This is the last week of our series on forgiveness. This week we try to pull it together to show how forgiveness can be a way of life - we really can live forgiven! This message is based on a reading from Luke 15:11-31. To read now, click here.
This is the last week in our series on forgiveness, and we are going to end the series with the same Scripture we started it with. Only we are going to go a little farther, because there is more to the story than what we saw at the beginning. Let’s recap. The younger son is bored. He wants adventure, travel, wild living. So he works outs a deal with dad, takes half of his estate, and begins his adventure. We don’t know how long it took, but he blew through all the money. Then a severe famine hits, and he winds up taking a job caring for the pigs of a local farmer. It’s a horrible job – and he’s hungry. In fact, so hungry that the food he’s feeding pigs begins to look better than what he’s eating himself. Then we see my favorite line in the story: “When he finally came to his senses…” Obviously this isn’t just a story about a man and his younger son. This is a parable about mankind. How we’ve all wandered away from God. And sooner or later, we all have to come to our senses, and realize that we have a heavenly Father who loves us, and is willing to see us through even the darkest of days. The question is, how long will we keep trying to do it on our own? What’s it going to take to turn us back to God? We see from the story that the Father is really happy to see the Son. When you turn to God, you’ll find the heavenly Father will be really happy to see you, too! In our story, they had a big party when the son returned home. They killed the fatted calf, had a huge celebration. He had asked to come back as a servant, but he was accepted back as a son. When we come to God, He makes us sons and daughters, too! This catches us up to where we left off the first week. It’s a really happy ending? Or is it? As I look at the younger son, I want to know, did his life change? I mean, he wasn’t happy at home before, what changed that he would be happy at home now? He had treated his father poorly before, how is going to treat his father now. Will he ever be able to forgive himself for wasting half of his father’s estate? Will he be able to live forgiven? That’s the question we’re looking at today. Are we living forgiven? Have you received God’s forgiveness in your life, and if you have, what’s different? God’s forgiveness has the power to radically transform your life. Has it? Or are you still living the same life you were living before? Many of us understand His forgiveness here, in our heads, but we haven’t accepted it here, in our hearts. As a result, we walk around with a lot of very heavy burdens. These burdens come from not being able to live forgiven, or not receiving God’s forgiveness, or not being able to forgive others. And these burdens make life hard. In fact, they can literally make us sick. Sick physically, sick emotionally, sick relationally, even sick spiritually. Karl Meninger, a famed psychiatrist, once said that if he could convince every person in a psychiatric hospital that they were forgiven, 75% of them could go home the next day. That tells me our biggest problem isn’t a psychological problem. Our biggest problem is a heart problem. It’s a forgiveness problem. So today, we are going to look at God’s solution for our forgiveness problems. When we go through these, I want you to honestly reflect on your life, and how you’re doing in these areas. At the end of each area, there’s a place for you grade yourself. You’re not going to hand these in, nobody else will see them, so please be honest with yourself as you do it. Hopefully, by the end of the day you will be able to strip off some of these burdens that you’re struggling with. You see, when I receive forgiveness, God wants to replace the heavy burdens in my life, with something much better. The first of these burdens we struggle with is… 1. The Burden Of Doubt - Doubt is defined as an uncertainty of belief that interferes with decision-making. Doubt is being so uncertain about what I believe that I am unable to make a decision about the future without doubt interfering. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you are at work. You are offered a big promotion, but that promotion requires you to step up to another level of work, and you’re not sure you can do that. So you don’t take the promotion. That’s the burden of doubt. And it really holds us back. President Franklin Roosevelt once said, “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be out doubts of today.” But God doesn’t want you living a life filled with doubts. God wants to replace your doubts with security. That’s you’re first fill in in your notes. God wants to replace my doubts with security. Security means that you know for certain. So many of us live life without security, especially eternal security. We aren’t sure we have met the requirements to get into Heaven. We aren’t sure that God will really forgive our sins. We have doubts. But God’s forgiveness provides security. Look at our next verse in Hebrews 10. God says, “I will never again remember your sins and lawless deeds. Now when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices.” Isn’t that good news? You don’t have to do anything else when you have been forgiven. You don’t have to doubt. God can replace your doubt with security. Julian of Norwich was a 14th Century Christian mystic. She struggled with a lot of health issues, and as a result, she really questioned whether she was doing enough for her salvation. She was afraid of losing her salvation. She had a great anxiety because she wasn’t secure about her future. One day, she was walking through the woods. She saw an acorn on the ground and she picked it up. She held it in her hand and she wrapped her hand around it and thought of how secure that acorn was in her hand. Then it occurred to her, just as that acorn was secure in her hand, she is secure in God’s hands. From then on, she had security and no more eternal doubts. Today, allow God to take away your doubts, and allow yourself to receive His forgiveness. Take a minute or two right now and reflect on this in your heart. On the front of your message notes, you’ll see it says—on a scale of 1-10, how much doubt do you have about being forgiven. One meaning very little doubt. Ten meaning I have a lot of doubt. How much doubt do you have about your relationship with God, or about how much God will take care of you? Be honest with yourself, nobody else is going to see it, go ahead and write it down. 2. The Burden of Guilt - Guilt is knowing that you have messed up and you’re experiencing the blame for that mistake. Here’s the thing about guilt. Guilt always comes attached with another emotion: shame. And shame is a humiliating emotion that makes you feel bad about yourself. So many of us are carrying around guilt and shame over past mistakes. Mistakes in our relationships. Times we have turned away from God. Things we are embarrassed about. Maybe you haven’t asked for God’s forgiveness, or maybe you haven’t been able to forgive yourself. So you carry around this heavy weight. King David could relate, he wrote in Psalm 38:4, “My guilt overwhelms me. It’s a burden too heavy to bear.” But God doesn’t want you carrying around the weight of guilt. God wants to replace your guilt with peace—write that down. My guilt with peace. Our next verse is from Act 13, “Everyone who believes in Him is free from all guilt and declared right with God.” Free from all guilt. When God forgives you, he removes the guilt. Some of us don’t let it go, we hang onto it. But God forgives and offers peace. When God’s peace comes into our live, we can lay down that burden of guilt. Reflect on this one now. You’ll see in your notes again a place to grade yourself. And again, be honest, nobody’s going to see this. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much guilt do you experience from the past? One would be no guilt; ten would be a lot… 3. Burden of Grudges – It is so easy to get consumed by a grudge, but when we hold on to anger when someone hurts us, we only end up hurting ourselves, and it becomes a burden on us. Truth is, holding a grudge almost never hurts the other person. They might not even know that you have a grudge against them. It doesn’t bring relief. It doesn’t bring a sense of satisfaction. The only person it hurts is the person holding onto the grudge. It’s just another burden we have to carry around. God doesn’t want that for you. God wants to replace your grudges with freedom. Write that down. God wants to replace my grudges with freedom. Our next verse is Colossians 3:13. “You must make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you so you must forgive others.” You must. That’s an imperative. You must. Why? Because you can’t live forgiven without releasing those grudges. If you’re carrying around a grudge, today can be the day you let it go. Experience God’s freedom and forgiveness by letting it go. Time to reflect again. Take a minute and grade yourself in this area on the scale of 1 to 10. How often do you hold a grudge? If never, then it would be a low number. If you are holding on to a couple grudges this morning, that number is going to be higher. 4. The Burden of Regret – The fourth burden that we often carry around is regret. Regret is defined as sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one’s control. Understand something here, if it’s beyond your control, thinking about it is a waste of time. You can’t do anything about it. There is nothing you can accomplish by thinking about it, yet we replay the situation over and over in our minds. You just keep thinking—I wish I had, or I should have, or what if. But God doesn’t want you experiencing regret in your life. Instead, God wants to replace your regret with hope. Write that down. God wants to replace my regret with hope. Romans 4:7 says, “Oh what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight.” God doesn’t remember your past mistakes, sins, and missed opportunities once He forgives you. So why should you dwell on them when God doesn’t even remember them? With God’s forgiveness, He’s always offering second chances. New opportunities are always opening up for you. Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that is open for us.” So stop saying—what if I’d have done this, what if I had done that, if only… Put it behind you and move on. God’s opened another door. Don’t miss it! Time to reflect again. How much regret do you feel in your life. If not very much, it’s a low number. If you have a lot regrets, it will be high. But be honest and write that number down. 5. The Burden of Fear – The final burden might just be the heaviest. It’s fear. We are afraid of the future. We are afraid of looking foolish. We are afraid of failing. We are afraid of rejection. We are afraid of financial struggles. We are afraid of commitment. We are even afraid of death. We have a lot of fear in our life and it causes such a heavy burden. But God didn’t create you to be afraid. You can’t live an abundant life if you’re afraid. So God wants to replace your fear with courage. Write that down. God wants to replace my fear with courage. Here is the definition of courage. Courage is the strength to venture, to persevere and to withstand fear. That means courage and bravery can only exist in the presence of fear. The only time that you can be courageous or brave is when you are afraid of something. So it’s natural to fear something. We are going to be afraid at times. But we aren’t supposed to live in a constant state of fear. Fear paralyzes us. It keeps you from moving into the future that God has for you. Fear keeps you from taking the next step because you’re afraid to step out of your comfort zone, because you think it’s the safest place to be. Where is God asking you to step out of your comfort zone today? Is it to take the next step and give your life over to God completely? Is it to become a member if you’re not? Is it to be baptized if you’re not, or if you can’t remember? Is it to join a Sunday School group? Or maybe even to lead a Sunday School group or Bible Study? Maybe God is asking you to invite a friend or a family member to church. Whatever it is, take that step. When you take a step to do something you are afraid of, you are attacking that fear. And when you attack that fear, you are removing that burden. And when you remove that burden, you are stepping out by faith into the future God has prepared for you – a secure future, filled with hope and promise. Our next verse, 2 Timothy 1:7, says “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self discipline.” On a scale of 1 to 10, how much fear do you live with? If it’s not very much, it’s a low number. If fear is holding you back in your comfort zone, it’s a high number. Be honest and write that down. Our last verse is from Hebrews. It says, “Therefore, as we are surrounded by such a huge cloud of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down. Especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress and let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us.” We’ve talked about those weights this morning. Doubt, guilt, grudges, regret and fear - They all weight us down. They are burdens we don’t have to bear. And they are symptoms of an unforgiven life. If you’re experiencing them today, go to God and receive his forgiveness. And lay those burdens down once and for all.
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