Do I Really Believe I’m Forgiven?

Morning, morning, morning to everyone.

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus.

Thank you, Sarah, Bethany, and Zach, and Sean and Christopher and Justin.

Bless y'all.

Bless you, bless you, bless you.

Thank you, Colin.

Thank y'all for joining us today.

A couple of quick announcements before we begin.

Don't forget Thursday nights, we gather at our home, 6-7, and we truly discuss some idea related to the scripture.

And normally it's a pretty lively little discussion.

And I love that.

You want to come and join us?

And then we spend some time at the end praying for different folks.

So you come if you can.

We'd love to have you.

This Saturday, Colin's having a neighborhood art extravaganza.

And if you want to help or even just know more about it so you can pray on Saturday that it goes well, there's a booth right back there, and Colin will be right back there after church to answer questions or sign you up to come and help minister the love of Jesus through art to some children that don't get that opportunity.

And so it's going to be a neat day, and I'm looking forward to it.

Next Sunday, if you come here, you'll think that something's happened and you've been left behind.

We won't be here.

Next Sunday we'll be at Kim and Jerry Bowden's house, and you'll get something in the uh you'll get an email or a text or something about it.

But uh we'll be gathering there next Sunday morning, and we're gonna have church and we're gonna have a baptismal service, and then we're gonna have a cookout.

And so if you'd like to come, please come join us.

We'll have stuff for the kids and the teenagers, all of that will still take place there.

Um bring a friend, it's a safe place for people that maybe aren't, you know, what I'm not sure about church.

We'll bring them to Kim and Jerry's, and um they'll feel loved.

And uh, like I said, we're gonna uh baptize some folks, and I just would say to you that the God of the Bible loves to use pictures to teach important truths.

Passover, circumcision, Abraham raising that knife over his son, the high priest, the tabernacle.

Um the God of the Bible loves to use pictures, visible illustrations to help us understand that which is true and important.

You've heard me talk about my dad uh over the years, and uh I remember I was married and gone and the whole deal.

And I'll never forget he called me and told me that he'd accepted Christ as his Savior.

And I thought that's awesome.

But I didn't know, you know, I wasn't around him.

I was, I don't know where we were living, but we were gone.

Knoxville or Lynchburg or Europe or Texas or somewhere we were living.

And um, but he called me back and told me that he was gonna be baptized.

And for my dad, praying a prayer, signing a card, raising your hand, who doesn't want to go to hell and burn for eternity?

You know, what's that mean?

What's that got got to do with anything, you know?

But when my dad told me that he was gonna follow the Lord in believer's baptism, all of a sudden that made everything different.

Then I knew, dang, that's a deal.

Because he would be the last person on the planet to have done anything like that, save he was convinced from Scripture that that's what the New Testament church did.

That spoke reality to me that he had a real relationship with the Lord Jesus when he did that.

It was a picture, it was a picture of what God had really done in his life.

Maybe some of us in the room need to.

Baptism does not give you grace, doesn't give you favor, doesn't give you blessings, doesn't raise your checkbook, your checking account, or heal your uh athlete's foot or your cancer.

It doesn't, it doesn't give you a raise at work, doesn't give you a promotion.

It just makes you wet.

But what it does do by design is show the people around you you are a serious, genuine follower of Jesus.

And uh maybe your children, maybe your mate, maybe your parents, maybe your friends, they need to see that it's not just uh who doesn't want to go to hell?

But I I I I I'm serious.

I'm committed to to following Jesus.

Maybe the people in your life need that picture.

So if you'd like to be baptized next Sunday, text me or call me or stop me and let's chat about it, okay?

Hi.

Hello.

Um, Sucker Bill.

Sorry, guys.

What'd that do?

That's a Texas thing from when we lived in Texas.

Sucker Bill.

That's what I'm saying.

Um I've taught my grandson, uh it's a big deal to me that I teach him stuff.

Because the world he lives in and the schools he's gonna go to and the culture he'll grow up in, they're not gonna teach him things that he needs to know.

And so we spend a lot of time, sometimes it's to her uh not terror, but just concern that I'm teaching him stuff.

But I am and Teddy has a lively vocabulary, not in a bad way, but just in a a broad way.

And so what was it the other day he asked Teddy something, and Teddy said, Well, lad, of course I'm not gonna do that.

I'm not a babbling moron.

That's right.

That's right.

So there's colorful language there, too.

Well, one of the things that I taught my grandson was this real men don't put their stones in another man's backpack.

That's an important life lesson.

Real men don't put their stones in another man's backpack.

And if you stop him and ask him, he'll tell you.

Real men don't put their stones in another man's backpack.

They carry, they carry their own stones.

They don't expect somebody else to carry them.

It's an important life lesson.

What makes Jesus unique is that he not only never adds his stones to our backpacks.

He came, he said, to remove stones from our backpacks.

He said, I'll carry them.

I will lighten your backpack by carrying those myself.

Now I want to talk to you today, or we're gonna talk to you today about one of the about something that as I prepared this, I almost taught this last Sunday on Easter.

But I didn't feel like that's what I was supposed to do, so I didn't.

Uh so we're we're gonna look at it today.

But as I was working on this and studying this, every day I felt like Jesus was just taking stones from my backpack.

And it made me more and more excited that he might do that for many of you today.

Wouldn't you like to have a lighter backpack?

Backpacks get heavy.

I remember walking up that mountain in China, and for seven, Tim, you weren't with us that time.

Um but buddy, our backpacks were, because you couldn't eat anything.

I mean, we had jiffy peanut butter scrambled in my backpack like it was going out of style.

And um in Rich Crager's.

Um it was heavy, it was a heavy backpack.

You want your backpack to be around 25 pounds on a real long hike, and mine was about 35.

It was heavy.

Uh anyway, I digress.

But uh my prayer is that God is gonna take some stones out of our backpacks today as we look at this topic.

Whether it's because of my humanity or my personality or that I'm a number two, am I number two?

Is that what I am?

Ideogram two, yeah.

Idiogram two.

I don't know why.

But I have an especially great dread of knowing that someone is upset with me.

I don't like that.

You know that.

It bothers me to know that I've done something.

I failed you, Peggy, and through my failure, I realize that you're upset with me.

Uh people that I have made mad or hurt because I didn't do what was needed, what was expected, what was required.

And in my job as a pastor, it happens.

I've I've it's it's been true of y'all.

I've I've hurt or disappointed uh some of y'all, and it bothers me when I when I know that I failed you and that it's upset you.

It bothers me when I have failed Shirley or Rainey or Teddy, uh, and and I know they're upset with me.

And this dread that I have from knowing that uh it weighs on me.

It makes my life heavy.

Uh it saps my energy, my strength.

It uh it affects how I see myself.

It affects how I see the person that I'm that's upset with me because I failed them.

I don't want to, I mean, the honest truth is I don't want to see them.

I don't want to see somebody that I know that I that I've upset because of my failure.

I was looking through the Bible, Cheryl Lee's gonna bring up one of these examples, and really she's the one that that um led to me working on this study.

I'll let her say it in a minute, but just people, I was thinking about people in the Bible who understand what I'm talking about, about the dread that is created in us when we know that we have failed or disappointed someone and they're upset with us.

We don't want to see them.

We don't want to bump into them.

We don't want to that we don't want to see their name on the phone uh deal.

Um, or you know, we don't want to we don't want to see that.

Um I think of somebody like Joseph, not Joseph, but his brothers in Genesis 50.

Their dad dies.

Now this is, they've they've, you know, they bumped into Joseph coming to buy grain, they go back and forth from the promised land to Israel over a period of years, then their whole family moves down there.

And I forgot how long, but I think Jacob lives like 15, 20 years.

Well, they have been forgiven.

They're good with Joseph.

The brothers, the loving brothers, and Joseph, everything's great.

But when Jacob the dad dies, they won't even go to Joseph themselves.

The Bible says they sent a message to Joseph and said, Hey, before dad died, he it really wouldn't mean a lot to him if you would forgive us.

That clearly that had been weighing on them for years.

And Joseph responds, is only Joseph good.

He goes to him and he says, We're good.

I love you.

We're a family, we're together.

All is great.

What you did wasn't a good thing.

But God is so great and so wise that he turned your knucklehead itis into something glorious that resulted in multitudes being saved.

Please don't think there's something in between us.

There's not.

We're good.

I think of David and Mephiboshev, that's the grandson of King Saul, the son of Jonathan.

David realizes that Jonathan, Saul and Jonathan are dead.

And this grandson of Saul, David finds out that he's alive.

And uh Mephiboshef is hiding in a little town, a little podunk, out of the way.

Nobody cared about it, nobody went there called Lodabar, which was just it wasn't a great place.

He was hiding because he thought David had something against him.

He didn't want to see David.

And David calls him to the palace, and he comes, and the minute he walked, he falls down on the ground.

Now, uh Phiboshev hadn't actually done anything to David, but his family had.

And he was convinced that David was mad at him, disappointed, ashamed, angry because of what his family had done.

And David, as only David could do, he grabs Mafibushef and raises him and says, When I look at you, I see my best friend Jonathan.

And not only are we good, we're not just good, dude, you're now one of my kids.

I'm gonna treat you just like one of my kids.

It was a big deal to Joseph, it was a big deal to David, that these people that felt like there was ill will or disappointment or anger toward them, it was a big deal that these men know.

We're good.

We're not just good, we're not just okay, we're not just even, we're great.

We're great.

I think the prodigal son felt that way in Luke 15.

I think that uh he was starving to death.

He was literally starving to death.

And he didn't know what to do but go back home where he knew there was food and work.

And I bet you, it doesn't say this, but I think it's reasonable.

What he would have liked to have done is go around back, slide into the servants' quarters, start working in the fields, and if he could have not had any dealings with his, he didn't want to see his dad, he didn't want to deal with that.

He knew, he just knew his dad would, he would give him that look of disappointment and shame.

I mean, I'm ashamed of you.

I'm I'm you've wronged me.

And the dad didn't want the boy to just know that it was okay.

I'm gonna let you in.

Come on! I I was right all along, but I'll I'll let you in.

No, that's not what the dad did.

That's not how the dad felt.

The dad's like, oh my gosh, my wildest dreams have come true.

Grab a ring and some shoes and a coat and you see what I'm saying.

And then the one that sort of spurred all this.

Yeah, well, we and we mentioned it not too many weeks ago, but this idea of Peter, of course, the last time he saw Christ before Christ rose again, it was in denial.

You know, Jesus said, You're gonna deny me.

Peter said, I would never do that.

He did.

And three times, and then, of course, a rooster, the morning came, a rooster crowed, and he saw Jesus.

And so then Jesus did die.

And Peter, um fairly immediately after the death of Jesus, went back to his old job.

Right.

I'm going vision.

You know, this is this ain't working out.

I don't know what's happened, but I do know that I've I've betrayed my friend and now he's dead, and that's that.

And so he just he would just went back vision.

And even if he's resurrected, he'll never see me the same.

He'll never feel about clearly Peter knew he was his, you know, the leader of the disciples.

I mean, he was he he'd lost that favor, that so then there's that wonderful passage we mentioned the other week where the angel said to Mary, Go and tell my disciples that I'm risen, especially Peter.

That part, right?

So they do.

She does, she she goes and does that.

And when Jesus is uh the they see him again when the when the apostles see him, when Peter sees him, um Jesus said, Peter's gone out fishing.

What else am I gonna do?

And he sees Jesus on the shore making him breakfast.

It's like the prodigal coming home and saying, Hey, and the dad saying, Well, here's some food.

I'm gonna throw a feast for you.

I'm gonna give you a party.

And all that dread, probably, surely, that Peter felt towards seeing Jesus, maybe he didn't even want to, maybe he was afraid to.

Surely he was like, number one, I'm not sure this is a real thing.

How could this be that a dead person is alive again?

And number two, if it is true, how's that gonna feel when I see him?

And he looks me in the eye and he's like, you we think like human beings, don't we?

And so what we think is when you look me in the eye, you're gonna be ashamed of me.

That's how we act with one another, and that's what we expect.

And what came from Christ was I don't know, but something like, hey, I made you some fish.

We all eat fish.

Come on.

We're good.

Think of the weight of that.

Peter's in this boat, he's trying to fish, he's not catching anything.

Looks up, there's there's uh Jesus cooking fish.

It's like, oh man, it's gonna be so bad.

And it's the absolute opposite of bad.

Not only did Jesus say, but he said, nothing's changed.

I've groomed you to be the man that leads the group to change the world.

Nothing's changed, dude.

But Jesus, look at all I did, all the failure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was not good.

But when I see you, I see what I've destined you for, what I've created you for, what I've chosen you for.

What you can be, what you should be.

Yes, and what you will be.

This is another sermon for another day, but in the book of Acts, the very next book, people are, but Peter is so filled.

With the Spirit of God, so forgiven, so walking, no longer in shame, that people bring their sick so that his shadow will fall on them from the sun and they'll be healed.

Now that is a real transformation.

Yeah.

I just want you to think about in each of those illustrations with Mavivachev and Peter and Joseph and the prodigal that I want you to feel for just a second the dread that they had that was created by their failure.

At least most of us feel that way on some level and to some degree about the Lord Jesus returning.

Don't we sure?

Who doesn't want to go to hell?

So we don't want the alternative.

But the thought that this person that did so much is gonna return, and he's given us callings and plans and direction and instructions, and we've to varying degrees, just like and just like Peter, just like the prodigal, just like the brothers of Joseph, just like the family of Mephiboshev.

So many of us dread the idea that Jesus is gonna come back one day.

We don't want the alternative, but there's this part of us, and I'm talking to the mirror, please hear that, that Jesus is gonna come back and he's gonna be somewhere between mad and sad and disappointed.

We project the way we forgive.

Yes, he said he would forgive us.

But we forg we project onto Jesus, if we're not very careful, that he's gonna forgive me the way I forgive you, or the way you forgive me, with conditions, with reminders, with I forgive you, but you still need to be punished just a little bit.

Shame.

Um so what I want us to think about in the time we've got left is just, you know, what does it mean when when Jesus declares and the Bible declares that we are forgiven, what does that actually mean in light of this dread that we have of Jesus' return and how he's going to feel about us and treat us because of our failures?

There's many words in the Bible for sin.

Transgression and iniquity and I forgot all the other, there's all kinds of words in the Bible for sin.

But the overwhelming use of the word sin in the Bible, Old and New Testament, is the word that means failure.

Yes, it can mean other things, but the word that is used about 80% of the time when you see the word sin in the Bible, the word that that came from in the Old and the New Testament is the word for failure.

Um, failure to hit a mark, like a like an archer would miss the mark, failure to achieve a goal, like I'm sending you out to fight a war, and you don't win.

You miss the goal.

Failure to uh uh uh not arrive at a destination, you got sidetracked, you got lost, and you didn't get where you were supposed to go.

That's the word.

80% of the time when the Bible talks about sin, it talks about failure.

We want to make it other things often, but it's failure.

Jesus put it this way, very simply, if you ask Jesus, define sin.

You know what he would say?

A failure to love the Lord thy God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and a failure to love your neighbor as yourself.

Just failure.

We fail to love God and we fail to love others.

And, you know, that's if you think about it in that light, it's sort of it makes sense.

That's why God, in a symbolic way, told Moses to create the whole Old Testament sacrificial system.

It was a symbolic system, but it was created so that people, when they failed, and they knew that there was something between them and God, they could come to where the presence of God symbolically dwelt, and they could lay their failure before the priest, and the priest would cover their failure with the blood of the innocent, and they would leave good with God.

That was what the Old Testament mosaic sacrificial system was all about.

What do you do with your failure?

You go to the temple, you find a priest, and you give the failure to him, and he covers it in the blood of the innocent, and you and God are then good.

Proverbs chapter 10 says that love covers failure.

Proverbs 10 · chapter mention

Love covers sin.

Love by nature covers our failures.

Do you get that?

Love covers failure.

In contrast to how we want to do, we flaunt each other's failures.

We expose, we reveal, we publicize each other, we expose, we remind each other.

You remember when love, the Bible says, covers failure in contrast to what we want to do with other people's failures.

I didn't know you were gonna say that.

That's a good point.

Yeah, it is.

I'm just saying that is what we do.

We we we say we see what he did and we post it everywhere.

Oh, yeah, put it on everybody.

We have created these systems that I'm not even sure the Lord ever thought were possible to expose other people's failures.

And if you don't get it, include yourself in that, then everybody's like, why aren't why aren't you on board with all this, you know, hate?

Why don't you like it?

Yeah, it's it's crazy, but that's a great definition.

God and the point is don't miss this.

Think about what we're talking about.

God by nature is not an exposer.

He's not a shamer, he's not a uh a reminder.

He's a coverer.

Begs the question.

I wonder if if Jesus and Peter ever had a conversation about his betrayal.

Based on this thought, my bet is that they didn't have to.

At least they never did again.

Yeah.

It were it was left on that beach of the Mediterranean Sea on that early morning one day, and it was never discussed again.

I would bet anything.

Based upon the fact that in Proverbs 103, I'm sorry, Psalm 103, God says, I'll cast your sin as far as the east is from the west.

Some of you have heard me say this before.

Aren't you glad God didn't say I'll cast your sin as far as the north is from the south?

Because see, if you go north long enough, you'll reach the south.

But if you go east for eternity, you'll never reach the west.

Only God could come up with something like that.

He says, in I think it's Isaiah chapter 1, you know what I do?

Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

You know what I just do?

I get up every morning, and one of the things that I do, I wake up the oceans and all of nature and the weather and the stars, I get everything going, and then you know what I do?

I turn that which is crimson into white.

I take wickedness, evil, failure, which you could paint with red, and I turn it as white as snow.

In Isaiah 54, God says, Don't be afraid, you'll not be put to shame, don't fear disgrace.

You will not be humiliated.

You will forget the shame of your youth.

Notice it doesn't say God will forget it.

It's already forgotten.

You will forget the shame of your youth.

You remember things you did when you were a teenager or a young adult?

Ooh.

God says there'll be a day when we're together, and I'll forget about all that.

You will forget the shame of your youth, and you'll remember no more the reproach of your failings.

Isaiah 67, instead of shame and disgrace, you will receive a double portion, and you'll rejoice in the inheritance that I have in store for you.

And then the chapter that is, at least right now in my life, has become my favorite chapter in the whole Bible is Jeremiah 31.

Jeremiah 31's a chapter, dudes.

Y'all ought to spend about a year every morning.

Just read it with a cup of coffee and let it get into you.

We could spend a year talking about it, but I'll just read two passages from it.

In Jeremiah 31.

Jeremiah writes chapter 31 to Israel.

They're in the low point of their lives.

They're slaves in Babylon, their nation is destroyed.

More importantly, their city is of Jerusalem is destroyed, the temple is destroyed, their families are slaughtered, their slaves in Babylon, they're at the lowest point in their lives, and here's what God says.

Isn't Israel my dear son in whom I delight?

See, I didn't write that.

I'd have written that.

I said, I told you, I told you you've gotten what you deserve.

See, I've told you a thousand times, and you have failed a thousand times.

How do you like that?

But that's not what God says.

Isn't Israel my dear son in whom I delight?

Yes, I've spoken against him often.

I've challenged him and rebuked him for his hard-headedness.

Yet I still remember him, and my heart yearns for him, and I will have great compassion for him, declares Yahweh.

A little further down it says this only if the sun and the moon and the earth vanish, will I not forgive them and will I remember their sin ever again?

Last time I checked, the sun and the moon are still here, and I'm still on this terra firma.

Zephaniah 30.

I'm sorry.

That's funny.

Zephaniah 3.

Sorry.

Read that for us, Mouse.

I will.

Zephaniah 3, starting at verse 14, sing and shout aloud, my people.

Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, for the Lord has taken away your punishments.

He's turned back your enemy.

The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you.

Never again will you fear any harm.

On that day they'll say, Don't fear, don't let your hands hang limp, for the Lord your God, the mighty warrior who saves, is with you.

He'll take great delight in you.

In his love, he'll no longer rebuke you, but rejoice over you with singing.

I'll remove all mourning and all loss from you.

At that time I'll deal with the all who oppressed you.

I'll rescue the lame.

I'll gather the exiles.

I'll give them praise and honor in every land where they have suffered shame.

At that time I'll gather and bring you home.

I'll give you honor and praise among all the people of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes, says Yahweh.

Every one of those Old Testament verses are dealing with, or actually God speaking.

That's not the writer speaking, that's God speaking.

And in every one of them, God is speaking about the day when he will return.

When he'll return to this earth.

Jesus was hanging on the cross in John chapter 19.

John 19 · chapter mention

We remembered that event last weekend.

And while he was hanging on the cross, he uttered a very unusual word to telesty.

The way we would say it is, it is finished.

And it was a banking term.

And what that term was normally used, or where it was normally spoken or used, was when somebody would go to the bank and pay off a debt.

And the banker would take their debt and put it on the bank door, and he would holler out to the crowd to telesty, this person no longer owes anything.

Now, much to my financial, the lady that helps us with our money, our retirement, she didn't want me to do it, but I didn't care.

I guess it's the only time I've ever not obeyed her.

I paid off our home.

That was something that I wanted to do from when we got married.

The day we bought a house.

I wanted to pay off our house.

And she told me not to do that, but I did it anyway, because I wanted to.

And I'll never forget when I took that last little coupon and uh mailed that deal in with that check.

Um, and I didn't owe anything else.

Jesus was saying from the cross, if you will trust me, if you will just trust me and look to me and let me in your life, all that failure and the debt that was created because of that failure.

It's paid.

It's paid, paid in full.

So we were uh married very young and were so poor for so long that um Larry would wander around the house on bill day, you know, like when you had to pay all your bills or whatever, and he was completely serious and he would be going, he would say, We're going under.

I would.

We're going under.

He has said it forever.

We're going under going under and we'd be pulling back and wouldn't eat anything and then it'd be okay for a minute, and then the bills would come again, we're going under.

Went on for a very long time.

One thing went, so I wouldn't make we would all make the family wouldn't make fun of his saying.

Yes.

We did.

Well then.

So one day I realized that a period of time had passed, and Larry was no longer, I think this fits the sermon.

Larry was no longer saying we're going under every, you know, 30th of the month.

Um, and so I said that to my dad.

I said, geyser, Larry doesn't do that anymore.

We're gonna have to make fun of him in the past because he doesn't, he doesn't say we're going under anymore.

And without a beat, my father said, That's because he knows you're not going under.

And you know why?

You know why?

I knew that.

Because that lady that manages our money told me, Larry, you don't need to be afraid anymore.

It's okay.

Because she spoke that to me, it got out in me, and I no longer once a month roamed around the house saying, Shirley, we're going under.

But the peace that he had from knowing you're okay.

That's the peace and the mercy we're talking about.

Yes.

You're okay.

You're not going under.

I got it.

I already paid for it.

Yes.

Yes.

It's real.

That's what Jesus is saying.

Your failure is not going to pull you under.

Have you failed?

Yes.

But that's why I came to take that failure off of you and put it in my backpack.

Your failure will not pull you under.

Peter, I know you're sorry.

We don't have to talk about this anymore.

You're good.

We're good.

God says in Hebrews 8, I will forgive all of your iniquities and remember your failures no more.

He says later on in Romans 8, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And a few verses later he says it even more strong.

Who would dare hurl an accusation at someone that I've said is forgiven?

Who would dare?

Who would dare?

Who would bring a charge against my elect?

When I first became a Christian, I was 18 years old.

And I'd been a Christian about a month.

I don't remember a lot of what was going on.

But I'll never forget Brother Bobby told this story, the pastor of the church where I got saved.

He quoted a verse, 1 John 1 9.

If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And he said, I knew a man.

He and his wife had a little girl.

She was about four or five years old.

One Sunday morning, mom got up, gave the little girl a bath, put on her Sunday dress, fixed her hair, and then she said, Little girl, don't get dirty.

And the little girl said, Mom, I won't.

Can I go out in the backyard and play?

And mom said, You can, but stay away from the mud.

She said, Oh, I will, mama.

I will.

So mama's getting ready for church.

Little girl's got a plane.

She sees the mud and she gets closer.

Just like us.

Closer to the mud, closer to the mud, closer to the mud.

Or you know it, the mud's no longer there, the mud's all over her.

She burst into tears and runs into the kitchen.

Mama, mama, mama, I fell in the mud.

I'm so sorry.

You told me not to get in the mud and I did it anyway.

And the mom, who loved the little girl, took her by the hand and looked her in the face and said, Baby girl, it's okay.

You're forgiven and I love you.

Took her by the hand, they get in the car and they go to church.

Is that right?

Is that what the mama did?

No.

Bad mama took her by the hand, looked her in the face, said, All is okay.

You're forgiven.

I love you.

Let's go take a bath, let's put on a new dress, and then let's go to church.

A real mom does not take that little girl covered in mud to church in embarrassment and shame.

She cleans her.

She doesn't just make some theoretical edict of you are forgiven.

She cleanses her and then takes her where she needs to be.

That's what Jesus has done for us.

It's not just that he positionally or theologically or in principle declares that everything's okay.

But then when he comes one day and he looks at us, he looks at us with embarrassment and shame and disappointment and maybe even anger.

I just want you to leave here today, and I want you to hear.

I pray that you would hear the Holy Spirit say this and not just us.

God does not forgive like we do.

God does not forgive like we do.

He doesn't remind, he's not disappointed, he's not angry.

The death of Jesus was bigger than that, more powerful than that.

I'm not making light of our sin.

I'm not suggesting that there's not consequences that we create when we say no to God.

But I am telling you this.

1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul says, God has promised that you will lack nothing as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

He said in 2 Timothy 4, now there awaits for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge will award to me on that day when he returns, and also to all who long for his appearing.

Peter says it in 2 Peter 3, as you look forward to the day of the Lord's return.

Philippians 3, Paul says, our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Romans 8, in Romans 8, Paul says, we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Holy Spirit, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons of God.

And then Paul says in Hebrews 9, Jesus will appear a second time, not to bear our sin again, but to bring salvation to all who are waiting for him.

Do we feel that way?

That eagerness, that waiting, that longing, that groaning.

She walked into my sixth grade class, well, in my class when we were six in the sixth grade.

I saw her and I turned to my two best buddies and I told them, I'm going to marry that girl right there.

And that was a journey, that was an objective, let me just tell you.

And it took me six years to uh to even get the ball rolling.

But uh, but she's my wife.

I'll never forget the day when I was waiting down front with uh my dad beside me, waiting for her to walk down that aisle.

I was not worried, and neither was she, that one of us was, we're gonna do this because we agreed to do it, and we got a ring, and we signed a deal and spent all this money on this deal, this wedding and this reception.

I guess we ought to go on and do it.

No, I was so excited, I couldn't believe it.

Jesus is a bridegroom, and he's not disappointed, he's not mad, he's excited beyond our wildest dreams for the day when he will come for his bride, for you and for me.

Do we feel that excitement?

He's excited.

I while Shirley was in uh Japan, I I got so bored, and I watched every John Lee movie there was, and I was flipping the channels, and I came across this documentary about uh what's that uh Char uh King Charles Prince Charles, you know, Princess Diana's husband.

And uh I didn't, Cheryl Lee was enthralled with all that stuff back there with with Princess Diana and Charles and all that stuff.

Uh I didn't really, I didn't know anything about it, to be honest with you.

What I didn't, I was like I said, I stopped and started watching it for a few minutes.

And you know one of the things they said in this documentary?

Now, I'm just telling you what I saw in this documentary.

There's not one wedding picture of Prince Charles on the day of his wedding smiling.

Now you think about that.

Because he wasn't happy about the day.

He wasn't happy about who he was marrying.

I don't know anything about that.

Boy, he traded down on that deal, but anyway, that's a whole nother subject.

Um what I do know, what I do know, is that the Lord Jesus isn't coming back disappointed or angry or ashamed of us.

He is thrilled, just like the dad when he saw that boy, just like that lady when she found that coin, just like that shepherd when he found that sheep, with a joy that is indescribable.

I want you to leave today and feel that.

That my God is gonna come back one day, maybe this afternoon.

And when he comes and he looks at each one of us face to face, he's gonna smile.

He's gonna be happy and excited about what about our future with him.

I want you to feel that.

I want you to feel, I want you to believe.

I'm not trying to give you a pep talk.

I want you to believe that which the scriptures teach and declare are true, and leave here today with that weight out of your backpack, knowing that your God is gonna come back to get you to build a wonderful future together.

Okay?

Thank you.

Okay, well, y'all listen slow.

We gotta we gotta move along.

Um Bobby, you and Susan want to come up here and help me, please?

Jim and Susan?

I got all these.

No, not today, okay.

Uh Ashley, John, would y'all come up here and help us help me, please?

We're gonna take the Lord's Supper.

Y'all get right over yonder and y'all come up close to me if you will.

Um and my wife and I have mentioned in various ways the importance of remembering.

Remembering the goodness of God.

Well, that's what we're doing.

Why do we eat bread and drink wine at the end of the church?

Well, we do it to remember the goodness of God.

To remember what Jesus did on the cross so that he could come back with a pumpkin smile on his face, knowing that our future with him is good and bright and strong and solid and happy.

And so I invite you to come, and you can take bread and one of those uncovered glasses, or you can take one of those that's covered, that's got the bread and the wine in it.

But come and eat and drink and remember and rejoice that your Savior will come one day for you.

And He's excited as all get out about that day.