Forgiveness
I don’t care who you are, every accountable person is in need of forgiveness because as Paul said:
Romans 3:23 for all
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Our sins separates us
from God and without a savior, we would all be lost.
Thankfully we have God
that forgives because He loves and He made this possible through His Son.
2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you
through His poverty might become rich.
Jesus agreed to do this
for us even though He knew we were full of sin.
Romans 5:6 For when we were still without
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even
dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
If God were like some of us, He would have been
selfish and kept His forgiveness to Himself, but thankful He did not.
Not only does God forgive us of our sins, He
forgets the sin.
Hebrews 8:10 "For this is the
covenant that I will make with the house of
This was prophesied by Jeremiah about the new covenant.
It teaches us that once God forgives your sins, He forgets them. You will never
be harassed about your past mistakes you will only be held accountable for
those things you have not been forgiven of.
Some have the idea that when Jesus died on the
cross and shed His blood that everyone was forgiven of their sins, but this is
not the case because we have to accept that forgiveness. I want you to notice
the great sermon that was spoken on the day of Pentecost at the birth of the
church.
Acts 2:14 But Peter, standing up with the
eleven, raised his voice and said to them, "Men of Judea and all who dwell
in
The Holy Spirit had been
poured out on the apostles and they were speaking in different languages, and
some there accused them of being drunk when they were not. They explained that Joel’s
prophecy was being fulfilled because the Spirit had been poured on them. Joel
said that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. We will see in
just a minute that it takes more than just a verbal plea to call on the name of
the Lord.
Acts 2:22 "
Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to
you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as
you yourselves also know -- 23
"Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God,
you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; 24 "whom God raised up,
having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be
held by it. 25 "For
David says concerning Him: 'I foresaw the LORD always before my face, For He is
at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.
26 Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad;
Moreover my flesh also will rest in hope.
27 For You will not leave my soul in Hades, Nor will You
allow Your Holy One to see corruption. 28
You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in
Your presence.' 29 "Men and
brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he
is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 "Therefore, being a
prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit
of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his
throne, 31 "he,
foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul
was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. 32 "This Jesus God has raised
up, of which we are all witnesses. 33
"Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received
from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you
now see and hear. 34
"For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: 'The LORD
said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand,
35 Till I make Your enemies Your footstool." ' 36 "Therefore let all the
house of
The
key points made are:
Next we find out what is
involved in calling on the name of the Lord and how we receive the forgiveness
of sin.
Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were cut
to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren,
what shall we do?"
Many of the Jews had
realized what they had done to their Savior and to their God, so they were
moved be this speech and they wanted to know what they must do to be saved. Now
if all they had to do was call on the name of the Lord or just accept Jesus into
their heart Peter would have told them to do this, but he did not. Instead his
response is recorded in the next verse:
Acts 2:38 Then
Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Spirit. 39
"For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar
off, as many as the Lord our God will call." 40 And with many other words he
testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse
generation." 41 Then
those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three
thousand souls were added to them.
42 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine
and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
Peter couldn’t make it
any clearer on how these Jews could receive the forgiveness of their sins. He
told them to repent and to be baptized in the name of Jesus for the remission
of sins. Of course we learn in other parts of the Bible that they had to
believe that Jesus was the Son of God (Jn. 3:16) and they had to confess Jesus
as their Lord (
1 Peter 3:21 There
is also an antitype which now saves us -- baptism (not the removal of the filth
of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ,
When we are forgiven of our
past sins, they are wiped away, but this does not mean that we can no longer
sin, but we do have power over sin when we become Christians. What is wonderful
about God’s forgiveness is that is not a one time deal. Once we become a child
of God by obeying the gospel, God will continue to forgive us of our future
sins, but this is not done unconditionally.
1 John 1:7 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.
Thankfully we do not have
to be re-baptized every time we sin because sometimes that would mean we would
have to be dunked 2 or 3 times a day. Once we become a child of God and we grow
in our knowledge of God’s Word and see sin in our life, we must repent of it, stop
doing it, and confess it to God. When we do this, we can have confidence that
God has forgiven and forgotten it.
A great example of this
is given to us in the parable of the Prodigal son. He knew what his father’s
house was like and he had everything he needed, but he decided to leave and do
things his own way. His father allowed him to have his inheritance and allowed
him to go on his own just like God will allow us to leave the church and go
into the world because He does not force us to do anything against our will.
The young man lived it
up, and had worldly friends as long as the money was there, but after he had
wasted all his money on prodigal living, his friends left him and he was all
alone, miserable, and empty with nothing but some pigs to keep him company. He
had no food and he had no hope until he remembered his father’s house. This
same thing happens to Christians today who leave the church and the blessing of
God and choose to go back to the world to live it up and partake of the
pleasures of sin. While engaging in sinfulness might seem fun at first
eventually most realize how empty their lives are without God and they remember
Him.
Even though the Prodigal
son knew he did not deserve the forgiveness of His father he decided to go back
and ask to be a hired servant so that he would at least be close to his father
and have food for his belly. When we leave the Lord, and we want to come back
to God it is hard for us and we don’t feel like we deserve the forgiveness of
God, but we need to remember how loving our God is and how much He wants us to
repent.
When the Prodigal son was
on his way back home his Father was looking for him to come back because he ran
and met him as we read in:
Luke 15:20
"And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way
off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and
kissed him. 21 "And the
son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and
am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
22 "But the father said to his servants, 'Bring out the
best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his
feet. 23 'And bring the
fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 'for this my son was dead and
is alive again; he was lost and is found.' And they began to be merry.
Our Father in heaven is
just like the Father in this Parable. While He will allow us to turn our back
on Him, He never gives us on us. He patiently waits for us to return to Him and
if we humble ourselves before God and repent like this Prodigal son, God will
have compassion and He will forgive us of our sins, and we can be reconciled with
God and there will be great rejoicing in heaven when we choose to come back to
God.
We must remember that
true repentance means that we change. For example, if we were involved in an
adulterous relationship we must end that relationship. If we were stealing we
must steal no more and the list could go on and on. We learn from this example
that we must accept God’s forgiveness by repenting and confessing our sins to
the Lord. We should thank God in our prayers everyday for the forgiveness He
offers us.
We must learn from the
example God has given us in forgiveness and use it in our own lives when it
comes to forgiving others.
Matthew 6:14
"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you. 15 "But if
you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses.
We must learn to forgive
those who sin against when they repent. While it is much harder for us to
forget what they have done, we must do our best to forgive and forget. Just as
God is ready to forgive those who repent, we must have this same forgiving
spirit toward those who sin against. We should never harbor a grudge against
someone because all it will do is eat us up inside, but just like God, we
should not forgive people until they repent because when we offer our forgiveness
to them, they are reconciled with us. If we offer our forgiveness
unconditionally not only are we doing something God doesn’t do, we are not
rebuking that person as Jesus tells us to do in:
Luke 17:3 "Take
heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he
repents, forgive him. 4
"And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day
returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him."
Forgiving someone can be
very difficult at times especially if that same person sins against us many
times, but Jesus says if they continue to repent of what they have done then we
must forgive them. The apostles didn’t think this was any saying either because
in the next verse they said:
Luke 17:5 And the
apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith."
One thing that can help
us to learn to be more forgiving is to look at our own life and realize that we
are far from being perfect. If we sit down are start counting how many times we
have sinned against God, it will not take long for us to run out of fingers and
toes.
If God can forgive us for
our past and the sins we commit sometimes on a daily basis, then we must learn
to forgive those who repent. When we can get to the point in our lives were we
have a forgiving spirit and we can offer our forgiveness to those who wrong us
when they repent, our lives we be so much better and we can even learn to
rejoice when our loved ones, friends or neighbors repent.
In conclusion, I hope
this lesson has reminded you of how much we should appreciate God and how He
loved us enough to give us His only Son to die on the cross so that we could
have forgiveness of our sins. I hope you have learned that in order to accept
His forgiveness we must obey the gospel and that our sins are forgiven at that
point of being baptized into Christ for the remission of our sins. I hope you
have learned that God does not forgive our sins unconditionally even after we
become a child of God because we must walk in the light and repent and confess
our sins to God. Finally I hope you have learned how important is that we
follow God’s example and have forgiving spirit and be ready offer our
forgiveness to those who repent.