How great is God’s total forgiveness in Jesus Christ!
What do those words mean to you? Do you believe and trust
what they say?
Maybe for some that is a question: “How great is God’s
total forgiveness in Jesus Christ?”
Would you be able to answer? Does it cause you to doubt? Does
it make you want to do something to earn that forgiveness? Does it make you to
think that you are stuck in your sin forever?
“How great is” – It’s awesome; it’s overwhelming; it’s breathtaking;
it’s tremendous, amazing, and cool!
“God’s” – It’s not mine; not yours; not your Pastor’s;
not your mom’s or dad’s.
“Total forgiveness” – It’s finished, complete, and perfect.
“In Jesus Christ” – Jesus is the ONE whom we trust and
the one who completes our faith, hope and love.
As much as we want to make it into a question, it should
be a statement of how awesome is God’s acceptance of you and me no matter of
our past or where we are. We should be declaring, “God is so awesome that He is
willing to accept us and love us because Jesus is Lord and Savior.
Hebrews is the book of faith: “Faith is
the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us
assurance about things we cannot see.” (Hebrews 11:1) But not everyone thinks
faith is enough. Faith pleases God because it shows God His Son Jesus has a priority
in our lives. “So faith comes from hearing the Good News; and people hear the
Good News when someone tells them about Christ.” (Romans 10:17)
Hope shows up in the book of 1 Peter: “Praise
to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God has great mercy, and
because of his mercy he gave us a new life. This new life brings us a living
hope through Jesus Christ’s resurrection from death. Now we wait to receive the blessings God has
for his children. These blessings are kept for you in heaven. They cannot be
ruined or be destroyed or lose their beauty.” (1 Peter 1:3-4)
Faith is something we have. Hope is
something given by God. Faith and hope are often separate things but they do come
together. The place where faith and hope come together is at the cross. It is
at the cross that faith and hope are exchanged for love.
God’s love came down in the form of
Jesus Christ to become sin for us not so we become righteous. We cannot “become”
righteousness on our own. We are “made” righteous when the exchange happens.
When we accept Jesus as Savior and
exchange our sin for God’s righteousness “love” happens.
Love is an exchange. In 1 Corinthians 13,
Love exchanges patience for no patience. Love exchanges kindness for hostility.
It exchanges a humble attitude for pride, and it exchanges trust for jealousy. It
leads Paul to say that without love being the result of faith and hope coming
together, Jesus’ sacrifice was pointless.
1 John says that there is no fear in
love. There is an element of fear in faith and hope. Continued guilt and fear
cause us to wonder if there is something we can do on our own. There is nothing.
God created His son as a perfect and complete sacrifice to take on Himself the
death of our sin. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Galatians 2:20 shows us the depth of
this love exchange between God and us: “So I am not the one living now—it is
Christ living in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of
God. He is the one who loved me and gave himself to save me.” I live by faith
… He is the One. Faith and hope died to give me God’s love. The exchange
happened at the cross.
Hebrews 10:14 says, “With one sacrifice
Christ made his people perfect forever.” Perfect here does not mean “without
sin.” Only Jesus lived a sinless life. The word “perfect” here means everything
is finished. There is nothing more God or Jesus can do. God created and gave up
His own Son to die for our sin. Jesus said that no one has greater love than
those who give up their life for their friends. It’s like an artist who is not
satisfied until their masterpiece is totally complete and there is nothing more
they can do to improve it, do they say, “It’s finished.” God in the flesh said
from the cross, “It’s finished, paid off, complete, done, there is nothing more
to do.”
So it’s not a question of our faith, God’s
hope, and Jesus’ love. It’s a declaration of the exchange of faith, hope, and
love: How great is God’s total forgiveness in Jesus Christ!
“… and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians
13:13)
