Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: Have you ever noticed how Christians really are generally happier? We're not happy because everything's working out perfectly in our lives. The reason we're happy is because our sins are forgiven.

Guest (Male): On Today's Word, Pastor Brett Meador testifying to the promise of God. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. And blessed, happy that is, as a result of forgiveness. Don't forget God's great forgiveness, and then also don't forget that we are supposed to forgive others as Christ has forgiven us.

Forgiveness. It's one of the central tenets of the Bible and Christian faith. In the book of the Prophet Micah, Chapter 7, we find a great summation of what this means for us and our relationship with God as we discover how to be forgiven and to forgive others. Pastor Brett Meador continues a new study series of Micah, highlighting these saving truths in Today's Word.

Brett Meador: Turn with me to Micah Chapter 7 and there is where we will read this most glorious, comforting, and powerful verse, Micah 7:18. "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion on us. He will subdue our iniquities, and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."

I love that. What a great and glorious section of Scripture right here. One of the things that some of us old-timer Christians almost forget is the glory and the wonder of God's mercy. We can sing about it, oh yeah, God's mercy is great, I'm forgiven of my sins. But we forget that burden of sin that maybe some of you once carried and you almost forget what a glorious thing that forgiveness really is, the forgiveness of sin, God being merciful. These two verses we've just read are so glorious.

I just want to maybe remind us of some of the reasons forgiveness is so important. The first thing that forgiveness does is it gives us peace of mind. You might even say a clear conscience. When you were in sin as a sinner before you were saved, there was guilt. And that's something God has built into humanity. We know that we're sinners.

Hebrews Chapter 9, verses 13 and 14 says, "For if the blood of bulls and goats and ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"

The author writing to the Hebrews says you guys gave sacrifices in the Old Testament and you guys felt better. On the Day of Atonement when the high priest would make sacrifice, he would go in and then he'd come out of the Holy of Holies at the end of the day and declare to all the people of Israel, your sins are forgiven. There'd be a huge celebration and the people knew that their sins were atoned for through that sacrificial process.

The author of Hebrews is saying, when you guys felt all happy that your sins were forgiven for that year on the Day of Atonement, how much more will the blood of Jesus Christ, through the eternal spirit, purge you? He offered himself without spot to God. He was sinless. And what does that do? It purges you of your guilty conscience of dead works.

This is such an encouraging word. That's what the Lord Jesus does. You and I can walk away knowing that our sins are forgiven and we don't have to walk around with that guilt and shame of our sins. We need forgiveness of sin and Jesus did that on the cross, dying for our sins. Number one, it gives us a pure conscience and peace of mind.

Number two, forgiveness gives us a relationship with God. When Jonah was in rebellion, we talked about how sin separates us from God. But when you have your sins forgiven, the word is reconciliation. You were separated from God, but when God forgives you of your sins, you are then reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. It's such a great thing.

Peter had to learn this. Remember when Jesus was talking to Peter and the disciples were all sitting around the table? Jesus stripped himself of his clothes, wrapped a towel around himself like a servant or a slave, and started washing the disciples' feet. Peter said, "Lord, I should be washing your feet, not you washing my feet." Do you remember what Jesus said? "Peter, unless you let me wash your feet, you can have no part with me."

Poor Peter always put his foot in his mouth. He said, "Well then not just my feet, my head and my hands also, Lord, just give me a whole bath right now." And Jesus said it's not your head and your hands, you're clean, it's your feet that are dirty that need to be cleaned. There's a truth there. Even if you're saved and washed and forgiven, you and I touch dirty things daily.

There's sinful stuff all around us and that's why we need to confess our sins. First John Chapter 1 verse 9 says if Christ died once for all sin on the cross, why do we need to keep confessing? The answer is the same thing that Jesus was talking about. When we touch this dirty world, we need to reconcile back to God through repentance and just say, "Lord, forgive me for my sins." The Lord says, "I'm quick to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness." Peter realized, unless his feet were washed by Jesus, as seen in John Chapter 13, he could have no relationship with him.

An important part of what forgiveness brings is you can have a relationship with God because your sins are forgiven. Second Corinthians 5 verses 18 and 19 says, "All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." You see a word in there that's used over and over again? Reconciliation. That's what God is into. He wants to reconcile sinful, lost humanity to himself and he did that through Jesus Christ.

Colossians Chapter 1 verses 19 through 22 says, "For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself. By him, I say, whether they be things in the earth or things in heaven and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight."

When you and I get to stand before the Lord, he'll see you as holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight. That's an amazing miracle. One of the greatest miracles in the cosmos is how God can take our sins and wipe them out, give us a clean slate and a new start. So forgiveness gives us peace and a relationship with God. Number three, this is a big one, it keeps us out of hell. To be blunt, forgiveness keeps you out of hell.

I hope you understand this. This is how important forgiveness is. That's why forgiveness might just be the most important topic we could talk about. If you don't have the forgiveness of God, you are going directly to hell. You do not pass go and you do not collect two hundred dollars. Nobody was laughing. That was a game we played back in the old days called Monopoly. You go to hell if you have not had your sins forgiven.

Here's the problem. Hell is something that today preachers are afraid to talk about. C.H. Spurgeon in the 1800s talked about a preacher in London who would never use the term hell. Instead, he would say "that place we do not want to go." He would never say the word hell. They asked Spurgeon what he thought about that, and he said that preacher should never be allowed to preach ever again.

If hell is real, which it is, should it be feared? You might think I am just trying to scare you. Exactly. If hell is real, it's a place you do not want to go. The Bible description of hell is horrifyingly bad. People marveled at Jesus's gracious words. Children loved to hang out with Jesus. But one thing about Jesus that was interesting is he never pulled any punches. When it came time to speak truth, he said it.

Listen to this. Jesus said in Luke 12:5, "But I will forewarn you to whom you shall fear. Fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell. Yea, I say unto you, fear him." This is gracious, kind, loving Jesus saying the one that can put you in hell, be afraid. That's what Jesus said. Jesus talked more about hell than he did about heaven, interestingly enough.

I remember reading somewhere that C.S. Lewis didn't believe in hell. But I actually have a quote that is interesting. You can tell he really wrestled with the idea. He said, "There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, hell, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and especially of our Lord's own words. It has always been held by Christendom and has the support of reason."

Even though he didn't want to believe in hell, he had to say we really can't get around that one. It's amazing to me how many people act like the Bible is unclear on hell. Have you heard that where they go, "Yeah, we don't really know," or "We don't know how long it's going to be," or "Is it really eternal?" People are just trying to put fogginess around hell. But the Bible is crystal clear.

Revelation Chapter 20 verse 15, talking about sinners who go to the Great White Throne, says, "And whoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire." Is that confusing? No, that's very, very clear. Some people, because they don't have pastors who will talk about hell, have made a joke out of it. We use it as a swear word. We use the word in a cussing, swearing sort of way, and that has minimized people's belief.

Some people think hell is a joke. I heard it said by one preacher, you may laugh yourself into hell, but you cannot laugh your way out of hell. And that's the truth. Hell is to be taken seriously in the Bible. And the only way out of hell for you and for me is forgiveness, God's beautiful, loving, kind-hearted grace and mercy that he shows to his people. So what does forgiveness do? It gives you peace of mind, gives us a relationship with God, and it keeps you out of hell.

But also, number four on the list, it gets you into heaven. I love that one. In John 14, Jesus talks about this. "Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions." The word mansion there is better translated as dwelling place. The translators of the King James Version used the word mansion because heaven's going to be wonderful. They thought a mansion's wonderful, so let's translate that.

But I believe the word mansion is a bit clumsy because some of us don't care about mansions. I don't want a mansion. That doesn't sound very fun to me. It sounds like work. What Jesus is saying is, "I'm going to my Father's house, there's many places for you to dwell. And if it were not so I would have told you, I go to prepare a place." And the idea is just for you.

What is the place Jesus is preparing for you? I don't know, but I think it's going to be great. He says, "And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also." The fact is it's going to be great because Jesus is going to be there. That's going to be glorious.

Speaking of heaven, Paul said to the Corinthian church in First Corinthians 2:9, "But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." You and I can't even imagine. It's never entered into the heart of man what heaven's going to be like. I believe heaven's going to be great.

The Bible does tell us stuff, like mansions and streets of gold. I remember thinking I'm not into gold. Who cares that there's streets of gold? Well, that's the point. Here in our world, what's the most common substance that nobody cares about? One of them is pavement. When you go out in the parking lot tonight, some of you guys are going to spit right on our pavement. We paid for that pavement and you're spitting on it.

You're going to drive your car all over our pavement and you're like, yeah, whatever, it's just pavement, it's just asphalt. But that's the point. It's not that when we get to heaven, we're going to fall on the ground and go, "Gold, wow." We're not going to do that. What we're going to realize is that the most expensive, valuable thing on this earth is going to be pavement in heaven.

The stuff we esteem as really important and great is going to be nothing in heaven. The streets are going to be paved. It's not to impress you with pearly gates and streets paved with gold. Heaven's going to be so much more glorious. I think some of you aren't even looking forward to heaven because you think you're going to be strumming a harp on a cloud somewhere. You're not sure you're into that. That's just Warner Brothers, you guys. Do you believe Bugs Bunny or do you believe your Bible? That's the question.

Even our jokes haven't helped. Like the guy that ends up at the pearly gates and Peter is there with his book. Peter asks what makes him think he gets to go to heaven. He said, "Well, I've been nice. I've done nice things for people." He gives an example of how he stood up to some bikers who were hassling a little old lady crossing the street. Peter says, "Wow, that is pretty nice. When did this happen?" He said, "About thirty seconds ago."

Some of you aren't laughing. The bikers killed him and that's why he's in heaven standing before Peter. We laugh at jokes like that, but you know that's not how it's going to work. You're not going to get to heaven just because you helped an old lady and got killed by bikers. There's only one thing that's going to get you into heaven and this is the question: are your sins forgiven? Apart from forgiveness of sin, you will not make it into heaven.

So the question becomes, are you forgiven? Be quick to come to Christ and repent of your sins and accept the forgiving work of God. It's so amazing how easy God made it for you and me to be saved because he did all the work when Jesus died on the cross. But why is humanity so stubborn about forgiveness and about sin? Listen, you know you're a sinner. Even if you claim to be an atheist, you know it because God has built in your heart a conscience to know.

What are you going to do? Accept Christ, repent of your sins? It doesn't mean you're going to be perfect or never sin again. Christ died for all your sins, past, present, and even your future ones you've yet to commit. Jesus died for all those once for all. Sometimes we try to sell it and say if you become a Christian, you'll be happy. I can't even really promise that. But have you ever noticed how Christians really are generally happier? It is true.

Why are we so happy? It's not because of good news on television. We're not happy because everything's working out perfectly in our lives. The reason we're happy is because our sins are forgiven, that we have heaven to look forward to, not because we've earned it or deserved it, but because God says, "I'll make you saved." That's why the Psalmist wrote there in Psalm 32:1, "Blessed is he whose transgression or sins is forgiven, whose sin is covered." Blessed, happy, that is a result of forgiveness.

Now this is where it'd be wise for me to leave it alone and say the end. But there's something else I need to say that goes with forgiveness. The Bible talks a lot about this too. It has to do with when you are a forgiven sinner. We can just be joyful and have the anticipation of heaven, and that's really good. But there's one more point: you now need to forgive others.

Once you are a forgiven sinner, it makes us forgive others. I almost said it allows us, but it doesn't just allow us to forgive others. It requires us. Do you understand this? When you are a horrible sinner, God says, "I will forgive you of your sins." And then all through the Bible it says, "Now as you have been forgiven, forgive." Jesus even taught us to pray, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." That's an interesting prayer that sometimes we forget.

So when you get in your heart that you're not going to forgive them, then the Lord is saying, "I'm not going to forgive you." Ephesians 4:31 and 32 says, "Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, and clamor, evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." As God has forgiven you, you're supposed to forgive others. And how has the Lord forgiven you? Unconditionally. He forgave you before you were ever even sorry.

There's Jesus hanging on the cross in the worst situation you can imagine. Men are painfully crucifying God in the flesh. Does it get worse than that? There's no worse sin you could ever commit than taking God and giving him a torturous, painful, brutal death on the cross. Meanwhile, Jesus is hanging on that cross saying, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." It doesn't matter what that person did to you. It wasn't as bad as crucifying Jesus on the cross. And like Jesus, you're supposed to forgive, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

If you want an airtight one, here it is. Jesus said in Matthew 6:14 and 15, "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will the Father forgive you your trespasses." Any questions? Jesus says this drop the mic moment and then says the end. That's it.

While we are delirious with joy because our sins are forgiven, it's important for you old-timer Christians to remember to not forget God's great forgiveness and also don't forget that we are supposed to forgive others as Christ has forgiven us. What an important role we have to play in this. That is the end of the story. Amen?

Lord, we look at this passage and we're so relieved to know that you're the forgiver of sins. Forgiven, Lord. What a declaration. We don't deserve it. We've all fallen short. No one is righteous, not even one. Your Word is right. But how gracious you are and merciful to forgive us our sins and give us the hope of heaven and eternal life. Lord, make us thankful. Help us to not become so aware of forgiveness that it becomes commonplace. Make us joyful, Lord. Restore unto us the joy of our salvation.

And for those that have yet to be forgiven, who still carry the guilty conscience, those who have yet to confess their sinful need to be forgiven, Lord, would you just continue to tap them on the shoulder even right now of their need to accept? As forgiveness comes through just accepting you, Lord, and the work of the cross, dying, raising up from the dead, and then declaring us forgiven.

If you accept the work of Jesus when he, the perfect, sinless person, died on the cross, and if you say, "I want that for myself," that forgiveness comes through Jesus. Then Romans 10 verse 9 and 10 says if you confess with your mouth, believe in your heart the Lord Jesus, that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's why Jesus said, "It is finished." What was finished? Not just his death, but the dealing with the sinful condition of humanity. Jesus did that.

The way you do that is just accept and believe and confess. Confession with the mouth, belief in the heart, you're saved. That's what the Bible says. This is what makes you a Christian, by the way, not signing up for a church. A Christian is a person who acknowledges they're sinful and they're accepting the forgiveness of Jesus from the cross. So let's do that. Dear Father in heaven, I believe in your Son, Jesus Christ. I believe that he died on the cross for my sins and that he rose up from the grave and that all my sins are forgiven. Now help me to walk with you. Thank you for saving me. In Jesus' name, amen.

Guest (Male): Amen. Pastor Brett Meador here on Today's Word. And if you just prayed those words with Pastor Brett, we want to welcome you into the family of God. To help, we put together some teachings that will help you as you begin your walk with Jesus. Just go to our website at todayswordradio.com and click on "Are You a New Believer?". Again, todayswordradio.com and click on "New Believer".

Well, we're so glad you've joined us today. Next time Pastor Brett Meador will share another verse-by-verse study from the book of Micah. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.