Archive for the ‘Forgiveness’ Tag
“Jesus: ‘Look, I Am Making Everything New!'”, Part 2

Scripture: Revelation 21:1-8
Introduction:
The Lord Jesus Christ Is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! So, “Who is Jesus Christ?” “Who are you Lord? And the answer he gives is that He himself is the Resurrection and the Life! The scriptures themselves testify to Jesus Christ as the person around whom all things revolve and the One to Whom we should all turn and be directed.
Theological Theme:
Holding this two all together we can say that the Gospel is the Good News about Jesus Our Resurrection, and therefore the Resurrection is primarily about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ (personal doesn’t mean individual! It means sharing in Jesus relationship with his Father, the Spirit and all things!) It IS also about a glorified body! But it must be clarified in our day that Easter/Resurrection is a proclamation of the Fact that: You’re not just going to rise from the dead, you’re going to rise before, and accountable to Jesus Christ!
Christ Connection:
Relationship with Jesus is a priority ahead of receiving a new and glorified body! Because Jesus is not only the Resurrection but the Father’s Son, He is God and therefore present to us now in the Holy Spirit! He is Not first far off, but up close! He is “The God who made the world and everything in it—he is Lord of heaven and earth— [and he] does not live in [things] made by hands. 25 Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. 26 From one man[e] he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. 27 He did this so that [we] might seek God, and perhaps [we] might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 For in [the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit] we live and move and have our being,” – Colossians 1:24-28a
The picture you should have in your head about God is one where the Father embraces and seeks to embrace you through his arms of Jesus and the Holy Spirit! And Jesus is central because he is the one who takes us to the Father and sends us the Holy Spirit, so…
“We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.” (Col 1:28-29)”
Missional Application:
In participation with Jesus Christ, by the Spirit, and to the Glory of the Father, we continue to proclaim Jesus to all and encourage all to place their faith in Him and enter a trust relationship with Him!
“the ministry of the Holy Spirit is personal and personally transforming—it is dynamic and interactive, bringing about receptivity, responsiveness and participation. And the result is that we are on a journey towards spiritual maturity and full sanctification, being changed into the likeness of Christ. But this journey is not automatic, causal, or impersonal. It is not mechanically imposed on all believers…receptivity and participation do make a difference, [and so] the New Testament indicates the differences it makes and encourages, exhorts and even commands us to be receptive to the Word of God and the ministry of the Spirit out of trust in God’s faithfulness through the Son and in the Spirit. As Paul exhorts in Eph. 5:18, we are to be “filled with the Spirit.”
These personal distinctions related to personal participation should not be taken to mean that God is faithful to some but not to all. The difference our personal responsiveness makes does not condition God into changing his purpose and aim for us and all humanity. It does not make God for some and against others, and it certainly does not lead him to want to see those who are unresponsive perish.
Our personal response (or lack thereof) to God cannot undo the fact that Jesus is and remains Lord and Savior of all. The character and purpose, mind and heart of God remain just as they have been revealed in Christ. The finished work of Christ is never undone—God remains, in Christ, reconciled to all people, no matter their response. He has and holds out forgiveness for them, is ready to receive them back into fellowship with him, and in that sense accepts them. However, while God accepts them, he does not accept their rejection, their sin, their rebellion, but accepts them in order to do away with what is against them and against their participation in the reconciliation accomplished for them in Christ. Nothing changes that reconciliation (with all it means), not even a person’s complete or partial rejection of God’s gift. However, our personal response (participation) does affect the quality of our lived relationship with God and thus our personal experiencing of the benefits of Christ.”
-Dr. Gary Deddo
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Whoever Has Been Forgiven Much, Loves Much!
Part A:
Part B:
Full Message:
Main Bible Verses: Luke 7: 36-50 Acts 2: 36-41
Introduction:
The Father-Son-Holy-Spirit-God revealed in Jesus Christ is the God of Love and is therefore a forgiving God! In the birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus we see God at work to forgive and overcome sin, sending it away and reconciling all to himself. In the way Jesus lived, the things he said, and the way he thought and spoke we understand what forgiveness really is and means for human beings.
Theological Theme:
We are each and all called to participate in receiving God’s gift of forgiveness, and participate with Jesus in being reconciled back to his Father and our neighbors! This proclaims to us the Good News that forgiveness is first something God gives to us a gift which enables us to repent and then share his forgiveness with others. So, we don’t have to repent in order to be forgiven, rather we are forgiven and enabled to repent!
Christ Connection:
Jesus is the True and Fully Human Being. When we want to see and know most clearly what God’s love really looks like in a human being and what his purpose and plan is for us we look to Jesus Christ! WE LOVE because HE first LOVED US. WE FORGIVE BECAUSE HE HAS FORGIVEN US. What Jesus gave us was not only himself as an individual but, in and through the Holy Spirit, he gives us the opportunity to participate with him in his human nature.
“We put our trust in God because of who Jesus Christ is. And he himself is the grace of God towards us. He is the Gospel. He himself is our salvation. And we receive all the benefits of who he is as we trust in him and cast aside (repent of) all other rival objects of trust. We then enjoy our union and communion with him as our Lord and God. Our lives are united to Christ and we share in his life, we participate with him in all he is doing and will do in and through our relationship of trust or faith.” – Dr Gary Deddo
Jesus Christ took on our broken humanity, healed it and raised it up NEW so that he shared in his renewing humanity. He performed a great exchange. He shared in OUR POORNESS so that we could share in HIS RICHNESS! He shared in OUR BROKENNESS so that so that we could share in HIS HEALED HUMAN NATURE! He shared in the temptation of our unforgiving nature and, resisting it with his forgiving love, gives us the same opportunity to resist our unforgiving nature through receiving his forgiving love.
Missional Application:
We are called as Jesus’ disciples to encourage God’s children tore forgiven in order that they, too, might REPENT because of the forgiveness of their sins by God the Father and receive the Holy Spirit. They will then not only be saved FROM their sins but also be saved FOR God and sharing God and his characteristics with their neighbor.
Conclusion:
Overflowing love and forgiveness toward others is the natural response to God’s forgiveness of us and the appropriate consequence of faith in him. However, only those who realize the depth of their sin can appreciate the complete forgiveness that God offers them and the share that with others. Having received this forgiveness we believers seek to share it freely with others because, in Jesus Christ, God has forgiven and rescued the sinful human nature of all people, whether those people are extremely wicked or conventionally good, even as we were!
Do you appreciate the wideness of God’s mercy? Are you grateful for his forgiveness? Are you grateful for God’s forgiveness given to us in Jesus Christ?” If so, you will become more and more forgiving of others. Having received this forgiving love of Jesus we are now being compelled as ambassadors who are appealing to others (as if Christ was appealing through us!) to “Be reconciled to God”. “Receive his forgiveness!” The compulsion to appeal to others in love “to repent, turn to Christ and be reconciled” should outmatch any anxious cry and plea to “turn before you burn” because God’s grace is greater than our sin! Although God’s grace through faith is what saves us, and NOT our good works toward our neighbors, our good works demonstrate faith in Christ and are honored by Christ, and actually come from Christ, and therefore can bear fruit in the lives of our neighbors as we participate in them!
Photo Compliments: https://sermons.faithlife.com
Our Father’s Hope For All: In The Forgiveness Of Sin! pt.6
Part 6A:
Part 6B:
Full Message:
Main Bible Verses: Luke 24 Luke 7: 36-50
Introduction:
“Our Father’s hope for all: In The Forgiveness Of Sin” has primarily to do with relationship and how relationships work. It is not some static fact apart from actual relationship. When we say Resurrection, we mean God’s forgiveness resulted not only in the sending away of sin but RELATIONSHIP with JESUS in a RENEWED HUMAN NATURE by the Spirit. This message focuses in on the forgiveness/reconciliation that is ours because of Jesus, The Resurrection.
Theological Theme:
The Gift God gives us is The Gift of Himself. God doesn’t have anything else to give humanity but Himself, so the gift you have been given in The Gospel is God -The Father, Son and Spirit and relationship with Him. This is why Jesus personalized Resurrection saying that HE IS THE RESURRECTION – John 11:25.
Christ Connection:
The primary thing Jesus has been proclaiming is HIMSELF and Who HE IS. Because He is God the Son, the only begotten of The Father, then when He is with us, in our humanity, He is God with us, God for us, for our humanity!
What The Resurrection is proclaiming:
- Jesus is God The Father for us (since He is One with the Father).
- Jesus is The Holy Spirit in us (since the Spirit is One with He and the Father).
- Jesus is God, having done something to our human nature. Jesus is literally inside our human nature and so God is intimate with us by the Holy Spirit in our human nature.
- Jesus is God, transforming our human nature up close and personal – personalizing and humanizing us.
When we say JESUS, we are saying that in Him and because of His union with us as His creation, there is now a reconciled relationship that God has with all with creation. For Jesus to become human and to touch and heal humanity means that what God created but had fallen into sin has now been made right again, in Him, so that we can have hope now and fulfillment at Jesus’ Final Appearing! We receive in Christ the complete forgiveness of sin and at the same time the complete healing of the proper relationship between God and man, and all creation.
“The Gospel is as inclusive as Jesus’ Humanity” – Bobby Grow
Missional Application:
What sin is:
Because God is a relationship and has called us into His relationship, sin means our not believing in Him, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Sin is our not trusting, or relating with Him. Sin is turning to something else other than The Father, Son and Spirit for your identity, for guidance in your life, for strength in your trials, etc. Sin is also the horrible motive of seeking to put God to death. Sin according to the scriptures is lawlessness meaning that it corrupts every part of our humanity in word and deed, and everything in between..
However, the one unchanging Truth of the universe is God and His love revealed in Jesus Christ. God is interested in us and in a restored relationship no matter that we have sinned and despite that we have done everything to mess up our relationship with Him. In His fantastic mercy and grace He has placed into the universe, and into His creation in Jesus Christ, THE FULLNESS OF THE FATHER SON AND SPIRIT IN FLESH! So Law in The New Testament is actually the Love of The Father, Son and Holy Spirit Revealed in the human nature of the Son. Since everyone has sinned, and Christ has undone our sin, every human has been forgiven of their sin and reconciled to God in Jesus Christ and, therefore, are each and all called to put their trust in Jesus and receive this forgiveness and reconciliation freely given to us!
Conclusion:
In The Resurrection Season, God The Father proclaims to you through His Son and in the Holy Spirit the forgiveness of all of your sins. Luke 24: 1-8
God wants all to participate in what Christ has done for us and to receive what is already theirs in Christ – THE FORGIVENESS OF SIN. The reason your sins are forgiven in Christ is because Jesus is “THE ONE FOR THE MANY”. Knowing Christ in His Resurrection means knowing the forgiveness of ALL your sins. Hear and receive this hope and proclamation of THE COMPLETE forgiveness of your sins because of Jesus, THE Resurrection, and because of Jesus’ Resurrection, bodily, from the dead!
“….Despite man’s sin, God is with him, the One who was in Jesus Christ reconciling the world, drawing man unto Himself in merciful judgment. Man’s evil past is not merely crossed out because of its irrelevancy. Rather, it is in the good care of God. Despite man’s life in the flesh, corrupt and ephemeral, God is with him. The victor in Christ is here and now present through His Spirit, man’s strength, companion, and comfort. Despite man’s death God is with him, meeting him as redeemer and perfecter at the threshold of the future to show him the totality of existence in the true light in which the eyes of God beheld it from the beginning and will behold it evermore. In what He is for man and does for man, God ushers in the history leading to the ultimate salvation of man.” ― Karl Barth, The Humanity of God
Photo Compliments: https://www.comeuntochrist.org/
Our Father’s Hope For All: In The Resurrection Relationship! pt 4
Part 4A:
Part 4B:
Full Message:
Main Bible Verse: 1 Corinthians 15: 1-34
Introduction:
God The Father so loved the world that He gave His Son to us as Jesus (God in the flesh) that whoever believes in Jesus (The God Man) by the power of The Holy Spirit will not perish but will have eternal life. God’s life – the Life He talks about by which we will not perish but live and thrive – is life knowing The Father, and Son intimately in The Holy Spirit. That is Who and what Life and Resurrection is and is about.
Theological Theme:
All truly are included in God’s [Father, Son and Spirit] love and life. It doesn’t have so much to do with a decision we make but has something to do with a decision God made prior to any decision we can make and which is the basis for our decision. That decision is the Person of Jesus Christ, Who is God for us from within our humanity. The gospel is not primarily about us receiving God into our life. The gospel is primarily about the tremendous grace of God, through Jesus, receiving us into His life.
Largely it is relationship with The Father, Son and Holy Spirit by Whom you are guided about how you think about life, what you do, what you receive, and what you reject.
Christ Connection:
Resurrection means relationship with Christ and being reconciled to the Father in and through Jesus Christ. Being reconciled means being in relationship with The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Forgiveness means reconciliation with God and it means the restoration of relationship with God. Forgiveness of sin doesn’t just mean that sin ends but salvation means that we are saved INTO the restoration of relationship with God, where new relationship begins!
Missional Application:
God the Father Himself IS your Salvation. Sharing with Jesus in His relationship with His Father IS Salvation. Sharing friendship with Jesus IS Salvation. Intimacy with The Holy Spirit IS Salvation. The Holy Spirit comes upon you to reveal Christ to you, to mediate Christ to you. You respond by receiving and believing what The Holy Spirit has to say and, as God directs, witnessing to others about Him.
Photo Compliments: YouTube
Jesus Is Not Pretending – God REALLY IS Humble!
Audio – Part 1a: 34 min
Audio – Part 1b: 34 min
Audio – Full Message:
Bible Verses: Matthew 26:26-30 John 13:1-15
For more than a thousand years, the Passover meal celebrated God’s deliverance in the exodus of His people from Egypt and simultaneously pointed ahead to an even grander sacrifice and work of God. Jesus reinterpreted the Passover meal in light of Himself and His coming sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world. With a demonstration of authority and humility, Jesus set forth the pattern of countless Communion celebrations that now point back to His new covenant sacrifice and point forward to His coming kingdom with holy anticipation.
Theological Theme:
The Lord’s Supper points to our participation in the sacrificial nature of Christ’s life and death, and the humble nature of God – Father, Son and Spirit.
Christ Connection:
Hundreds of years before Jesus came, God made a covenant with Israel and sealed it with a sacrifice. When the people of God broke the covenant and worshiped false gods, God promised to enact a new covenant in which He would forgive sins and write His law on His people’s hearts. At the Last Supper, Jesus explained that His sacrificial death would establish this new covenant and bring forgiveness of sins in the humility of God.
“Why was this sacrament ordained at the time of the Passover? That we might learn that he [Jesus] is the giver of the law and that the things that are foreshadowed in the law are fulfilled in him. The Old Testament was a type of the things to come. He is the truth of those things.” –John Chrysostom (circa 347-407)
“Humility is the principle of all virtues: it removes any contrast, division or dissension from human beings and plants into them peace and charity. And through charity it grows and increases.” –Theodore of Mopsuestia (circa 350-422)
Missional Application:
God the Father calls us to take the Lord’s Supper, participating in his humility by the Spirit, looking back to Christ’s finished work and looking forward to his return.
“Throughout church history, this command to wash one another’s feet has been understood to mean we should do whatever it takes to serve one another, no matter how menial the task. To be a community of foot-washers is to live with this question on your lips: ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’” –H. B. Charles Jr.
“The ideal of a church community living in peace with one another is foundational to the evangelistic witness for the local congregation. It stands to reason that the Lord’s Supper, then, is not just an observance but a declaration about the way things are to be among God’s people. The meal contains a message not only about who Christ is and what He has done for the church, but who is included in the gospel story and in the benefits of Christ’s glory. It is a story of belonging, and a radical message that God intends for His people to identify with all believers, whether they are poor, weak, or forgotten.” –Gregory Alan Thornbury
Photo Compliments: cisphil.org
The Greater Miracle Of Forgiveness!
Audio – Part 1: 30min
Audio – Part 2: 30min
Audio – Full Message:
Bible Verses: Mark 2:1-12
True faith seeks Jesus not only for physical healing but also spiritual healing. Jesus is not only able to heal the sick physically but, being fully God, He is also able to forgive us for our sins and heal us spiritually. The gospel of Jesus Christ is able to heal sinners completely and make them whole.
Theological Theme:
Humanity’s greatest need is forgiveness and spiritual restoration.
“Come, and see the victories of the cross… Christ’s wounds are thy healing, his agonies thy repose, his conflicts thy conquests, his groans thy songs, his pains thine ease, his shame thy glory, his death thy life, His sufferings thy salvation.” –Matthew Henry (1662-1714)
Christ Connection:
Through His healing of the paralyzed man, Jesus demonstrated His authority over human suffering and His authority to forgive sins. By claiming to forgive sins, Jesus was putting Himself on par with God—the only One who can command disease and wipe away our wickedness.
“Often we think we know what our greatest need is, but really we are only focusing on our circumstances. In reality the problem you are facing today is not your spouse, children, or parents. It is not your job, boss, or coworkers. It is not your lack of resources, shortage of time, or insufficient income. Just like this young man, your greatest need is for the Messiah Himself. Jesus saw everything clearly—far more clearly than we do. He used this teachable moment to make the point concerning our greatest need in this life or the life to come! Jesus forgives the sins of all who come to Him in faith.” –Daniel L. Akin
Missional Application:
God calls us to be active in bringing people to Jesus—the only One who has the power to heal our physical infirmities and forgive our sins.
“The announcement [of forgiveness] and presentation of radical healing to a man in his entire person was a sign of the Kingdom of God drawn near. The paralytic experienced the fulfillment of God’s promise that the lame would share in the joy of the coming salvation.” –William L. Lane
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