Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
We are currently working our way through the forgiving challenge.
And today, we’ve come to the heart of the entire journey.
This is the meaning of life right here.
The meaning of life cannot be found in anything I’m doing, either doing for myself or doing for God.
The meaning of life cannot be wrapped up in what we do because as a human race, we are flawed.
We are sinners.
Our meaning must come from someplace outside of ourselves.
Our meaning must be given to us.
And that meaning comes from Jesus himself.
But that meaning isn’t simply an idea or a notion or a concept.
It is a reality.
And that meaning is totally tied to the cross and Jesus’ forgiveness of our sin.
We are using the acrostic SCARS.
· Sin
· Confession
· Absolution
· Restoration
· Sanctification
Absolution is our key word today.
It is another word for forgiveness.
When we forgive someone, we say we absolve them.
They are absolved from the sin.
They are absolved from the guilt.
They are absolved from any accounting of that sin.
There is something cathartic about using the word “absolve”.
There’s something so final.
So definitive.
The word “forgiveness” can, at times, seem to suffer much from abuse, overuse, and misuse.
Forgiveness, these days seems to always come with some string attached.
It has to be earned.
There has to be some sort of formula in order to get it.
A checklist.
Absolution, for whatever reason, doesn’t allow us to do any of that.
There’s no checklist.
There are no strings.
There’s no formula.
The only pattern or formula you ever, ever need to know… you sin, you confess, you’re forgiven.
That’s a promise from Jesus.
That promise couldn’t be more clear.
1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
That promise is absolute.
That promise you can take home to the bank.
That promise you can throw your life at.
That promise holds true in the middle of the night.
That promise is for you when you can’t think straight.
That promise is for you when you thinki you’ve failed at your worst.
In reading up this week on this topic, I was absolutely heartbroken in a lot of the stuff I read out there on the internet.
It’s not just social media.
It’s pastors.
It’s theologians.
It’s the church at large.
We’re not going to be long today, I promise you.
And it’s because I want us to know how much we have all been duped when it comes to forgiveness.
Forgiveness has been abused and misused and used as a weapon for as long as there has been a church.
And it goes along the lines of something like this:
Forgiveness is for those who are sincere in their confession and repentance.
I shudder putting that up there on the screen, because there’s always the danger that this might stick with somebody.
But please hear me when I say: there’s nothing in the Bible that says that.
Any place.
Ever.
Don’t you believe it.
I believed it for years.
I taught that for years.
I was wrong.
Absolutely wrong.
There is absolutely no hope in that statement.
There is no Jesus in that statement.
There’s no gospel in that statement.
You understand that Jesus does not base his forgiveness on the level of our sincerity.
Churches teach this as a means of controlling people.
Because who gets to determine the level of sincerity?
Yeah.
Somebody does.
You do.
A group of people do.
Who gets to determine how much repentance and sincerity is necessary?
That question runs to the heart of why the idea of sincerity is enslaving and anti-gospel.
I see it over and over… confess your sin, and if you’re sincere Jesus will forgive you.
That’s not here in John.
That’s not Paul in the book of Romans.
That’s not Jesus on the cross as he forgave those who were killing him in one of the most inhumane ways ever designed.
You run, and run far far away if someone tells you they don’t think your confession was sincere.
That your repentance was not sincere.
That’s not biblical.
They don’t get to make that call.
If we confess, Jesus forgives.
End of story.
End of the guilt.
End of the accounting.
End of the slavery.
That phrase is freedom.
Jesus is not there listening to your confession trying to figure out how sincere it is.
He’s not there in judgment mode ready to withhold forgiveness if your repentance doesn’t measure up to his standards.
If we confess, Jesus forgives.
The reality is that if sincerity is the barometer by which forgiveness is given, then we are all in a world of hurt.
We soon realize, if we are honest, that any standard of sincerity becomes man-made and arbitrary.
It’s a vicious, never-ending cycle, chasing a moving target because none of us can never confess or repent with “all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind”.
That’s the standard.
That’s God’s law… love God with everything you have.
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