From Fear to Forgiveness to Faith
Acts 2:14, 22-32 I Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31
After all the excitement and confusion of Easter morning…(the women saying an angel told them Jesus had risen, Peter and John checking out the empty tomb, but the crowd spreading the word that his body had been stolen) there was a lot of fear around.
The people who wanted Him dead feared He was alive and the people who wanted Him alive feared He was dead!
The disciples were huddled together in a room to sort out the details and deal with their disillusionment. They thought he would be king, not killed. They thought he would conquer, not be crucified. They were afraid the Jewish leaders would come and get them next because they had been his closest friends and might still be planning anarchy.
Then all of a sudden Jesus was standing in their midst!
He offered peace to them. (He could tell they were afraid!)
Suppose you had served twelve people for three years.You had cared for them and taught them. When they found themselves perishing on an angry sea you came and rescued them. They had told you how much they loved you and would even die for you. But then when the pressure got on they wouldn’t even pray with you. You asked them to pray but instead they slept.
When the authorities came to arrest you, you made sure they were safe and not arrested. You were about to be brutally beaten and crucified. One had betrayed you. One openly denied even knowing you. All of them have ran away and left you to deal with the problem alone. How would you feel about friends like that?
After your victory over the enemy would your first words to these people be, “Peace be with you?”
I think I would probably say something like this, “A fine bunch of friends you people are. With friends like you, who needs enemies? I’ve had it with all of you and doubt I will ever be able to trust any of you again. I hope you know how deeply you have hurt me.”
(They knew they needed forgiveness)
But Jesus was not angry with them for abandoning him. He did not scold them for their unbelief. He simply forgave them and offered to show them his scars so that they would be certain He was the same Jesus in bodily form as before.
Then again he offered them peace and said they must go in His same Spirit and make peace with others.
“If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” seems difficult to understand at first.
God does not forgive people's sins because we do so, nor does he withhold forgiveness because we do, but we are the way the good news is to be shared.
If you tell people about God’s forgiveness you are extending forgiveness to them. If they respond they are indeed forgiven. However, if you don't tell them, you are NOT extending forgiveness to them.
We preach a message of forgiveness based upon God’s promise that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and if people receive this message they receive forgiveness. If they reject this message they are not forgiven.
2 Cor 5:18-20 says, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”
Jesus wanted the disciples to realize that everyone needs forgiveness and they must carry his message to the world by making peace and practicing forgiveness!
This is the commissioning by the Holy Spirit they received that day. And we are called to do the same. We’ve got to pass it on!
I read a story about a mother who heard her son screaming and went in the room to discover his baby sister had been pulling his hair. She explained that his sister didn’t understand that it hurt him. As soon as she left the room the baby sister began screaming and when the mother turned around the boy was pulling her hair and he said, “Now she does.”
Sometimes we forget the pain and suffering of the cross that Jesus endured for us. His scars are there so we will remember that Jesus really does know how it feels.
What crime is worse than killing Jesus?
Did the Romans kill him, did the leaders of the Jews kill him, or did we each kill him by our sins?
In Mel Gibson’s famous film, The Passion of Christ, it is Mel’s own hand that drives the nails into Christ’s hands and feet.
He understands, we are guilty!
In our reading in Acts it says Jesus was crucified by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge. He was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
Sin demands a sacrifice, and Jesus went to the cross to be the sacrifice for every horrible thing that anybody ever did to anybody.
Before the cross everyone is guilty and after the cross everyone can be forgiven! It is the great PLUS SIGN throughout eternity.
Jesus made our atonement possible. Think of that word as “at-one-ment” to understand the difference in our sins being paid for versus our sins being forgiven.
Only God could make the sacrifice of the sinless Christ erase the record of our sin and make us “at one” with Him again. And because that has happened we can offer peace to others.
Atonement is based upon the physical death penalty for sin being paid and satisfying the justice of a Holy God.
Hear the good news: God is not mad at you!
You are justified…your record is clean.
It is “just-as-if-I’d” never sinned.
We know that no matter how sorry we are that we did something to hurt someone and no matter how much we apologize, we are still at that person’s mercy to be forgiven of it.
Forgiveness is based upon mercy, which is a Spiritual heart attitude not to hold guilt against another. That is why we have continual cleansing from our sins as long as we live here on earth. We can ask for forgiveness and receive it based upon the fact that God loves us with all his heart.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Much is made of the fact that Thomas doubted until he saw Jesus for himself. Actually all of the disciples believed because of their personal experience with the risen Lord.
John says He did many miracles and signs that they were witnesses of that are not recorded in the Bible.
But Jesus says “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
That means US! That is OUR blessing from the risen Lord!
We believe the Word of God as it has been faithfully passed down to us by His witnesses.
I am told that the resurrection is mentioned over 100 times in the New Testament. I didn’t verify that with Google, because what difference does it make if it is mentioned 1 time or 100 times? You either believe it or you don’t! You accept it on faith.
The Gospel of John shows us that there are different kinds of faith, and that faith comes in different ways and with differing intensities to different people.
John believed upon seeing the empty tomb. Mary believed when the Lord called her name. The disciples believed when they saw the risen Lord.
People have differing needs and find various routes to faith.
Some have supernatural encounters of some type which cause them to believe. Others have near-death experiences and believe they get glimpses of heaven.
But most people have simpler conversion experiences through hearing the word preached or hearing someone’s testimony or through regular reading of the Bible until the truth of Jesus becomes real and personal to them.
I choose to stand with Peter and praise the Lord for his great mercy of giving me a living hope and an inheritance of salvation that is being kept in heaven for me until the time when it will be revealed and I will see the end result of my faith, the salvation of my soul.
It is a great mystery but it’s not a myth!
Jesus showed himself alive so that we would believe he was really the Messiah (the Savior), the Son of God and that by believing we might have life through His name.
He is EVERYTHING, EXTRAORDINARY, and ETERNAL, and truly our living Lord and Savior.
Easter should make a difference in our lives because we are living in the presence of the Lord with the peace of the Lord fulfilling the purpose of the Lord through the power of the Lord.
Our lives should be filled with the hope of our own resurrection. (Made like Him, like Him we rise).
We live now and we will live in a new immortal body for eternity.
Receive the good news: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again!
May the peace of Christ be with you!
