Three Beautiful Words (Part 3)

I am Forgiven

Romans 3:23-25

Scripture

Romans 3:23-25

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Pray

Help us accept your gift

Help us let go of our pride

Story

Stealing money out of my dad’s car when we would go fishing and hiding it in my room after we got home.

Application

I am Forgiven

The story that we will be telling tonight is not an easy one to tell, and it’s not so much the story that’s difficult, but the people listening to it that make it difficult. This story is so difficult to understand because, if we’re being honest, we all imagine ourselves as the hero of our story. Just be real honest: every time we tell a story with us in it, isn’t it true that we always try to redeem ourselves a little bit? Whether it‘s a fight with our parents, or how we handled some issue in our life, we always seem to try to make our own image look a little bit better. Even when we tell stories about something good in our lives, we all like to imagine ourselves as the hero. When we imagine our own futures, we love to imagine ourselves as the hero of our future as well. That’s why tonight’s story is so difficult to tell because when we really examine Scripture, God tells us that we are the enemy of our own story. Isn’t that harsh? I’m my own enemy? What did I ever do to want to be the villain? But bear with me, because tonight we’re going to look at one of the most important stories, and it's a story that is written in blood.

The start of tonight’s story can be found in Romans 3:23 where Paul writes about all of humanity like this: All have sinned, and all have fallen short of the glory of God. Isn’t that uplifting? You sinned and you’ve fallen short. Right now you might be wondering, what did I do that has made God so disappointed in me? I haven’t cheated on my taxes, and last I checked I’m a good person. At least I like to think that I am a good person. But when Paul says that we have sinned and fallen short, he’s not necessarily describing what’s happening in your decision making. Paul is describing an identity crisis that you are suffering from. The sinful-fallen-short nature is like a condition that you were born with, and this is one disease that you can never cure yourself no matter how hard you try.

The root of this disease that we have goes back to Genesis, in the Garden of Eden. The Bible shows us that when God created Adam and Eve, He made them with an identity that wasn’t sinful, and they didn’t fall short of His glory. They lived in total harmony with how they were created. We were best friends with God, and life couldn’t have been better. There was no distance between people and the creator, and because of it, they lived in perfection.

But something happened. Even though people were already identified as bearing the image of their Creator, God had an enemy. And this enemy knew that he could never harm God himself, so he decided to harm this Creator by attacking His creation. This enemy came to Adam and Eve, and convinced them that they were nothing like God, and that God was holding out His best from them, because He didn’t want humans to be like Him. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve believed this enemy, so they pushed God out of their lives and they gave up the purity that they had been given, and the result is what Paul describes as “sinful and falling short of God’s glory.” As the human race, we made ourselves the enemy of God by distancing ourselves from Him.

The results of this came instantly. We can see throughout humanity how we’ve done life by ourselves, without God. We’ve created corrupt governments, we’ve gone to war with one another, and we’ve lost the purpose that we were meant to be living in. We have fallen short of the glory of what God designed us for. We are the enemy in our own story. But even when we betrayed God, he didn’t give up on us.

This person who would come to conquer the enemy, also has come to take our place for our punishment. Even though heaven considered us an enemy and we deserved death, this person was born perfect and took our punishment.

In our sin nature, there was nothing we could do to save ourselves. But then a man named Jesus came and He took our sin and punishment. He paid the price that we owed, and because of this, Paul doesn’t stop with just calling us sinful, but he continued on

This story that you’re hearing tonight was written in blood, and it can be told in just three beautiful words: I am forgiven. It's a story that every believer will say in their testimony. I couldn’t save myself, so Jesus came to save me. I believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation, and because of my belief in Him, I am forgiven. There is no other way to salvation except through Jesus. Your good works can’t do it for you, your parents can’t do it for you, and no other power on earth can do it for you. Only Jesus.

Story 2

Getting the opportunity to become an intern at my church and being able to serve othersStory of AJ Gregerson

Felt alone in the world

Did feel worthy of forgiveness

Learned to love and trust Jesus

Began to forgive those who hurt him

Completely turned his life around for Jesus

Supporting Scripture

Galatians 5:13-14

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

Application 2

I am for others

If this truly is your testimony, that you have been forgiven by Jesus, it’s great. But your story does not end there. We are not forgiven so that we can be on our own and have a get-out-of-jail free card. Our lives aren’t like a game of monopoly. We are forgiven so that we can be for others. We are forgiven so that we can bring others into the forgiveness of Jesus. There are so many people in the church that have accepted Christ as their Savior, and then they do nothing with that forgiveness. Forgiveness is not sitting in a church service every Sunday, but what you do when you are outside of those 4 walls.

Forgiveness means that we are no longer for ourselves, but for others. Isn’t that what the church was supposed to be? When you read about Jesus giving the Great Commission, “Go into the world and make disciples,” how did we ever get the conclusion that we are forgiven so we can remain comfortable?

Jesus also says “I will make you fishers of men.” You can fish and only cast out once, but you might not catch a single thing. But if you cast out multiple times, you have a much higher rate of success since you are trying in more than a single spot. You can sit in your own box of comfort and get nowhere. Or, you can get outside of your comfort zone like Jesus calls us to do and live for more than who we see in the mirror.

When you are forgiven by Jesus, you’ve been set free from your sin, but that freedom isn’t there for yourself; it's for others.

Ending Question:

Is there someone that you need to forgive, even though it may be difficult?

Are you living for more than just yourself?

Pray

Those of us that haven’t accepted your forgiveness would

Those of us that have would live for others not ourselves