Sermon: "Living Forgiven"

4th in the "Forgiveness: A Close Up" series.
Delivered June 27, 2010 by Rev. George Antonakos..
Sermon Text: Psalm 32 (NRSV)

Click to download & listen to the sermon MP3

Good morning. Good morning. There we go. Well, welcome to week four of our series on forgiveness. We have borrowed some of this from Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas from the Journey Church in New York that was used years ago, and we have taken things in a certain order in the first three weeks. Week one, forgiveness from God. Week two, how do I forgive myself? Week three, how do I forgive others?

So, since we've covered all the bases, it shouldn't be a problem for any of us anymore, right? These three weeks, all done. We wish, right? Some may still be thinking things that God doesn't want us to be thinking. I've been getting a bunch of emails in the past few weeks, and some of those emails are amazing. I mean we've talked about video testimonies that we've had, and I thought, "Wow, I wish we could use that one. Wow, I wish could use that one. Wow." I mean we could do this for six months, this series, and not exhaust the stories on forgiveness, for sure.

But others, other honest emails have come in and people have said, "You know I'm just not ready to take a step of forgiveness toward another person." So all those things cause us to struggle, and it's an ongoing reality that we have to grow in and learn from. It's the core of our faith. Sometimes I think about parts of the Scripture, and I wonder, kind of using my imagination, "What would it be like the day after a certain story?" Like the Prodigal Son parable, which many are familiar with. I mean how would it feel like in the father's household the day after Jesus told that story?

He returned home. He received forgiveness, but did his life change? He wasn't happy at home before, would he be happy at home now? He had treated his father poorly before, would he do so again, or would he change? Would he be able to forgive himself for ruining a third of the estate of his family? Would he be able to deal with his brother's lack of forgiveness, if that continued? Would the younger son be able to forgive himself?

Well those are the questions, or the sort of thing that we're trying to get after today when we talk about Living Forgiven. Have I really received God's forgiveness in my life, and if I really have, is it changing my life? Is it transforming my life? Is it letting me be a free person? To live with any sense of baggage or any sense of burden about a lack of forgiveness is like the rock you got that was already mentioned today. That rock, if you hold that rock long enough in your hand, it will start to become an annoyance. It might not feel like much, but if you keep holding onto that, and you'll want to get rid of it after a while.

At the end of the service, we're going to help you do just that, but the video we want you to see today from Mike Henderson, somebody who has been around the church a long time, he had that kind of annoyance in his spirit around something that was very important at the time for him. So let's listen to Mike's story.

[Video]

Hi, my name is Mike Henderson. Family and I have been coming to Central for a long time. My story about forgiveness is kind of unusual. It's a story as much about confession and accountability as it is about forgiveness, but I think they're kind of a package deal anyway.

I was a junior in college. I had been a Christian for about a year, and I was getting involved with the college-age fellowship, and they had a big thing on Friday nights, and we had this dinner, and I was supposed to bring some kind of a dish. Well I was in college. I didn't know how to make a dish. I didn't really have money to buy a dish, and I didn't really feel like going anyway, didn't sound like it would be something... didn't sound like a lot of fun to me, so I did what the old Michael did. I lied. I called a friend of mine who was going. I said, "I couldn't go because I was not feeling well. I was sick."

A week or so later, I became increasingly aware of feeling this unsettled feeling I had. I had been a Christian long enough that I recognized that feeling that things were not right between God and me. Well I didn't really know the Bible great at the time, but there were a few verses that really stuck with me, that were really influential. One of the verses come from Psalm 139, "Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and test my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in your everlasting way."

So I got out a piece of paper, sat down with a pen, and I just started writing down all the stuff that came to mind, things that took place last week, things I really needed to deal with. And I started slowly at first, and but like quickly the words just started pouring out, and after just a couple of minutes, I probably had 20 to 30 items on that list. So it was a long week.

Then I prayed about the only other verse I committed to memory, which is, "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." And as I said this, I was in the bathroom, and I took the paper over the toilet, and I started tearing the paper up into little, tiny strips and put them all in the toilet, and I flushed the toilet and for some reason, I stood there watching as they all went down the drain.

And as they all went down, I stood there, and it was before the last ripple of water settled in the toilet, one little scrap of paper managed to make its way back to the surface. And way too curious to flush it again, so I did, of course which is gross, I stuck my hand in the toilet. I pulled out this scrap of paper, and I read it, and somehow, even though I randomly tore the paper up, in its entirety was the sentence, "Lied to Larry." So I was not going to hesitate. Picked up the phone. I called my friend right away, and I confessed my lie about the potluck dinner.

He forgave me immediately, but he said that, "You know, Mike, I shared the fact that you were sick with George (our George Antonakos), so George is under the impression that you were sick as well." So without really saying it, Larry is kind of saying, "Well, I think you kind of need to go back and make things right with George." I thought, "This is ridiculous. This is getting out of hand. What if George told somebody else, and they told somebody else? I could spend the rest of my life confessing this little white lie to people." It felt really pathetic.

But I picked up the phone. I called George, and I told George what happened. I asked for his forgiveness, and George's reaction threw me. It was not what I expected. I thought he would have kind of a weird reaction, but instead, George started laughing. And he said, "Mike, I would love to share this story on Friday night at the college fellowship." I was fairly new to the faith. At the time I didn't know this. Stories like... pastors live for this kind of stuff. They love these kinds of stories.

I must have sounded hesitant when I said, "Yeah, sure go ahead and share the story," because he said, "Mike, don't worry. I'll keep you out of it. We'll keep you anonymous." So I said, "Sure, go ahead." Thinking back on that episode so many years ago, the idea that we're accountable to each other, that we're a part of a family, and God cares about how we interact and how we treat one another. Even something as seemingly insignificant like this little lie, God... it upsets, I think, the balance in our relationship. God takes truth seriously, and I think he takes it seriously when we compromise who we are in Christ.

[End of video]

Well I don't remember laughing when he told me that. I thought I had a much more in-depth pastoral response from my memory. But honestly, I don't hardly remember it at all. But what I get from Mike's story is that he really carried with him a sense of, not only a sense of freedom about forgiveness, but a sense of responsibility about, again, transmitting that forgiveness to others.

And this sermon series is trying to take the verse that he quoted, 1 John 1:9, and just kind of bring it to life for all of us. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us, to purify us from all unrighteousness. Because of what Jesus did on the Cross, when we ask God for forgiveness, he will wipe the slate clean, and we can live in the freedom of forgiveness just like the Prodigal Son.

But what happens next, is the question. Here's where I get concerned because not only in my own life, but in the lives of other people, I believe Christians included, we may have accepted God's forgiveness, but sometimes our lives don't change that much. We don't experience the freedom and release of that forgiveness in our day-to-day living. We understand it here, but somehow it hasn't dropped down to here, and we continue to get plagued by lots of dead weight, lots of stuff in our lives.

Well in order to try to get at this whole concept of living forgiven, we're going to look at Psalm 32 because in essence, Psalm 32, if we could have... We already had Joseph on film, if we could have gotten King David on film, this would be his testimony. Psalm 32 is a maschil. It's a psalm that is intended to teach wisdom, and if the people who hear it will listen to it, they will get much wiser as a result of hearing the story of somebody who learned what it was like when he did not live forgiven.

So let's pray, and then we'll look at the Psalm together. It's on page 508 in the pew Bible. You can (or the chair Bible)... you can find it right in front of you. Let's pray first.

Lord, we thank you for your Holy Spirit and ask that you would fill us and open our minds so that we might live forgiven, we might let go of encumbrances and weights and run the race set before us in Christ, to your honor and glory, Amen.

Psalm 32 (NRSV), "Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed are those whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.' And you forgave the guilt of my sin.

Therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found; surely the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them. You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle nor they will not come to you. Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds those who trust in him. Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!"

David's story describes what it's like, the blessedness, the happiness that comes with living free and clean before God, but he also tells the part of his story where things were very burdensome for him, when he did not experience a forgiven life. He was sick and it was like he was drained. There was a sense that he was like the drain, the plug had just been pulled out from him.

But verses 6 and 7 really stood out to me, as I was looking at this, and they strike me of images of what it's like to live forgiven. There is a sense of being able to honestly come before God in prayer. Don't feel like we have to hide. There is a sense that we're being hidden from troubles that surround being false. There is a sense of being surrounded with healing songs of deliverance. It's almost like surround sound. What kind of song, what kind of voices are we listening to from day to day?

But when we don't have these things, David said we don't know what it's like to experience a life of joy. So I'd like to talk with you about five ways, or five things that God wants us to be unburdened from. You could also think of the metaphor of having your radio in your car set to certain channels, five channels, and they always come on when you hit the button. And if they're not... these five things, it would be nice if they got reprogrammed in our lives.

And so as we go through this, you'll also note in your bulletin today on the tear-off side, there is a sermon response section. It will show you where we're going, but I want you to rate yourself today on a scale of one to ten. One if this is very low for you, and ten if this is very high for you. And then it even shows what the scores would look like once you add them all up.

This could be incriminating, so if you turn this side in, you may not want this side to show. You may want to get another bulletin, or maybe just want to write these things on the inside of your bulletin if you plan on turning in a prayer request or something. So hopefully by the end of the day, we'll be able to strip off some of these things, or change the station, so to speak, reprogram.

The first thing is the burden of doubt. This bag is filled with doubts about God, about myself, about my relationship with others, about my future, about whether God really cares for me, whether I'm really forgiven, whether I really have experienced somebody else's forgiveness. It's filled with all these doubts. Can I trust God with my life? I think I'm so bad, I don't think God could really forgive me, that kind of stuff. It's filled with doubt, and it freezes us. A lot of people are carrying this around.

Well God wants to replace doubt with security. Actually, each one of these things that we're to reprogram, you could write the word right next to the word that's printed there. God wants to replace doubt with security. Security means we can relax. Think about this. If I go to bed at night and I have three deadbolt locks on all my doors, and I have an alarm system hooked up to ADT and right to the police station if anybody breaks in, and I have a German Shepherd lying at the front door, and a Rottweiler lying at the back door, and I live in a gated community, and there are guards all around, even though that's not my real security, I'm going to probably sleep okay because I have this sense of being surrounded by protection. God wants to replace doubt with security.

When we're unsure that God really forgives our sins, we don't feel that security. Look at 7a in verse 7, "You are my hiding place." You protect me from trouble. Another psalm says, "God is a shield around us." You surround me with songs of deliverance. In times of distress, all this happens.

Julian of Norwich was a 14th century Christian mystic, and she had great fear of losing her salvation. In fact, her sins caused her a great deal of distress. She had anxiety because she wasn't secure about her future. One day she was walking in the woods, and she comes upon an acorn in the path, and so she picks it up, and she puts it in her palm and she just closes the acorn around her hand. And as she did so, she realized how secure that acorn was in her hand. It wouldn't fall as long as she was holding onto it. Then all of a sudden the Spirit of God said, "That's you in my hand. You're secure."

Actually, Jesus talked about this. "You're in the Father's hand. You're in my hand. No one will be able to pluck you out of my hand," Jesus taught. Her security removed her doubts. So today, on the sermon response, put a number. Rate yourself. If you have few doubts, low number. If you have a lot of doubts it would be a higher number. Put a number honestly rating yourself of how much doubt you carry around with you in this area. Because again, it's reflective of not really living forgiven.

Secondly, the burden of guilt. The burden of guilt is a huge burden many of us carry around, and God wants to replace this burden with his peace. He wants to change guilt to peace. Guilt defined is culpability for having committed an offense. Sometimes we might even be forgiven of that, but we carry around the guilt that goes along with it. Guilt has a twin emotion called shame. We not only feel guilty for what we've done, but we also feel bad about who we are. That guilt can kind of keep informing one another.

So many of us are carrying this bag around filled with guilt and shame over mistakes made in the past, things that God has forgotten, wiped away, a long time ago. Things that we are embarrassed to tell somebody if it ever came up, things that we hope nobody ever finds out about. We keep carrying them around for some reason.

Now one of two things is in play. Either we haven't asked God's forgiveness for these things, or even if we've received it, we haven't been able to forgive ourselves. I know that a lot of this might sound familiar like the past few weeks. Think of this Sunday, think of all these things as kind of not just snapshots of forgiveness, but going and looking at the proofs. Now I have to go back and think about these things, all right?

And David was plagued by guilt. Look how he expresses guilt in verse 4. The heat of summer, this is a great time to use this metaphor, isn't it? I mean all you have to do is walk outside and you feel like you're just going to melt. Well that's the way David felt in his heart around guilt. But look at verse 5b. After he acknowledged, he said, "I'll confess." What was forgiven? It says, "You forgave," what? "The guilt of my sin," not just my sin, you forgave the guilt of my sin. So now I want to encourage you to think about this scoring of yourself. One, low number if you don't carry around a lot of guilt, but if you keep rehearsing in your mind, can't let go of past mistakes, you might write a higher number.

The third one is the burden of grudges. We talked about this an awful lot last week, so I won't belabor it too much, but grudges can weigh us down. That's the bitterness that we feel because of the offenses of others. It's a very destructive weight, and we need to be reprogrammed. God wants to replace my grudges with freedom.

Think of a scene in which you would be jumping overboard in order to save something that was very precious. You were on a boat, and you go over, and yet the treasure is so heavy that you can't keep getting to the surface. It's dragging you down, so now you have a choice. You're either going to go down with the treasure (so to speak), or you're going to let it go and you're going to be able to come and be free at the surface. God says release it. Let it go. Save your life. I guarantee you that there are people in this room that are feeling this way.

Like I said, I've been getting emails and honest emails, and people saying, "I'm just not ready. I just can't let it go." There is a movie, or a documentary about the situation in Rwanda. I think most of us know how horrific that was. The documentary is focused on two women, one who forgives a little quicker her perpetrators who killed family members, and the other not so easy.

In the documentary, they actually show the encounter between the second woman and her perpetrator. It wasn't staged. It was the encounter, and he is begging for forgiveness, and she is just like not doing it. And she goes away from there, and you could just see, I mean we can understand it. The beautiful thing about the way that documentary ends, the last shot is her smiling because you get the sense she was able to release something that was incredibly painful and damaging to her.

George MacDonald said this, "Forgiveness is the giving and so the receiving of life." And that's what happened for her. Look at verse 9. Look at this metaphor that when we don't do this, the metaphor is a horse or mule that just won't move along without being forced to move along. There is a lack of freedom in movement here.

Now let me just say this, none of these things are the bit or the bridle God uses. God does not use those things. God doesn't want these things in our life, so he certainly wouldn't use them as the bit or the bridle. Our life, but our freedom depends on a release. So today, score yourself, low number, high number. How much guilt, how many grudges do you carry around, or how much do you have a lack of forgiveness?

Then the fourth one is regret, the burden of regret. This is the one that gets me because I don't know, I tend to ruminate about mistakes myself, and even though I don't feel guilty necessarily, I can focus on stuff. Like regret is defined by sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one's control or power to repair. You could even say it's aroused by past mistakes that we continue to focus on.

By its definition, regret is worthless because you can't do anything about it. It's just there. We've all heard water over the dam and all that, but we just keep trying to bring it back. We replay it over and over in our mind, but there is nothing that we can do, and we keep thinking about that moment we should have zigged instead of zagged. And we keep rehearsing it, and it's some weird form of control like worry, but it just keeps... there.

I know that we're carrying around regret if we keep hearing ourselves say things like, "I wish I had... " Or, "I should have done... " Or, the biggie, "What if... What if... " But regret is not from God, and God wants to replace that regret with hope. Look at verse 10, "Many are the woes of the wicked." In the NRSV, it says, "Many are the torments of the wicked." Regret is like a torment that we keep thinking about when I keep thinking about my past mistakes and sins and missed opportunities.

Now we can have a bad experience, and a scar can form, and that scar can teach us the next time. We no longer have to be stumbling over the same stupidity again and again. I remember three years ago making a very dumb decision that is still costing me financially. I know it makes you want to know the story, but we don't have time. The point is not the content of the story, the point is the emotional process around the story where I go into this like kick-me mode like a dog chasing his tail, and I keep kicking myself over and over and over again. "If I could only have that day back," all that stuff.

It's like self-flagellation. In medieval times you know people would take the whips and they'd keep beating themselves as though somehow it was going to help the situation, or they could atone for their own guilt. Do I feel regret about the way things happened about this situation? Yes. Do I keep thinking about it? Sometimes. It's getting better. It's a process, but I thank the Lord for using it in some ways, in some crazy ways, to discipline me, to keep my eyes focused squarely on Jesus. But I remember, and yet I also remember that regret is worthless because I can't change what happened. I can only try to keep learning and moving forward.

The fifth thing is the burden of fear. This is a big one. This is huge. I remember not too many weeks ago during Lent, I was going through a book The Good and Beautiful God, and there was a chapter about waiting on God, really listening for God's voice, and you know I'm so busy type-A kind of person, I don't always do that. So I said, "Okay, I'm going to sit. I'm going to listen. Lord, I'm going quiet all the voices in my head. I just want to hear you speak to me."

And what I heard in that quietness, it's probably why I haven't done it since. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. What I heard was, "You're pretty fearful. You're just too afraid. You're just kind of filled with anxiety." It's like, "No I'm not. I don't have that consciously in my mind. I don't go around feeling afraid." But that was like the voice. Like, "Yeah, if you bore down deep enough, you are really anxious about a lot of stuff, and you don't trust me. You don't think about how uptight you can be. You just kind of go through your day." So I'm like, "Whoa." And it just caused me to just pray and ask God to help me with that.

And look at what it says. Look at what it says in Psalm 32, because one of the things about fear is that we think we'll keep repeating the same thing over and over again. But look at 8, the promise of 8, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you." God is basically saying, "You don't have to be afraid. I'll be with you. I'll steer you, if you'll just listen to me. I'll steer you."

That's the way God wants to take the burden of fear and replace it with courage, courage to venture into an area that we might not normally be willing to venture in. You know you can't have courage unless you have fear. If you don't have some fear to fight, you're not being courageous. So if somebody says, "Well, how does this God's forgiveness thing help me overcome my fear?" Well I'll tell you how. The whole thing with the financial thing I was just mentioning a minute ago, I could say, "I'm never going to invest in anything again. I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to take a risk ever again." Now I'll be wiser next time, but if I'm filled with fear, I won't do it.

Or let's say you've been in a relationship, and that relationship went sour, and you've been burned, and I'll never venture into a relationship again. I'll never trust anybody again. That's fear. That's paralyzing. When you know that you've been forgiven, that God will take you through and he'll counsel you with his eye upon you, you don't have to do that. You can walk with him.

So look again at the text that the Lord, (verse 10), "Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds those who trust in him." Even when we fall down, we can get up. We can learn he can teach us even through these things. Where is God asking you to step out? Are you afraid of something today? Even though you don't think about it like I was talking about before, you don't really think, but if you kind of really got quiet, is there something that is really causing you to be paralyzed in some level? What step does God want you to take today?

You know maybe some of you here today, you've been burned in another church, and you've come here. And you're saying, "I'm not committing myself to another church. I know what the churches are like out there." You know what? If you get past this fear, if you take a little courage, maybe God's calling you to take a step of commitment today. Maybe to be baptized, or maybe to find out, like look through this Serve-and-Share opportunity list and say, "You know what? God has given me gifts. I can try one of these things. I can participate. I can give them myself. I have something to offer." But if you're filled with fear, you won't step forward.

Today, one of the responses in the sermon response is about men's fraternity. We are trying to form a team to do a much more intentional ministry for men in this church, but we need a team. Maybe God is nudging you to say, "Hey, step out of your fear and be part of that team." Because it can affect hundreds and hundreds of men, not just in this church, but this community, if we can offer it in a way that we're able to. So when we take a step out of fear, we become more expansive as people.

Look at 2 Timothy 1:7 (NRSV), "For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power and love and of self-discipline." So, rank yourself on the level of fear. Low number would be a one, high number would be a ten. Be honest, and write that down. So here we are, excessive doubt, guilt, grudges, regrets, fears are the symptoms of an unforgiven life.

You know I've shared with you the whole story about my mom and dad and his second wife. For those of you who don't know, I'll just be very brief here. My dad and mom married in 1950, divorced in 1959. Infidelity was the reason. My dad married the woman who was part of the infidelity. They were married a long time. Years later, my dad's second wife wanted to ask forgiveness of my mother, which she granted. And then years after that, Betty (is her name), she was dying of cancer in a hospital room. This is just a few, about three years ago.

My mom went to visit her, and she gave her a card (get-well card and all of that), and at the bottom she signed, "Your sister in Christ, Mary." And Betty had that card pasted on the wall at the end of her bed, and whenever I came in or anybody else came in, my brother or sister, she would say, "Look at that card. Look at that card." She would always point to, not the words of the card, she pointed to what was said at the end, "Your sister in Christ, Mary."

I think that Betty, as she was dying, was plagued with all of these things for many different reasons, but I think something like that, I think, helped to lift those burdens. She knew that she really had my mom's forgiveness when she saw that signature. And that's the way God is trying to speak to each of us today about his forgiveness of us, and the way that others, perhaps, have forgiven us. And even if we're waiting for others to forgive us, to trust God in spite of it.

Doubt replaced with security, guilt with peace. Grudges melt into freedom. Regret turns into hope. Fear is replaced with courage. Life is too short to be carrying these weights around. And so at the end, I'm going to pray now, and I'm going to ask if you want to pray this prayer, just pray it silently in your heart. And then after we're done with the prayer, I want you to kind of add up your scores and give yourself a number and kind of see where you are.

And then we're going to go right to the sides, and if God is touching you in some way today to take that rock, which is representative of one of these things and just let it go into that bag, as we move through that response.

Let's pray: God, today there are many of us here who are carrying around the weights of one or more of these bags, and it's harming us. God, help us receive your forgiveness today so that all these negative things will be replaced by the surrounding songs of deliverance that you want us to hear.

And maybe you're here today and you need to pray this prayer silently, just in your own heart. God, today I receive your forgiveness into my life. Come into my life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be, Lord Jesus. As you've forgiven me, help me to forgive others and myself. From this day forward, I want to live forgiveness, and I thank you in Jesus' name, Amen.

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