Sermon Tone Analysis

Content of this study adapted from The Freedom and Power of Forgiveness

Introduction

“Vengeance is popular; forgiveness is not”

— Retaliation is often seen as a virtue reflecting healthy self-esteem

— Our society is drunk on vengeance

— Road Rage

— Drive by Shootings

— People who seeks counseling usually fall into one of two categories

— They need to understand how God’s forgiveness extends to sinners

— They need to learn to be forgiving

Questions to answer

— Can we be sure of God’s forgiveness?

— If Christians are forgiven already, why do they need to confess sins in their daily lives?

— How are we supposed to confess our sins?

— Do we confess to other people, or to God?

— Does God ever withdraw His forgiveness from someone who has received it?

— Should the forgiveness we extend to others be unconditional?

— How do we reconcile Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness with His instructions for carrying out discipline against people who willfully live in sin?

— If we are to forgive seventy times seven, as Jesus taught Peter, do we ever have cause for questioning the legitimacy of a repeat offender’s repentance?

— Isn’t God concerned about justice too?

If I simply forgive those who have wronged me, where is the justice in that?

The Ground of all Forgiveness

Forgiveness.

Nothing is more foreign to sinful nature.

And nothing is more characteristic of divine grace

— Our attitude toward forgiveness tends to vary, depending on which side of the equation we look at

— When we are on the receiving end of mercy, we naturally esteem forgiveness as one of the highest of all virtues

— When we are the aggrieved party, forgiveness seems a gross violation of justice

First, the Bad News

— God does not forgive by simply looking the other way at sin

— The Bible repeatedly stresses that God will punish every sin

— “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” ( Gal 6:7 )

— “For I will not justify the wicked.”

( Ex 23:7 )

— “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, And will not at all acquit the wicked.”

( Nahum 1:3

— “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” ( Rom 1:18 )

MacArthur

— Scripture describes the relationship between God and the sinner as enmity ( Rom 5:10; 8:7 )

— God hates sin, and therefore all who sin have made themselves God’s enemies

— “God is angry with the wicked every day” ( Ps 7:11 )

— He hates those who do iniquity ( Ps 5:5 )

— To violate one minor sin is as if you had broken them all (Jas 2:10 )

— All are born with an insatiable penchant for sin ( Pr 58:3 )

— They are spiritually dead ( Eph 2:1 ), reveling in their own sin, objects of God’s holy anger ( v. 3 ), and utterly without hope ( v. 12 )

— By nature we are “children of wrath” ( Eph 2:3 )

— We are utterly enslaved to our own sin ( John 8:34 )

— We have no innate ability to love God, to obey God, or please Him by our own means ( Rom 8:7-8 )

— Every person is a sinner, caught under the looming sword of God’s judgment

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

— Johnathan Edwards, the great Puritan preacher, brought his congregation to tears describing the great predicament of the sinner

The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.

You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.

It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep.

And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up.

God is Holy

— Unlike us, God on the other hand is perfect, infinitely holy, thoroughly righteous

— His justice must be satisfied by the punishment of every violation of His law

— Nothing we could offer could possibly atone for our sin, because the price is too high

— Any hope of the sinner’s ever being justified by any means would seem to be out of the question

— God says that to justify a sinner is an abomination

— “He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.” ( Prov 17:15 )

— Again and again, God Himself expressly forbids anyone to declare a sinful person righteous

MacArthur

The greatest impediment to our salvation is not even our hostility against God.

It is His wrath against us

Now, the Good News

— But the Bible tells us that God does justify the ungodly ( Rom 4:5 )

— He covers their transgressions ( v. 7 )

— He refuses to take their sins into account ( v. 8 )

— He declares them righteous, completely forgiving their sins ( v 8 )

— But how can God grant grant forgiveness without compromising His own standard of justice?

How can He justify sinners without rendering Himself unjust?

How can He justify sinners without breaking His own word, having already said that He will punish every transgression?

The Answer: Jesus Christ

— The answer is that God Himself has made His Son, Jesus Christ, the atonement for our sins

— Christ’s substitutionary work on the cross explains how God can remain just while justifying sinners ( Ro 3:25-26 )

The Ministry of Reconciliation

— What Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5 is probably the most important passage about Christ’s substitutionary work

— “God ... reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 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.

20 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.” ( 2 Cor 5:18-20 )

— This is how Paul characterizes the Gospel: It is a message of reconciliation

— God can both fulfill His promise of vengeance against sin and reconcile sinners

— He can remain just while justifying the ungodly

— “to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” ( Ro 3:26 )

— “Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed.”

( Ps 85:10 )

The Author of Reconciliation

— Our reconciliation is both initiated and secured by God

— We do none of the work

— The redeemed person contributes nothing of any merit whatsoever

— “ Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” ( 2 Cor 5:18 )

MacArthur

The relationship between God and the sinner is never restored because the sinner decides to change his way and make amends with God.

In the first place, no sinner ever would or could take such a step toward God.

Remember that the sinner is in total bondage to sin morally unable to love or obey God; he is willfully at enmity with Him ( Ro 8:7-8 )

Not a Reluctant Savior

— He first came seeking Adam and Eve after the fall ( Gen 3:9 )

— It was God who depicted in the story of Hosea going into the slave prostitute market and bringing His unfaithful, sin-stained wife back and treating her with love as if she were a chaste, virgin bride ( Hos 3:1-3 )