Hope in Forgiveness

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0:00 Well, I missed being with you all last week. I was out visiting Sister Church of ours in Deland. And my brothers have preached you there, so that was fun. I had never seen him preach before. He's been at it for seven years in Deland, and I had not been to his church on a Sunday morning. And so that was fun for me.

0:31 And then I watched our gatherings last week online, and just was reminded, like, I don't know how you experienced this space, but for me, this space and this time is like a very peaceful time. And then looking in on it from YouTube, I was relaxed and encouraged and comforted. And for me, that's one of the goals of what church ought to be, a safe space from the

1:05 world where we are reminded who we are and what we're doing in the world, maybe even where we're headed, but mostly who we are and what we're doing in the world, that the church would be a safe space where we could be reminded of those things on a regular basis, and then maybe even knit together in relationships where people could remind us of those things one on one, who we are and what we're doing in the world, and maybe even where we're going.

1:37 I feel like I just love the way that we are learning how to do that all the time, learning how to do that differently and better for each other. And so I'm very grateful to be here again with you this morning. I want to look at, we're still looking at this like little phrase from first Peter. It's been fun for me to like get into Peter's line of thinking. Like, as I would think about or listen for the idea of, for Sunday morning, a passage

2:12 from Paul or from the Gospels might come to mind, but I'm working on, in this time discipline myself to think through what does Peter's saying about this stuff. And so we're looking at the reason I'm doing that is because a couple of weeks ago we found this little passage in first Peter where he's writing to the church in Asia Minor, and they're definitely all under persecution, and he's reminding them that they have this whole, at the beginning of his letter, he says, you have this inheritance that is,

2:45 this inheritance he says that is, let's see if I can find it real quick, because the three words you used to describe it is really beautiful. Oh. Well, I'm lost at one, what? One three. Blessed be the God of Father Lord, just Christ, for his rich mercy, God's scheme before living hope and, oh yeah, a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

3:17 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading. Oh man, I love that. A living hope. So we talk about how sometimes in our lives we may be tempted to find hope in things that are not living but are perishing, right? So comfort, entertainment, isolation, right? So continuing to distract yourself in the endless stream of the Netflix shows is a good

3:50 hope for a time, but perishing and fading, right? From one exhilaration to the next, from one thrill to the next, from one adventure seeking to the next is a good hope for a period of time, but is fading. Peter writes to people who are in dire persecution and says even in the midst of life-correcting persecution, you have a living hope that is undefiled, unfading, imperishable, set away for you forever, no matter how long it takes you to get there, no matter how spoiled you

4:27 come to it, no matter how fraught your life experience, your inheritance is imperishable, unfading and undefiled, waiting for you. And then he says later in the chapter, always be ready to give a defense for the hope that you have in Christ Jesus. And it's interesting that just having the hope in the midst of a hard life would not be enough, but Peter says having that hope now, be ready to give a defense for the hope that you have in Christ Jesus. And the question is why would Peter be encouraging people to be ready to give a defense?

4:58 Isn't it enough that they have a hope in the midst of life? And the answer is obviously not. Peter said you have this hope, living hope, imperishable, unsading, undefiled. Now be ready to give a defense for the hope that you have. And we said several weeks ago the reason Peter might say you should be ready to give a defense for the hope that you have is one, it's easy for you to doubt the hope yourself when life gets hard. It can be difficult to believe that there might be a good God who loves you and is for you.

5:34 When it seems like you're not getting inheritance but empty hand, when your life looks like isolation or struggle, when it looks like unfulfilled dreams or confusion, when it looks like loneliness or despair, it can be hard to believe that you have an inheritance that is living, a living hope. And so it would be helpful to have a defense. And then second of all we realized, we remembered actually that when the God relies on and works

6:05 through his people announcing the good news. So when you, we looked at the story of Peter and several times in Acts and even through his letters and the actual apostles, it records Peter giving a defense for the hope that he has and it's not a high theological. Paul has a lot of high theological arguments. Peter doesn't really. Peter has a lot of explanations of what he has seen God do. An authentic response for real hope that he has in mind.

6:37 And it feels like he's encouraging us to be in that position as well. So the last several weeks we've looked at what are some things. I mean, I could say what are some things that we hope in but I haven't told you. I don't know. Maybe we should do that. Maybe that's next. But we started saying what are some things that give me hope? And Demetrius shared last week this idea of the presence of God coming with provision and protection gives him hope in the midst of life that might be good or bad.

7:09 But it's a hope and inheritance that God is present as a pattern of demonstrating presence and that when God comes, it brings with him provision and protection. Today I want to look at this idea that Peter gets to earlier in his letter. I feel like I wanted to go. Felt like a little old school when I was growing up in church. We always follow the lecture which we do at different seasons of the church here where

7:42 you read the assigned readings. And when I was growing up, they always read all three readings. They would have an old testament, a new testament and a gospel reading. And they would have someone just read them and you would. And then you have wrote responses. This is Godful, court of God, Lord Jesus and then the congregation will respond. Thanks, Peter God. And we had one church that Megan and I went to in college where when they would read the gospel, it was a pretty high church, when they would read the gospel, everyone had to stand

8:14 up, then they would carry the gospel out into the middle of the people and stand there and read the gospel from the middle of the church. They would actually process out so they would get the cross first, take the cross in front, then the gospel reader would come behind and stand behind the cross, read it and then they would go back and put it everything back where it was. And when I read this text, I thought, this feels like one that we should just read and Ben shouldn't get in the way of for just a minute. So this text I wanted to just read for you is from 1 Peter chapter 2 starting at verse

8:44 22. It says, he committed no sin. Neither was deceit found in his mouth. And he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to

9:20 righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed for you were straining like sheep, but have now returned to this peppered and overseer of your souls. Let me pray for us. Hey, Lord, draw us to yourself this morning. For the sake of your sacrifice of your son, that it might not be wasted on us, but that is that my bare forgiveness and life in us.

9:54 In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. One of the reasons that I have a hope for the inheritance in Christ Jesus is I have experienced the forgiveness of my sin, like holy and completely. I remember vividly a moment where I was feeling particularly crummy about myself, that I had

10:25 made choices that felt like almost addictive in nature and repetitive and I was not, I did not like it. I felt pretty crummy and I remember in prayer coming in prayer because I didn't know what else to do. Feeling completely crummy. And it was not new for me. I had taken that step in response to feeling from me lots of times, but I remember in one time in particular a new thought occurred to me.

10:58 I was feeling crummy because I realized I was such a big old sinner and I had cold everyone that I liked Jesus. And I knew sections of the Bible. I said, I'm not good at remembering verses, but I remembered the gospel and I could tell it to you, but I was a big old sinner. And I was praying Lord, I wish that I was not a big old sinner. And I feel crummy that I am.

11:29 I feel like some kind of hypocrite. I remember. I feel like some kind of hypocrite. In my head, I realized when I said, I felt some kind of hypocrite that I am the exact opposite, that the point. I remember thinking this, if I have sin, it qualifies me for relationship with Jesus. Jesus comes to save people who are sinners. If I have no sin, I have no need of Jesus.

12:00 And more than that, I've never claimed to be anything but a big old sinner. It's a refrain that runs in my head now sometimes. Lord, why did I make that choice? Because I'm a big old sinner. Forgive me, Lord. I remember that moment because I felt completely differently after this. Prior times, I had come to God in conversation and said, I feel so with certain kind of way for these choices that I've made.

12:30 And I knew intellectually that he forgiven me, but I go forward with shame and a determination man to suck it up and do better. Like, I'm going to will myself into a better experience of life. Because I have to stop doing this thing or stop being this person or stop responding in this way. I have to force myself into this because it felt like I didn't think this intellectually, but I felt this emotionally. There's a limited number of times I can come back to this well and say, honestly,

13:03 Lord, I'm sorry. I was living with this notion that I was going to run out of times I could come back. It's not interesting. And this time something changed. And I realized, oh, my sin is what qualifies me for relationship with God. The moment I have no sin, I have no need of Jesus or the God, he came to save sinners. I'm a big old sinner. And when I was able to own that place and move forward like a degree of shame came off

13:37 of me, and in that emotional experience is a reason I have hope in my heritage that the God is real no matter how hard the world gets, the God is real. Why? Because the God forgives me that happens. And I want to look at it a little bit. That's not just me making up. Obviously, you just heard Peter talk about this, we'll get it real quick, and then we'll go to a couple other places. He who committed no sin neither was deceived, found in his mouth, but when he was reviled,

14:17 he did not revile and return, but when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued and trusting himself to him who judges justly. This is Keith. Jesus endured the scourge not because he was weak or couldn't do something. Even I would wager, though it's a wager, he didn't respond to violence with violence because I don't imagine that he didn't want to.

14:50 I can imagine a situation where Jesus, this is not great, and I would prefer to not be in this situation. Remember when we talked about when Peter in the Garden of Yosemite picked up the sword and cut off the guy's ear, I imagine there's a part of Jesus that says, let's show these guys what's up. What brings him is not fear or weakness, but in the faith of injustice and adversity,

15:26 what keeps Jesus going forward is a complete trust in the God to bring all justice to bear. And the God says, this is the path towards justice. Jesus, submit to me, and all will be set to right. And even in the face of his own death, Jesus trusts the God. And so part of the question starts to come for us is like, you know, you can respond and go, what does our trust with the God look like? But that's important to note there.

15:58 And then verse 24, he himself bore our sins in his body on a tree that we might die to and live to righteousness by his wounds you have been healed. This is this phrase right here calls to mind another conversation I had with the pastor I had for a while because part of the reason I got locked up in this idea that there was a limited number of times that I could come back to the well for the forgiveness for the same things. Part of the reason I felt it was my responsibility that that repentance looked like carrying guilt

16:29 with me, feeling an amount of shame that if I didn't feel guilty, I wasn't actually repentant. I had this emotional weight that was my responsibility to carry that was due to the severity of my sin that if I didn't carry guilt and shame with me, I wasn't taking my sin seriously. And so there was a degree to me that said, if I accept forgiveness and release all guilt and shame and walk forward as though I am fine righteous before God, it trivializes sin.

17:00 And my pastor said to me, oh, Ben, you don't understand how big the cross is. It's not that your sin is not a big deal. You all have messed it up. Broiling in large and small ways. It is true that we walk on a straight line, right?

17:31 Time goes this way. And we make choices in our mind, in our heart with our action and inaction that we just keep moving right past that you cannot undo. You cannot unsay things you've said. You cannot undo things you've done. You cannot go back and do things you ought to have done. You have messed it up. And there is no fix it. You cannot fix it. Your sin is such a big deal that the creator of the world found a way to force himself

18:04 down into the flesh, infinite into sin. Walk quietly towards the cross, sacrifice and carry death. God, the creator of the world, kills a portion of God's self in order to rescue you from your sin. Your sin is a big deal, but the cross of Christ is like bigger. This cosmic ultimate reality that sanges the trajectory of human history and you along

18:41 with it. God is sufficient for you. I still remember the pastor going, God is not sitting up there going, oh man, I took care of all the sin in the world, but this sky bend is a real mess. Let me see if I can handle it. God can handle your sin because of the death of Christ.

19:11 The cross of Christ is big enough for you. When we come with forgiveness, the forgiveness is complete. If we carry guilt out of it, it's our own foolish sense or the accusation of an enemy, but not the burden of the God. The cross of Christ is enough. I had us read that Psalm 103 for a call to worship because I just wanted to show you

19:49 that the God of creation and life, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is also the God of Christ in the church, our God today. But that attitude, the desire to communicate forgiveness for sin has always been there. The first ones thought they could handle the responsibility of God and crossed under the weight of that responsibility. He doesn't wipe them out and start again there.

20:21 He decides he'll find a way to repair it and let them continue to live and preserve them in death to prepare them for the new creation. So in the story of Scripture, there's all this Abraham's bosom and this weighting and this kind of weird thing to try and figure out the arc of time and what happens to those in the Old Testament, which we won't get all into here. I probably mentioned too much now to confuse you and distract you. But look at Psalm 103 quickly.

20:53 So we read one through 12. Well let's start at... Ah, it's a good Psalm. Let's start at verse 11, for as high as the heavens are 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 as he removed our transgressions from us. As the Father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him for he knows our frame. He remembers that we are death.

21:23 And he goes on, but the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. So the short version of this is that God sets up his sacrificial system because sin is real and severe and requires something because it's this like pain, this lack of concern, this woundedness that goes out to the people that he loves. All of your mistakes and past choices are not without effect and consequence in the world.

21:59 And each of those consequences must be met with justice. When you wound someone that God loves, there is justice that is required. He can't let his creation be wounded and condone it. Each of those works of unrighteousness and sin, each of those works to wound must be met with justice in Old Testament and New, in Old Covenant and New. And so God sets up the sacrificial system because his heart is to forgive, but he needs justice for the wounds.

22:32 And the sacrificial system force stalls his sense of justice. The safe it for a period, but it is stored up so that the cross of Christ hearings all the sin that's come before it and all the sin that will happen after. It's this cosmic event that stands inside the space and time, but stretches up out of space any time to accomplish the justice for all humanity, for all the universe, for all time. According to the will of the God who wants to forgive, to restart and renew, God wants

23:12 to forgive you and has found a way to forgive all sin for humanity for all time. You cannot gross God out. You cannot offend God beyond repair. You cannot sully yourself to where you are too dirty to come to the God. The cross can handle all sin for all time. Anything you can think of, the cross can cover. I'm going to look at one more story.

23:45 This is John 8. If you want to look there with me, Matthew, Mark, John, John, John, Scott, John, John, chapter 8. I love this story. I've used it a lot over the years. I realize that I'm preaching regularly now for over 10 years. It's crazy for me to think about. I wonder how many times that preached on this passage a lot. The first time I preached on it was writing a seminary. I realized that I had to deal with this thing.

24:16 I don't know where you're looking at the copy of the scriptures if you've got it all up on your phone or paper copy. In my copy, right above John, chapter 8, it says, the earliest manuscripts do not include. Anybody have done on the text they're looking at? Okay. If you have a paper copy, it probably has that in there. Remember that our new testament, these new testaments from NIV forward in translations are based off of conglomerates called the Texas Receptus.

24:48 I don't know why they call it that, but they do. It's academics have put together all the pieces of the oldest Greek manuscript we can find. So because they go to the oldest ones, none of them are complete, right? The oldest complete Latin or Greek manuscript we have is the Erasmus text, which the King James version is based on. So if anybody says the King James version is the oldest one, it's not really true. It's the oldest complete original language, but it's not our oldest fragment by far.

25:19 The Texas Receptus is the oldest, but it's a grouping of texts because none of them are complete. So they'll pull little fragments and they can do some carbon dating and some context dating to figure out which are the oldest ones and they piece them together to get a full right. This is saying this section in John, John chapter 8, 1, 2, 11 is not in the oldest texts. It was added later. I love that. Some of the guys in summary got afraid of that.

25:53 We can't use that because it was added later, but I love that. So I love the idea that this story was passed down from one mother to another. It was a very important story. It was a very important story. It was a very important story. It was a very important story. It was a very important story. It was a very important story. It was a very important story. It was a very important story. I love the idea that this story was passed down from one mother to a son, from a grandmother

26:28 to a granddaughter over a period of time. At some point somebody said, hey, we have got to write this one down before we forget it because it's amazing. It is amazing. John chapter 8 verse 1, 1 through 11, look at it with me. This story that we couldn't be without. John chapter 8 verse 1, or look, I guess it's 753, they went each to his own house. But when Jesus went to the mouths of Olives early in the morning, he came again to the temple and all the people came to him and he sat down and taught them.

27:03 He comes to this place where there's a bunch of people. The teacher always sits down. The people stand and it builds up a crowd. There's a crowd that are listening to the teachings of Jesus. We talked about this before, but Jesus had a new way of teaching that wasn't regurgitating in a rabbinical tradition but was launching a new tradition into the world and so was drawing this crowd. Verse 3, describes in the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst. They said to him, okay, there's a lot of things said about this. The short verse is they caught the woman in adultery. Please, they set the woman up because they wanted to get Jesus and test Jesus because

27:39 they knew that the law said if you get caught in adultery, you should be stoned. But they also knew that the Roman law said that the Jews were not allowed to kill anybody. So Jesus was bothering them because he wasn't teaching in the rabbinical tradition but this new tradition. And so they said, we've got to catch them. Where either we can turn them into the Sanhedrin for not following the law and stoning this woman or we can turn them into the Roman authorities for following the law, stoning the woman, and then they'll excavate in his own punishment then the Romans will give him. They cared nothing about the woman. They set him up probably with the help of the guy that she was committing adultery with

28:12 because how else would they know she was going to be there. And they leave him alone. They don't bring him in. Right? So they set up the woman and they bring her in. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placed in her in the midst. So Jesus teaching his crowd, these people burst in between the crowd. Right? And if he's sitting down and they're standing, there's got to be a clear space in front of him so that people can see. Right? And they bust through the crowd and with this woman who they've caught in the act of adultery,

28:46 so hopefully she's got some clothes on and they put her right in the middle of the crew of people. Right? And they said to him, teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery now. In the law of Moses, the law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman, what do you say? This they said to him. This they said to test him that they might have some charge to bring against him and Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. I love that a lot of people trying to figure out what's he writing and some people have

29:17 spent a lot of time saying what he's writing. What is he writing? I don't really care what he's writing. If we were supposed to know when he was writing, the story would have told us. Right? I like the fact that he is writing because this is what it says to me. All these people around, they've interrupted the lesson, brought this woman in very dramatically and laid this charge in front of him that's a clear trap. He's got no way out and Jesus doesn't, he's not threatened, intimidated, afraid, doesn't even seem stressed.

29:47 He kneels down and starts playing in the thing. I love it. He's not bothered at all. He is not stressed by the situation at all. Okay. And then Jesus bent over, okay, wrote in his finger with his ground and they continued to ask him and he stood up and said to them, let him who is without sin cast the first sonener. This is amazing. They came right to stone and he says, he is without sin cast the first sonener. There's two ideas here.

30:19 One is that Jesus is referencing a tradition that the Pharisees had put together in the first century where a stony had to be started by someone who hadn't committed that particular sin. So in this case, adultery warrants stoning which is like a capital punishment. Kill people by throwing rocks at them. And the Pharisees had a recognition that the person throws the first stone can't also be

30:51 guilty of adultery. The second, third, fourth stones might be able to be but they weren't caught, right? First stone, Jesus says, okay, and he was without sin cast the first stone. So not stressed by it. He goes right back down right and in the stand. This plane just waiting for something to happen. They're sure they've got him. He knows they don't have him.

31:22 And when they heard it, they went away one by one beginning with the older ones. Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. I like this and took me a while to think about this but the Pharisees or the teacher of the law and all the crowd are listening to the teaching. They recognize the woman's caught in adultery. They probably have heard about her. She's in the crew, in the group, very publicly. They know what is supposed to be done and Jesus sends them away.

31:58 Jesus doesn't walk away. And if these dudes have admitted by not throwing the first stone that they are guilty of this sin which is punishable by a stone. Jesus ought to pick up all the rocks on the ground and stone them all. He starts to rock and all of them. All the dudes that walked away then come back to the woman. They just said right?

32:30 And what's interesting then is he doesn't go and correct them. He doesn't go and tell all of them. By the way, I know you're wrong. That was a thing. You should cut it out. They walk away thinking Jesus does not punish sin. And I love this. Jesus is fine with that. Isn't that interesting? Jesus doesn't understand himself throughout the story of Scripture. He doesn't understand himself as the sin police. Jesus does not walk around 1st century Israel pointing out to everyone, drawing a lion's

33:02 hand saying you get on that side, you get on this side. He's just playing in the sand. Not stressed by sin or no sin. This is not the point. He knows the cross is going to be able to handle all the sin in all the world for all time. The point is not can we deal with sin. The point is will you receive forgiveness? Will you let me deal with it instead of you? So they walk around thinking he's fine on sin.

33:33 And then he doesn't even realize that they're gone. At least he acts like he doesn't. Verse 9. But when they heard it, they went away one by one beginning with the older ones. And Jesus was left along with the woman standing before him. Verse 10. Jesus stood up and said to her, woman where are they? Has no one condemned you? Where'd they go? Where'd everybody go? Oh, nobody left. He said. Now, she has to have a moment here.

34:05 I would think, whereas he's a little bit of prey. At this point, she doesn't know what he's going to do. What just happened was not what she was expecting. That these people who trapped her, caught her, dragged her in front of people, humiliated her, embarrassed her, would just walk away. Jesus said something, got them to walk away. She said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on, sin no more. Remember, the story is that moment right there.

34:36 I can't wait to know what it feels like to have Jesus look me in the eye and say, I don't condemn you. Go and live. Jesus forgives you in order that you might go and live free with living hope, not perishable

35:08 hope, not band-aids and addictions, not temporary fixes. Jesus has forgiven you in order that you might go and live. He forgives you now and there is coming a day where you look in the eyes of your Savior and he announces to you face to face one on one, all that you have lived through. I do not condemn you.

35:38 Go and live. This is your inheritance. It's a reason I have hope amidst all the things of life because I have been forgiven. I am not reduced to my worst choices and basis instincts. I am not required to always be the person I always have been. I have new beginning as many as I need.

36:09 That's the reason I have hope. And you can't do. Thank you for the cross of the Christ that it is big enough for us. Good Lord, give us an experience of forgiveness this morning that we would be propelled by your love and generosity into life free and brought with us.