Sermon: "The Foundation of Forgiveness"

1st in the "Forgiveness: A Close Up" series.
Delivered June 6, 2010 by Rev. George Antonakos.
Sermon Text: Ephesians 2:1-10

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Good morning. As advertised, we are starting our sermon series on forgiveness this summer, and we have a couple of metaphors for it. Forgiveness: Real Stories, or Forgiveness: A Close Up. Close up, that's why we have the photographer set up here, and as we saw in the drama, it's a lot different on the inside than it is on the outside, or it can be. I believe everybody here has a story to tell about forgiveness. For some of you it may be an evolving story. For some, it may be a story from your past, but we all need to learn about forgiving others, but even more importantly, we need to learn about God's forgiveness of us and of ourselves.

So each week we're going to be studying forgiveness in some fashion or from some angle. It's like a photographer who is looking at a photo opportunity. The photographer isn't just looking for what's on the surface; he's looking, or she is looking to create a photo that tells a story. And every week, just about, we are going to have a video story from someone in this congregation, some people will be actors, but they'll be telling the story of someone in this congregation. Every single week, just about, and you'll be hearing real stories of what people are struggling with or how they've experienced God's help in the area of forgiveness.

So just to entice you to come back every week, every week of this series, I know it is summer, but if you're in town, come back because these stories will be great. We're going to do a little video trailer just to try to put a hook in a little bit. So let's look at the video.

[Video]

Mike Henderson: Hi, my name is Mike Henderson. My family and I have been coming to Central for a long time, and my story about forgiveness is kind of unusual. It's a story as much about confession and accountability as it is about forgiveness.

Female: For years after the abortion, I carried around a really crushing sense of grief, guilt, and shame.

Male: How to forgive my ex-son-in-law, who after being married to my youngest daughter for 10 years, just on the heels of her third child, walked out.

Female: God's Word says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us from all unrighteousness." And I'm clean. That's forgiveness over and over again.

[End of video]

Like I said, everybody has a story to tell about... It may be a story that may be unfolding even in this moment for you as you start to think about this concept and understanding of forgiveness.

Now in addition to these real stories, we're also going to have hundreds of people discussing each and every one of these topics through a sermon guidebook. Actually it's a grow group study guide. I mean you could use it for a sermon guide, sort of, but it's not really that. It's for the groups that will be meeting throughout the week to think about these concepts and these ideas even more fully.

It's not too late to become part of one of these groups. You can go to Connection Central after the service, find out how to sign up for a group in your area, or maybe come, you know, a little earlier to church. Even if you don't get into a group, and I hope you will, but even if you don't, grab one of these study guides so that you can use it on your own to enhance your own spiritual growth this summer.

So here we go on this critically important topic of forgiveness. Generally speaking, there are two levels of forgiveness. There is the divine level, and there is the human level. On either level, forgiveness, I mean there are a lot of nuances to what this means, but in essence, forgiveness on both levels basically can be defined this way: as withdrawing the right to penalize or punish.

Now in the next couple of months, we're going to have a lot to say about forgiving ourselves, forgiving each other, you know how difficult it can be to continue to believe we're forgiven, but today we're going to begin with the foundation of forgiveness, the divine level because unless you have a foundation of understanding of what we each need to be forgiven of and for, we will never have the ability to pass that along, so to speak.

And as we look at today's text in Ephesians, chapter 2, it can be found on page 1,067 in the Bible that you might be able to find right in front of you, underneath the chair in front of you, and I invite you to open to page 1,067. As we look at this text, we're going to see something that is fundamental to understanding forgiveness, that everything that is apart from God's will, every sin, every trespass, every wrongdoing, needs to be dealt with in some way.

God is holy. God just is not going to just say, "Oh, that's no problem." I mean if somebody hurt you, somebody hurt somebody you love, you wouldn't say, "Ah, no problem. We'll just forget it." There needs to be, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins, is what the Scripture says. So in this text, we're going to see that the penalty was taken from those who did deserve it (us), to One who did not. There was a transfer of punishment to the only person who did not deserve it, and we're going to take a look at that right now.

Let's pray: Lord, we ask that as we read this text that you would open our eyes. Help us to understand who we are, who you are a little bit better, and that we would respond in the way that you designed us to be and designed us to respond. And we ask it in your name, Amen.

Let's look at this together, please.

"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved.

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

This text literally begins with the word "and" in the original language. There is an "and" connector between chapter 1 and chapter 2. Chapter 1, which of course we didn't read has to do with the past, present, and future of God's plan for salvation. Chapter 2 has to do with the past, present, and future of those who God saves. Chapter 1 gives God's perspective. Chapter 2 gives sin and salvation understanding from our perspective.

In these first three verses, Paul focuses on our perspective by going back to look at a time when we were completely without hope, and it's not a pretty picture. It's pretty dismal, and nobody likes to be reminded of their failures, so we might ask, "Well, why does he go back and dredge this up?" Because if we don't remember where we were, we won't appreciate where we are. If we don't understand the hopeless condition out of which we have been brought, we will not appreciate that which we were delivered from.

So in a nutshell, here's the not-so-pretty picture about us. There are four D's. I'm going to give them to you all at once, but then we're going to look at them a little bit together. Dead. Disobedient. Depraved. Doomed. Yikes! That's not good. And this is where we really were. This is it. So let's take them one at a time.

Dead in trespasses and sins. That's the first thing that it says right off the bat, "And you were dead in your transgressions and your sins." These words transgressions/sins, they're synonymous. Dead here does not mean inactivity. It's not like you look at a corpse, there is no activity. Dead here means separation. When we die, our body and our soul are separated.

When God spoke to Adam and Eve and said, "On the day that you eat of this tree, you're going to die," they didn't drop dead when they disobeyed. Something inside of them died spiritually. There was a disconnection that was different from before, and so they became dead in their transgressions and in their sins. And if we stay in that condition of separation, then that deals with eternal separation. That condition leads to eternal separation from God. And that's a very different view than we're just a little bit off, just a bit of education, or direction, or mentoring and we'll be okay. That's not what this is saying.

The biblical picture of the human condition is much worse than that. Apart from Christ, we're dead. We don't need a teacher, a guide, or a doctor. We need a miracle. We need a resurrection from the dead. So that's the first thing.

Second thing is disobedience. First we saw in this first verse that we're dead in our trespasses and sins, transgressions, here we see in verse 2 it's like we're the walking dead. Have you ever seen zombie movies where they don't know what they're following? They're just going along. They're just zombies, you know. They're kind of alive, and there are forces that kind of make them go in a certain direction, okay. Here are the two forces that Paul tells us that we don't even realize that we're following.

First is we walked in the way of the world, which does not conform itself toward God. The way of the world, which basically says, "I'm just going to do my own thing." And what is it that we say to our children when they say they want to do something, but we say you can't do it? Well they say, "Well everybody else is doing it," and there's the proof right there. There is proof positive that there is a way that everybody else goes. They want to do their thing, and they're appealing to the course of this world.

Secondly, we walked in the way of the one Jesus referred to as Satan or the devil. Now they don't use that phrase here in this text, but if you go over to Ephesians, chapter 6:11, you'll see Paul uses that phrase to talk about Satan. And the devil is described in this passage with two titles. He is called the Prince of the Power of the Air, the forces of evil are not down there in hell somewhere. They're up here around in the air.

I just want to try to help you believe this. This past weekend on Memorial Day weekend, I was watching World War II in HD. The thing that's so great about this series, or so interesting about the series is that unlike other series, this, every series, every segment is using actual footage to describe the course of the war. These are films that were taken while the war was going on. In the tenth video, the very last video when they start to talk about how the war ended, and the Allied invasion, and freeing of the concentration camps, there is actual footage of what Hollywood tries to portray, but can't do it.

And there are always these disclaimers in this series, "Graphic images are about to be displayed," you know, all that stuff. When you see the bodies, the piles of people piled on top of each other (I mean this is real footage, it's not make-believe), I cannot look at that and say, "There is no such thing as evil in this world." That's the only explanation for that raw footage, evil.

The Scripture is saying that there is a spirit that now works, and those who are still disobedient that's driven. Even though they might not be as evil, they're still on that same continuum, and Satan is still at work in every act of disobedience.

Now God, of course, has Satan on a short leash, however, that's what Paul is saying that we were disobedient. We continue to be disobedient whenever we don't hear the Spirit of God.

Now the third thing, the third D is depraved. Perhaps you've heard of the term total depravity. That's a theological term, and people misunderstand what total depravity means. It doesn't mean, again, that we are as bad in every way that we could be, but it does mean that we're as bad off in every way that we could be. In other words, inside of ourselves there is not going to be a natural connection or a seeking of God.

C. S. Lewis said, you know the saying that people seek God in their natural way is like saying that mice search for cats. It just doesn't compute. And so... And here is the fascinating thing of this text, all along he has been talking to pagans, to people who didn't really understand what it meant to be disobedient. Now look at the shift of the pronoun in verse 3 because he is talking about you, you, you, you. Now he says, "All of us," and he is talking about people who were raised in a religious environment.

And what he is trying to get across is nobody, by going to church, by giving money, by doing good deeds, doing all the things that all the Pharisees (Paul was a Pharisee), he did everything that he could. He was righteous as they could come, but he includes himself and he says, "All of us also lived like this among them at one time."

And later on in verse 5, he says that, "We were all dead in transgressions and sins." All of us need a Savior, religious people just like irreligious people. So that's the three: dead, disobedient, depraved, and then he says in verse 3, "Being doomed, by nature deserving of wrath." By nature we were just (because all these things were so) following this course, disobeying God, we were doomed. And we need something to happen to get out of it.

That's why we don't need just reform. We need regeneration. It's like taking a pig and washing it up, and putting on the nice suit, and little shoes on the pig and taking it out, dressing it up. I tell you what, if you take that dressed up, and you doused it with perfume and everything, and you go right by a mud pile, or slop pile, and you let it off the leash, everybody knows exactly what will happen. Why? Because the pig has a pig nature. There is a piggy nature. It just does what it does.

And so apart from Christ, apart from God, doing something we just follow our nature, which is really not to listen to what God wants really in our heart. So you and I need a new nature. You and I need that old person who was, by nature, a child of wrath to be crucified, dead, and buried. You and I need to be reborn and resurrected as a child of the king. That's exactly where verse 4 goes (verses 4-7). As we look at this, look at the contrast between these four D's and what happens, how it changes with "but."

But all this was true, "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy [compassion] made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions [and sins] -it is by grace you have been saved." And not only that, "God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." Love, mercy, alive, raised, seated, showing his grace, kindness, what a contrast to doomed, and depraved and disobedient, and dead.

God's love gives God's life so that so much so that we're described as already seated in the heavenly places in Jesus Christ. We're already there with him somehow. I don't know how it works. Our bodies sure don't show that we're there, but we haven't caught up yet with what's already real in Jesus Christ.

What does it mean to be seated? Whenever the Old Testament priests would go in and offer a sacrifice, they never sat down. They always stood because they knew they would have to offer a sacrifice that day and the next day and the next day. It was never finished. When Jesus died on the Cross, one of the things that he said at the very end was, "It's finished." And later the Scripture says, "He sat down at the right hand of God." So that's what has happened. That's what God has done for those of us in this doomed situation.

And then we come to verses 8 and 9. Paul is starting then to say, "What does this all mean for us?" And in verse 8 he says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast." You have been saved.

Now Janice mentioned, she asked me, she presumed that I went to seminary, okay? And I'm not trying to fake you out. I learned this in seminary, okay. I'm going to give you a grammar lesson. You have been saved, when it says, "You have been saved," is in the perfect passive indicative. It's in the perfect tense, past action, continuing results. It is in the passive voice, which means that the action is not done by the person, the action is received, something is done to or for the person, and it is in the indicative mood, which means that something really happened. An action really took place, not just it might have happened. "You have been saved by what Jesus has done," the Scripture says. It has been done. You can count on it. It's true.

This reminds me, this whole issue of being saved by grace through faith reminds me of the story that C. S. Lewis (about C. S. Lewis) where he proclaimed the most distinguishing fact about Christianity. During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if anything, was different about Christianity than every other religion in the whole world. And they started to think about, "Well, let's think about it. What about the incarnation that God came in human form?" They said, "No, other religions believe that. There are other stories of that in other religions." What about resurrection? Somebody God raised from the dead? No, there are other religions that have accounts of people being raised from the dead.

The debate went on for some time. C. S. Lewis walks in the room, and he goes, "What's all the rumpus about?" Now anybody use the word rumpus in the last week? No, I didn't think so. So, he says, "What's all the rumpus about?" They start to tell him, and he goes, "Oh that's easy. It's grace. It's grace. Grace makes Christianity unique from every other religion because it marks the stark difference in believing in a God who will come down and pull you out of your mess versus requiring you to do something to gain approval."

The difference between Christianity can be described and explained by the difference between two words: do and done. Do, all other religions have to do with good works and good deeds, reincarnation, karma, have to do with what you do, and you better get it right. Done, Christianity points to what Jesus Christ has done on the Cross for us. His sacrifice is what brings about salvation. It's a free gift is what the text is saying. It's not our own deeds or righteousness. It's a free gift.

But also notice that it says, "Through faith." "By grace you have been saved through faith." Having confirmation today couldn't be more appropriate. These students have responded to God through a faith commitment, and it's clear that in this passage it says, "Salvation is a gift from God, and that gift is free, but it must be received through faith."

I often tell my wife, Ellen that she is a gift from God. But in order to experience her as God's gift, three things had to line up that illustrate what faith means in the Bible. First faith has to have a real object. Ellen is a real woman. She is a real woman, and on 12/24/72, on Christmas Eve 1972, I was sitting next to a real woman who was taking out of her stocking (Christmas stocking) all kinds of things, and at the bottom was a little black box with a ring in it that I offered to her. I'm romantic, aren't I?

Now you say, "Yeah, but you saw her. We don't see Jesus." Yeah, but his disciples did, and there is historical evidence more than any other historical evidence for any other fact. And in fact later, John said, "That which we have handled, seen, touched, we proclaim to you." Jesus is a real person.

Secondly, faith has to be appropriated personally. Jesus died for the sins of the world, but the appropriation recognizes that he died for me. His gift is for me. I wasn't asking Ellen to marry the world. I was asking Ellen to marry me. There is a huge difference. People think, "Oh yeah, Jesus died for them." Yeah, but he died for you. What are you going to do with that information?

And then thirdly, on August 18, 1973, we made a commitment to each other. We gave ourselves to each other on our wedding day. Commitment to Christ, receiving the gift of God involves giving my heart to him. On that day, I gave my heart formally and officially to Ellen. On that day, when it comes to all other women, I burned my bridges. This is the commitment that I make today for the rest of my life, God enabling me.

Dear friends, this table which we are shortly to respond and come around, so to speak, is God's ring to us. It's God's offer to us. Jesus dying on the Cross and expressed the word made visible through this is Jesus saying, "I offer myself to you. Won't you offer yourself to me in return by receiving me, by taking me into your life so that you can go from death to life?"

Look at verse 4 again, the conjunction "but," we were dead, but God made us alive. We were disobedient, following after the world and the devil, but God raised us up out of the world and out of that domain. We were depraved, but God seated us with Christ and gave us a new nature. We were doomed, but God showed us his surpassing riches of grace. With this simple conjunction, we are transported from death to life, from the domain of darkness, to the kingdom of his beloved son.

When verse 10 says that we are God's handiwork, it means that we are what God has created in Christ Jesus. The word is poema, a poem. Did you ever write a poem? It's your creation. You are God's. Anyone who is in Christ is God's poem, God's ode, God's opus, and it gives us our true identity in this world.

You know I still have such a long way to go, but 40 years ago, when I gave all that I knew of myself to all that I knew of God, I gave my heart to him, and I think that it's possible that in a group this size there are those of you who may be understanding it saying, "You know what? I understand what you're saying. I know the way out of this situation now to receive God's gift by faith and to commit myself to him." So I want to invite you to do that.

I want to just pray a brief prayer, and I want you to take out, before I offer this prayer, I want you to take your bulletin out again, and I ask you to tear off the part of it that just has the connect card on it. You'll notice that on one side of the connect card is where you can put your name, and information, and some other things, but on the other side is something that won't be on the connect card next week. This is a response to today's sermon, and I want you to look at this that there is an A, B, C, D continuum here.

Many of you, I know, if you filled this out and you circled it you would circle A because you've already committed your life to Christ, but I'm speaking now to those in the B category because I'm going to offer a prayer, and when I offer this prayer, it's not the prayer that makes the difference. It's the attitude of the heart, but if you want to make that prayer your own, I'd like to invite you to circle this afterward and put this in the offering plate.

Some of you may be listening and saying, "Well, I'm still considering this. I'm not quite sure, but I'd be willing maybe to think about it a little bit more." Then D is, "I'm just not ready to take this step today." But I just want everybody to go away with the understanding that when a gift is offered to you, there is a response that's required. You can walk away from the gift if you want, but this is the gift of God, and it's free for all who will accept Christ. So I want to pray the prayer that I prayed, something like I prayed, 40 years ago. If this applies to you, then please make it your own and respond as God's Spirit speaks to you.

Lord Jesus, I need you. I open the door of my heart and receive you as my Savior and Lord. Thank you for forgiving my sins. I give you my heart today. Come into my life and make me the kind of person that you want me to be, Amen.

© 2010, Rev. George Antonakos
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org