When I do some kind of a series I wonder if people are happy for it to be over when the final session ends?
If you have been feeling that way then today will offer you a little relief. This is the last Sunday message in this series; however, the topic is one that we are reminded of in some way almost every week.
On Easter we started this series talking about the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. I hope you will remember that there were two sons and the youngest was dissatisfied with his life with the family that he asks his father for his inheritance…and as far as we know did is not even sick. Much less dead, and culturally this kind of a request was considered inappropriate to the level that putting a son to death would be considered just and right.
The younger son heads off to a foreign country with 1/3 of the estate in cash burning a hole in his pocket. In essence this son is turning his back on the family, and even his culture and goes on to blow all he had on bad choices. Things go from bad to worse after the money runs out a famine hits and then this young man gets what he deserves. He is basically homeless, he gets a bad job, and he is just plain hungry. He is so hungry he started to think the pig feed looked pretty good.
Then the young man wakes up, he comes to his senses, he sees the error of his ways, and he realizes that back home, the servants that feel the stock and did the work around the farm were far better off than he was and he comes up with a plan. HE knows that he messed up big time and He decides that he will go to his father and seek forgiveness and see if his father will give him a job.
Hope you remember the next part, So he returns home and Jesus says, “As the son was in the distance, the father was waiting for him, saw him and went running to meet him.” And he raises his hands to hit him and he yells “I knew you would come crawling back, Get out of here you ungrateful child….”
NO, Wait, that’s not it….That must be some other story.
I remember now, the father goes, meets the son, and wraps his arms around him and the son said—“father, I am sorry, I sinned, please forgive me. Take me on as one of your hired servants.” The father ignores the son’s speech, the words, the request and he restores the son to much more than he deserved. He restores him to full son ship, a robe, a ring and a pair of shoes and then the celebration gets started.
The part of the story about the younger son ends right there with a sort of a “lived happily ever” after kind of feel.
I know it was just a story, a parable that Jesus was telling to prove a point, but I wonder Knowing the details that Jesus shared…what do you think would happen next?
In the story the son returned home and received forgiveness…But,…would his life change?
Think about it, He was not happy at home before, why would he be happy after he had been back for a few weeks or months? He had been selfish enough to demand what would one day be his and then turns his back on all he knew leaving it behind to be forgotten.
Now that he has come back, would he be able to live forgiven?
Would he be able to look his dad in the eyes, what about his brother or even the servants?
I have received God’s forgiveness in my life, the question is, has it transformed me? Have I been radically changed like only God can do?
OR am I still living the same life I was living before?
This series kicked off on Easter Sunday. Easter is a reminder that Jesus gave His life for us on the cross, so that our sins could be forgiven.
We will use several short verses this morning - Look at our first verse. It’s from Colossians 1:14. It says, “God has purchased our freedom with His blood and has forgiven all of our sins.”
We didn’t earn it.
We don’t deserve it.
We didn’t purchase it.
It’s a gift from God.
The Bible says that Jesus’ death removed the sin that stands as a barrier between us and God so that we can have a relationship with God.
There is only one thing that we have to do to receive God’s forgiveness…Listen to our next verse. John 1:9. “But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from every wrong.”
Because of what Jesus did on the cross, when we ask God for forgiveness, He will wipe the slate completely clean—just like with the Prodigal Son.
But what happens next? What are we supposed to do? How do we react?
I believe in reality most people are not living forgiven lives, this includes most Christians.
When I read the story of the prodigal I easily place myself in the position of the younger son.
I remember my homecoming.
I remember the surprise of being accepted back into the family so easily.
I remember the uneasy feeling that I do not deserve to be brought back into full son-ship and I worry about what the rest of the household of God thinks about me.
I would like to have heard the next part of his story. What happened 6 months or a year down the road when the older brother poked and prodded the doubts and guilt and regrets of the younger son?
I suggest that if we have come back home to God seeking forgiveness that none if us is immune to hanging onto and adding to some bags of trash in our lives.
They are marked, Doubts, Guilt, and Regret.
The reason we have them is pretty simple, either we never have accepted God’s forgiveness, or we have never been able to forgive ourselves.
Generally we make the turn and came home but either we just fell back into our old life or we came home and took on the role of servant instead of family and we try to work off our debts.
We keep the weights that God intended for us to drop and walk away from. Basically, most of us never move to the point of livin’ forgiven.
He drag the weight of our past around with us and watch it like luggage at the airport never taking our eyes off of the baggage preferring to keep it close and in a way safe.
Generally we don’t live differently; we avoid opportunities that come our way somehow only feeling qualified to feed pigs instead of helping run the farm.
So while most of us will say that we know that we are forgiven…it all too often ends up that we just know the right thing to say and perhaps the right way to act on the outside….But how do we feel on the inside? Do we feel forgiven?
How heavy are the bags of trash in your life?
-- Doubts, in yourself, you abilities, your success, doubts in other people, Doubts in God and his promises.
Doubt can be a heavy bag in your life that God wants you to put down.
Let me be clear to help the definition….Doubt and belief or disbelief are NOT the same thing.
With belief or disbelief – your mind is made-up.
Here’s the definition of doubt. Doubt is defined as an uncertainty of belief that interferes with decision-making.
Now did you get that? Doubt is being so uncertain about what I believe that I can’t make up my mind about a subject.
God wants you to put down your doubts by investigating and seeking a better relationship with Him. To do that you need to look for answers to your questions.
Forgiven people still have doubts…the difference is that they actively look for answers so that they can make up their minds….
-- Another bag that people drag around is the Guilt bag…
The guilt bag comes with an extra set of weights because it has an emotional component. For every ounce of guilt there comes a certain amount of shame.
A lot of people believe that God is the one that makes us feel guilty. I don’t think that is really true. I believe that it is sin that brings guilt. It is part of an internal balance within us that really only awakens within us when we understand the difference in right and wrong, between holy and unholy.
Guilt and shame only become a burden in us when we realize when we have done something wrong.
- God does not want us to hold on to guilt after we have received forgiveness…
Acts 13:38 “Everyone who believes in Him is free from all guilt and declared right with God.”
Once you have asked for forgiveness and done all that you can do to make things right with the people in your life, then you can leave the weight of guilt and shame behind.
Church is not a place to leave feeling guilty, it is a place that we come already feeling guilty and as we approach God we often feel the weight of guilt increase….The idea is to respond to God and drop the weight and leave feeling better.
Church is the place where we learn…sometimes very slowly how to live and love as forgiven people.
The third bag is one of Regret - Maybe I would call it the “if only” bag.
If only I did this or did not do that.
If only I could stop doing this or that…
If only I had the courage to approach this other person.
I don’t know about you, but my bag of regret is one that I so often fail to lighten.
I have trouble realizing that the past is the past and there are some events that I can never fix.
Roman 4:7 says, “Oh what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight.”
God wants us to realize that if we are living a forgiven life, I will learn from my “if only” and I will make better choices and fewer mistakes.
- God wants me to learn from the past and not let the regrets stop me from moving forward.
Folks, if we are unable start livin’ as a forgiven person then we a end up living in a way that can make us feel sick.
Sick physically, sick emotionally, sick relationally, and even sick spiritually.
We get sick form the garbage we are carrying around. We have trouble taking our head knowledge about forgiveness to something that we believe, really believe, then we technically have a heart problem.
Forgiveness has to be felt in the heart…Like young love is felt… where we feel our heart ache for another person. Forgiveness is something we ache for when we ant it and we feel comfort form when we accept that it is given.
I have seen a bumper sticker that said something like, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” I identify with that not perfect part, but I am trying to live a changed life as a result of and even a testimony too the forgiveness I have received.
God calls us to live as a forgiven people and that means that we have to be willing to leave the weights behind.
Not as a demand or even as something that we can do alone. God wants us to leave the weight behind so that we can experience the freedom and opportunity that a forgiven person and people can feel.
God wants his best for us in eternity and even here in this place.
Now His best is not wealth, or power or perfect health or any other element in this world.
His best is a life that accepts the position and role in the family of God.
A life that is experienced in the company of other family members. A live that represents the love of a holy God as the forgiven people ….
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Let’s look at our canvas wall of forgiveness.
Over the past few weeks I have asked you to make several symbolic gestures in our study of forgiveness. The first was to write your name or initials asking God for forgiveness, then to ask you to help you to forgive yourself or fully accept what he has promised. Then we added the initials of someone that we needed to unconditionally forgive or release and last week we added someone that need to forgive us.
There is all kind of hand writing, big an small letters, a few different colors and even a few words and symbols.
Look at this thing!
I painted it 3 times and we can still see the writing that we put there over the last few weeks.
I tried a different brand of paint; I even put it on really thick.
I went to the craft store and I asked a man what I could do to paint over these marks and stains.
He hesitated and then he said, “Sir, you are just wasting your time and paint. There is nothing you can do that would be a reasonable use of time and money to make the canvas pure white again. All you can do is start over and get another canvas.”
That is exactly what God does in our lives. His forgiveness does not just cover the sins He starts you on a new canvas, clean and pure white.
Hebrews 10:13. God says, “I will never again remember your sins and lawless deeds. ”
To remind you that when God forgives you, it’s all removed. It’s not just in the past, it’s removed as if it never happened. That’s what God’s peace brings into our life. That’s how God removes the guilt and the shame from your life. It’s completely gone.
The question you really need to answer is, How is God calling me to live forgiven?
What can I do with my blank canvas?
What opportunities an I freed up to do for God because of what he has done for me?
Folks as a person livin forgiven you are open to leaving the weight of our past behind and ready to live the active life of a child of God. Free for service, empowered to love and ready for new opportunities.
Livin forgiven means that we live a life as the child of God and not the life of a simple servant.
All Glory be to God!
