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Know you are forgiven
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| A COUPLE of weeks ago, I mentioned that
Christians generally know that heaven lies ahead and that people who
are not Christians don’t dare suggest that they have any assurance. It's the same with being forgiven. Christians know about being forgiven because they have been forgiven; people who don’t know Jesus don’t understand being forgiven because they have nothing to assure them of forgiveness. I have met many people who talk about how God might tolerate their weaknesses. I have met many people who imagine that God might weigh up their good deeds against their bad ones and forgive because of their good performance. But not many who are not believers understand real forgiveness. But I have to add that many Christians have a very weak understanding of being forgiven. It’s easy to be an uninformed Christian. It’s easy to be an underinformed Christian. But we need to be informed Christians, fully–informed Christians. And it’s vitally important to be informed about God’s forgiveness through the shed blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ. A few years ago, I attended a conference at a rather Charismatic Baptist Church. I met a truly delightful young Asian student there, I think she was Singaporean Chinese. I have met few people to match her sense of self, her air of graciousness. She spoke to me from the moment we met as though I were her oldest friend and someone she thoroughly trusted. Over the course of a week of meetings we were in groups several times, and I saw how that was the way she treated everyone. She had nothing to hide, and she drew the same kind of openness out of other people. I remarked on how warm she was towards strangers, and she told me how she had grown up in a loving Christian Chinese family. But she said that she had never understood God’s grace until she came to Australia. She said, “My parents are Christians, and come from Christian families themselves. But there is so much of Buddhism in our culture and our society that even strong Christians generally talk about grace but live by performance. That was how I was raised. But now I understand it. It is the grace of God through Jesus which makes me free!” In the same way, so many Christians know the words of forgiveness, but do not allow themselves fully to experience it and live in it. And, for that reason, they fail to discover just how good God has been to them and how good he will go on being to them. We just read, If we walk in the light, as he is in the
light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His
Son, continually cleanses us from all sin.
I'm not exactly asking you to delve into nanotechnology to understand
that. Keep open to God and your fellow Christians, and fellowship
increases and you automatically get cleansed from sin. It's straight
forward, isn't it?Several years back, I was running a fellowship group on Friday nights, and we were talking about forgiveness, and several of us agreed that we had problems about feeling forgiven when we sinned and confessed to God. I think Neph was there -- he might remember that night. I was one of those with problems about feeling forgiven. Does that sound strange to you? Surely a pastor would know all about feeling forgiven. I can tell you, I knew the scriptures about being forgiven, but that didn’t do anything at all about feeling forgiven. When I thought back, I remembered what happened when I was in Big Trouble when I was a kid. My parents did the right thing. They treated bad behaviour seriously. Some parents are not consistent with their punishment, and eventually their kids don’t know where they stand at all. If I was punished, the punishment was appropriate, it fitted the crime, like the song says. But the downside was that reconciliation was rarely immediate. Here’s what I mean. My brother and I were up the tree in the back yard, talking. I was about ten, I think, and Steve was a bit younger. The conversation turned to bodily functions, as small boys’ conversations tend to do. The more we talked about the varieties of toilet experiences, the more amused we were about our own wit, and the louder we talked. After a while, our father came to the door and told us to pipe down and find something else to talk about. We were quiet for about half a minute, then we started talking about something else, and it was like how an ocean can be traced back to a river, and a river can be traced back to a creek, and the creek can be traced back to two springs and a sewer outfall, and the sewer outfall can be traced back to individual toilets... You guessed it. Our heads were primed for what we had been talking about, so we were soon back where we'd started. And, in a minute or two our father was back where he’d started, at the door. Only this time, he called us in. “What did I tell you boys?” “Not to talk about that stuff out in public.” “And had you stopped doing it?” “Nearly, Dad.” “Nearly?” “We hadn’t quite stopped.” “You hadn’t stopped at all, had you?” “No, Dad.” We could see it coming. Whap! Whap! A hard smack each. “Now get in your room and think about it for a while.” So we slunk off to think. Actually, we mainly thought about bottoms, except now it was about sore ones. After a little while, one of us ventured out. “Where are you going?” our father demanded. “You get back in there and think some more. Think about what the neighbours think, having to listen to all that nonsense!” We “sinned” by breaking a family rule about watching our public conversations. We were convicted of that “sin” by the challenge from our father. We confessed the “sin”, and wrath was not averted: we were punished for our misbehaviour. That’s all above board. But you can see that we were not returned to fellowship with our father for a while after the punishment. The problem is where you start thinking that God is just like our earthly parents. So you sin, you confess the sin, but then you don’t feel forgiven until you have spent half an hour in your room thinking about what you did wrong. It’s OK — within limits — for a ten–year–old, but it’s not God’s way for adults. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and
just and will forgive our sins and cleans us from all unrighteousness.
We read that, too.If we confess our sins, we find we are dealing with a God who is consistent and fair. I’m sure that we all expect God to be consistent and fair. After all, would you be happy if God looked at you and said, “Sinner, class 1... sorry, go to the other place, do not pass Go, do not collect £100...” and then told Saddam Hussein “Mate, I really like that moustache. Come in, get settled, and pop around for a cuppa!”? That wouldn’t be just, that wouldn’t be consistent. But the Bible tells us that, when it comes to forgiving sins, God is faithful and just, God does forgive and restore, all for the sake of Jesus our Lord. When you and I reach that golden city, the welcome at the gates will not be different for the good looking or the sophisticated from what it is for the rest of us. Kerry Packer’s millions might put defibrillation gear in every ambulance, but it doesn’t count for anything at the splendid gates. If you belong in Christ, you belong in His place; if you don’t belong in Christ, then you don’t. That’s the only criterion God applies; it’s the only basis on which he accepts or rejects. I knew all that. I had read over and over that Jesus died for all the sins I had ever committed, and for all the sins I was committing now, and for all the sins I ever would commit. But I didn’t feel forgiven. I am not one for visions or voices or any of those kinds of things. My statues don't even look miserable, let alone weep – or they wouldn’t, if I had any. I have had a sense of God speaking to me on a couple of occasions, but I am not hearing voices; it’s more a sense of what God is saying to me. I can’t quite explain it, except that it is very clear, it is generally very brief, and it leaves me with my mouth open in shock, because it fits the situation so well in most cases. While I was wondering about that sense of being immediately forgiven, I went on a Pastors’ Retreat. I was going through a very difficult time in my life: conflicts on all sides, feeling overwhelmed and defeated in most respects. We had a devotional session one morning as part of the Retreat, and I was angry, because I had been praying very specifically for something from God, some sense of direction or encouragement or whatever, and the passage we were set to think about and reflect on seemed to say nothing to me at all. Suddenly, I had a vision. It was like a most vivid dream, yet I knew where I was, in fact, at one point, I even put the vision on hold while I thought about what was happening. So it didn’t in any way take over my mind. I'm not telling it to you to big note myself, because I had very little at all at the time to credit myself with. And I’m not telling it to you so that you can create any new teaching from it, because it was just personal to me. I am telling it to you, because of what it meant to me, and in the hope that, even second hand, it might mean something to you. I was on the boat in the storms of Galilee. I was terrified by the waves crashing over he boat. I have been in a small boat in a storm on a shallow lake, so I know that that is a very threatening situation. The waves towered over the boat. And I saw Jesus coming over the water. He didn’t still the waters, he didn’t calm the seas. I asked, “Can I come to you?” and he held his hand out to me. Have you ever tried to walk in a bouncy castle? Have you ever tried to stand upright when other people are bouncing on a trampoline? Walking on that stormy lake was worse than any of those things ever could be. As i would put my foot on the water, it would suddenly rise in front of me until the wave towered above my head, or the water would sink away from my foot as I tried to put it down. And it was dark and wet, and all the light I had was a light that seemed to come from Jesus. It was too much! I lost sight of Jesus and all I could see was the water. I began to sink. But I held out my hand to Jesus, and he took my hand and walked me back to the boat. We sat in the boat on opposing seats and talked. He was the best friend in the world. Suddenly the thought came, “How can I sit talking to the Saviour of all mankind, when I am such a sinner?” I began to think of my sins, get ready to confess them all. So many images flashed into my mind, people I'd hurt, lies I’d told, selfish deeds — even when no one caught me but God. I don’t know if you have thought of this, but do you know how you sort of think of something before you even have a word for it? That was how this was. Telling you doesn't convey how quickly all of this went. The images flashed up, ready to be told. I was ready to confess the whole lot in words to the God who is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And in my vision, Jesus just smiled at me, and held his hands out wide — and I saw the nail–holes, and I knew he had already suffered... and I knew that he had already bled... and I knew that he had already died... for me. And I knew that all my sins were already forgiven, I knew that God doesn’t even wait for the right words: I knew that, as soon as I am willing, the blood is applied, and I am set free! As André Crouch sang, The blood that Jesus
shed for me
way back on Calvary, The blood that gives me strength from day to day- It will never loose its pow’r It reaches to the highest mountain; It flows to the lowest valley the blood that gives me strength from day to day It will never loose its pow’r It soothes my doubt and calms my fears, and it dries all my tears; The Blood that gives me strength from day to day it will never loose its pow’r. The gospel truth is always the same. God has provided for our forgiveness through Jesus our Lord. We should know it; we need to know it, because it is our right and our privilege: if we walk in the light, as he is in the
light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his
Son, purifies us from all sin.
andIf we confess our
sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify
us from all unrighteousness.
Jesus paid the price: through faith in him, I am forgiven! I can live in the full assurance of present forgiveness, and one day, I will sing, I’m going home on the
morning train
Will that be your song, too? Will you leave this place, this world,
singing,I’m going home on the morning train I’m going home on the morning train If you can’t see me, you can hear me singing All my sins been taken away — Taken away All my sins been
taken away —
You can, by faith in Jesus. He was wounded for your transgressions, he
was bruised for your iniquities: turn to him today, and find life, and
most full joy!Taken away? AMEN and AMEN! |
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| © Peter R. Green 2003. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. | |
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