Grace Emmanuel Church

Pastor Sam Chess

(The Greatest Miracle)

John 7:37 "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. (NIV)

Matthew 11:28-31 Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

Psalm 38: 9 All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you. 10 My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes.

Psalm 86:5 O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.(NLT)

Let me show you a list of a few of Jesus' miracles and you tell me which of these do not fit with the rest and why. Stop me if you see a discrepancy…

1) The bread and fish Jesus miraculously created to feed the five thousand

2) The eyesight restored to blind Bartimaeus

3) The total healing of the leper we looked at last week

4) The ability to walk Jesus gave to the paralyzed man

5) The forgiveness of sins Jesus gave to the paralyzed man….

Yes.. this paralyzed guy got two miracles in row…

Matthew 9:2 Some people brought to him a paralyzed man on a mat. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Be encouraged, my child! Your sins are forgiven.” 3 But some of the teachers of religious law said to themselves, “That’s blasphemy! Does he think he’s God?” 4 Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you have such evil thoughts in your hearts? 5 Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’? 6 So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!”

You're saying that one of these miracles is more important than the other?? Which one? Why?__________

All the miracles Jesus performed on people's bodies were temporary! The deaf who started to hear…eventually quit hearing again… the lame who walked soon stumbled again… for the last time. Even those Jesus brought back from the dead… eventually stopped breathing for good.

The only miracles that outlived people were the ones that happened inside their soul!

I've watched Jerry Marcazzolo, this week, struggle with the very real possibility of approaching death. As calloused as it may seem…my God given responsibility was to re-enforce to him… and us, and to myself that;

The most important things going on in this life aren't really about this life!

The paralyzed man above could have had the best set of legs on earth but they only succeeded in getting him around for a few more years… then they rotted back to dust. But somewhere today… that man lives on! The miracle of Christ's forgiveness has assured him of eternal life with Jesus.

Could I re-enforce to us here today… I know we, as humans, sometimes get totally consumed with our lack of good health, our lack of good relationships, our lack of enough resources… but let me encourage you to focus on the fact that those things, at their best…or worst…,are just temporary inconveniences

(They are not unimportant and during November we are going to talk about "Reaching out to Jesus" for the daily needs of our lives)

But it would be tragic…often is tragic… that people become consumed with these temporary things and miss the most important reason they were put onto this earth.

Watch how Jesus, himself, summed up his reason for authoring the Bible:

Luke 24:45-47 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. 46 And he said, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. 47 It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his (my) name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem:

‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.’ (NLT)

II. The Miracle of Complete Forgiveness

What do we need forgiveness from? _______ Sin!

We often define sin, in the New Testament as “missing the mark.” That is the word

most used but only one of five levels. Let me show them to you and you decide if any of these level describe you.

1) Hamartia - to miss the mark. The Bible clearly gives us a portrait of what true holy living is supposed to look like… and some of us reach for the mark…but miss it? Right? Wrong! All of us reach for the mark and miss it!

Romans 3:23… all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (NIV)

2) Paraptoma - to slip or fall into sin. Being taken in the passion of the moment and yielding to strong sinful desire.

Maybe some of us have gone beyond missing the mark and slipped into the strong passionate desires of sin. Is Jesus forgiveness available for this kind of sin?

3) Parabasis - to step across the line.

Picture your own children… you set the line of expected obedience. Sometimes kids just don’t, quite, live up to what you expect of them… sometime they are distracted by temptation and yield to it. Sometimes they look at the line you have drawn… and purposely walk right over it fully knowing what they are doing .

Some of us do that very thing to God….some of us did that this, very week. We knew exactly what God expected of us. We walked right up to the line… knew precisely where the line was… knew full well that walking over the line was sinful… yet we picked up our size 12’s and stomped right over the line into sin.

Now we are seriously presuming on God’s forgiveness…aren’t we? Can we purposely sin against God…come crawling back to him in repentance and still expect him to forgive us? Yes! (Notice the need for repentance) Let me show you a fourth…

4) Anomia - lawlessness, open rebellion against God!

You obviously notice the progression here…. One level of sin, that is simply ignored, really does lead to the next. If you have been willfully sinning against God for some time you will progress toward open rebellion…with all the consequences that come with it.

I read the story of a Pastor who awoke one day to realize that his allowing the sin of lust in his life had progressed from thoughts, to printed porn, to filmed porn, to strip joints, to peep shows, to prostitutes… He was writing the article, himself, warning of the progressive nature of sin.

So….At what point here do we pass the limits of Jesus forgiveness?

Do we still agree with the Psalmist?

Psalm 103:2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits- 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.

How about this from the New Testament:

Ephesians 1:7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.

Purchased out freedom…freedom from what?.. the guilt and penalty of sin

How did he purchase our freedom? With the blood of his Son! Every one of us deserve to pay the penalty for our own sins! But…if we embrace what he has done for us…we won’t have to!

He forgave our sins- How many…which ones… how often?

________________________________________________________________________

Did Jesus draw a distinction in the kind of sin he will forgive?

Did Jesus draw a distinction in the volume of sins he will forgive?

Did Jesus draw a distinction in the degree of sin that will finally cause us to forfeit His forgiveness?

No…No… and No! Who could have sinned worse than the people who murdered Jesus on the cross? What did Jesus ask God to do as he was dying? Father.. forgive them! (Luke 23:34)

1 John 1:9 … if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. (NLT)

1) There must be confession/ repentance

2) Once confessed Jesus justice and faithfulness will lead him to always forgive us!

3) How much forgiveness does everyone who confesses get? "forgiveness from all wickedness"

Pastor.. what about the people who's sin was so bad that it is just too much to be forgiven?

There aren't any such people!

But what about the "unpardonable sin"?

___________

Jesus: Mark 3:28 I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. 29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." 30 He said this because they were saying, "He has an evil spirit." (NIV)

Which sins and how many sins is God willing to forgive? _________________________

So what sin were they committing that wasn't going to be forgiven? _________________

They were saying Jesus came from satan! So why is that unforgivable? ______________

Because if you truly believe Jesus came from satan… then you won't ever confess your sins to him… and if you don't confess your sins to him you can't have your sins forgiven….. and if you don't have your sins forgiven then you can't receive eternal life.

The only thing that will keep you from having your sins forgiven is rejecting the forgiver and his gift of grace!

There is one more word for sin in the New Testament that I haven't given you yet…

5) Optheilma - an outstanding debt to God- failure to pay what is due.

Revelation 20: 12And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.

What's this ..entries like Johnny lied to his grandma?.. Johnny help his grandma across the street….one bad check…one good check??? No!

It's the ledger of sin debt! It's the accounting of the debt you and I owe God because of our failure keep from sinning.

So let's do a little math:

You lied to your grandma….you racked up a sin debt. When God opens the book there it is…an un-repayable debt of sin under the name ________________...

That's all true….unless of course…before the ledger gets opened… your debt has already been paid. Who would pay your un-repayable debt. The debt forgiver… of course!

Understand something about forgiveness…. If you owe a debt of sin and your debt is forgiven… that means that your debt has simply been cancelled… written off the books??? Right?

Wrong!

If I owe you fifty bucks and you forgive me my debt… that means the fifty dollar debt just disappeared right? No… You're still out the fifty bucks! When you forgave my debt… you, in fact, ending up paying it for me. The 50.00 debt got paid by the person it was owed to.

So it is with our sin! The only way Jesus could offer you forgiveness was if he paid the debt…for you.

Oddly, we can have complete freedom from our sin debt waiting for us… and unless we confess and receive… the effect of our sin will be the same as if the price had never been paid.

Like the man who was dying from a disease and the doctor tells him there is a remedy for it. The man refuses the remedy and dies… not from the disease but from refusing to take the remedy.

Colossians 1:13-14 For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, 14 who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. (NLT)

We all have the "disease" of sin… the prognosis is certain eternal death… the remedy is freely offered… in order to live, eternally, we have to be willing to take the remedy.

Everyone who accepts the remedy is freed from the disease…

If You haven't Received The Remedy and You Would like to,

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