't hear those things because we don't think those things, right? We would never want to emulate a child in any of these areas; yet in the area of life that’s the most important and eternal, the only way we can experience the things of God according to Scripture, is if we approach Him with the innocence of child-like faith.
This is our advent theme. Each week I’ve taken a look at the words of Jesus from Mark 10. As Jesus was blessing children, His disciples were pushing them away, wanting Jesus to do something better than bless the kids. But, Jesus was all for blessing the kids, and He was really angry at the disciples and He said ~
Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a . . . little child will never enter it.
That's a huge statement, will never enter it.
When you have kids you know they’re going to do things that are going to get them in trouble. I don’t know a home where that does not happen. Well, actually pastors kids are immune on that one. No, not really!
I remember when one of the boys, I don’t remember who, probably both, in fact. They did something wrong, and being a pastor I thought I would be really spiritual in their discipline. Now, I really did do this. . .
Debbie and I talked about the discipline that was going to happen, and then I talked to them and asked if they were guilty of their crime. They agreed they were guilty. I told them what they were going to lose — and they weren’t happy, not at all. But, then I told them they weren’t going to receive what was due them.
I told them they were going to receive grace. I went on to explain what grace means. Grace is when you're given something – like a gift – you didn't deserve. And so I tried to explain to them that grace is really an amazing gift from God. We deserve to be punished for all we’ve done which is wrong, for the sin against God and others, but God offers His grace to us, and we don’t receive the punishment we deserve. And so, while you deserve to be disciplined, I'm not going to do that. I’m going to give you grace.
Kids get grace, they just do, they understand forgiveness because when they get in trouble their world stops, because relationship has been separated from mommy or daddy. And so, they go into time out or they get disciplined and what do they want more than anything else? They just want it to be restored, they want a hug, they want to know that they are loved. And children, they have so much to teach us about this.
A child simply believes, and this is our key thought for today:
That my God forgives me. In fact, I want you to say that with me. Everybody say my God forgives me.
In 1 John 1:9, a passage I’ve commented on so many times, John tells us ~
If we confess our sins, then He (God) is faithful and just and . . .
What will He do?
He . . . will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
That's incredible! If we agree with God — "Yes I blew it, yes I deserve punishment and yes I need your forgiveness," then the Bible says God forgives us and He purifies and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
And so I want to lay a foundation today of how exactly does God forgive and what exactly does that mean? How does God forgive?
When we confess our sin, when we agree with Him, God removes our sin from us.
In Psalm 103, we read this about God:
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him;
12 AS FAR AS THE EAST IS FROM THE WEST, SO FAR DOES HE REMOVE OUR TRANSGRESSIONS FROM US.
Is that cool or what?! When I confess and repent of my sin, God is able to completely remove those transgressions or sins from my record. That's incredible! You really want your mind blown? Not only does God remove your sin completely, but write this one down!!
He forgets your sin. This great all knowing — omniscient God . . . forgets! Look at what Scripture says, in Isaiah 43:25:
25 “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and then what does God do?
. . . and I will not remember your sins.
God knows everything, yet in these situations, when you agree with God that you’ve blown it, that you need Him, when you repent of your sinfulness, God doesn't just remove it from you, but this All-Knowing God makes a choice to limit His memory as it pertains to your sin!
When I grew up and first started working after college as an investment auditor, I had to send in reports to New York with the results of every audit we completed. They all had to be typed. So, we used something called a “typewriter.”
The typewriter had keys you pushed down on and magically and miraculously a metal arm would flip up and on the top of this arm there was a letter associated with the key and it would hit a ribbon that had ink on it and leave the imprint of that letter on a piece of paper. If you're under 30 I might be blowing your mind about what we used in the dark ages of technology. This was one step removed from Gutenberg's printing press.
Now, you couldn’t make a mistake, but if you did, they had this thing called Liquid Paper. Liquid Paper was the size of a fingernail polish bottle and it had a paintbrush on it and you would literally paint Liquid Paper over your mistake, blow on it and then you'd type and you'd move on.
But let me ask you a question; was the mistake still on the paper? Of course. And sometimes you could see it through the liquid paper, especially if you were impatient and didn’t let it dry enough. Most of us think that’s how God deals with our sinfulness. But when we ask God to forgive us, when we ask with sincerity in our heart and soul, God deals with our sin in a very different way.
You stole something . . . and you go to God, "Forgive me, Lord, I repent, I'm turning from my sin!"
"I cheated on my taxes. Lord, I’m really bitter and angry! Lord, I’m lazy. Lord, I’m jealous. Lord, I’m drinking too much. Lord, I’m abusing my body with food or smoking. That list could go on, but we go to God and ask Him, Lord, forgive me, Lord, strengthen me, empower me, help me.
What does God do? He deletes and deletes . . .
He deletes your sins from His memory. I’m not sure how that happens. I’m not sure how you can cause yourself to remember my sins no more. We remember, but God causes Himself to not remember. We become whiter than snow. Is that cool or what?!
And kids live this way. It's immediate and it's simple and it affects their lives as though this were true.
I see it in my kids, and I know you’ve seen it in yours. Joshua and Zachary will get angry at one another. They’ll argue about something. And there are times I’ve told them, “Do not talk to one another. Pretend the other one doesn’t exist.” That’s great parenting, I know. But you know what happens, a few minutes later they’re having a blast and laughing together. One minute you’re ready to kill, the next minute, you’re laughing.
And you know what else kids are great at? They are great at letting go of the past. I know there are those times when I’ve gotten mad at the boys and they go to their rooms. It’s not too long before they’re coming out wanting to hang out with me. I mean I just lit into them, and now they want to hang out. That blows me away!
We adults don't do that. If you’re mad at me, and I’m mad at you, I’m not going near you and you’re not coming near me. We’re going to hold our ground, I’m going to wait for you to come to me, and you’re waiting for me to come to you. So, neither one of us budges.
But kids get it, what do they understand that we don't? Yet, we know the truth that says God removes our sin, and then He forgets it. Then why aren’t we free? Why are we living in this prison of condemnation? And here's the key:
Children live under grace. They live in the culture of grace. Grownups have learned to live under The Law. Kids don’t worry about the law, we do, they don’t, they live in grace, we struggle with it.
You see, instead of living under the law and following all 613 Jewish rules, we now have to follow 2 laws which are all about love, and we experience grace in our love relationships. We love the Lord our God with all our heart, spirit, mind and body. And we love our neighbor as ourselves. That’s the law we need to follow today.
It’s what we follow because we have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Or it could be, you know, "I'm not as bad as the person sitting three rows down from me. So God, maybe because in comparison you won't really notice my sin, or I feel kinda bad about the things I've done and so I'm going to give an extra five dollars today at church, or I'm going to pay for somebody's lunch in the drive-thru line behind me to make myself feel better."
All of that’s Law, it's all Law. And frankly it's completely unbiblical. And that’s what’s keeping us from experiencing the life-changing reality of God's grace.
So how do we do experience God's grace? For us to live under God’s grace — it’s the life changing, constant awareness of what I have been given in light of what I deserve; every morning, every hour, every moment. “God, you have given me forgiveness in light of the fact of I deserve hell.”
It’s the life-changing constant day after day awareness of what God's given us in respect to what we deserve. Remember Grace is receiving what we do not deserve.
We struggle with receiving God’s grace partly because we struggle with receiving. I said that last week and it’s still true this week. We tell God, this debt you paid for me is way too much, so God, why not give me some grace, and I’ll work out the rest on my own.
But here's the truth ~~ God's grace plus anything you bring is not God's grace. God's grace is fully sufficient, it’s an "I'm going to pay the debt in full or I'm not going to pay it at all!" And not one of you can add one thing to the grace of the cross of Jesus Christ for your sin! There's no co-signing, there's not mutual participation; it is a paid in full gift.
When Jesus was on the cross He said “It is finished.” The Greek word is TETELESTAI! And what Jesus said is really, really a big so what! You see, when Jesus said this, He was telling us His work is totally and completely finished. In other words, what Jesus set out to do, He has now accomplished.
The debt we owed has now been cancelled. It’s like having a million dollar debt and having the creditor relieve you of your debt, writing on your bill, PAID IN FULL. You receive what you did not deserve.
"It is finished!" At the cross, God kept His promise to crush satan through the death of His Son. The power of sin and death was crushed once and for all time.
"It is finished!" Jesus Christ's finished work on the cross forever made our work to satisfy and please God, and to be reconciled to God, totally unnecessary and sinful.
The sin debt I owe God was and is paid in full by my Lord and Savior, my Master and King, Jesus Christ, when He shed His blood on the cross on my behalf! IT...IS...FINISHED!
