The Freedom Found In Forgiveness (Conclusion, Part 6)

By Pastor Matthew

In all this there is hope, biblical hope, not a relativistic one.  In Scripture we find people that were cut to the heart because they saw that God had made Jesus Lord and Christ, but they had killed Him.  In other words they were utterly at odds with God.  They were living against His will.  They were out of step with His character.  They were in violation of His Word and His Son.  God was one way.  They were another way.  And they did not have His affirmation.  Nor should they have had their own.

What they desperately needed, and what we need, and what God, in amazing grace was ready to give, was forgiveness.  They had offended God.  They had violated God.  They had disobeyed God.  And there was only one hope-that God might find a way to be the holy God that He is and yet let it go, and forgive them.  This is what was accomplished by God and is found in the death of His Son.  Scripture states that we need to “Be saved from this crooked generation.”  And the most crooked thing about this generation is that we have created ways of salvation without God and therefore without law and therefore without forgiveness-and therefore utterly without hope.  However, on the basis of God’s Word there is a God, there is a holy law, and in the name of Jesus Christ there is forgiveness.  That is the first need we have.  And God stands ready to meet it.

The petition for forgiveness is identical with the petition for the coming of God’s kingdom: “Your kingdom come, your will be done; … and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors!”  To live by forgiveness is already to participate in the life of God’s coming kingdom.  To practice forgiveness in all our day-to-day social interactions is already to show the power and the life of God’s kingdom.  For the kingdom of God-the kingdom that Jesus announced, the kingdom that is now approaching all history like a fast train from the future is a kingdom of forgiveness, a kingdom whose fundamental economy is one of unconditional, liberating love.  To live in the power of this liberating love is the meaning of Christian freedom through forgiveness.