Welcome to our You Are Forgiven study!
I hope you are just as excited and ready to learn as we are. This study is going to take us on a wild ride. We will examine the heavy chains of sin and depravity, as well as the heights of forgiveness, acceptance, and freedom.
But we have to start with the sober before we can get to the joyful, so this week will be a heavy week. We have to start with why we need forgiveness in the first place. Most of us know that it is because we are riddled with sin.
What is sin?
Sin is anything that goes against the will of God. It is doing what God has forbidden or not doing what God has commanded we should do. In short, sin is breaking the law of God.
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. – 1 John 3:4
Sin affects every single part of us (John 8:34). It affects our minds, our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9), our emotions, and our spiritual conditions (Proverbs 21:10). It has skewed our view of God and of ourselves. It is what some theologians call “total depravity.”
Augustine said: “Sin is believing the lie that you are self-created, self-dependent, and self-sustained.”
The study of sin, also called hamartiology, is very important because without a proper understanding of sin we will never fully understand the depth of Christ’s sacrifice or the incredible forgiveness of God.
Sin has such a grip on mankind that we cannot free ourselves. We can’t even have true affection for God because sin has turned our hearts hard and cold as stone.
A stony heart is the worst heart. If it were bronze, it might be melted in the furnace; or it might be bent with the hammer. But a stony heart is such, that only the arm of God can break it—and only the blood of Christ can soften it! – Thomas Watson
Most devastatingly, sin has – as Isaiah tells us – created a separation between us and God that is so vast that we cannot bridge it.
Understanding sin is the first step towards understanding our need for forgiveness.
Sin has a firm hold on us, and if our sin does not produce in us tears of sadness or “a broken heart” (as David put it), then the forgiveness we have through Jesus will not seem very precious and will not produce in us a “shout to the Lord” kind of joy.
We were once lost, with no hope of our own, but the mighty and gentle hand of God pulled us out of the mud and and mire (Psalm 40:2), set us on the rock that is Jesus and gave us a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26). This is undeserved mercy and overwhelming grace. This is forgiveness.
Be always greatly humbled by your remaining sin, and never think that you lie low enough for it, but yet don’t be at all discouraged or disheartened by it. Although we are exceedingly sinful, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, the preciousness of whose blood, the merit of whose righteousness, and the greatness of whose love and faithfulness infinitely overtop the highest mountains of our sins. – Jonathan Edwards