The Year of Jubilee - Nothing to Prove

Introduction
Today’s message is for anyone who ever felt they didn’t measure up or prove themselves.  If you’ve ever felt criticized, misunderstood, underappreciated, or devalued, Jesus has Good News for you today.  Jesus also has Good News for people who are puffed up with pride—thinking they are better than other people.  It may be a hard word—one that takes you down a notch—but it’s a good word because it can help you stop measuring yourself according to the false standards of the world and see yourself the way Jesus sees you—the way you really are. 

To help us hear God’s Word today, we continue our study of the Year of Jubilee.  In ancient Israel in the Bible, every 50 years the priest would blow a sacrificial ram’s horn on the day of atonement and proclaim a Year of Jubilee.  The Year of Jubilee was an incredibly special year.  There was no agricultural work during the Jubilee year.  Everyone was given a year off to celebrate and worship the Lord.  Slaves were also set free.  Listen to Leviticus 25:39-41. 

Leviticus 25:39-41
³⁹ “If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and is forced to sell himself to you, do not treat him as a slave. ⁴⁰ Treat him instead as a hired worker or as a temporary resident who lives with you, and he will serve you only until the Year of Jubilee. ⁴¹ At that time he and his children will no longer be obligated to you, and they will return to their clans and go back to the land originally allotted to their ancestors. 

Slavery and Freedom
Life was precarious in ancient Israel.  If you had a bad year or made some bad decisions, if a drought or a swarm of locusts or some other pest destroyed your crop, or maybe foreign invaders raided your land and stole your harvest, you could lose it all. There were so many ways to fall on hard times and there were no government run welfare programs, disability checks, social security, or unemployment benefits.  If you found yourself destitute, one of the few ways to survive might be to sell your land.  Then you had no way to grow food to eat.  So you probably had to sell a family member (or even yourself) into slavery to survive.  It was degrading, but it could happen to anyone and at least slavery was a way to survive because you would be fed and sheltered and protected by your master. 

Slavery is not God’s will for His people.  We only have one Master—the Lord God.  He is a good Master who is fair and truly cares about our wellbeing.  Our Master in Heaven never uses or abuses us, but always makes sure we have what we need when we are faithful. 

Unfortunately, slavery is a fact life.  It was a literal fact of life in ancient Israel.  However, lest we think too highly of ourselves in our modern times, recognize that a kind of slavery is alive and well in America.  The average American adult today is over $58,000 in debt. 

Proverbs 22:7 says, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”  By this standard, the average American is deeply enslaved to debt.

Debt and slavery were stark and literal realities in ancient Israel, but  everyone’s debts were forgiven and every slave was released on the Year of Jubilee.  People returned to their own family’s land.  All of life was reset to normal and everything was made right again.  Everyone could make a fresh start.

This was wonderful, but also required some adjustments to people’s attitudes toward each other.  You might have grown accustomed to having and thinking of your neighbor as your slave.  Maybe they'd been your slave for decades.  Then after the ram’s horn announced the Year of Jubilee, your neighbor was set free.  They moved back to their family land and were free and equal to you in every way—both in status and in possessions.  Can you imagine how awkward that could be--especially if you’d been misused or degraded or abused you slave unfairly.  

Or perhaps you had been a slave to your neighbor for many years—always dependent on them, always having to serve their wants and needs, always accustomed to treating and seeing them as your superior.  Now the year of Jubilee comes and you are free.  You have spent years in humiliation and shame, but now you are your neighbor’s equal again.  You need to look each other in the eyes with no pride or humiliation. I’m sure it was quite an adjustment.

No one likes to be humbled.  No one wants to be thought of as “less than”.  We want to have pride about our life and our family.  We want others to be proud of us and maybe we even admire us.  It feels good. 

Two Great Lies
There are two great lies the world tells.  The first lie is “You measure up!”  We like to hear that lie.  It feels good.  We want to be cool, popular, liked, admired.  When people affirm us, we feel valued and appreciated.  We feel like we matter.  It’s a good feeling.  It's a lie because the world's measurements are based on a faulty ruler.  Tey measure us by worldly criteria.

The second lie the world tells is “You don’t measure up.”  This lie is the other side of the coin from the first lie.  If you don’t meet the world’s false criteria, you are unimportant, unwanted, unvalued, and dismissed.  Many people spend a lot of their time trying to establish and maintain the image that they measure up to society's standards.  In fact, much of the debt we see in our society—debt that enslaves us—is acquired as we try to measure up to the world’s arbitrary standards of who does and does not matter.

Do you wear the right clothes?  Do you have a nice car?  Do you live in a proper house? Do you have the right education?  If not, there is always a credit card company, a lender, a mortgage company, or a student loan available to “help” you acquire the “things” the world says you need in order to be important and respected in our society.  And so people trade their freedom for debt (and slavery) so that they can feel like they matter. 

Jesus’ disciples were certainly ambitious for greatness.  They wanted to measure up.  They jockeyed for power and position, even as they walked with their humble master because they each wanted to be the greatest disciple.  

Mark 9:33-35
³³ After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, “What were you discussing out on the road?” ³⁴ But they didn’t answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest. ³⁵ He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.”

Measured by the Cross
Jesus’ truth is that greatness is not measured by the world’s standards.  We are measured by the cross.  Jesus says, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”  And then he proved this truth by His own actions.  He washed His stubborn, prideful disciples feet.  This is the is the true measure of a person's greatness.

We are not measured by the world’s false standards, which change with the whims of fashion and people’s fickle imaginations.  We are measured by God’s eternal standard of Jesus Christ--who left the glory of Heaven, took the humble position of a slave, and even died a criminal's death on the cross (not for His own sins but for ours). 

That means two important things for us.  First, it means we don’t measure up. Romans’ 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glorious standard of God.”  We all fall short.  We’ve failed.  No matter how much the world tells us or we tell ourselves, “We are good.  We measure up,” the truth is we don’t.  That may sound depressing, but there is more to the story.  This bad news makes God's Good News so good. 

Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”  That means, Christ makes up the difference for us when we put our faith in Him.

An Invitation
In the Year of Jubilee in ancient Israel, everyone who was a slave was set free.  And everyone who was a slave master was also set free—set free from the burden of thinking themselves better than anyone else.  The Jubilee restored everyone to a right relationship with each other and with God, the true Lord. 

Jesus is the Great Jubilee.  He is the Lamb of God and the ram's horn that came to proclaim the time of the Lord’s favor has come.  Jesus proclaims that everyone is free from all kinds of enslavement—whether it be enslavement to sin or debt or to chasing the world’s fantasy about what it means to be important.

When we are blind, Jesus helps us see that we are not better than we think we are nor are we worse than we think are.  Jesus helps us see who we really are.  We are God’s precious children.  He loved us so much that Jesus died on the cross so we could be set free.

Jesus sets us free from the feeling that we’ve got to prove ourselves to anyone.  Jesus has already proven us.  He made you the way you are.  He loves you as you are.  He invites you to repent of you sin and trust in Him to save you and give you eternal value.  Jesus invites you to follow Him and to serve as He served.

Won’t you accept His call to repent and be set free today?  I hope you will.  You can.  Pray something like this and then find a group of Christians to help mentor you as you walk with Christ daily.  Pray:

Lord come in and take control of my life.  Fill me up full of your wonderful grace.  Cleanse my heart and my wretched old soul.  I choose You as Lord today.  Save me and help me to walk with You and be a servant like you, every day. Amen.

I AM the Good Shepherd

Introduction

For 2,000 years, people have speculated about Jesus--who he was and why he became so important and influential in our world.  If we really want to know who Jesus was, maybe we should consider what he said about himself and why he came.  That's what I'm doing in this series.

We are studying the seven "I AM" statements of Jesus from the Gospel of John where Jesus told everyone who he is and why he came.  So far, we have seen that Jesus is:

I am the Bread of Life – Jesus is the only thing that satisfies the deep hunger in our souls.
I am the Light of the World – Jesus reveals the truth and lights our way out of darkness.
I am the Gate – Jesus is the way into the protective safety of God’s presence.
And I also want to remind you that when Jesus said, I AM, he used those words intentionally. Way back in Exodus, God told Moses His name from the burning bush, "I Am." Exodus 20:15, "This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations."  So everytime Jesus said I am... he was giving us a clue that he is God.

Today, I want to look at Jesus’ 4^th I AM statement from John 10:11-16. 

John 10:11-16

¹¹ “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. ¹² A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. ¹³ The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep.

¹⁴ “I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, ¹⁵ just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. ¹⁶ I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.

A Shepherd Knows His Sheep

Jesus was a brilliant communicator.  He knew exactly how to get his message across in ways people would understand and always remember.  Shepherds and sheep were as common a sight in Jesus' time as cars and the internet are in ours.  I am not a shepherd, but I did own some Nigerian dwarf goats for a few years.  These were dairy goats; and yes, I did milk them. (Well, I milked one of them—Miranda.)  Miranda was the matriarch of the flock.  She was the first female goat I bought.  In order to get milk, you have to breed your goats.  After they have their babies (kids, in the case of goats), the mother produces milk.  Then, you have to milk the goat at the same time every morning and every evening.  You can't skip, because the animal will start to produces less milk.  So I got pretty close to my goats, and especially Miranda.  I was with her every day twice a day.  I was also watching over her throughout her pregnancy.  I was with her, cheering her on as she delivered her kids.  And let me tell you, there is nothing cuter or more hilarious than flock of playful baby goats!  So you sort of get attached to these animals and you really care about them when you spend so much time with them.

Milking a goat is not really that hard.  It only takes about 15 minutes, twice a day.  What makes it hard is the consistency of it.  You have to do it every day, twice a day and you can't skip--not for anything.  So if it is cold out, you have to milk the goat.  If it is raining, you have to milk the goat.  If it is snowing and 0 degrees outside, you have to milk the goat (ask me how I know).  And if you every go out of town--even for just a day--someone has to milk the goat.  Try finding someone in our day and age to milk a goat for you.  I was lucky to have a few friends who helped from time to time and an amazing pet sitter who actually knew how to do it (now that's going above and beyond).  And my wife, bless her heart, was terrible at it and hated it, but she still loved me enough to try a few times.  

Once, I was out of town and my wife had Miranda up on the milking stand and Miranda was being stubborn.  Miranda was acting like, "Hey! Who are you?  You're not the right person!  Why are you bothering me?  Leave me alone!"  And she was stomping and kicking and not letting Kelly milk her.  So Kelly calls me on the cell phone and says, "Will you talk to Miranda?  She's not letting me milk her." So I started talking to Miranda over the phone and she started bahing like she always did when I was at home with her.  It was hillarious!  But she knew my voice.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd
Jesus is the good shepherd.  He knows everything about his sheep.  He's been with us during the good times and the bad times, in the big moments and the little ones.  He was there when we were born, when we were learning to walk, going to school, graduating, getting married, getting divorced or whatever.  Jesus is bonded to us and cares deeply about us because he's been investing in our lives from the very beginning.

Now, there are others in our life that say they care about us, and sometimes they really do--at least to a degree.  But in one way or another, all these others are just "hired hands" (as Jesus says).  Think about the people who tell you they care about you.  There is the government.  They say they care.  And to a degree, it's true.  Their job is to keep our society running smoothly if possible (it's in their best interest if everyone is happy and mostly taken care of, that justice prevails and laws are made and followed and we're all safe).  And in a crisis like we're currently in with COVID 19, they are working hard to try to help.  However, officials have their own families and their own personal interest that are more important to them than we are.  And they will help as long as they can and they're able and it's in their own best interest, but there's a limit.  They're not going to sacrifice their life or their families for us.  And most aren't going to sacrifice their financial well-being for us.  They're hired hands.  And if a big enough wolf comes to attack us, their going to run away.

Or maybe the hired hand in your life was a romantic relationship.  Someone told you they loved you more than life itself and you thought they would always be there for you.  But now you look around and they're gone.  It hurts so bad when you find out the love of your life was only a hired hand.  We try to assure that people won't leave "in sickness or in health" through marriage vows.  We sign a marriage licence and make promises before God in a marriage ceremony to says we won't ever leave; but even this sometimes doesn't work and through divorce we find out our spouse was only a "hired hand" who abandoned us when the "wolf" came.

What other “hired hands” have let you down in this life when the "wolf" came to attack?  

Jesus is not like the hired hands.  He is the Good Shepherd.  He will never abandon you.  He will fight for you and protect you and provide for you.  He will even give his life for you if that's what it takes.

The Wolf in the illustration can be any evil or trouble that comes.  But ultimately, the Wolf is the Devil who comes to destroy you because of your sin.  The wolf is hungry and he hates you and he hates it when you draw closer to God.  And the wolf is scary and viscous with claws and fangs.  And alone we're defenseless against Satan.  Think about it, in Jesus' story, we're the sheep!  Sheep are domesticated animals with almost no defensive weapons.  They're best hope is to flock together (and that's only in hopes that the wolf will eat someone else and not me).  And sheep are so dumb, they usually scattered when the wolf attacks which only makes them even more vulnerable.  Sheep need a courageous, caring, and capable shepherd to protect them.  And that's what Jesus is. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He will not abandon us. He fights off the Wolf (the Devil) whenever the Wolf attacks--even if it costs his life.

Jesus Died for You

The Gospels tell us Jesus loves you so much He sacrificed his life to save you.  You see, everyone is corrupted by sin and sin leads to death.  Romans 3:23 tells us, "For all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious standard."  And Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord."  And over 500 years before Jesus was born, the prophet Isaiah foretold Jesus' purpose as the Good Shepherd--Isaiah 53:6, "All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him [Jesus] the sins of us all."

No one had the power to kill Jesus, but Jesus knew someone had to die to pay the penalty for our sin.  And though Jesus was the only person who ever lived who was perfect in every way and didn't deserve to die, Jesus sacrificed His life for you and me.  He allowed himself to be arrested, tortured, and crucified.  His death atones for our sin.  He literally laid down his life to save ours for all eternity.

Are You One of Jesus’ Sheep?
Are you one of the Good Shepherd's sheep?  This is a really important question for you to answer! Everyone wants to go to heaven. Nobody wants to go to hell.  And everyone wants to assume they will go to heaven when this life is over.  But I have to tell you the Truth, if Jesus is not your Good Shepherd in this life, it’s illogical to think He will be your Good Shepherd in the Afterlife.  And it's not out of spite.  It's just that you would never be happy living with and obeying Jesus for eternity if you don't want to do it for the few years you live on this earth in this life.  And so, in the end, God will grant you your wish.  Either He  will want to live in harmony with Him forever, or He let you have your way and live without Him for all eternity (which is really the definition of hell).  Which one will you be?  Do you want to be in the Good Shepherd's flock or not?  And how do you know?

Well, Jesus told us.  He said His sheep know and follow Jesus voice.  Do you know and are you you listening to His voice.  We listen to and get to know His voice through prayer, reading Scripture, and listening to people God appoints to speak to us for Him.  But the most important of these are prayer and Scripture.  Are you praying and reading the Bible and listening to God speak to you through them and the people He's appointed to preach His Word?

Jesus says His sheep will follow Him.  We do this by obeying what He says.  And so much of what Jesus said was about how we love others and serve and share our witness about what Jesus is doing for us.  Are you following Jesus in obedience to His Word?

Jesus Has Other Sheep Too
Jesus says something very interesting in verse 16 that's very relevant for us today. John 10:16, "I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd." There are still sheep that belong to Jesus out in the dangerous world. They are lost and vulnerable and Jesus, the Good Shepherd wants to gather them in. And Jesus gave us a mission to gather them in.

What are you doing to bring in Jesus’ other sheep? With so many worshiping online right now during the coronavirus pandemic, it's never been easier to invite people to come worship Jesus with you.  All you have to do is send them a message on Facebook and you can literally invite people from all over the world!  And it's easy for them to come.  They don't have to be nervous about visiting a church building where there will be people they don't know and worrying what it will be like and if they will be judged or unwelcome.  They can log into the worship experience from the comfort of their own home in the pajamas if they want to!  Are you inviting these sheep to come hear the Good News about Jesus?

Are you being a witness for Jesus yourself?  That doesn't have to be intimidating.  You don't have to have everything figured out to be a witness.  You don't have to teach a Bible lesson or preach a sermon.  You don't even have to know all the answers.  You just have to be willing to say how Jesus has made a difference in your own life.  Are you being a witness for the Good Shepherd?

Invitation
So, as we close, I want to give a two-fold invitation:
First, I want to invite you, if you to become one of Jesus’ sheep. All you need to do to make this happen is pray to Jesus and say something like, "Jesus, forgive me for my sin.  I want to follow you from now on.  Save me and help me. Amen."

And second,  I want to invite you to follow Jesus’ command to “Go into all the world and make disciples…” There is no better time than this and you’ve never been more equipped to literally go into all the world and make disciples.  Invite someone to worship Jesus with you.  And tell people how Jesus is making a difference in your life.

Ask Pastor Chris 1 - Questions About Sin

Introduction
            Today, I begin a new series of blogs based on questions people have asked about religion, the Bible, etc.  Several people asked questions related to sin. So today I will address the topic of sin.
            In Genesis we read how a man named Joseph became the most powerful man in ancient Egypt besides Pharaoh.  But then that Pharaoh died, Joseph died, and 400 years passed.  There was a drastic change of attitudes of Egyptians toward the Israelites (the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). The Egyptians loathed the Israelites who had grown numerous in the land. The Egyptians tried to wipe them out with slavery, hard labor, and genocide. 
            God raised up a prophet named Moses to deliver the people. Through a series of plagues, God forced the mighty Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt. And by many miracles—such as parting the Red Sea so the Israelites could walk across on dry ground—God delivered the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.  Furthermore, God gave Moses divine laws to order the life of His people and keep them pure and holy.  Yet the sin of Adam and Eve still corrupted the hearts of these people; and as God was giving Moses the Ten Commandments up on a holy mountain, sin led the Israelites into trouble again.

Exodus 32:1-8

¹When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. “Come on,” they said, “make us some gods who can lead us. We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.”

² So Aaron said, “Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.”

³ All the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. ⁴ Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

⁵ Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!”

⁶ The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.

⁷ The Lord told Moses, “Quick! Go down the mountain! Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. ⁸ How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they have bowed down and sacrificed to it. They are saying, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.’”

Brief Exposition of Scripture
            It is almost unbelievable that the Israelites would turn their backs on God so quickly after he delivered them from slavery in Egypt.  It was God who brought ten plagues against Pharaoh, forcing him to let the Israelites go.  It was God who parted the Red Sea—a miracle so awesome no one could forget it.  It was God who provided for these former slaves as they journeyed through the dessert. 

            Sin is a terrible disease that darkens human hearts and minds. It caused the Israelites to turn their back on God, while He was still working to save them.  We still struggle with sin today.

What is Sin?

            Sin was originally an archery term. It meant missing the mark. But what is the the target for which we shoot?  God made us in His image. God intends us to be a reflection of His Holy Love. That Holy Love was lived out in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve enjoyed a perfect relationship with God and each other.
            Jesus also explained the nature of Holy Love in the New Testament when he named the Greatest Commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength...  And love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)
            When we think of sin, we usually think of all the bad things people do—lying, cheating, stealing, murder, etc. These are all sins, but they are sins (with a lower case "s") because they are only symptoms.

            Here's an illustration: When you are coughing, sneezing, and have a runny nose, you might say you have a cold. But the coughing and sneezing, and runny nose are just the symptoms. The common cold is actually cause by a virus—the rhinovirus. The virus is the core problem. The symptoms—the coughing, sneezing, and runny nose—are just the results.
            The core problem in the human heart is Sin (that’s Sin with a capital "S"). We don’t keep God at the center of our life. We don’t put Him first. We try to find in other things what only God can give.  That is the real Sin (with a capital "S").
            It goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. Remember, they chose to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit. Instead of trusting God who said not to eat the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve listened to the serpent who lied and told them the fruit would make them like God.
            The core Sin is we don’t love God above all else, we don’t trust God above all else, we don’t obey God above all else.  When this core Sin inhabits our hearts, it expresses itself through a multitude of little "s" sins—lying, cheating, stealing, murder, idolatry, lust… We forget about God who made us and saved us and we mistreat everyone. Ultimately, we destroy ourselves. As Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death…” 

Are All Sins Equal?
            One of the question submitted was "Are all sins equal?"  As I have said, the core Sin (with a capital "S") is not keeping God above all else. So there is only one Sin. But what people mean, I think, when they ask this question is “Are all the little "s" sins equal?” And the answer depends from whose perspective you are looking.  Are you viewing the problem from people's perspective or God's perspective.

            If you look at the problem from people's perspective, it is plain to see societies loathe some sins more than others.  Murder is almost universally detested—regardless in which part of the world you live (though some cultures even view murder in varying degrees).  Other sins are detestable in one region while hardly even noticed in another society.  I recently read about a missionary who discovered this as he was serving as a professor overseas.  He gave his foreign students a multiple choice test.  Each question had 4 choices, one of them being correct.  Multiple choice tests are usually considered easier in America because even if you don't know the answer, you can guess and have at least a 25% chance of getting the right answer.  So the missionary professor was surprised to see students turning in test without even taking a guess on many of the questions.  He asked one of the foreign students about it. 
            "Did you realize you didn't answer all of the questions?  You still have time left.  Why don't you try to answer them?"
            "No, because I don't know the answers to those questions," replied the student.
            "But why don't you at least take a guess at them?"  Inquired the professor.
            "Oh no!" exclaimed the student.  "I couldn't do that.  If I accidentally chose the correct answer, I would be lying because I do not know the answer."
            The professor realized, the students of that foreign land valued honesty more than students in America, even more than the professor.  They saw sin in a different way.  Who is to say they are not right?
            How society feels about a particular sin can change quite a bit over time.  John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, considered playing cards a terrible sin because it was a distraction that wasted time that could be used for spiritual growth and to serve God and one’s fellow man.  Now-a-days, playing cards is often done in the church and we wouldn't think a thing about it. Our views have changed.
            Currently, the big debate in America centers on issues of sexual sin—especially homosexuality. To some, it would seem engaging in homosexual acts is the worst possible sin anyone can commit. Yet, society has become so much more accepting of homosexuality and sexual sin in general.  So it is easy to see that people, societies, and cultures do not see all sins as equal and perceptions of sin can change a lot over time. But what about God?

           From God's perspective, all sins are equal. As the first part of Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death…”  Dead is dead; there's no such thing as a little bit dead. It doesn’t matter if the sin was a little white lie, a little gossip, homosexuality, or murder. All sins results in death and are equally evil in God’s sight.
            One of my childhood youth pastors explained it to me this way.  Suppose you have a crystal clear pane of glass.  It is perfectly clear except for one small smudge in the middle.  Even though 99% of the glass is clear, if you take a hammer and strike the small smudge, the whole pane of glass will break (not just the smudge).  The same is true of your life.  Even if you are 99% perfect, that 1% of you that is sin will shatter the other 99%.
            Romans 3:23 & 6:23a tells us the bad news.  Romans 3:23 says, "All have sinned and fall short of God's glorious standard."  And the first part of Romans 6:23 says, "The wages of sin is death..."  We all sin and are subject to death.  The Good News is that God does not give us what we deserve. Because of Jesus, we can be forgiven our sins, no matter how big or small they are.  As the second part of Romans 6:23 says, "the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
            When we repent and trust in Jesus, every sin we've ever committed is forgiven.  Every sin we will ever commit in the future is also forgiven by God.  Isn't that wonderful news?  It is very wonderful news indeed! 

Should We Keep Sinning?
            If God is just going to forgive us, why not just keep on sinning?  No! Because you have to repent in order to receive God’s forgiveness.  Repentance is choosing to turn away from your sin and turn to God—turning away from all those little sins like lying, cheating, stealing, etc.  Ultimately, repentance means you choose to put God above everything else.  It means loving God above all else, obeying God above all else, serving God above all else, and seeking God above all else.  If you decide to just keep on sinning, you are not really repenting.
            Now, we are still imperfect human beings. We may still make mistakes. We have a lot of healing to do before we actually reclaim the perfect image of God. And God is gracious. He understands and is patient. He forgives again and again and again. But don’t abuse His gracious gift by willfully and knowingly sinning just because you know He will forgive you. God knows your heart.

Dwelling on the Past
            One interesting question that came in was:  "If God forgave me, shouldn’t people forgive me too and not dwell on the past?"  The question came to me on Facebook last week, but I have heard the question in various forms from different people through 17 years on church ministry.

            When we sin, we often feel terrible.  We struggle with shame and guilt and often the awful consequences of our sin.  It can be very difficult for us personally as we struggle to repent, accept God’s forgiveness, and even forgive ourselves.  It is a painful journey; one we would like to just put behind us.  However, the consequences of our sins  often linger; often, those consequences effect other people.  For example:  If you commit adultery and it leads to divorce, the consequences will last a lifetime.  Even though God forgives you, you may always have to deal with the scars of a broken marriage.  Your spouse may never forgive you.  If there were children involved, it may take years of hard work to repair the relationships; and they may always remember what you did.  Sin has a terrible and lasting effect.
            In the Bible, when King David committed adultery with Bathsheba, God forgave him.  However, David suffered the consequences of his sin though out his life.  In the short term, just after the sin, David’s infant son got sick and died.  In the long term, David’s family was full of conflict.  One of his own sons eventually lead a rebellion to steal the Kingdom from David.  David retained his Kingdom, but only after his son was defeated and put to death.  As an old man, David still struggled with guilt from the brokenness he caused by his sin.
           When we sin, we are glad that God forgives us and we may feel as though everyone ought to forgive us and move on too.  However, don’t presume to think people owe you forgiveness.  Maybe they should forgive you, because it would be better for them if they did.  However, don’t resent someone because they haven’t forgiven you yet.  You don’t have that right.  Remember, you caused this problem; now you are dealing with the consequences.
            Instead of telling people to forgive you and move on, be patient with them.  Be gracious and show real love instead of resentment.  Give them time to heal and give God time to work on their heart.  Pray for them; pray that God would heal them—for their sake and not just so you can be free of the shame and guilt.  In the mean time, bear the cross you have to bear until God takes it away. 

What is God Saying to You Today?

            As we conclude, I invite to consider what God might be saying to you today.  Perhaps He is calling you to repent of your sin and turn to Him.  Perhaps He wants you to make a new commitment to put Him above everything else.  Maybe you need to ask God to help you see sin more like He does and less like the fickle people around you. All sins are equally evil. Ask God to help you hate the sin within you.  Maybe you need to pray for those who need to forgive; perhaps there is even someone who needs to forgive you. Ask God for patience while you wait.

Do you have a question you want me to address? Post it in the comments below or send me an email at ReverendChrisMullis@Hotmail.com