I Believe: The Forgiveness of Sins (Luke 15:11-24)

Hello, friends, this is Pastor Creighton.

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Today we continue our sermon series, I believe, the Apostles' Creed in the Christian Life, with I believe in the forgiveness of sins.

If there's one word, I wonder, that we hear repeated again and again and again in this contemporary moment of ours, well, I wonder if we thought, what's that one word we keep seeing in the news headlines or the water cooler that we're talking at?

Do people talk at water coolers anymore?

I'm not sure.

We're all I aming and everything else.

I wonder what that one word would be.

I wonder if that word is justice.

We live in a moment where we are profoundly aware of the call and cause and cost of justice.

We longed for a just and better society.

And so many of our conversations are geared towards what realizing that just society look like.

These were movements that called for justice and saw at the very heart of the movement an understanding of forgiveness, an understanding of bringing two hostile parties together.

But in our contemporary moment, we see forgiveness fading away.

Tim Keller quotes one particular commentator who says this the notions that victims must forgive their oppressors piles more oppression and harshness on the victim.

Forgiveness, this commentator concludes, is overrated.

Maybe forgiveness is not just overrated, maybe it's altogether undesirable for so many.

It gives power to an oppressor to continue to manipulate and coerce the oppressed.

Maybe forgiveness is the exact opposite of what a just and better society looks like.

Forgiveness for so many, it seems, is a problem.

But before we weep and wail about the problems of the world around us, maybe we need to have the courage to zoom the camera lens in a little bit to our own hearts.

Who among us can say that forgiveness is truly an easy business?

Who among us can say that we are keen and eager and excited to forgive those who've done us harm?

Friends, I say this as someone with my fair share of grievances and resentments in my own list.

See, how many of us, when we're hurt, want to hit back?

Want to grab on to that resentment and never let it go.

Because if we do, justice won't be done.

Or at least so we fear.

See, friends, forgiveness of sins, this article in the Creed is not just talking about Sunday school flannelgrams or abstract academic dry doctrine, is it?

We're talking about the very balm that perhaps our culture needs the most.

Perhaps our very own hearts need the most for our own healing.

We encounter in the forgiveness of sins the very heart of the gospel.

We encounter in the forgiveness of sins the high call it is to be a Christian, to encounter a radical kind of forgiveness, and offer it freely and willingly.

In the midst of this, I want us to look at what is perhaps the most vivid image of forgiveness, or at least certainly one of the most vivid images of forgiveness in Scripture, that of the younger son, the prodigal son, and the lavish and generous father.

It's an image that inspires us to perhaps see ourselves, something of ourselves, in this younger son.

And the degree to which perhaps we identify with the younger son is the degree to which we can truly call ourselves miserable offenders and need of forgiveness.

But it's an image in which we see the Father's heart, the image of a loving and running Father reaching out to grab us and embrace us and restore us.

We see an outrageous forgiveness that calls us to live out a life of forgiveness and find renewal and restoration, perhaps in our own hearts and in the world around us.

I believe in the forgiveness of sins, is what we say with the creed.

But what are sins?

Let's start there.

I think our Anglican catechism gives us a helpful definition of sin.

It says that sins are intentions, acts, or failures to act that arise, or pardon me, failures to act that arise out of my corrupted human nature and fall short of conformity to God's revealed will.

It's missing the mark.

Or we can follow after 1 John 3, 4's definition of sin and say sin is lawlessness.

It's a transgression, it's a breaking of God's law through an action or through failure to take an action.

Luke 15 gives us something of a picture of this between a son and his father.

Luke 15, verse 2, the younger son says to his father, Father, give me the share of property that's coming to me.

Luke 15:2

Well, this younger son is saying, Dad, I know that an inheritance is coming my way.

Why don't you just hand that over right now?

So I can enjoy that the way I feel best to do it.

So though I said to my dad right now, I know I've got a lot of power tools and hockey cards coming my way.

Maybe you could just give me a little bit of advance on that.

I mean, it's totally insulting, totally breaking the fourth commandment to honor your parents.

By the way, that's not what I'm asking Dad, not to put you on the spot.

First time at church, and he gets called out in the front row.

That's great.

What this son is saying in function in this first century Palestinian Jewish context is, Dad, I'd really rather you drop dead so that I get what's coming to me, so that I can enjoy my life on my terms.

That's what I value even more than I value my relationship with you.

It's true this younger son is going to go into the far country, but maybe we start to see a separation right here that's not a geographic separation.

The attitude of his heart is turned against his father, is turned inward towards his own self-interest.

The result of this sin, this transgression, breaking a sacred barrier between him and his father is it's a separation.

He's in the far country now.

That's a geographic representation of what's been true of his heart.

Maybe here we can hear echoes of Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Maybe we can hear echoes of our first parents who looked at that forbidden fruit and thought that's a desirable thing to us.

Maybe God has been withholding what I really want.

Maybe he's been withholding what I really need.

Maybe rather than trusting his goodwill for me, maybe I go ahead and take that for myself.

And the sin of our first parents separated them from God's holy presence and sent them out of the garden and into the far country.

See, this is the trajectory of sin.

Sin takes us away from the heart of our loving Heavenly Father.

And if this trajectory were to go for all eternity, perhaps we can see where a doctrine of hell starts to come into play.

Sin does not ultimately satisfy.

Sin promises us the desire of our heart, but it delivers a severe famine.

It delivers a well, it delivers an envy of the pigs for this younger son who takes on this humiliating job to just try and make ends meet.

Sin does not ultimately satisfy.

So if that's what sin is, if sin is a transgression, sin is a breaking, it's a breaking into what was meant to be whole, what then is forgiveness?

We can look at forgiveness a number of ways, but I would suggest that forgiveness is not less than these two things.

Forgiveness is a release and it's an embrace.

It's a release.

In the New Testament, the word for forgiveness is a word picture.

And the word picture is often something like sending away or letting it go, letting it drop like a lead balloon.

It's sending away wrongdoing.

Or it's an abandonment, a leaving behind.

We see this in Matthew chapter 6 in the Sermon of the Mount when Jesus teaches that if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Jesus is giving a word picture.

If you leave the wrongdoing of others behind you, you don't let it consume you, you don't carry it with you, then you capture something of the Father's heart for you, who lets it go, who leaves it behind, who abandons it.

We see perhaps something of a desire for this sort of release in the younger son as he treks home.

He's taken on this humiliating job.

He has sunk lower than the low, and it says, no one gave him anything, which is to say, no one even cares about this guy anymore.

He's got nothing.

So he comes to himself and he says, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger?

He gets a bright idea.

No one in my father's house has an empty stomach, so I'm gonna go and I'm gonna be a hired servant.

Maybe, just maybe, my father can release just some of this wrongdoing that I've done, and I can at least have some bread to eat.

The best case scenario that this younger son sees for himself is at least a partial release of this wrongdoing.

But what's remarkable is what follows.

I suspect at this point in the story, well, I should point out this.

The younger son starts preparing a speech, doesn't he?

In the verses that follow.

You see that there.

I'm gonna go, I'm gonna rise, I'm gonna say to my father, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Treat me as one of your hired servants.

And he arose and he went to his father.

I wonder what the first audience, hearing Jesus teach this, thought to themselves.

I wonder if we had an audience full of people ready to see this younger son get what's coming to him.

Ready to see this impetuous little jerk get what's coming to him.

This is going to be a moment of some sweet justice.

Well, what's remarkable is what happens next, isn't it?

He arose, he goes to his father.

But when this younger son was a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

And the son said, Father, I've sinned against heaven, I've sinned before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father interrupts his prepared speech.

He doesn't let him finish it.

The father says to his servants, Grab the best robe, put a ring on this guy's finger, put sandals on his feet, all those things that tell him and everyone else that this is my well-loved son, go grab those things and put them on him.

And that fattened calf that we've been sharing, or we've been saving for a special occasion, go put that on the barbecue.

It's party time.

Because my well-loved child is back, as it were, from the dead.

There's a renewal, there's a restoration because the father embraces the son.

He doesn't just release his wrongdoing, he embraces his son.

And embraces to desire the greatest good of the offender.

It brings renewal, it brings restoration to what has been broken.

We see that forgiveness is this extension of mercy that bridges that separation and it renders whole what was divided.

The Father releases and embraces and so renews and restores his son.

The question we might want to ask is about bridging that separation.

We see that in the injustice around us.

We see separation.

We see division and we see hostilities.

We can see it perhaps in our own life, in our families, in our workplaces.

What does it take to bridge that separation?

See, the Bible is not a story about humanity doing its absolute best and checking all the boxes that are required to make what's wrong right.

That's something of the story of the world around us, isn't it?

It has a perfect ideal, perhaps a confused ideal of justice, but an ideal of justice nevertheless, and holds us to a perfect standard.

It's a brutal cycle of wrongdoing, isn't it?

From which we can never find release.

The Bible is not a story about us doing all the things required to earn our Heavenly Father's forgiveness.

It is a story about our helplessness and our Father's generous heart towards us, the heart that runs out to meet us.

We are helpless.

And that's what we see in Isaiah 59.

It says, verse 9, justice is far from us.

We can't achieve this idea of justice on our own.

Wrongdoing has been committed.

Righteousness does not overtake us.

We hope for light, but behold darkness.

Our best ideas fall short, don't they?

We long for brightness, but we walk in gloom, and we grope the wall like the blind.

We grope like those who have no eyes.

We want to know the right way to go, but without illumination, we can't find our way there.

So we find endless cycles, calling one another out and pointing the finger.

We hope for justice, but there is none.

For salvation, but it is far from us.

And it says, Our transgressions have multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us.

So Psalm 130 says, If you, Lord, were to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who could abide it?

Who could stand in God's perfect justice?

The reality of sin means we are all of us transgressors.

We all of us find ourselves in the far country.

We all of us read renewal and restoration.

And the Bible is not a story of all the things that it takes for us to earn that.

It is a story of the Heavenly Father who runs to meet us, who calls us back home, and who calls us to live out that renewal and restoration, the heart of which is the cross.

It's at the cross, Paul writes, that you, who were dead in your trespasses, God made alive together with him, with Christ, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having cancelled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing to the cross.

At the cross, Paul is saying, We see ourselves for the offenders that we are.

We are the younger son who has gone into the far country.

We have fallen short of our best ideals of justice and righteousness, and we see the condemnation that we deserve.

But at the cross, we see the heart of a father who runs to meet wayward children.

We see the heart of a father who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever trusts in him will live with the Father for all eternity.

It's at the cross of Christ we see justice and mercy bound together, like the very wood beams that make up the cross.

God's demand for justice has been satisfied, and God's heart of mercy towards sinners is fully revealed.

That's why we can say with Psalm 130, verse 4, with you, Lord, there is forgiveness.

Psalms 130:4

With the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him there is plentiful redemption.

We are forgiven.

Our sins have been released, they've been left behind.

And we've been embraced by a loving Heavenly Father who comes to meet us where we're at.

We are completely forgiven.

And our church is a community of those who are forgiven.

And so now the question becomes, how do we live?

How do we live as those who are so wildly and outrageously forgiven?

This is why I want us to land.

2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, Paul writes, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

If you're in Christ, you participate in a new order of things, a reconciled, restored, regenerated, forgiven order of things.

The old is passed away.

Behold, the new is come.

This is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

Paul goes on to say that therefore we are ambassadors for Christ.

God making his appeal through us.

Christians are ambassadors for Christ.

We've been claimed by forgiveness, and now we've been sent out into a world in such desperate need for forgiveness, to be agents of that reconciliation, to be agents of forgiveness, to offer freely that forgiveness that we have so wildly received in Christ.

We get to be that in our families, in our communities, in our workplaces, agents of reconciliation, showing what it means to forgive even as we ourselves are forgiven.

So what does it mean to practice that?

I want to suggest it looks like releasing and embracing.

It means sending away the wrongdoing that we've experienced.

It doesn't mean that that's okay.

It doesn't mean that that's not something we don't have to work through, but it does mean that we release the power that that wrongdoing has over us.

We are not content as Christians to let resentment, bitterness, hurt, or hostility consume our hearts.

Perhaps we pray that those who've done the wrong to us repent.

Perhaps we spill out our guts to God in ugly gut level prayer, liver level prayer.

Perhaps we engage in long conversations with trusted and godly friends.

Perhaps we engage with pastoral or Professional counseling, but instead of feeding the ill will towards the wrongdoer, we instead turn to God and desire God's best for the wrongdoer.

When we find ourselves playing that tape over and over again, when we find ourselves concocting a vindication or revenge fantasy, we instead hand that over to God.

We release that.

That's not ours.

It doesn't mean that what was done to us was okay, but it does mean that vengeance is of the Lord, and we can trust our Heavenly Father to finally call justice to account.

We can let God be God.

We can release the wrongdoing, and we can embrace the wrongdoer.

Does that mean we're going to be best friends with the person who's wronged us?

Maybe not.

Maybe it doesn't mean that it's not hard work.

But it does mean that we are open to God's best, for the one who's harmed us.

It does mean that we desire their greatest good, which I take to be what loving your enemies is all about.

Loving your enemies is not having fuzzy feelings toward those who've done you wrong.

Loving your enemies is about a commitment of your will for their greatest good, a commitment of your will for their sake and acting accordingly, even to those who have harmed you.

Because that is the heart that we have seen in Christ.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

He gave of himself.

So now we are called to do the same.

Means we don't wait for the other party to make the first move, play that game where we wait and see who blinks first.

We take the initiative, like the father who runs to meet us.

Living this life of forgiveness as those who are so wildly forgiven that we go out and forgive makes for renewed and restored families, communities, workplaces, societies.

It requires us to do the very hard work of taking up our cross and following Christ in forgiveness.

But it anticipates a day, just like the holy table anticipates a day where all of creation is redeemed and renewed and restored and reconciled in Christ.

Forgiving another today makes earth a little bit more like heaven.

A little bit more like that great day.

So perhaps we can see, in the heart of our running Heavenly Father, a heart of wild forgiveness.

Perhaps we can see the call to forgive others as we ourselves have been forgiven.

So where is there resentment in your heart and my heart?

Are there wrongs that we need to release?

Are there wrongdoers that we need to embrace and desire their greatest good?

Perhaps we can see in the heart of a father, the heart that inspires us to do just that.

So let's pray.

Heavenly Father, you have so generously and wildly forgiven our sins.

We pray, Father, that we would be those who do the same.

Would New Song be a place of forgiveness?

A place where we are not content to let resentment or bitterness or hostility define us or define this community.

And instead, Lord, let us be agents of renewal, reconciliation, and forgiveness.

Exactly the places you've called us to be.

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.