Amazing Forgiveness
Lets begin by looking at Romans 6:12-16:
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!
16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?
The relationship between grace and holiness is a delicate balance. If your life misses this balance, you will struggle throughout your spiritual walk. If you lose sight of grace or neglect the purpose of God’s grace, you will carry the burden of working to measure up on your back or the weight of guilt on your chest. Symptoms of missing grace are legalism, spiritual burn out, or an unhealthy feeling of unworthiness that drives people away from God and into the dungeon of guilt. Symptoms of a life missing holiness is a disregard for God’s purposes, free-fall indulgences into sin and a false view that forgiveness on the cross is a license to sin freely. Both these views are equally unhealthy and both will rob anyone of freedom in Christ and the abundant life God designed for each person’s life.
Can we fall beyond the reach of His grace? Can we use up all of our chances? Can we freely sin without fear of being held in account? Will Christians be judged for their sins? It is vital that we understand the answers to these questions and understand the principles of scripture that answer these questions. I think we must first understand what makes us righteous before God, understand how God produces fruit in our lives and we must understand God’s plan for dealing with our sins.
What makes us righteous?
To understand what makes us righteous, we have to understand what does not make us righteous. Good works and good deeds cannot produce righteousness. Isaiah 64:6 gives the best explanation when the Bible says that all our righteous acts are like vile, filthy rages before God. The Bible uses the strongest terminology possible here to make this point. The intent is clear, nothing we can do can get beyond our sin and therefore we can never earn God’s favor by good deeds. Righteousness is not something that we can create, but it must be imputed or credited into our account. Only the righteousness that reflects the holiness of God is acceptable before God, therefore, only the righteousness from God can be acceptable to God. Only when we are covered by His righteousness can we become acceptable to God. Look at Isaiah 61:10,
I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, My soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
God literally wraps His righteousness around us, covers us by His grace and clothes us with His salvation. If you don’t feel like you are clean enough to come before God you are on the right track. It is those who don’t know they are covered by sin that are on dangerous ground. Salvation is not to the godly, but the ungodly. The Bible says that Jesus died for the ungodly. Jesus said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."(Mark 2:17). The irony of this statement is that Jesus addressed this to the religious leaders who criticized Him for reaching out to the sinners that were scorned by the culture. It is ironic because those who believed they did not need repentance were consistently warned of God’s judgment unless they also repented. The point is that we must first see that we are ungodly and that we can’t do anything to change it. It is only when we see our inability to measure up to God’s standard that we are able to see our need for God’s grace. Only when we see the failure of our own attempts at righteousness will we be willing to humble ourselves and allow God to clothe us with His righteousness and give us His salvation.
Philippians 3:8-9 tells us that we must first count all our ways as trash and then be found in Him (Jesus Christ), not having our own righteousness from our own efforts but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. We become righteous when we see our sins, recognize that we are indeed helpless to change our lives and then exchange our lives for the life God has created for us in Christ. The Bible tells us that God is merciful and forgives but takes vengeance upon our deeds. Because the wages of sin is death, only the perfect sacrifice of Jesus’ death on the cross could pay that penalty. So Jesus paid our debt by taking the debt of sin in our place and through faith in His completed work, we become the righteousness of God through Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Because of this payment, the Bible tells us that if we will receive Christ, we are given the right to become the children of God and heirs to the kingdom of heaven with Him. Righteousness only comes from God and is invested in us through faith in Christ.
We must abide in Christ to produce fruit.
Just as righteousness must come from God, so does fruit. Fruit is the goodness that God produces in your life. The most common reference to fruit is the fruits of the Spirit and fruits of your labors. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There is a limited ability to gain some of these through human efforts, but we can never reach the level God demands. For example, a person may be known to be kind to others, but our humanity only allows these things to go to the point where we receive benefits from kindness. I may be able to show love to others, but at the point where there is no return on my investment, my love fades. Human love always loves out of a hope of gratification. Even self-giving love is based out of either a desire to feel good about one’s self or a hope that we will be loved in return. I have shared this before, but it is worth reviewing here as well. There are three types of emotions that we translate into the word love. There is agape, philia, and eros. Philia is warm affection or friendship. Eros is passion. Agape is unconditional self-giving love. The Bible never commands us to use philia or eros because we don’t have to be commanded to use these that are emotionally driven. Both of these are self-serving. I love my friends because they show me friendship. Passion is given in return for passion. Agape is given without any conditions. Agape is love based on truth. I love God’s word because I know it is right. When I can’t see the benefit of God’s commands, I love them anyway because I trust God and have confidence in His plan. Agape requires action. I can’t love God without acting upon that love. That is why the Bible repeatedly says that if you love God you will keep His commands. If you love God you will seek and do His will. To love/agape God and to not follow is a complete contradiction. Only God can produce agape in our life. Agape is a fruit of the Spirit and is not produced outside of Christ.
All good things come from God. God invests His power in our lives when we submit and obey. I can have peace when everything is going well, but when my world gets shaken that peace will fail. The peace that God produces as fruit in our lives will not fail. God’s peace is the peace that surpasses all human understanding and will guard our hearts and minds even when human reasoning says we should crumble. Only by equipping ourselves through keeping God’s word will we be prepared when life hits the rough waters. God does not promise to exempt us, He promises to give us peace during trials and hardships and promises to use these for our good. If we are not in His will now, we won’t have peace when the storms arise. As you follow Christ, you will begin to see God produce these spiritual gifts in your life. God will also show you areas that prevent growth. If you don’t allow God to prune away the dead growth you can’t see Him produce perfection in your life.
They key is to abide. Let’s look at John 15:1-8
1 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
5 "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
8 "By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples."
Unless you abide in Christ, you will not have a fruitful life and experience the abundant life God has designed for you. To abide is to have a consistent ongoing relationship. It means to walk with Christ and to grow in Christ. It means to let God shape you and take away the dead branches that drain your life. I have a friend who decided to start growing a vineyard. I was amazed at how much care and work this takes. If old growth is allowed to remain, it will literally drain the life out of the vine. Grapes are produced abundantly on the new growth and the best producing vines are the ones that are pruned effectively each year. Just like a vine, if God allowed us to stagnate we would become complacent and unfruitful. If we detach ourselves from Christ, we will wither and die. Only those who remain in Him and allow His life to flow through them will produce fruit. The secret to producing fruit is not to seek growth, but to remain in Christ. You don’t have to know what God’s will is. You don’t need special abilities or talents. If you are seeking Christ and clinging to Him, putting His word in your heart and allowing God to shape you, lead you and use you according to His purposes, you will have a fruitful life. It is an absolute promise, if you abide in Him and you allow Him to abide in you, you will be produce fruit. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you can or cannot do. It isn’t you who produces fruit, it is Christ. That leaves no room for inferiority and no room for pride.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
The two things that affect our abiding relationship is our will, choosing to walk or not to walk with Christ because we love the world, and learning how to deal with sin in our lives. It is God’s mercy that helps us to overcome sin and not be overcome by sin. He gives us the power to overcome the despair that sin dumps on our back and He gives us the power to live free from indulging and living in bondage to sin. We must walk between the lines of grace and accountability. In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus said,
13 " Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.
14 "Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Part of walking that narrow path is understanding the unity of grace and accountability. If you lose sight of accountability and obedience, you will be drawn into a false idea that grace is a license to sin. If you lose sight of grace and only see accountability you will have the weight of the law on your chest and will either give up in discouragement, or fall into legalism. Both of these errors rob us of joy and the abundant life that flows from following God’s purposes. To understand the balance of God’s design you must know the word. To understand the principles of God, the Bible has to be taken and examined as a whole. A lot of times the apostles were writing to churches who understood their teaching and they expounded on what was already known. So to fully understand biblical interpretation you must compare scripture with scripture and know the whole counsel of God. It is when we pick and choose passages that fit our doctrines that we fall into error. With enough twisting, you can justify anything. But a man or woman of truth will know the word and “rightly divide the word of truth”. To illustrate this I’ll use a humorous twist my grandfather always shared. This only works in the King James Version so the KJV only people will enjoy this one. In the book of Acts we are warned against women drivers. In Acts 27 the Bible states:
Acts 27:
15b we let her drive.
17b and so were driven.
20b all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.
Of course this doesn’t prove anything, but it is how many cults and false teachers spread error. The Bible was not written with chapters and verses and anyone who builds their belief system by taking scripture out of context of the rest of scripture will be in error. Even sincere error is still error. With this in mind, lets look at the whole counsel of God to see how we approach and overcome sin. We have already looked at how we are made righteous, now lets look at the balance between obedience and grace.
Where sin abounds, grace more abounds
God’s grace is deep and His mercy is extended to everyone - including the vilest sinner. You can’t go beyond the reach of God’s grace. I don’t believe that your chances for repentance are ever exhausted until you depart from this life. God did say, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man”. Only God knows where that point is but if we still see our need, we are not hardened beyond reach. Though God’s grace is always available, we can get to the point when we are too hardened to see it. Grace always forces a response. You cannot see God’s grace and remain neutral. Grace either makes us tender and draws us into repentance or hardens our heart. If you look at those whose hearts were hardened by God, it was through grace and God’s offer of mercy that they became hardened. Pharaoh is a good illustration of this principle. Ten times God showed Pharaoh mercy and ten times Pharaoh recognized the mercy and considered repenting. He even promised to obey, but each time he turned from God’s mercy and was hardened.
The same applies to each of us. God shows us mercy and the unmerited grace that offers forgiveness and a new life God has designed for each of us. When we look at that grace, we either become broken and tender or our hearts begin to harden. I know old men who are dying and state they know they are going to hell, but they won’t yield. Why? I believe it is because they have rejected grace so many times that they are so hardened that it doesn’t mean anything to them anymore. Even with the knowledge of facing God without mercy, they still reject mercy. Each time we see God’s grace toward us, we will become hardened or we will surrender. I have had people tell me they are empty inside and miserable, but they don’t want God. They would rather cling to misery than to submit to mercy because they are hardened.
The Bible says that where sin abounded, grace even more abounded. This means that God’s grace is sufficient to overcome any sin and He is able to set free any sinner. It doesn’t matter how much sin abounds in their life, God’s grace is able to abundantly forgive any life. This passage does not mean that we can sin more to receive more grace as we will see shortly. Jesus Christ was manifest in the flesh so that He could become the perfect sacrifice. The Bible says that God reconciled us to Himself by pouring our sins upon Christ on our behalf. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
That forgiveness does not end. Part of the growing process of living in this Christ-centered lifestyle is learning how to let God overcome your faults. You cannot change your nature, you can only surrender yourself to God and allow Him to do it. This is where most people fall from grace. They expect to be free from temptations once they give their lives to Christ. When they sin, they are ashamed and run from God or they become driven by the desire to make it up to God and try to adhere to strict rules and works to please God. Works did not make us righteous and did not give us salvation, nor can they earn forgiveness as part of our lifestyle. Works are important, but they are a natural result of following God with our whole heart. They can’t put us into God’s will. Works come into our path when we are following God’s will. The problem with sin is that we all have it. It is a subtle attack that draws us in by small compromises that seem harmless until we realize that we have been lured off the godly path and are suddenly overwhelmed by the desires that we swore we would never do again. The Bible says that we are tempted when we are drawn by our own desires and enticed. Whoever controls your desires controls you. We must let God crucify our flesh. Crucifying the flesh means that we allow God to prune away those sinful desires and we put our focus on God’s purposes and He becomes our delight and our desire.
One of the two biggest traps people fall into is that when they sin, they feel rejected by God. One thing we must always remember is that God does not despise you, He rejects your sin. The grace of God overcomes every sin and our faith in Christ makes us righteous. When we sin, we repent, and trust God not only to forgive our sins, but we must also learn how to trust God’s ways. We sin because of unbelief. The devil presents the world as the fulfillment of our needs and we must reject God’s promises and leave God’s plan to reach out to sin. When we do sin, we have the option of restoring our relationship and setting our focus back on heavenly things. 1 John 2:1 says that we have these principles so that we do not sin, but if we do sin we have an advocate with the Father through Jesus Christ. Look at 1 John 1:
6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
This is a powerful passage. The first thing we have to understand is that when we are walking with Jesus as part of our lifestyle, and we sin, we are cleansed and forgiven when we confess and seek forgiveness through repentance. We know repentance is a part of the process because we must be walking with Him. Forgiveness and repentance can’t be separated. To repent we have to abandon the part of our lifestyle that draws us into temptation. When we repent and restore that relationship of love, God keeps NO record of wrongs. Look at Psalm 103:
11 For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;
12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
When we go north, we will eventually meet south, but east and west shall never meet. If we fear Him (honor His ways and walk in His will) and we sin, we can repent and restore that fellowship with Him. If I think I am running out of chances, I have forgotten how God’s forgiveness works. Once I repent, that sin is forgiven and there is not a checklist that keeps a record of the number of times I have sinned. Each time is the first time and our attitude must be that it will be the last time. There has to be a focus on reaching out for God’s ways or we have not abandoned sin. If we haven’t abandoned, we haven’t repented and haven’t gotten out of the sin we want to be forgiven for.
Sin draws us out of our ongoing relationship with Jesus, but when we see that we have sinned, we seek to be restored and because He is faithful, our restoration is guaranteed. It is not our perfection, but His faithfulness. These passages are written as promises to those who belong to Christ. Even those who seek Him will sin. It is a part of the Christian lifestyle to strive toward perfection. We sin, we fall and we repent and we continue learning how to surrender our flesh to Jesus so He can crucify it. Our flesh will fight us till the end, but we should be seeking to overcome through Christ. If there is not progress, we are not seeking His will. If we think we are sinless, we deceive ourselves and make Him to be a liar because it is God who stated that we all sin.
If you commit the same sin a million times, God’s forgiveness is available a million times. Spiritually we are all weak and only by clinging to Him can we obtain strength. The enemy seeks to lure you away just far enough to capitalize on your weakness. It is subtle and each time we allow our eyes to wander, our feet go in that direction. The greater sin is not trusting in God’s forgiveness that is offered when we do sin. If we truly walk by faith, we will surrender our sin and the desire that drew us toward sin to Christ and receive the forgiveness through His blood that was shed for us that cleanses every sin – past, present and future. This is an absolute promise to those who walk in fellowship with Jesus Christ. Those who allow guilt to drive them away must first have the faith to believe God’s promise of forgiveness and then submit to it.
Whoever abides in Him does not sin.
The risk of teaching the grace of God is that people will misunderstand and try to twist it into a license to sin. Indeed if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse, but we also cannot neglect the qualifying statement before this promise. If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in the darkness we lie…but if we walk in the light as He is in the light, it is then that we have the promise that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses our sins. We can’t neglect the principle that God’s promises are claimed through obedience.
Look at 1 John 3:
6 Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.
7 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.
8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
10 In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.
11 For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another,
Let’s take a close look at verse 6. Whoever abides or literally is born of God, does not sin. Also literally translated, the phrase ‘does not’ comes from the Greek word ‘poieo’ which means to abide, tarry, commit to or celebrate. Because you belong to God, His seed remains in you. When we invite Christ into our heart, we become the temple of the Holy Spirit and God puts His Spirit inside you. No longer will you be able to celebrate in sin, because you are now a child of God. The Holy Spirit is grieved by sin and you will never be comfortable in a sinful lifestyle again. In 1 John 2 we are told that this is how that we know that we know Him. If we say we know Him and refuse to walk in His ways, we are lying to ourselves. If you belong to God you will be under conviction if you are living a lifestyle opposed to God. If sin does not bother you, you need to examine your life and determine if you belong to God. God always gives you the chance to deal with your sin and if you don’t He will. Hebrews 12 tells us that the Lord chastens those who belong to Him and that we should not be discouraged by it, but encouraged. If my kids are doing something that will cause them pain or problems, I will intervene. I act not only because it is my responsibility, but because I love them. If I didn’t love them, I would let them follow every whim regardless of the consequences. Even if they are doing what everyone else is doing, it does not matter. The kids of others are not my focus. The same is true with God. If you can live without feeling remorse and without concern for God’s chastening, examine your life to see if you belong to the neighbor and not God.
Sometimes we mistake the patience of God as a tolerance to sin. The fact is that God loves us but hates sin. If we love God we will also hate sin. God is patient and He lovingly shapes our lives and perfects us so that we will one day stand before Him as a treasure fashioned by His own hand. Though God calls us and woos us to follow His purpose, if we refuse His conviction, He will not abandon us but will discipline us by what ever measure we choose. The motivation for obedience is clear – the promises and blessings of this life; the fruit He produces through us; the hope and promises of eternity; joy and peace – this doesn’t motivate those who have their focus on worldly things. If you belong to God, He will not allow you to live contrary to His word without eventually taking action. Those who don’t belong to Him can never have lasting peace in this life and have no peace at all for the life to come. Only those who allow their sins to be judged on the cross will escape the judgement of God.
It is important to recognize the counterfeit grace that draws people away from a relationship with God. God’s grace gives us the power to overcome this life and reap the rewards of heaven. Anything that condones a lifestyle of sin is a false doctrine. Because of God’s mercy, we have the power to be free from the bondage of sin. Look at Romans 6,
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to
God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!
16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?
17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.
18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
Anyone who follows God’s purpose and lives a Christ centered life will not be dominated by sin. They may struggle at times, but the power of God is invested in those who submit to Him.
Lay aside every weight and run toward the goal
Hebrews 12:
1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.
Jesus is the author of our faith. He is the door by which we all must enter. No one comes to God except through Him. If you are not clothed with the righteousness of Christ, you can’t come into God’s presence. The counterfeit of satan is the lie that enough good deeds will outweigh our sins and get us into heaven. God says that the problem is that all sin makes us an enemy of God and the wrath of God abides on us because of sin. The Bible says that God is the One who forgives, but He will take vengeance upon our deeds. Every sin will be judged and avenged by God. But in Christ they have already been judged. To receive Christ we must unload our sins and our corrupted life at the cross and take up the righteousness of Christ and the new life God has created for each of us. Jesus said, “If anyone who desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me. If anyone desires to save his life, he will lose it, but if anyone loses his life for My sake, he shall save it”. Until we can see that our life will be lost without Him, we won’t be able to see the joy of laying it down and exchanging it for the life God has created before we ever heard His calling. Our path and purpose has already been prepared, we just have to recognize that God’s ways are better than our own.
“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” It is Jesus who authors our faith and gives us a new life, and He also finishes our faith. He becomes our goal so that we run to fulfill God’s purpose – not so we can get to heaven, but so that we can one-day stand before Him having completed the purpose He has called us to fulfill. Then we can joyfully long for heaven knowing He will say, “Well done! You have been faithful over few things, I will make you ruler over many things (Matthew 25:21). The only way we can lay aside the sins that ensnare us is to look to Jesus and follow His plan. By example, Jesus endured hardship and willingly suffered on the cross because He didn’t look to the comfort of here and now, but He looked to the joy that was set before Him. The joy of buying our freedom and returning to the glory of heaven having completed the purposes of the Father. That is the example for us to follow. We can settle for the fading comforts and pleasures of this life, or we can look to the joy that is set before us. Only when we look to the joy before us will we be willing to endure hardship and count this life as worthless. Grace overcomes sin, but our will can choose to override grace and go back to sin. We must choose where our citizenship will reside. You can’t choose Christ and then refuse to become a citizen of heaven. To choose Christ means that we abandon our old life and old ways and lay it down so that we can take up the life He has created for us. Then when we sin in a moment of foolishness, we can surrender that sin and area of our life to Him and return to the light of walking in fellowship with Him.
*** This sermon can be downloaded as a Word document by following the link at http://www.exchangedlife.com/Sermons/sermons.htm
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