Sermon Central
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Getting To Know God - Part 5 - The God Who Forgives Series
Contributed by Stephen Belokur on Oct 15, 2019 (message contributor)
Summary: We have a gracious and loving God who sincerely wants to forgive us of our sin and adopt us as sons and daughters. If we have a wrong understanding of who God is we may be tempted to try to abuse His forgiveness and mercy.
Getting To Know God - Part 5 – The God of Forgiveness
Please stand as we read our newest memory Scripture together …
“To Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy –
“To the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”
And our memory refresher verse(s) for today is(are) …
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others.”
Please open your Bibles to Romans 6:1-7, 15-23
Four weeks ago we started taking a look into WHO God is.
It is difficult to love someone you know nothing about.
So, what do we know about God so far?
- His name is YHWY – Yahweh or Jehovah
- YHWH describes Himself as “ I AM WHO I AM”
o He is immutable, unchanging
- YHWH-Rapha – the God Who Heals
- He is Jehovah-Jireh or YHWH-Yireh … The God Who Provides
- And, last week, God The Encourager
Before we look into the Scripture reading for today, let’s look at a couple of verses on the PowerPoint …
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
“This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
“In Him (Jesus) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
So, what aspect of our Great God do you think we will be talking about today? Forgiveness!!!
We serve The God Who Forgives!
What does The God Who Forgives forgive us of? Sin!
What is sin? Sin is rebellion against God!
“Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.”
We define sin by this three-fold definition: Sin is an act of rebellion of the known will of God by a morally responsible person.
“The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”
The greatness of God’s forgiveness is magnified when we know His great hate for sin.
- Sin is destructive to those we sin against
- Sin is destructive to the sinner
- Sin is destructive to our relationship with God
- Sin is destructive to our witness for God
- Sin is destructive to the kingdom of God
God’s great forgiveness:
- Is available to all
- Restores the broken relationship between God and the sinner
- Removes the eternal consequences of the sin
- Helps us to (possibly) restore the broken human relationship as well
“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is (God’s) love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
With that in mind let’s go ahead and read … Romans 6:1-7, 15-23
(Prayer for help …)
I have heard it said that when you are born again all of your sins, past, present and future are forgiven.
If that is true, what do we do with
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
If we have been forgiven of all of our sin, past, present and future, how can the wages of sin still be death; eternal death?
Romans 8:1 says:
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …”
This is often taken out of context and married with Romans 6:23 to say …
“The wages of sin is death … (but) … there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …”
So, what they are saying is, once you are saved, sin is worthy of eternal death but there are no eternal consequences for that sin except for possibly not receiving some rewards in heaven which you might have gotten if you had not sinned …
But Romans 6:23 clearly states that the wages of sin is death
So, does The God Who Forgives just overlook the sin of a born again believer?
Does The God Who Forgives take the rebellion of a born again believer seriously or does He just overlook it and only see the precious blood of Jesus covering that sin?
Let’s look at an example.
