You are Forgiven

Outline

3 characteristics of God’s forgiveness

I. Forgiveness Is Universally Needed

A. Through Adam – all have sinned

Romans 5:12 - Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.

1 Corinthians 15:22 - For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

B. None are innocent

Romans 3:10-12 - …as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, there is not even one.”

“At its core, sin is a violation of the Creator – creation relationship. Man exists only because God made him, and man is in every sense obligated to serve his creator. Sin causes man to assume the role of God and to assert autonomy for himself apart from the creator. The most all-encompassing view of sins mainspring, therefore is the demand for autonomy.” (John MacArthur, Essential Christian Doctrine, p. 246)

Romans 3:23 - …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

C. Sin has consequences

i. Broken relationship with God

ii. Broken relationships with people

iii. Broken relationship with creation

Genesis 3:17-19 - Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

D. Sin has a cost

Romans 6:23a - For the wages of sin is death…

II. Forgiveness has Exclusively One Source

A. Only God the Father can forgive

Micah 7:18-19 - Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

Psalm 130:4 - But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.

B. Only through Jesus Christ can the Father be satisfied

2 Corinthians 5:21 - He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Isaiah 1:8 – “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.”

Acts 4:12 - And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

John 14:6 - Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

III. Forgiveness Is Freely Offered

Ephesians 1:7 - In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.

A. Grace – abundant and undeserved

Romans 5:20-21 - The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

B. The offer of grace requires a response

Romans 10:9-13 - …that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

1 John 1:9 - If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

C. The receipt of grace requires us to do the same

Matthew 18:35 - My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.t

As we seek to build upon the 60-year heritage of Faith Church, to grow our church on a solid foundation, we are spending this year walking through the exposition of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Two weeks ago we started with some background looking at the unlikely and unique nature of God building His church coming out of a place like Ephesus. If that were happening today, it would be as if it were in a place like New York or Hollywood where there are so many other influences and ideas that are rejecting God, that it is difficult to imagine a revival there…we might expect events more like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, before we would expect the spread of the gospel that came out of Ephesus.

Now, before I leave have spoken ill of New York etc., We should not be so naïve to think that God is not able to do great works in these places…when in truth, we see amazing stories of God’s grace and the spread of the gospel even in the most worldly of places, churches growing in the center of Manhattan or Celebrities and Athletes boldly proclaiming their faith even at great cost to themselves.

And that was what happened out of Ephesus as well, where the gospel spread like wildfire covering the region and eventually becoming the majority religion. And if that was the result, I think it is well worth our time to slow down and learn what it was that was being taught, thus our study of Ephesians that will last through much of this year.

The letter divides nicely into two halves, three chapters each. Chapters 1-3 focus on the gospel doctrines, they proclaim God’s cosmic plan to unite everything under Christ and reconciling us to God and to one another through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and to the proclamation of the revealed mystery of the gospel available to all peoples and every nation. If you want a simple phrase to remember – These are the gospel Indicatives…the truth about what is the gospel.

Then you may remember that I also said that the letter is about the church…as such the remaining chapters, 4 through 6, are focused on life within the church, with teaching on unity and growth of the members of the church, not a numerical growth plan, but a spiritual growth plan. Paul teaches how God helps us to change and how God commands us to live, individually, in marriage, in families, at work and finally the provision of God to help us withstand the attacks of this world and of the evil one.

I know we are just getting started, yet I am excited to see all that God will do in helping us to Build on our heritage and growing together as the church.

So far we looked at verses 1 and 2 to see the beauty of what it means that You are Saints. And then last week, we found hope knowing that God has brought us into His family, for You are adopted. What a glorious story of God’s love for us.

This was just the beginning of our series

Remembering our identity as One in Christ

If you will join me by opening up to the book of Ephesians, I would like us to read together the larger passage for this series and then we will focus down on our specific verse for today.

If you are using the Bibles in the chairs in front of you, please open up to page 150 in the back section of the Bible and we will begin right at start.

• READ Ephesians 1:1-14

Now if you were listening closely, as I know that you do, you might have asked what happened to the concepts between being saints and being adopted.

I am thankful to be a part of one church at three locations and thankful that it has allowed us to grow our preaching team in a way that brings live preaching to all three campuses each week. I am also thankful for the opportunity to have Pastors Viars and Aucoin preach at all of the campuses. But what that has meant here at Faith West, is that we mix up the order of the sermons on occasion. Today we are going to park specifically on the second half of verse 7 that we might remember that In Christ, part of your identity is that

You are Forgiven

Now before we dive into talking about the forgiveness that believers have in Christ, it’s important to understand what forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is the term used to indicate the pardon for a fault of offense. Another way to put it is that forgiveness is to excuse from payment for a debt which is owed.

• Pardoning Illustration

• Debt Illustration

When God says that In Him, we have the forgiveness of our trespasses, our debts, according to the riches of His grace, I think that that is worth stopping to understand what forgiveness means and to find in our passage today,

So today we will be looking at…

3 Characteristics of God’s Forgiveness

And I believe that by the time we are finished, we will see that these 3 characteristics will require a response from each and every one of us who is here today.

Because within these characteristics, we will find the truth about ourselves, and truth about God which we must honestly consider that we might respond to what God is showing us today.

The first Characteristic that we must acknowledge about God’s Forgiveness…

I. Forgiveness is Universally Needed

To make a bold and comprehensive statement of like this, I think it is appropriate to make sure we are all talking about the same things

Let’s walk that thought back to it’s starting point…

To need forgiveness, there must be something to be forgiven…that would mean there has to be a debt.

For there to be a debt owed there must be a reason why, something has been taken, an offense has occurred, a transgression against another.

And that transgression…that is our sin, in this case and in all cases, our transgression is against God Himself

And in God’s perfect justice, He cannot just look the other way. He cannot just sweep it under the rug.

• Unjust Judge Illustration

Where there is sin, there must be a response. Where there is sin, there is a need for forgiveness.

Now I think we can all agree about where sin began.

Adam and Eve, in the garden, had everything they needed, yet they chose to believe that they deserved something more, the one thing which God had warned them not to eat…Yet they ate and thus sin entered the world.

Now if you are here today and you are saying, yeah, but those are just the stories at the beginning of the Bible, aren’t they just like fairy tales, I would want to offer to sit down and share why we believe these are not just stories, because what we believe about even the book of Genesis, can impact how we understand the rest…

So Adam disobeyed and thus sin entered the world…What does that mean for me?

Through Adam – All have Sinned

This first characteristic of God’s forgiveness is telling us a truth about ourselves.

Rom 5:12. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned

Now we could really go deep in the theology of what this means, that because Adam sinned, you and I are sinners at birth even before our first breath of air, but let me try to simplify…

Adam’s sin is imputed, that is inferred upon each of us who are united to him as the representative of all humanity. Thus Adam’s sin is our sin, Adam’s guilt is our guilt and we each come into this world with a sin nature and a debt to be owed.

1 Cor 15:22 - For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

I want to give you that taste of hope right here at the beginning…but it must start with understanding that Forgiveness is universally needed, because sin is universal.

Though God cannot sin and all of God’s creation is good, we must acknowledge that in the goodness of God’s creation, a part of being created in the image of God allowed for mankind to have a will independent of God and the freedom to make the choice to worship and obey God, or to choose to seek to be our own authority in our lives. God created mankind without sin, yet sin still entered man, through Adam. Many believe that since God is all-powerful, God is to blame for sin, but this is false. The origin of sin the in hearts of men is not on the part of God. The Bible is clear that God is not at fault for man being sinful. And God was also not surprised by our sin, because as we will see, God’s plan, for His glory was already written to address the issue of sin…the sin that is in all of us because…

B . None are Innocent

Paul, in writing to the church in Rome, described it this way

Rom 3:10-12 as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.”

When we limit our language here to simply talking about innocence, we may not get the whole truth. The Bible teaches what can be called the total depravity of man to describe the pollution and corruption of sin that is passed down from Adam. What this means is that left to ourselves, our sin infects every part of us and we are completely incapable of living a life pleasing to God. None is righteous, not even one.

• Lemon in Water Illustration

We are not as sinful as we could be but sin affects the entirety of our being!

Left to ourselves, we might try to define sin in our favor, so we don’t look so bad. Sin must be understood from a God-centered viewpoint.

At its core, sin is a violation of the Creator – creation relationship. Man exists only because God made him, and man is in every sense obligated to serve his creator. Sin causes man to assume the role of God and to assert autonomy for himself apart from the creator. The most all-encompassing view of sins mainspring, therefore is the demand for autonomy. (John MacArthur, Essential Christian Doctrine, p. 246)

We often use the phrase with our Children’s Ministry that sin is anything that we think, say or do that is not pleasing to God.

And to bring a deeper understanding for all of us, I answer the question, what is it that is not pleasing to God? Anything where we are seeking to choose ourselves rather than choosing to submit to His authority.

• If you say something to me that I don’t like…and I choose to lash out in anger, I am choosing to disobey God.

• If my wife does take care of me and our home that way that I want her to, and I choose to manipulate and control her to get what I want, I am choosing to disobey God’s command to love my wife.

• If your parents asked you to be home by 9:00pm, and you choose to hang out with friends until 3 in the morning, or even 9:30…you are choosing to not honor your mother and father, you are choosing that you know best and are ready to be your own authority.

Can you begin to see how all sin is inherently our demand for our autonomy?

None of us are innocent

Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

C. Sin has consequences

The consequences of our sin rings loudly throughout the biblical narrative.

Because of their sin, God banished Adam and Eve from the garden, this was not penalty for sin, the penalty would be death, but the consequence was that God perfect creation and provision was no longer available…In God’s goodness, He removed access to the tree of life so that they would not live eternally in sin.

That seems pretty steep doesn’t it! I know I’ve done wrong things, but I don’t know that I deserve death!

• Radio Finance Show Illustration

• $16,000 in debt

• $1,000,000 in debt at age 29. Med school, mortgage, and credit cards

• $34 Trillion

Because of our sin, there is a

1. Broken Relationship with God.

Romans 6:23 tell us the wages of sin is death…the consequence of our sin is our separation from God. When we are each born into this world it is the new life of an old and corrupted self that will reveal it’s sinful, self-centered, nature over and over again without Christ.

Our condition at that time is not one of life and happiness…Eph 2:1 describes it more accurately…And you were dead in your trespasses and sin. The consequence is a broken relationship wit God

It is also

1. Broken Relationship with people

Though our sin is first and foremost against our Holy God, the consequences of our sin also spill over to others in our lives including those we care the most for…

IN the garden, God said the woman would have increased pain in childbirth and that there would be tension even between the man and the woman, breaking God perfect design for marriage. And then it carried over into family and society…Cain killed his brother Abel out of jealousy and Lamech killed a young man because he had struck Lamech…

And it carried though today…

• A father who comes home only to expect the entire household to serve him, and he responds sinfully when his expectations are not met – the relationships in the home will be broken.

• A wife who sinfully worries about finances and seeks to control the spending and will not follow or even ask for her husband to lead – the relationship is broken

• A teenage who demands that they get what they want from their siblings and parents – that relationship is broken

I could go on and on…

Is this brokenness inevitable?

The answer to that is yes when we acknowledge the sin nature of man, our total depravity…it brings broken relationships with God and with other people, and also with creation

1. Broken Relationship with Creation

Look around you…Why is life so hard?

• Because of the fall, creation now works against man to frustrate his efforts.

Gen 3:17-19 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”

1. Sin has a cost

And because of the brokenness of our relationships, with God, others and creation, without Christ we will live a life of brokenness and ultimately we will pay the cost for our sin

Rom 6:23a - For the wages of sin is death

Death is the debt that we all owe, and only through death can our debt be paid…

Before we move on to our next characteristic of God’s forgiveness…

I want to ask the question.

• Have you acknowledged your sin?

• Do you recognize that Forgiveness is Universally Needed?

If you answer these questions with anything other than “Yes,” I would pray that you would allow the truths we have covered so far to rest on your heart while we also unpack two more beautiful truths about God’s forgiveness.

If you answer these questions with anything other than “Yes,” that you would be open to see the brokenness and the consequences that cannot be avoided. I would offer from any of our pastors of biblical counselors that we will make ourselves available to help you work though any questions you may have…

And the answers to these questions will also lead us to our second characteristic.

II. Forgiveness has exclusively One Source.

Only God the Father can Forgive

Because of God’s sovereignty and his authority over all of creation, including me, He is also the only one who can grant forgiveness…

And we can sing Praise because of who God is…

Mic 7:18-19 - Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity, And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins Into the depths of the sea.

There is no other like God who is able to forgive our sins…

He is the creator, He is sovereign, He is good and just

And only He is able to forgive

Ps 130:4 But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared.

But knowing these things, does not always bring us into God’s court seeking forgiveness…

With all of the writings of the Law and the Prophets, including these last two verses, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law in Israel all agreed that there was a need for forgiveness and even who could forgive sins…Frequently we read in the gospels that the religious leaders would be thinking to themselves or even saying out loud - Who can forgive sin? Or even calling Jesus a blasphemer in Matt 9 when Jesus declared to the paralytic “Take Courage son, your sins are forgiven.” Then to prove that He had the power and authority to do what He has said…Jesus instead told the man, “Get up and Walk.”

How could Jesus declare that sin has been forgiven, only because He is the Son of God.

But this man’s healing alone does not declare the good news to you and me, His healing and forgiveness were part of the revelation of who Jesus is that we might come to believe so that we would seek Him for the forgiveness of our sins as well.

But my debt – it is more like the $34 Trillion, how could one man pay my debt and the debt of all of mankind?

Only through Jesus Christ can the Father be satisfied

The answer – only because He is the Son of God, fully God in every way, and the Son of man, fully man in every way, can Jesus be the answer we need.…

2 Cor 5:21 - He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Think back to the statement that Adam’s sin was imputed to all of us…I don’t like that statement, because it means I am guilty – and left alone, I have no answer…

But God, being rich in mercy made a way…He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf,

The Son of God is the only one capable of carrying the burden of sin for us all, and the Son of Man is the only one capable of dying a death that could satisfy the goodness and the justice of the Father…

so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

This is the news we have been waiting for…because in the Father’s forgiveness, the imputed sin nature that we received from Adam and reveal daily from our sinful hearts, God has covered over by the imputed righteous of Jesus Christ.

Isaiah’s many beautiful messianic prophesies display this picture as he says

Isa 1:8 Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.”

Our sin, creating the universal need for forgiveness pollutes and corrupts our very being before a Holy God. Our sin creates the separation that keeps us from Him, Yet through the blood of Christ, our sin is covered over and cast away that we might be presented as spotless and pure before God.

Forgiveness has exclusively One source…

This truth was preached by the apostles

Acts 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

As an echo of the truth Jesus spoke himself.

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Can you see how from this short passage we have found these beautiful truths?

Forgiveness is Universally needed – and I am asking – Do you believe that is true? Do you recognize your need?

And Forgiveness has exclusively One Source – Do you believe this is true as well? And will you choose to respond to Him because

III. Forgiveness is freely offered

Take a look again at our verse for today…

Eph 1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace

We often speak of grace, but do we truly give thanks for God’s grace, do we really see the enormity of what it has taken for God to pour out his grace…

I am thankful for how this passage has laid out and flowed because there is such an easy mistake to be made here simply by starting at the wrong end.

We cannot start with the riches of His grace…we Have to start with forgiveness, which has to begin be acknowledging what it is that needs to be forgiven in the first place

Only then, when we truly see the magnitude of our sin…

• Yes, the wages of murder is death

• Yes, the wages of adultery is death

• Yes the wages of lying and selfishness is death

• Even the wages of gossip or the sins that we might consider acceptable – still death

Before our Holy God, each of those is a $34 trillion dollar debt

That is the picture we need to see to in order to properly see the riches of His Grace

Grace – abundant and underserved

Do you believe that God’s grace is enough to pay the debt you owe? Do you believe that God’s grace is enough to forgive what you have done…

Rom 5:20-21 The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Where our transgression increased, where our sin increased, the debt remains unpayable and you and I can bring nothing before the Lord to even make a first payment upon that debt…

Think about this…The wages of sin is death, and without Christ, that death is the eternal death, and eternal punishment, even my death by itself, will never be enough to satisfy the debt that I owe to my heavenly Father. In other words, I am still underserving for God’s forgiveness.

I know that by now you are saying, we get it, the wages of sin is death…but you are on point 3, where is the good news…It is in His Word…

How about we allow God to finish that thought…

Rom 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The free gift, the abundant and undeserved grace is available in Jesus Christ our Savior

And though my death will never satisfy my debt, we can know that the Father is satisfied by the Son’s willing death on the cross on our behalf.

How do I know…

Because 3 days later, the tomb is empty. The Father is satisfied and raised His Son from the dead. That is how I know. That is why I can rejoice in God’s Amazing Grace.

Then with the joy of the Lord in our hearts, we must choose that we will respond,

The offer of grace requires a response

First, if you are here today, and you have never responded to God’s offer of grace, even if you are not sure if you have asked God for forgiveness

God’s grace requires a response…and there are really only two responses…

You can choose to continue in your own strength, in your own way.

• Maybe you believe your are good enough, that if you just do good things, God will forgive you?

• Maybe you look at your life and are thinking, I am just to far gone, my sins are too much for me to handle and too much for Jesus to forgive, so I have no hope…

• Sadly those responses will each leave you without hope and without God’s grace.

Or you can choose to believe what God says, about your sin, and about His grace, and then having received His grace, you begin to live and grow in ways that will please the Lord…

God never wanted this to be hard…and he spells out the simple response He desires…

Rom 10:9-13 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; 13 for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

The riches of His grace, poured out freely on all who would call on the Name of Jesus Christ, Only God can forgive sins and only through Jesus Christ can the Father be satisfied.

And on the cross He confirmed for us that it was done as He uttered His last breath – It is Finished.

But what if you are still concerned – what I confess and He does not forgive me…John confirms all that Paul said as he tells us

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness

There is one more response that we must take away from today as well.

When you have received the riches of God’s grace and you rest in His forgiveness, we are called to do the same…

The receipt of grace requires us to do the same.

For those who have been forgiven much, God calls us to be willing to forgive as well. In Matthew 18, Jesus taught his disciples that the Kingdom of heaven is like a king who wished to settle the accounts with his slaves, and when one slave, who owed a debt far beyond his ability to pay, the king forgave the debt, but when that same slave was unwilling to forgive far less of another. When his lord found out, he turned him over to the torturers until he could repay all that he owed…and Jesus finished the teaching saying

Matt 18:35 My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.

When I have been forgiven beyond measure, how can I not choose to forgive another?

In Christ we have received grace and through Christ we have the power to extend grace.

My friends – our message today has been the core of the gospel. There is no more important message that we could hear, there is no more important decision that we could make and there is no more significant impact upon our lives…

When we respond to God’s grace and confess our sins…he is faithful and righteous to forgive

• Our relationship with God is no longer broken

When we respond to God’s grace by choosing to ask forgiveness and offer forgiveness to others…

• Our relationship with people will no longer be broken

And when we trust in Christ for the free gift of grace that is eternal life in Christ Jesus

• We can know that our relationship with creation will one day be restored.

As we Remember our Identity as One in Christ…praise the Lord that we can know

You are Forgiven.