Christ Memorial Church

My heart aches for people who don’t know the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus once said to a paralyzed young man, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5).  More than anything else this man wanted to walk.  But more than anything else this man needed forgiveness. 

What most human beings don’t realize is that God’s forgiveness of their sins is their greatest need.  In the third tier of his hierarchy of needs, Abraham Maslow indicates that “love and belongingness” is absolutely necessary for healthy human existence. 

We totally agree.  To love and to be loved is a wonderful reality.  It brings a sense of wholeness and completion to our lives.  

But our greatest “need” is to be in a right relationship with God through the forgiveness of our sins.  

Christians believe that God forgives sin through the sinless life, sacrificial death, and triumphant resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ.  

The Bible teaches that Jesus “committed no sin” (1 Peter 2:22), died “as a sacrifice of atonement” (Romans 3:25), and “has been raised from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:20). 

This is why the Christian faith declares that Jesus Christ is the “one mediator between God and humankind” (1 Timothy 2:5).  

The Bible says that without the forgiveness of our sins we will perish (1 Corinthians 1:18).  And Jesus says that “you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he” (John 8:24).  The good news, however, is that forgiveness is available by trusting in Jesus Christ.  This is the Christian message. 

Forgiveness will always be our greatest need, and our hearts ought to ache for those without salvation.  Humans aren’t automatically forgiven because God is a forgiving God.  People are forgiven when they place their faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins (Romans 3:26). 

Yet my heart also aches for Christians who don’t experience the forgiveness of sins.  I’ve met too many Christ followers over the years that have a never-ending struggle with the reality of their forgiveness.  

For some reason, we struggle with God’s forgiveness.  It’s not that we don’t believe that God forgives us.  For the most part we do.  It’s that we lack the assurance and joy of forgiveness.  As Christians, we need to remember that our forgiveness isn’t a question mark but an exclamation point. 

Maybe this week’s memory verse can provide you with the assurance you need. 

Ezra’s heart is breaking over the disobedience of the Israelites.  One hundred and ten Jewish men, mostly leaders, married unbelieving women from surrounding nations.  God commanded them not to do this, but they ignored him.  So Ezra is weeping and praying over the sin of his people.  They’ve been back in the Promised Land for just over fifty years following seventy years of captivity in Babylon.  Ezra now arrives in the second wave of returnees and discovers this violation of covenant with God.  The problem is that if the Israelites keep marrying foreign women who are not believers in God, they will soon worship idols, dissolve as a distinct people of God, and the holy seed of the Messianic line will be lost.  

What happens next is pure gospel.  Shecaniah, one of the leaders, says to Ezra, “We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.” 

Even now there is hope!  These words encourage us in three ways. 

First, there is hope for anyone who has ever sinned.  And this, my friends, includes you and me.  

According to the Bible “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  And there’s no way we can ever earn forgiveness or erase our own sins, “Who can say, ‘I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin?’” (Proverbs 20:9).  

Do you feel guilty over some sin in your life?  Are you living in despair because of your sin?  Is your life filled with anxiety and sorrow because of something you’ve said or done? 

If so, even now there is hope.  This “hope” of Ezra 10:2 is the hope of forgiveness, the real possibility of forgiveness.  

We all sin.  This shouldn’t come as a shock to any of us.  The Israelites sinned soon after God forgave them and returned them to the land.  They experienced a relapse in their relationship with God, just like we do. 

Whenever we relapse, Satan whispers, “You did it again.  You’re not a good person.  God must think so little of you.”  It’s at this point that we are prone to “be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow” (2 Corinthians 2:7).  But this is not what God wants for you. 

David of Israel once cried, “…my iniquities have overtaken me, until I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails me” (Psalm 40:12). 

We don’t have to live with such overwhelming guilt.  Even now there is hope.  Even now there is forgiveness for you in the Lord.  Christ has been, is, and will always be the remedy for sin.  

Second, these words remind us that God is full of gospel.  Occasionally I wonder what it will be like to see Christ in person for the first time.  What will we feel, taste, and experience of his grace and mercy?  How strong, tender, and warm will that first embrace with Christ be?  I suppose there will be nothing quite as moving as hearing Jesus say, “All is forgiven.”  I think we will melt in tears of everlasting joy, worship, and gratitude. 

This is all because God is full of gospel or good news.  Our scripture says, “…even now there is hope.”  God is so gospel-full that his “grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began…” (2 Timothy 1:9).  Can you imagine that?  You and I were graced by God with salvation, forgiveness, and acceptance even before the world was made.  You and I are eternally forgiven!  So why do you continue to carry guilt from last year’s sin, last month’s sin, or last night’s sin? 

My friend, God is full of gospel!  Your sin and mine is gone!  “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:11-12). 

Again, our gospel-God says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love…I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). 

Third, these words ask us to do one thing to receive God’s forgiveness.  And that one thing is to clear the air with God.  “Even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.” 

Now, today, right this moment there is hope.  In less than a minute you can be forgiven.  It can happen faster than a lightening streak across the sky once you clear the air with God. 

How did the Israelites clear the air with God?  They did something very painful:  They sent the women and children back to their own people.  

God had commanded them never to marry idol worshipers in the land of Canaan.  God knew that if they did, it would only be a matter of time until the nation disintegrated and would no longer be able to bring forth the promised Messiah.  

While it may be hard for us to understand this decision to send the women and their children away, we believe that God had his reasons.  

We might add here a couple of caveats.  One, no one should use this to speak against bi-racial marriages.  The main thing that matters when we marry, according to Paul, is that we marry “only in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39).  Second, if someone is married to an unbeliever this story does not give the believer license to leave the marriage.  In fact, the Bible says that if a believer is married to an unbeliever, the believer “should not divorce” the unbeliever (1 Corinthians 7:13). 

So what did the Israelites do?  They cleared the air with God by sending the women and children away.  The principle of clearing the air with God is what the Lord wants us to take away from this text.

Someone asked me on Sunday why God’s grace wasn’t extended to these women and children in the same way it was to the people of Israel.  Where was the “hope” for them?  This was a tough question, a good question, and one I wrestled with.  I’m still not sure how to answer it.  The text doesn’t say.

Perhaps the women and children were sent back to their people with food, supplies, and material goods.  Perhaps they went back to husbands and families they left.  Maybe some of them became believers in Israel’s God and brought their new-found faith back to their people, in sort of a missionary way.  We just don’t know.  

What we do know is that God said earlier, “Take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, or it will be a snare among you…for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, someone among them will invite you, and you will eat of the sacrifice.  And you will take wives from among their daughters for your sons, and their daughters who prostitute themselves to their gods will make your sons also prostitute themselves to their gods” (Exodus 34:12, 15-16).  

God did not want his covenant people to make covenants with the surrounding idolatrous nations, nations that would sacrifice children on altars of fire, worship multiple gods, and carry out all kinds of lewd and wicked religious rituals.  

In our story and in our text, the author is focusing on one central feature, and that feature is the advancement of Israel’s story.  The hope we read about was central not only to Israel’s existence as God’s chosen people, but to the future redemption of the world as well. 

So back to our flow of thought:  How can you clear the air with God?  The first thing you have to do is to let God call out your sin.  He did this with the Israelites.  He did this with David when Nathan confronted him about Bathsheba.  And Jesus did this with one glance at Peter after he denied knowing Jesus for the third time.  

The law of God, which is God’s glance at us, will either call out our sin and lead us to confession and repentance, or send us running from God.  God called to Adam, “Where are you?” because he wanted Adam to come clean with his sin (Genesis 3:9). 

That’s what God wants for all of us.  

The second thing you have to do is to agree with God about your sin.  “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).  

To agree with God about your sin is to see your sin as sin and then to confess it to God. 

Nowhere does the Bible say that God wants us living in despair because of our sin.  Conviction is necessary and is the work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8-9), but once your conviction of sin and guilt leads you to heartfelt confession (2 Corinthians 7:9-11), you are now forgiven, this moment, today, completely, totally, forever. 

Praise the Lord with me! 

Christ says that he wants you to “go and sin no more” in order that you “may have life, and have it more abundantly” while you “bear fruit, fruit that will last” (John 8:11; 10:10; 15:16).  Because you have been forgiven much you can now love God and others much (John 7:47-48).  It’s only “the truth” of God’s complete and gracious forgiveness of your sins that can “set you free” from your guilt, shame, and despair (John 8:37). 

Friends, Jesus “himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). 

Believe this gospel and go forth to live in peace.  

Even now there is hope for you, me, and everyone who turns to God today.  Amen. 

Until next week, 

Pastor Mike