Session 2 - Forgiven Forever: Stop Re-Crucifying Jesus

Now, one of the things that we talked about last night was the Sermon on the Mount. And we kind of glossed over it, we mentioned it here and there, but here's your Sermon on the Mount test. I mean, how you doing? I want you to see Matthew 5, Matthew 6, Matthew 7, all put together in one piece here. Cut off your hand, pluck out your eye, make sure that you surpass the Pharisees with your righteousness. Anger equals murder. Looking with lust equals adultery. Get right before you offer your animal sacrifice. Give money to whoever asks of you. Let people beat you up, turn the other cheek, let them have at you. Pray for your enemies, because that's what we're all doing late at night, I'm sure, with a long list of our enemies. And then hide your fasting, which by the way, how's that fasting going? And then keep it a secret, would you? And then all your praying, make sure nobody knows that you're a prayer warrior. Make sure nobody knows that you're an avid prayer. And then be perfect like God. Now, how are we doing? How are we doing? Do you see, and now you just lied.

He said 100%. So we got him for lying. You see? So nobody makes it out of the Sermon on the Mount alive, and that's the whole point, folks. So that's why it is so crazy, this debate about law and grace. You can flirt with the law for just a moment until you meet Jesus. You can play with the law and pick your favorite parts. Remember the buffet line from last night. You can pick your favorite parts until you meet Jesus, and he kills you with that Sermon on the Mount. It is Moses 2.0, the law on steroids. And so if you haven't captured it yet, this is why we're excited about grace. And we're not law bashing. Let's take the law and let's amp it up like Jesus did and say holy and perfect and incredible and impossible. And that's why we need grace instead. And the key word is instead, because folks, the Holy Spirit is not helping you keep the law. The Holy Spirit is not helping you chop off body parts. The Holy Spirit is not helping you give to whoever asks of you without question. The standard was way up here in the stratosphere on purpose to drive us to the new covenant, to see our need for a Savior, amen? And so today we're gonna celebrate that Savior.

Now, a few little loose ends from last night, I believe. I wanna share some things. So you know Alfred Hitchcock and all of his films and all of that. Look, one thing about Alfred Hitchcock is you don't watch half of the movie and then turn it off. There's gonna be a surprise ending. I've been watching a series here the last few days. Kyle recommended a pretty cool series to me. I've been watching a few episodes of it, and I can't turn it off. I mean, it's pretty exciting. It's a whodunit, right? So if you turn it off, you miss the surprise ending, and then the surprise ending makes everything else make sense, and you go back and you reinterpret everything that came before. And that's what we're saying about the Bible. The entire Bible is the inspired word of God, but there's a surprise ending in the new covenant, a surprise ending in the cross, a surprise ending in the resurrection, and because of this surprise ending, we go back and we say, yes, this is all God's word, but I'm dead to the law, free from the law, not under the law. Christ is the end of the law for all those who believe. So I'm not gonna go rummaging through Leviticus cherry picking my favorite parts as laws to keep, and I'm not gonna take out my favorite 10

and put them on the wall and say that's my way to live, and I'm not gonna delete the Sabbath and take my favorite nine. I don't get to pick, it's not multiple choice, it's all or nothing. And God did it that way on purpose, so let's elevate the law, not leave one ounce out of it, not a jot nor a tittle of the law will pass away until all is accomplished. There it is, staring you in the face. We say, wow, I can't do it, and then Paul says exactly, the law is not made for the righteous. He says that. The law is not made for the righteous, 1 Timothy 1. We got people saying, well, you know, God's gonna help you keep the law, or there's a third use, Luther's third use. use of the law for the Christian. You know what Paul would say to that? Third use for the Christian, the law is not made for the righteous. The law is good, he says, if we use it properly. Use. What does Luther say? Third use of the law. It'll help Christians grow. What does Paul say? Use it properly. It's not for righteous people. So, you got your 3D glasses on, because that's what we're saying. The whole Bible is the word of God, but get your grace glasses on. You don't have those glasses on in the movie theater, the movie doesn't line up. You don't have your grace glasses on, the theology doesn't line up. You're trying to grab a little Moses and a little Jesus and marry it together and make sense of it? Uh-uh. Not happening. So, you may know Marie Antoinette, the story of Marie Antoinette, she had to leave Austria and she became a royalty in France. And if you've watched a movie about her, maybe you've seen that scene in the woods. She's in the woods, she gets out of her carriage, she's holding her dog, she's standing on the border, the French are ready to receive her, she's right there on the line, she crosses the line, but

before she crosses, right as she's crossing, they say, well, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's take off your garments, let's put on the finest French fashions. And by the way, that dog's got to go. I think they gave her a French poodle, right? But there was an upgrade. There was a transformation. She became royalty in the kingdom known as France. And that's what God is saying to us when we do the border crossing out of Adam into Christ. What does he say? You're dead to the law, free from the law, not under the law. Christ is the end of the law. We shed all of that and we put on Christ and we're part of something new, a kingdom, we're a royal priesthood. Isn't that cool? And so the scripture says this, should we be scared of grace? No, the grace of God teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives. Wow. Can you have too much grace? Well, no, only if you could have too much godliness. Can you have too much godliness? Grace teaches us to live godly. People who are denigrating grace and saying, watch out for that grace, they don't realize that they're saying, watch out for that godliness. Because grace is godliness. It is the power, it is the means by which the Holy Spirit, he has liberated us and we're operating in an atmosphere of freedom and freedom brings fruitfulness. You guys, some of you know my story of the Indy 500. Now, I was addicted to speed on America's highways as a teenager. I mean, I was going 130, 140, 150 at one point in a Corvette ZR1 on Route 66 just outside of DC. And I got in lots of trouble as a teenager, got my car taken away and all of that. Now, fast forward a decade and I'm at the Indy 500 track. They've invited me. My dad got us a deal where you could go three laps and that kind of thing. So they get a pace car out and they say, Mr. Farley, you can go as fast as you want. If you speed up, the pace car will speed up. You can go as fast as you want. Enjoy. So I'm thinking, wow, a dream come true. No consequences. They just gave me the green light for as fast as I want to go. And I get out there and I'm up to 110 and 120 and 130. I think I got to 132. And at that point, I'm like, you know, the strangest thing happened. I started thinking safe thoughts. You know, like this car could wreck and I could go out of control and who knows? I think I'm just going to keep it right there at 132 and enjoy these laps and live to tell about it, which I have. So when all things were permissible, I started to think about what was profitable. You see what I'm saying? And that's what scripture says. We have all this freedom. Look, lightning's not going to strike when you sin. Have you noticed? You can sin just fine and God doesn't kill you. Jesus was killed and there's no condemnation, but who wants to be forgiven and miserable? Who wants to be forgiven and yet acting like you're in bondage. And so all things are

permissible, yet not all things are profitable. And that's where grace begins to teach us and the atmosphere of freedom, the spirit of God begins to teach us. And what I'm noticing, are you noticing? He never tears us down. He's always building us up. So if you're looking for the Holy Spirit's voice concerning sin in your life, it's more like this. It's not you dirty, rotten, sorry, excuse for I can't believe, no. That's the enemy's accusation. Your father is much more like this. You know what? You're better than that. You're dead to sin. Sin is beneath you. You're above sin. You're not in sin. You have a destiny. You're beautiful on the inside. Look at you. You're not made for that. Let me show you. And the gentle voice of God's spirit never tearing us down, always building us up. So now we're going to dive into forgiveness. Session C, the forgiveness of God through the new covenant. What does it look like? Well here we go. First, I want to bring you back to that government bailout. You remember years ago we had a government bailout in the United States of America. People were down at the banks and they had an apology on their lips and sorrow in their heart for their financial woes. They had tears in their eyes, some of them, and they were begging for mercy.

But you know, ultimately, the banks don't want sorrow and tears and apologies, words. They want money. They want to be paid. Well, guess what? God has a blood-driven economy. We've got a money-driven economy. God has a blood-driven economy for sins. And so that's why we see in Hebrews 9, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. So get this now. Words are great. It's good to be sorry and express it. Your heart hates sin. We just talked about how God builds you up. He says, look at your heart. You're not made for sin. So you're going to have regret in your heart. You're going to be sorry. You're going to want to turn away. But none of that makes you, none of that makes you more forgiven. You are not forgiven by words or tears. You are forgiven by blood and blood alone. God has a blood-driven economy. So I want you to imagine a priest, a high priest of Israel, comes down the hillside right into the center of the city and he says, Eureka, I found it. And he's holding this lamb and he says, the perfect spotless lamb, no blemish. What would happen next? Well, if they finally found by some miracle, some perfect animal sacrifice that was somehow miraculously of God and it had no blemish and it was perfect in every way, they could essentially say, well, you know what? We're, I mean, we're, we're done here.

That never happened. They didn't fold up shop because of some perfect sacrifice of a bull or goat. That couldn't happen. But it did happen for us through Jesus. Because John the Baptist says, look, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the perfect sacrifice, Eureka. And you know what that means then? Get this. That means all systems for forgiveness are shut down because of the one perfect sacrifice. You're not forgiven because you ask. You're not forgiven because you first John 1.9. You're not forgiven because of a confession booth. You're not forgiven because of a mass. You're not forgiven because of a cup and a piece of bread. You're not forgiven because you're sorry. You're forgiven because Jesus Christ died for you once for all and took away your sins forever. We can celebrate, raise a glass, eat a piece of bread, do this in remembrance, but it's remembrance. We're not causing anything. It is the blood of Jesus that took away your sins once for all, past, present, future. How many of your sins were in the future when Jesus died? All of them. He didn't say I'll forgive these, but not these. There are folks, and you know this, we all grew up in this in one way or another. There are folks saying, you're forgiven, sure, God's good. God's good. You were forgiven of all your sins up until salvation, and now it's up to you to stay forgiven and stay cleansed with your future sins as you beg and plead and hope and wait for more forgiveness from heaven.

I'll tell you what, if that's true, you should have gotten saved later because you might forget some. You might forget to apologize. You might forget to confess. You might forget to ask. And so the truth is much better than that. All of your sins were in the future when Jesus died. You don't have to worry about leaving one out, forgetting one. But people will put a little patch on their theology. They'll say, oh no, no, no, don't worry. If you forget, he doesn't worry about it. Okay, so if you have amnesia then, then that really helps. If you forget, God forgets. That's our theology? Seriously, like a catch-all amnesia clause? How about we just go with the book of Hebrews that says we have been forgiven once for all. Amen? Amen. All right, here it is, Hebrews chapter 10. For this reason, the law can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, I'm exhausted even reading it. Endlessly, year after year, it could never make you perfect. If it could, then wouldn't they have stopped being offered? Because the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. Now, here's a cool thought.

Have the sacrifices stopped for you? Yes, they have. So what does that mean for you? You, as a worshiper, have been cleansed once for all and you no longer have to feel guilty for your sins. God is not using guilt. We gotta get used to that. The best life coach you ever had in your life, he's teaching you, molding you, shaping you, getting you ready for a better future without tearing you down and ripping you apart. Your sins are forgiven, forgotten, remembered no more. Now, in the temple, back in the days of the Old Testament, there was forbidden furniture. A chair, many of you know this, a chair was a forbidden piece of furniture. Why? Well, because, I mean, if you were caught sitting down on the job, God said no way, I don't want Israel seeing the high priest sitting down on the job because that would insinuate that it's finished. You walk in on the day of atonement, your high priest is kicked back in a lazy boy chair and he looks at you and says, what's up? You go, hey, dude, do you not have stuff to do here? Look at all these sins, all these people who were sinful. Don't you have a bull or a goat or something to do here? And so God constantly had the priest standing to represent that the work was never finished.

But when Jesus did what he did, what'd he do next? He sat down at the right hand of God. Look at this. Day after day, every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices which can never take away sins, but he, Jesus Christ, having offered one sacrifice for all time, what did he do? Sat down at the right hand of God by one offering he has perfected for how long? For all time. Can you lose your salvation? Not if you're perfected for all time, folks. This is the number one reason we can't lose our salvation because Jesus didn't forgive you temporarily, he forgave you for all time. By one sacrifice forgiven forever. From the cross he said it, it is finished. What if we started acting like it's finished? Then when you lift that glass and take that piece of bread, we don't have to dim the lights and play sad music and try to get clean. We can actually do it in remembrance of him because by one sacrifice he made us how forgiven? Perfect for how long? For all time. Right there in scripture. So are you suffering from the Martha syndrome? You know what I'm talking about. Martha, Martha, Martha, she's walking around the kitchen

trying to get clean and get right for Jesus. What's Mary doing? She's seated with the son of God, relaxing. Are you suffering from the Martha syndrome or will you sit down with Christ and agree with him? It's over. The sin issue is over. Which one is a position of faith? Standing up, running around Texas, running around Canada, running around the United States trying to get right and stay right and getting fellowship and staying fellowship and getting God's will and staying God's will and get right and stay right? or being seated with Jesus and saying, wow, wow, thank you. Thank you for what you've done for me for all time. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty. Wow. You ever heard that your sins are under the blood? They're not. We made that up. That's a sin covering. If your sins are under the blood, I would ask you, what if one creeps out the side? No, your sins are gone. They're washed away, taken away. They're not under anything. They're gone as far as the east is from the west.

He remembers your sins no more. He didn't pick north and south. He picked east and west. You go east, you're never going west. You go north, you're eventually going south. You go east, you're always going east. Your sins, as far as east and west, never the two shall meet. Obliterated, gone, remembered no more. Not under anything, washed away. And so we see that right here in 1 John 2. Jesus is the one who turns aside God's wrath, taking away our sins. And here's an excited Jewish man. Not only ours, not only our sins, but the sins of the whole world. Even those dirty, rotten Gentiles. And that's most of us in this room, by the way. So that's why your forgiveness is in past tense. Have you ever noticed that? In the scriptures, when we see about believers' forgiveness, it's in past tense. Here's one, Colossians 2. When you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive, thank you, Father, together with him. Now that's close. He made you close and alive, and then it says he forgave us how much? All our transgressions.

And at the same time, he canceled our debt, our certificate of debt. You don't owe God. And you could never pay him back anyway. All your sins, past tense, having forgiven. How about this one, 1 John 2. I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven. And this is about his name, folks. This is about bragging on his name. Are you bragging on Jesus? Or are you still pretending he hasn't done what he's done? Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you. There are people that are still teaching the Sermon on the Mount version of forgiveness. If you forgive others, God will forgive you. That is conditional forgiveness. That is not the gospel. Ephesians 4.32 says the opposite. It doesn't say forgive other, please be nice to other people so that God will forgive you. No, it says the opposite. Forgive other people because God already forgave you. He started this. Imagine if he held the forgiveness hostage. What would that teach you? To run around holding the forgiveness hostage, and you would only forgive the nice people. You'd only forgive forgivers.

Is that the love of God? No. So it's like Groundhog Day. You know the movie Groundhog Day. I mean, it's on over and over and over every holiday, and it's about a man who's stuck in the same day. He's stuck in it over and over until he gets it perfect. What are we saying? There's no Groundhog Day with God. He got it right the first time. Look at this. For Christ did not enter a man-made temple, a man-made sanctuary, a copy of the true one, no. He entered heaven itself now to appear for us in God's presence, nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again. Now, I wanna put this in plain old Texas English for you this morning. Jesus ain't up there dying over and over, so you ain't down here being forgiven over and over. He's not up there on a cross, so you're not down here getting cleaned up. He died once, took away your sins once, no repeat needed, he's not finishing anything up there, and you are not in process of being forgiven. You hear that? Forgiveness is not a process for you. been forgiven. Christians are not being forgiven, we have been forgiven. Now, suddenly, grace gets controversial. Because I can have a nice little sweet sermon about how God is good, and God is nice, and God is love, but you bring the cross into it, now we got some fights.

Now we got some division. See, everybody can talk about grace, have you noticed? Everybody in the Christian world, they think, oh yeah, grace, I got that. Oh yeah, grace? Oh, I like grace too. Yeah, yeah, I'm all into grace. Yeah, I'm saved. And I've graduated from God's grace, is what they're saying. I've moved on. But see, their view of grace is just this nebulous idea that God is essentially kind, and good, and nice, and long-suffering, and merciful, but you put the new covenant center stage. You put the cross there, and you say, how forgiven are you? And how free from the law are you? And how much of a new creature in Christ are you? And when we start getting specific, they start getting nervous. Because the cross, Jesus, is the stumbling block. Not some nebulous sense of niceness called grace. Jesus is the stumbling block. So let's make sure we understand the finished work of Christ. You know, Christ would have had to suffer many times. If he was up in heaven dying over and over, he'd have to suffer many times since the creation of the world. He'd have to die every time you cussed. You see that? He's not up there dying. You're not down here being forgiven. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away, not cover sin, do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Amen? Wow. Scripture is powerful. It is controversial. It makes us decide. What have you decided about Jesus? Did he do a perfect job? If so, how clean are you? How close are you? Wow. Just as man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed how many times? Once. To take away the sins of many people. And he will appear a second time not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who were waiting for him. I imagine the movie, you know, the movie screen of all my sins. You've thought about that at some point you probably pictured you're in heaven and you're in line, you're holding your popcorn, right? You're pretending to have a good time. Somebody says, how you doing? You say, oh, brother, I'm blessed. But you're scared out of your wits because your blockbuster film of sins is coming up next. And that was the picture that was painted for me. I was excited about having, but I was scared about having the judgment. Jesus says, whoever believes in me is not judged. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. He's coming back not to bear sin, not to die for sin. Another translation says without reference to sin. Isn't that awesome? Without reference to your sins, he's not going to refer to him, but instead to bring salvation. So otherwise, I mean, we got a serious problem. I'd like

to do a little math with you. How many sins have you committed in your entire life? Hundreds? Thousands? I've met some of you, millions. I've met others of you, I'm convinced, billions. Now, how many of those have you remembered to confess? Oh, we got a math problem now. What are you going to do about those unconfessed hanging chads? What are you going to do about those unconfessed dangling sins that you never asked for forgiveness for? See, if it's about you and your words and your memory and your sorrow and your tears and your confessions and your apologies, we have really got a serious problem. But if it's about Jesus and the cross and his blood, and if it's finished, now that makes sense. And we can breathe the sigh of relief and we can sit down with Christ and we can say by faith, wow, and thank you. But if you're doubting, you can always download the Bible. the I Confess app. The Catholic Church had that for you for a number of years. You could download the I Confess app, punch in your sins, hit the upload button, it would submit your confession to the God of the universe, and within seconds, you would have a mobile forgiveness. A mobile cleansing, if you will. Isn't that cool? It's not cool. The truth is, if that were the way you would need probably a supercomputer out of Washington, you'd need some AI to keep up with all the sins you've ever committed in your life in order to remember them all and get yourself cleansed. Do you see what we've done? We've made it about us and the confession booth and some of us say, oh, that's not right. We don't do the confession. We go direct to God. Even if you go direct to God, are you believing that forgiveness is daily? It's not. Are you believing that forgiveness is like paying off your car or paying off your mortgage progressive? It's not.

It doesn't matter if you're going to a priest or going to God direct. We need to believe it's finished. It's finished. So we'll finish, speaking of finishing, we'll finish this session by looking at one of the most important passages about this. It's 1 John 1, 9, and in order to understand what's going on with 1 John 1, 9, I'm going to propose a crazy notion that we look at 1 John 1, 8. Who knew, right? So in order to understand 1 John 1, 9, let's read the whole passage. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us of our sins and purify us of all unrighteousness. If we claim we've not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. Now I want you to notice who this is written to because we made it, 2,000 years later, we made it into a bar of soap for Christians. You know, we come up to somebody, say, what you doing? Well I'm 1 John 1, 9 and I'm confessing, I'm purging, I'm cleansing, I'm getting it all out so that God will swoop down out of heaven and polish me off on a Tuesday and then I got to do it again on Wednesday, maybe even Tuesday evening. Okay, I'm 1 John 1, 9. Is that what this passage is about? No, it's written to a person who claims they have no sin, no sin. There were sin deniers 2,000 years ago, sin deniers known as Gnostics and they were denying the reality of sin. They were saying there's no such thing as sin. They said Jesus didn't come in the flesh and sin is not real or doesn't matter because I'm up here, I'm super spiritual Gnostic and none of my actions matter. And so John is fighting this early form of Gnosticism. He is saying, watch out, there are sin deniers among you and if any one of us is crazy enough to say we've never sinned, we are loco, we are out of our minds.

That's crazy. And notice what does he say about these people? Look at it, highlighted right there, the truth is not in us and His Word is not in us. Who's the truth? Who's the Word? These people who are claiming this, they don't have Jesus in them. And so here's the solution. First John 1, 9, if we're claiming to be sinless, if we're saying we've never sinned a day in our lives, if we are sin deniers, here's a simple solution. Admit your sins, admit them. If we confess our sins, what's He going to do? He's faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from how much? All. That's what happened when you got saved. You see it? And if people are going to pull that one verse out by itself, they're going to miss the obvious. Guess what? If that was a formula for Christians, Paul never mentioned it. If that was a formula for daily forgiveness, the Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Philip never heard about it. They had billions of sins unconfessed, a sin barrier. God couldn't hear their prayers. You see, the only reason it's in one letter is because the author of that letter is fighting a Gnostic heresy, a Gnostic group full of sin deniers. That's why he opens the chapter. He says, I write you these things because I want you to have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with God. We'd really like you to join us. He's got. an evangelistic heart. And you know what happens one chapter later when he's

talking to Christians? I write you these things, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven. Past tense. Is he contradicting himself? No. One paragraph written to those who are sin deniers. Another chapter, another paragraph written to my dear children in the faith. You see it? He cares about evangelism and he also cares about preaching the finished work. So we'll finish with this. I want you to imagine I bring up Bill, my friend Bill, and I say, hey I want to introduce Bill to you. Bill says he has no sin at all. Bill says he's never sinned a day in his life. By the way, I want you to know, I'm not trying to be rude, but the truth is not in Bill, and God's Word is not in Bill. Now you come up, shake Bill's hand. Do you conclude Bill is a Christian? He says he has no sin, the truth's not in him, God's Word's not in him, he's making God out to be a liar. No. Bill doesn't know. Bill doesn't know the gospel. But I turn to Bill, I say, hey Bill, come on buddy, listen. If we, any one of us, say we have no sin, you know, we're making it God out to be a liar. If we say we've never sinned, Bill, I mean, we're out of our minds here, man. But listen, there's a simple solution. If we're saying that, we could just change our minds. If we'll admit our sinfulness, then guess what God will do in your life, Bill? He will forgive you and cleanse you of all, all unrighteousness. Bill says, you know, Andrew, now that I think about it, I think I have done some sinning. I might need a Savior. And right there, Bill changes his mind, admits his sinfulness, calls upon the Lord to be saved. He's forgiven and cleansed of all unrighteousness. If you're in Christ, you already have that. Are you trying to get what you've got? It is finished. Let's pray together. Father, thank you so much for this forgiveness. We believe you. We believe Jesus did a perfect job. He's seated at your right hand, and we are seated too. We believe you. Sin is not an issue between us and you. You've taken away the barrier. We're gonna stop all this nonsense of being out of fellowship, you not hearing our prayers, sin blockages, all these things, and we're just gonna believe that you love us, and that you like us, and that you've purified us once for all. Jesus is not up there dying, and we're not down here being forgiven. Thank you, Father. Thank you for the finished work of Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, amen.

All right, we're gonna take a short break, about 10 minutes. We'll try to come back, I believe it's 945 right now, is that right? We'll come back at 950.