The Joy of Forgiveness

We are in a sermon series for the church season of Lent entitled “Psalms for the Journey.” We are allowing the Psalms to challenge us and help lead us into a closer relationship with God. We have seen that God is our shelter and our light. We have learned what it means to thirst for God.

You can find each one of these sermons on our You Tube channel and Facebook page. This week we turn our focus to “The Joy of Forgiveness.” Our scripture this week is Psalm 32.

1 Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit. 3 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. 5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin. 6 Therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found; surely the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them. 7 You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. 8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. 9 Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you. 10 Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him. 11 Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!

Please pray with me…

I want to begin this week by asking you a question, “Do you feel blessed?” This question can lead us to a couple additional questions. Do you feel the presence of God in your life? Do you believe that God is with you and helping you on your faith journey?

We discover that the Psalmist has asked themselves similar questions. He has believed that there were times that God didn’t seem near to him, that God was not walking beside him, and helping him become the person that he believed God desired for him to be.

The Psalmist acknowledges this, but at the same time, he puts the blame squarely on his own shoulders. He is basically saying to each one of us “do not be like me.” Repent of your sins and allow God to forgive you and cover your sins.

He seems to be stating that it is through our willingness to turn our transgressions over to God that can directly collate into a type of relationship with God that will allow for us to be blessed by God.

Forgiveness is to give you the feeling of having joy, joy, joy down in your heart. It should allow you to feel a peace that passes all understanding. Forgiveness can help you believe that God will be with you through the ups and downs of life.

(Transition)

God doesn’t only want to bless us by forgiving us, he also wants us to be able to be a blessing to those around us. He wants us to accept him as his father while also showing those around us that he wants to also bless each of them.

We get to decide if that is what we want to do. God doesn’t change. It is us making decisions that move us away or towards God. God stays where he is. God waits for us to decide that we want to follow him or return back to him.

God loves us enough that he will always take us back, but he doesn’t make us stay with him if we decide we don’t want to go on the journey with him. He wants us to follow him with joy down in our hearts.

(Transition)

Our first reading shows the love of God through a parable regarding a father and two sons. We have the youngest son deciding he doesn’t want to be around his father any longer and he asks his dad for his inheritance.

He is basically saying to his dad, “I would prefer that you would be dead to having to spend another moment with you.” He wants to leave his father and his brother and live life on his own. The father allows the son to make his own choice and the son’s choice is to leave.

God gives us the same choice. He may have already forgiven you or you may have not yet decided that you need your sins to be forgiven. No matter the situation God allows us to be who we want to be without him in our lives if that is the decision that we decide to make.

But what can happen without our God around to help us is that we can end up making choices that we will later regret. We can find that we have people that like us when we are doing things for them. We may discover that life couldn’t be better until it is not.

We see this over and over again with the Israelites. Life is good and they forget why life is good and they quit focusing on their God and instead give themselves the credit for why things are going so well.

Eventually they get so far away from God that God is no longer helping them and before they know it life gets bad, it gets difficult, and they are no longer in a situation where life is easy and fun. That is what eventually happens to the youngest son.

(Transition)

I know what you may be thinking. I am closer to God than I have ever been but yet my life still stinks. Things are continuing to not go my way. I have seen many people in this situation, and they are trying to figure out what to do or why this is happening to them.

The problem is that we don’t know. We don’t know why some people have life continue to go their way while others find themselves facing a constant struggle. What I do know is that God does want to struggle with you.

God won’t give up on you and he hopes that you won’t give up on him. Keep fighting. Keep trying to keep the faith. Cry out to God and those around you when you need to. God loves you as you are and where you are in your life.

(Transition)

Back to our story, things end up getting so bad for the youngest son that he is feeding pigs and doesn’t have enough to eat for himself. Here is what we might not understand from the context. A Jewish person if they are attempting to follow the faith would be as low as he or she can be when they are feeding pigs.

It is at this point that the son recognizes that he would be better off as a servant for his father than doing what he is currently doing. He makes the decision to head back to his father’s house to ask to be taken in as a servant.

When he returns this is not the response he receives from his father. And no, the father didn’t just kick him out. The father had been looking and hoping that the son would return and when he sees the son he greets him and decides that he is going to throw a party because the one who once was lost has now been found.

(Transition)

There is nothing that you can do, or have done, that will keep God from having you join his family or having him accept you back into his family. God loves each one of us too much to keep us away. It is why we should have joy in forgiveness.

We have been found. We have found acceptance. We no longer have to be lost. It is why the church is so important. It becomes a place where those that have felt abandoned by the world can find love and community.

(Transition)

But there is another son in the story. This son has continued to be with his father and do work for his father. When he hears that his younger brother has returned, he is upset and angry that the father has accepted this son back. He doesn’t think life is fair.

Instead of having joy and happiness that his brother has returned he is angry that his dad isn’t punishing his brother or kicking him out of the house. He instead sees that a party is being thrown in his brother’s honor.

It leads to the question, who is the prodigal son? Who is the son who is truly lost? Is it the son that left and returned after realizing that what he did was wrong? Or is it the son who is angry and bitter instead of joyful and happy that his brother has found his way home?

I would say that the answer is both. We should be happy when those who have lost the faith find their way back to church, or those who have never stepped a foot in a church get enough courage to see if the church and God can help them.

We have a choice on how as followers of Jesus act and react when we have people return to the church or those who may be at the church for the first time. We can be like the older brother and ask where have they been all this time and why should we just accept them as a part of our congregation?

Or we can look towards the new follower of Jesus with possibly their rougher language and many questions and doubt that it is worth going on the journey with them. We can be dismissive instead of welcoming.

Instead, we should be a blessing to those around us. We should choose to accept people for where they are at in their faith journey. We are to be the hands, feet, and voice of Jesus to the world. We do this when we are willing to show the love of God to all people.

(Transition)

The psalmist offers what we should choose to do to thank God for allowing us to be blessed. He says that we need to accept, listen, trust, and act. It is through these actions that we are able to be the person that God desires for us to be.

We first have to be willing to accept that God can, has, and will always forgive our sins. Those of us that are currently followers of Jesus already have decided that we believe that God can forgive our sins.

But what I don’t want to assume is that everyone who is here or watching online has already made that decision. It may be that you are joining us and are seeking to discover what God desires for you in your life.

I want to make sure that you know that God desires to have a relationship with you. He desires to have you become a part of his family. God wants you to have enough faith to believe that he can forgive your sins and allow for you to become a better representation of the person that he desires for you to be.

Some of you may have believed God can, but at times you struggle with believing that he has forgiven you. You may have been made to believe that by becoming a follower of Jesus that your life was going to be great. The hardships are going to disappear. But instead, what you have discovered is that is not the case.

I spoke of this situation earlier, if you have asked your sins to be forgiven, they have been forgiven. God has adopted you into his family. God wants to walk beside you through any trouble and struggle that you may be going through. God is with you.

(Transition)

We need to be willing to listen to God when he speaks to us. I bring up during our prayer time that prayer is an interaction between us and God. God wants to hear from us, but he also desires for us to be willing to listen to him.

The Psalmist tells us that God will instruct us, teach us, and council us if we are willing to listen. Meaning that God will instruct you on the path you should take. He will teach you how to make the path easier. And God will instruct you as you are on the journey. God is with you from the start to the finish and every point in between.

It is through our willingness to be open to God speaking to us that can lead us to be willing to rely more on God and to be able to possibly remove ourselves from some of the struggles that we may face in this world.

The hard part for you may be figuring out how to go about hearing the voice of God. First, God’s voice will usually not be an audible voice. Second, you need to be willing to take the time to allow for God to speak to you.

This means that you may need to leave some space in your schedule to slow down. You may need to quiet your mind and your soul so that you have some space to be able to hear from God. You may need to experiment and discover how you are able to hear what God is attempting to say to you.

This can sometimes be difficult. You can’t just try to hear from God the same way as the person next to you. God seems to speak to different people in different ways. He desires for us to be in conversation with him.

(Transition)

The next action that we need to be willing to take is for us to trust in the Lord. We often refer to this as faith. A willingness to believe that in whatever situation we find ourselves in that God is in it with us.

In regard to forgiveness, it returns us back to a willingness to believe that no matter what we have done we have a God that will forgive us. We can find examples of people who struggle with the understanding that in the eyes of God they are good enough.

They will make statements like “if I walked into the church the place would burn down I’m so bad.” They struggle to believe that what they did and what they may be doing does not change the fact that God loves you as you are.

What God desires is for us to attempt to become a better person. His goal is for us to accept our forgiveness and try to stay away from sin. He wants us to be willing to accept the grace that he has given to us.

Trust is us being willing to take the first step in faith. It is us listening and then deciding that we are going to do what God has called for us to do. We need to decide that we will trust God enough to be with us that we will follow the calling that he has given to us.

(Transition)

This leads us to the last of the actions that we need to take and that is for us to act. God will always be with us. God will always speak to us. God will always love us. We show our love to God when we are willing to act for God.

This is us saying that we are going to put what God desires above our own desires. We are going to trust God enough to allow our faith to overcome our fear and step up and step out and do what God desires for us to do.

It can become through our actions that we find people that don’t know Jesus or have walked away from God. We may be able to through showing the love of Jesus to those around us let them be willing to see the Church of the Good Shepherd as a place that will love them as they are.

Let us find joy in forgiveness. Let us find joy in those that once were lost and now are found. Let us be a place where all people can come, believe, and feel the love of Jesus no matter where they are at on their faith journey.

Please pray with me…