The Messiness of Forgiveness

Have you ever made a big mess?

One night I had to run into Kroger and get some milk. I had both of my daughters with me. At the time Morgan was probably in about the 9th or 10th grade and Kiley was maybe 5th or 6th. You guys know that this is the stage where your dad can go from fun to be with to embarrassing real quick.

So we make our way to the back of the store and we are having a pretty good time telling stories and cracking jokes. When we passed that big ball thing that’s always in grocery stores (and who knows why), I did what I always do and I take out a few balls and I peg them with it. So at this point dad is awesome. And I was fun dad - until we made it to the milk.

The milk that we buy comes in a cardboard carton, not a jug. So there is no handle. And so I reached into the milk cooler and pulled out 2 containers of milk. What is also true of cardboard milk cartons is that they are usually wet and very slick. So as I pull the milk out of the coolers, they both slip out of my hand and crash to the floor.

Somewhere in that 3 foot drop those cartons magically changed from milk cartons to milk bombs. They magically change from a refreshing drink with Oreos to lactose grenades. Because when they hit the floor they exploded. There was milk carnage all over the place. My pants were covered in milk. The floor was covered in a milk pool. The milk cooler had milk splatter all over the front of it.

And as I turned around to ask the girls to help me clean it up - I caught just a passing glimpse of them turning the corner - Kiley down the pet food aisle - Morgan down the soft drink aisle. When the milk bombs went off my daughters disowned me.

One of the workers came around the corner and helped clean it all up. It was quite a mess and I felt bad about it. But this is the best part. After we cleaned it up the grocery worker reached into the cooler - carefully grabbed me another couple of cartons of milk - put them in a cart as if to say - here - you don’t touch them because I don’t want to clean up another mess.

What would have been even worse than me dropping two exploding milk carton bombs, would be for me to drop two more and to make another mess. If that had happened my children may have never returned to me.

So here’s the question. Do you ever feel like sometimes that youth camp is the place where we clean up some spiritual messes - but we go back home and make the same messes all over again?

It’s like we are just reaching into the cooler of sin, pulling another one out and making another mess.

I do that too. I’ve asked the Lord to forgive me of a lot of sins, clean up a lot of messes, only to go right back and do it again.

This camp is called FREE. I know that this year that you guys have talked a lot about freedom in Christ and freedom from sin. But are you still dropping sin bombs and making messes? Probably so.

How do we fix that?

What I want to help you with tonight is this. Your freedom is not going to come in the excitement of camp. Your freedom is not going to come because you think worship music is awesome. It isn’t going to happen because you like my sermons. Freedom will come when you can see the simple truths that sin is bad and God is good.

Sin is bad. It makes a mess.

God is good. Yes He cleans it up - but I think that one of the reasons we go right back and make the same mess is because we don’t consider the messiness of forgiveness.

We ask for forgiveness like we ask for a hall pass. We ask for God to forgive us in much the same way that we ask our math teacher if we can go to the bathroom.

We think like that because we have a massive misunderstanding of forgiveness.

A reason for this is because I think we misunderstand verses like 1 John 1:9. It’s a verse that sort of sounds like - hey - just ask . . . get a pass . . .

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

But that verse sounds like a hall pass ONLY if you ignore the mess. Because there is a big mess in 1 John 1:9 - a big mess that God has to clean up - it’s an exploding milk bomb of sin all over the place. Did you catch it?

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

One of the books of the Bible that has made a profound impact on my sanctification - helping me to see that sin is bad and that God is good - and the absolute mess of my sin and forgiveness is Leviticus.

Leviticus is our faith in the raw. It is the real version of the spiritual things we do. We talk of sacrifice - spiritual sacrifices -this is what the real things looked like. An offering - this is what that means. When we speak of dedication, or holiness - Leviticus us those spiritual realities in a tangible world.

What we are going to look at today is Leviticus 1:1-9 and which reveals the messiness of forgiveness. Why is forgiveness so messy? In doing this, really understand what it means to be forgiven, how to deal with sin, and appreciate what Christ has done for us. If we can catch this vision of forgiveness it will help us appreciate what God does in cleaning up the mess and I think it will also help us to slow down on dropping exploding milk cartons of sin over and over again.

Why is forgiveness messy?

There are no survivors of sin without sacrifice.

Sin kills. In the Garden of Eden God told Adam that if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that in the day you eat of it, you will surely die. And then Satan came along and he questioned what God said. He first told Eve that the reason God didn’t want them to eat of the tree is because they would be like him in knowing good and evil. And then he said that if they ate of it that they would not die.

And so they ate. But they didn’t drop dead.

And this is where Satan duped them. God wasn’t saying that they would drop dead. What he meant by day was that they would introduce an age of death into the world. It’s an era of death. And yes, we do know good, but we also know evil.

Sin brings about a slow, awful, prolonged death.

And death is a massive mess. Losing loved ones will be the hardest thing you will ever have to go through in your life. Some of you already know how awful that is. I lost my dad about 4 years ago. Shannon’s mom died in December, 2 weeks before my daughter’s wedding.

The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23a).

The reason we have a world like this is because of sin. And it is awful and painful.

Leviticus opens with a messy scene of death. But it’s not people dying. In fact, the people are sinning, but not dying. Why? How?

If you look closely you see that it is animals that they are bringing to a sacrifice. This is like worship at a slaughterhouse, at a meat packing facility. There is blood everywhere.

And this is the only way that a sinner survives. Something has to die for him.

A sacrifice is a substitute (Romans 6:23b).

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is another verse where I think we see a “free pass” on the penalty of sin but we don’t see the messiness of forgiveness. The verse says that eternal life, forgiveness is a free gift. That doesn’t mean that it comes at no cost. It is free to me BECAUSE someone paid theprice for it. A gift is something someone else pays the price for. Forgiveness is not free It comes at a cost - the best of their flock - an animal that they are delivering to the slaughter

And I don’t think we get the connection of what is going on here. These people are not bringing animals they don’t care about - they are bringing prize animals, the best of their heard - this is costly. And there is something in us that can connect even to an animal - and when it dies - it bothers us deeply - like a pet. An animal death is certainly not as significant as a human death, but we can sympathize with it. There is a connection. We are supposed to be caring for this animal - it holds a place in our lives. For the people in Leviticus it was a significant source of food, or production. This is no small loss.

Story of Evan running over his dog and being devastated. He accidentally took the life of his dog.

What if you had to intentionally take the life of something you loved so that you could survive sin? It would make you think a little harder about sinning wouldn’t it? When we ask for God’s forgiveness, we are not just saying words, but we are asking for God to do something.

Too often we are asking for forgiveness for consequences, but we really have no intention of giving anything up. This is a terrible understanding of forgiveness. That’s you just saying clean it up, and I’m going to grab another one and make another mess.

Ultimately Leviticus points to a time, not when a person would deliver an animal to the altar, but when Jesus would become the lamb of God for us. God delivered his son over to death because eternally he knew you and I would not survive sin without the sacrifice of the Son!

That alone ought to make us think harder before we sin - that sin you are asking forgiveness for - He knew 2000 years ago - and he placed it on his son to suffer.

Confession is a dirty conversation. (hand placed on animal)

Dirty conversation with self.

Have to realize that you’re wrong - sin is not your personal opinion, it is not getting caught, it is not determined by culture - I am rebellious, misguided, deceived, need to repent

Dirty conversation with others.

Restitution and restoration

Dirty conversation with God.

Naming the sin and understanding what it is When you break down your sin into what you are doing, it will make you think about what you are becoming and the mess you are making.

In Leviticus, forgiveness required both blood and burning.

In Leviticus, forgiveness required both blood and burning.

Forgiveness erases the eternal consequences of sin.

Forgiveness may not help the temporal consequences.

There may still me a mess to clean up - but once you have forgiveness you understand that consequences are temporary that your future is not defined by your past - you will do it a different way - God’s way.

Conclusion:

The smoke was a signal to the camp of Israel that God was forgiving sin. When they woke up in the morning they could literally see by the smoke billowing from the altar that His mercies were new every morning.

Small Group:

write out a confession of sin before God

What is the sin

What is it in your life that needs to go up in smoke?