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03/02/18- Luke 1


March 2, 2018 – Luke 1 

You will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins. Luke 1:76-77

To understand salvation, we must first understand sin and forgiveness.

Looking for a little excitement on a Friday night?  Walk into a mall and pick out a person who doesn’t intimidate you, and say to them: “I forgive you.”  Then walk away!  They will be thinking about it for DAYS!  Why?  Because their spirit will be unsettled until they understand what it was they did that needed forgiveness.  It’s the ultimate “To Be Continued” that never finds resolution.  (Okay, don’t really do that – it would really be rude and could mar them for life! J)

Some things are so interconnected that you just can’t have one without the other.  Forgiveness and Sin are two such things.  Where there is no sin, there is no need for forgiveness.  And there is no understanding of salvation if we don’t understand sin.  We must see our sin to need a savior. Likewise, seeing our sin creates an internal need for forgiveness, and a desire to be saved from the consequences.

John the Baptist had a huge task.  His job was to preach about sin so that people would be burdened with the desire for forgiveness.  Then, when they were ready to accept God’s help, John would baptize them with the baptism of repentance – asking God to forgive the person for the sin and heal their heart.  Later, Jesus would leverage that act as not only one of forgiveness, but one of accepting salvation from Jesus, and receiving the Holy Spirit to help us live free of sin.  All of that started from one basic teaching: we have sinned!  Recognizing sin starts the whole process!

These days, people try everything they can to avoid hearing that message.  And honestly, most churches have been careful about labeling people as sinners.  We prefer to call sin other things, like mistakes, errors, misunderstandings, lapses of memory, failures, hang-ups or even diseases.  But what we really need to hear is that those are all sin in need of forgiveness.  Without understanding sin, we don’t pursue forgiveness.  And without forgiveness, there is no salvation.

Maybe it is time for us to put on our big boy pants and not be so afraid of the “s” word!  If we’re truly going to help people, let’s just call it sin.  And if we are going to be fully forgiven, we must call our actions sin too.  God didn’t send Jesus to condemn us of our sin, but to forgive us and pay the penalty for our sin.  So let’s gratefully accept His incredible offer, and make the connection --- we have sinned, we have fallen short, but God demonstrated His love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  We have all received salvation & grace from our sin, through the blood of salvation!

Jesus walked up to people many times and told them they were forgiven.  The Pharisees couldn’t stand it, but the people loved it, because they knew that forgiveness was attached to sin, and they were sinners.  Jesus has the same thing to offer us too.  He might even walk into a mall and pick you out, and say to you “I forgive you.”  Then walk away.  But instead of thinking about it for days, maybe it would cause you to seek resolution. 

Wash away that sin with forgiveness – they are fully interconnected.  And then you will understand salvation.

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