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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