Sermon Tone Analysis

God expects believers to forgive others in the way that He forgave them.

Therefore we should define forgiveness between ourselves and other people the way God defined it in forgiving us.

God forgiveness for Christians is the model He expects Christians to live out.

We find this principle stated more than once in the Scriptures.Jesus included this point in what’s commonly known as the “Lord’s Prayer”.

"And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

() Paul stressed this in both Ephesians and Colossians.

"And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.”

() "bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another.

Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive.”

() So we seek to understand how God forgives us as our basis for seeking to forgive others.

HOW GOD FORGIVES.

We all have needed God’s forgiveness because everyone has offended God.

The Bible tells us that God placed our ancestors, Adam and Eve, in a perfect creation.

Adam and Eve were God’s special representatives, and they were given responsibility over what God had created.

Sadly, Adam and Eve rebelled against God and ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

When they did, they destroyed their relationship with God, both for themselves and for all of humanity.

Now all are born sinners and all choose to sin.

It gets worse.

The Bible teaches that there is a penalty for sin and that the penalty must be paid.

The penalty for sin is the wrath of God, everlasting hell.

It sounds so blunt to say it that way.

But this is the truth of the Word of God.

Most of us tend to compare ourselves to other people.

Comparing y that standard, we may not seem so bad.

But we are not accountable to measure up to other people.

We answer to a perfectly holy and just God.

And we have all offended His standard in a way that we can never hope to repair through our own goodness.

So how God forgives becomes the most important truth that any human being ever considers.

Here’s a summary of what God’s forgiveness is like.

HIS FORGIVENESS IS GRACIOUS BUT NOT FREE

It’s only by grace that a person is saved.

What I mean is that salvation rests entirely on the unmerited favor of God.

Forgiveness is a gift that God graciously offers us.

"For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast.”

()

I could pastor for a million years, and it would get me no closer to being forgiven by God.

I am forgiven only by grace.

God’s forgiveness to me is a gift.

Did God offer me this gift because He saw that I had a small seed of goodness or potential?

Not at all.

Forgiveness is a gift motivated by the love of the One true God.

You have to grasp this verse: "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us,” ()

So, motivated by love, God graciously offers the gift of forgiveness.

Though offered as a gift, it was at a high cost to God, that this gift was purchased.

Our salvation was purchased at the expense of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

() The word “propitiation” means a wrath absorbing sacrifice”.

The only way anyone can be forgiven is for Christ to pay the penalty.

Forgiveness is not free.

Christ suffered in our place.

RECAP· Motivated by love, God offers forgiveness graciously.

· God wraps the salvation as a gift and offers it.·

The gift was purchased by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

FORGIVENESS IS CONDITIONAL.

Only those who repent and believe are saved.

Now we know that all people are not saved.

Only those who repent and believe the gospel.

We receive forgiveness by turning away from sin (in repentance) and turning to Christ believing in what He did at the cross (faith in Christ alone).

“testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”

() Paul used both terms.

We must turn to God in repentance and we must have faith in our Lord Jesus.

The way to open God’s forgiveness package is through repentance and faith.

GOD’S FORGIVENESS IS A COMMITMENT.

God forgives us graciously.

He’s motivated by love.

He offers forgiveness as a gift (an expensive gift).

Not everyone is forgiven (only those who repent and believe the gospel are saved).

Next we see God’s commitment to those He forgives.

The most common word for forgiveness in the bible is the Greek word aphíēmiἀφίημιf; ἄφεσιςa, εως f; ἀπολύωe: to remove the guilt resulting from wrongdoing—‘to pardon, to forgive, forgiveness.’ἀφίημιf

: ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν ‘forgive us the wrongs that we have done’ .ἄφεσιςa:

τὸ αἷμά μου … τὸ περὶ πολλῶν ἐκχυννόμενον εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν ‘my blood … which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ .ἀπολύωe:

ἀπολύετε, καὶ ἀπολυθήσεσθε ‘forgive and you will be forgiven (by God)’ .[1]

When God forgives, He commits or promises that He will no longer hold the sin against the person being forgiven.

If we put our faith and trust in Christ, then we are “justified” (; ), declared to be righteous.

God makes a legal declaration that we are no longer condemned for our sin.

Jesus pays the penalty for our sin and we are credited with Christ’s righteousness.

FORGIVENESS LAYS THE GROUNDWORK FOR AND BEGINS THE PROCESS OF RECONCILIATION.

God’s forgiveness is completely linked to reconciliation.

No one is forgiven by God without being reconciled to God. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” ()

FORGIVENESS DOES NOT MEAN THE ELIMINATION OF ALL CONSEQUENCES.

If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, then you are saved ().

As far as east is from the west, so far does God remove your sin ().

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ ().

However, there are some consequences on this side of heaven because of our rebellion against God.

For example: David and Bathsheba.

God used Nathan the prophet to confront David (), the king realized the magnitude of his sin and was truly repentant, and Nathan told David that God would forgive him for his sin ().

Then came the consequences:· Violence among his family, 12:10.·

The baby would die, 12:14.·

Amnon (his son) raped David’s daughter, .·

Absalom (another son) killed Amnon, .·

Absalom attempted to take over David’s kingdom, .The reality of consequences shows us that God disciplines His own not for the purpose of punishing them but for His glory and for their joy in the future.

These consequences are not punishments but are God teaching tools for how He trains us!

SUMMARY.

& God’s forgiveness is gracious.

He offers forgiveness freely.

This is not because forgiveness is free in terms of cost.

It’s offered freely because, motivated by love, God sent His one and only Son to pay the price for it.

& God forgiveness is a commitment.