Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

The solution to MY GREATEST problem in life Psalm 32 We Believe Sermon Series #16 If someone were to ask you, “What is the most important problem that you will face in your lifetime?”what would you answer? Would you say that the greatest problem that you will face is your health? Would you say that the greatest problem is making a living? Would you say that the greatest problem is making a living? Having a decent place to live? Enjoying life? Being loved? Having good kids? If you said any of those things, you would be wrong...dead wrong...perhaps, tragically, even eternally wrong! Not long before she died in 1988, in a moment of surprising candor in television, Marghanita Laski, one of our best‑known secular humanists and novelists, said, “What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me.” The greatest problem in life is sin and guilt. And the only solution to my greatest problem and your greatest problem is – God’s forgiveness. The reason that most people do not realize that forgiveness is their greatest need, even in the Church, is that we really do not believe or realize that God is holy and just...and we are all under the wrath of a holy God. If we really knew that, we would all answer that our greatest problem is “the forgiveness of sins.” Because you can have your health, all the money in the world, be a Rhodes Scholar, live in a mansion, have a wonderful life and relationship – but without God’s forgiveness you will spend eternity in Hell. If you know a bit about church history, you know that before Martin Luther became the father of the Protestant Reformation, he was a Catholic priest. As part of his training, he spent years studying Greek, Hebrew, Latin, the church fathers, and the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. By all accounts, he was brilliant, devout, and very devoted to his studies. But his soul was deeply troubled. Burdened with the haunting sense that his sins were not forgiven, he felt that God’s judgment hung over him like a heavy weight he could not lift. And being a priest only made matters worse. No matter what he did, he never felt the assurance that his sins were forgiven. In desperation, he went to Rome, hoping to find answers, but he came away even deeper in despair. Several years later, while studying the book of Romans, he encountered the phrase, “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17). Slowly his eyes were opened and he saw clearly that God forgives us, not because of anything we do, not because we are worthy or deserve it...but solely on the basis of what Jesus did for us when He died on the cross and rose from the dead. Martin Luther called that truth “the gate to heaven.” So it is not surprising that Luther said that the phrase, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins” is the most important article in the Apostles’ Creed. He wrote, “If that is not true, what does it matter whether God is almighty or Jesus Christ was born and died and rose again? It is because these things have a bearing upon my forgiveness that they are important to me.” The solution to MY GREATEST problem in life and the greatest problem in your life is our need for the forgiveness of our sins. This phrase, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” summarizes the entire Christian life. That’s amazing when you think about how the Apostles’ Creed is constructed. I started preaching through the creed last Fall. During this study we’ve spent twelve of our sixteen weeks on the Godhead: God the Father, God the Son or Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit. Last week we spent a session on the nature of the church. But when we come to the realm of the Christian life, it’s all summed up in seven words: “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” The Apostles’ Creed is a God‑centered statement of the Christian faith. I’ve spent four months preaching basic Bible doctrine to you, nearly all of it about God Himself. When we finally get to the Christian life, the creed sums it up with this one phrase, “the forgiveness of sins.” It’s pointing out that, “If your sins are forgiven, everything else is just details, but if your sins are not forgiven, nothing else really matters.” Personally, I find that a very liberating way to look at the Christian life. It’s simple, clear and direct. So let me ask you a vital question, Do you have the solution to the greatest problem in your life? Are your sins forgiven and do you know it? 1. We need forgiveness because we are guilty. The word forgiveness presupposes the reality of guilt. But our world has tried in vain to eradicate guilt. Anna Russell in a psychiatric folk song writes: At three I had a feeling of Ambivalence toward my brothers,    And so it follows naturally I poisoned all my lovers. But now I’m happy I have learned The lesson this has taught, That everything I do that’s wrong Is someone else’s fault.   But do people really believe that? Do they really believe that they are not guilty? That they are guilt free? No. There is something we often overlook in today’s culture wars – much of it is driven by guilt. The media carried the story last week of the Texas case that the removal of the Ten Commandments from the Texas capitol is now headed to the Supreme Court. Please mark it down; this is not about the removal of the promotion of religion from the public square. It’s about the removal of a reminder of guilt before a holy God.  Why are addictive behaviors referred to as a disease? It’s a vain attempt to eradicate guilt. You’re not personally responsible for a disease. If you’re a rage-aholic, it’s not your fault. If you’re a sex addict, you can’t help it. It’s a disease. If there is no such thing as guilt, why do homosexuals care if we say that it is wrong? Why do they want minority status? Guilt. Why is there such a fight against having Creationism taught in the public schools? Because if man has evolved, if man is just an animal, there is no original sin and man has not fallen into sin. And if there was any fall at all, man fell up the evolutionary stairs in his progress from the fish to the ape to a human being. And whatever residue remains of that thing called sin will ultimately disappear with progress.    Why do we in the Church very quickly identify sin with immorality? It’s an attempt to eradicate guilt. We want to keep sin “out there.” Because all of us, just like our first parents – Adam and Eve – are trying to hide in the bushes and behind our fig leaves from a holy God and our personal guilt. Romans 3:23 though cuts through all of our rationalization and re-identification and clearly and pointedly states, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The Biblical words related to sin are varied: failure, disobedience, perversion, rebellion, wickedness, transgression, missing the mark, lawlessness, ungodliness, injustice, debt. And we’re all guilty, we’ve all sinned. This is so critical because you cannot be forgiven until you first know and admit that you are guilty. Forgiveness is meaningless if there is nothing to be forgiven for. All of us have so much to be forgiven, because we are all sinners and we are all guilty. Anselm, the ancient archbishop of Canterbury, said, "You have not yet considered the heavy weight sin is." Personally, I find that to be one of the most powerful statements I’ve read in a long time. It’s a statement that is appropriate to our society today. We have not yet considered the heavy weight that sin is. One of the reasons for that, of course, is the influence of many of the social and behavioral sciences on our thinking. Frequently, people are more influenced by what an anthropologist, a sociologist, or a psychologist says than what God has said in his Word. The primary perspective of sin is that we have sinned not against society or nature or even each other, though all those are true.  The primary perspective of sin is that we have sinned against God and we have not considered the heavy weight that sin is. Do you know why? Because frequently we subscribe to the popular notion that it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you don’t hurt anybody. That’s a widely held belief. But what if God has told you not to do it? What if God, knowing that you depend upon Him, knowing that He reaches out in love and grace to you, what if God sits up in heaven and sees you refusing to do what He says? What if He sees you totally ignoring Him, trampling His commands underfoot, and treating His love and grace with utter disdain? That’s sin against God. It may be hypothetically possible to do what you’re going to do without hurting anybody, though it’s doubtful. But God has given you principles and commands, and when you disobey them, you sin against God. That’s the major perspective of sin. But there is also a sociological aspect to sin as well. While we can grant hypothetically that it may be possible for us to sin without hurting anybody else, it’s rare. We live so inextricably bound up in other people’s lives that what we do has a ripple effect. As the Bible puts it, the sins of the fathers are even visited on the third and fourth generations. Our sins are against another person. Our sins are also against ourselves. There is a tremendous sense of shame and guilt that will make many people say, "I am just no longer worthy." Some time ago there was a popular book that extolled the virtues of free love and spouse swapping and all that sort of thing. While this book advocated this kind of lifestyle and said that it was mature and free, it was quite open and frank in saying that the major problem the people have in this kind of lifestyle is an overwhelming sense of guilt. If only they could get rid of a sense of guilt, and if only they could get rid of a sense of shame, they really would be free. But the problem is this: You just can’t escape the heavy weight that sin is. For sin is not only against heaven and against another person; it’s against myself in the long run. The load of guilt and the load of shame just won’t go away. An understanding of forgiveness starts then with recognizing what a horribly heavy weight sin is. We must admit, not just who we are but what we are — sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. 2. Forgiveness requires honest admission. English writer and Christian scholar, G. K. Chesterton, some years ago correctly responded to an article in The Times of London entitled, “What’s Wrong with the World?” In his letter back to The Times, Chesterton replied, “I am. Yours truly, G. K. Chesterton.” That is precisely Scripture’s point; we are what’s wrong with the world. Psalm 130:3 says, “If You, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?” Psalm 130 points us in the right direction. This psalm has a long history in the Christian tradition. It’s called the De Profundis, a Latin phrase that means “Out of the depths,” taken from verse 1, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” This psalm teaches us that we will never fix ourselves because we lack the inner resources to solve our own problems. That flies in the face of Oprah and Dr. Phil and a host of other self‑help gurus who say that the answer is within us. The Bible says the opposite is true: The problem is within us. The answer lies outside of us. As long as you think you can solve your own problems, you can only get worse. When you finally say, “Lord, please help me. I can’t do it on my own,” then you’re a good candidate for salvation. So why don’t we confess our sins and find the forgiveness we need? We fear punishment. We’re afraid that if we own up to our own stupidity, the Lord will send us straight to hell. So we lie about our lies and we cover up our cover‑ups. We pretend that we didn’t do what we know we did. No wonder we’re so messed up. We think guilt is a bad thing so we avoid guilt at all costs. Our children learn to make excuses by watching us make excuses. We blame everyone except ourselves. But Psalm 130 liberates us from that self‑destructive cycle. Verse 3 says that God doesn’t keep a record of our sins. In the Hebrew it literally says that God doesn’t keep an eye on our sins. That is, God is not looking for a reason to send us to hell. Many people picture God as some kind of cranky old man with a long white beard, hoping to catch us messing up so he can send us to hell. But that’s not the God of the Bible. He is willing to forgive those who repent of their sin and cry out for mercy. We need forgiveness because we are sinners and who try to change the rules so we can dodge the guilt question. But since the rules can’t really be changed, we end up extremely messed up on the inside. Here is the bottom line: We need forgiveness and we cannot live without it. Without forgiveness, we are hollow men and women, empty and conflicted on the inside. The one piece of good news is that God doesn’t keep an eye on our sins. If He did, we’d all be in hell already. He wants to forgive us. He wants to fix it. That’s what the Cross is all about. God never asks us to “fix it” because we can’t. He only wants us to admit that we need fixin’. Have you ever seen a small child trying to clean up a real mess, like syrup or ketchup or something like that? They never get the job done and only make it worse. Most people in the world are trying to clean up their mess and they’re just making it worse. They go to church or crawl on their knees to Mecca or attempt to obey the Ten Commandments, and they just make it worse. And God is saying to each of us, “You can’t fix it. Just admit it to me that you’ve made a mess and I’ll fix it.” That’s what Romans 10:13 means when it says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” It means crying out, “God, I’ve only messed it up with my sin. Please fix it. I need a Savior.” The meaning of the word forgiveness is “to dismiss, to release, to leave or abandon.” We hear of a judge that has "dismissed" the charges against a defendant. That person is then forgiven of any wrongdoing. We hear of a person that is released from an obligation, such as a loan or debt. That person is then forgiven. The word forgiveness also has the meaning to restore someone back to their original condition. The person who has been forgiven of a sin then is restored to the condition of not having sinned: the sin has been dismissed and he has been released from any penalty. The case against him has been abandoned or dismissed. But while God’s forgiveness is free, it is not cheap. That’s because... 3. Forgiveness demands substitution. God’s forgiveness does not excuse the wrongdoer, instead He takes our place. In his book, Written In Blood, Robert Coleman tells the story of a little boy whose sister needed a blood transfusion. The doctor explained that she had the same disease the boy had recovered from two years earlier. Her only chance for recovery was a transfusion from someone who had previously conquered the disease. Since the two children had the same rare blood type, the boy was the ideal donor. “Would you give your blood to Mary?” the doctor asked. Johnny hesitated. His lower lip started to tremble. Then he smiled and said, “Sure, for my sister.” Soon the two children were wheeled into the hospital room—Mary, pale and thin; Johnny, robust and healthy. Neither spoke, but when their eyes met, Johnny grinned. As the nurse inserted the needle into his arm, Johnny’s smile faded. He watched the blood flow through the tube. With the ordeal almost over, his voice, slightly shaky, broke the silence. “Doctor, when do I die?’ Only then did the doctor realize why Johnny had hesitated, why his lip had trembled when he’d agreed to donate his blood. He’d thought giving his blood to his sister meant giving up his life. In that brief moment, he’d made his great decision. Johnny, fortunately, didn’t have to die to save his sister. Each of us, however, has a condition more serious than Mary’s, and it required Jesus to give not just His blood but His life to save us. Education will not save us. Frequently, we hear “what everyone needs is a good education.” You can earn a Ph.D. in Humanities or the Sciences and be the most devious person who has ever walked the planet. You can have the IQ of a genius and yet live immorally. Let me give you just one example. Ted Kaczynski was born on May 22, 1942, and grew up in Evergreen Park, a working‑class suburb of Chicago. He has the IQ of a genius. He attended Harvard University and then the University of Michigan, where he received a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1967. The same year, Dr. Kaczynski worked as an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was widely recognized as a teacher who would gain tenure. But he abruptly resigned in 1969. Dr. Kaczynski was a mathematics whiz, but he took his genius and spent his time and abundant gray matter on devising ways to terrorize people with homemade bombs. Now he is spending his time doing time…for the rest of his time on earth. Maybe you’ve heard of the Unabomber. Ted Kaczynski is living proof that you can have a high IQ, gain a great education, come from a promising or prominent family background, and yet absolutely ruin your life and the lives of those around you. Education will not save us. Environment will not save us. Frequently, we hear “we’ve got to get people out of poverty” or “get those kids out of that bad home.” We foolishly think that if we just changed the environment. But the Bible teaches that we are not bred sinners but that we are born sinners. It is not a problem of nurture but nature. We are by nature sinners. As the nature of trees and plants, of their roots, stocks, stems, and boughs, is in the seed: so the cause of our transgressions is our own corruption, by it we are moved to do evil, and hindered from doing good. You do not have to teach a child to lie or disobey, they do it naturally because we are all by nature sinners. What we need is a substitute for our sin and guilt so that we can justly have forgiveness. When we talk about Jesus’ substitutionary death, we mean that Christ suffered as a substitute for us, that is, instead of us, resulting in the advantage to us of paying for our sins. You see, the question that confronted God in saving man was this: How can God who is holy and just deal with sinners as they deserve and still deliver them from the punishment of their sins?    Since the debt of sin had to be paid, then a substitute had to be found if sinners were to be delivered from this obligation. Only God himself was qualified to be this substitute. According to the divine plan, God the Son came to earth, assumed a sinless human nature, submitted to a horrible crucifixion, and received the divine stroke for our sins as our substitute. There is no other substitute or way that God will accept, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The death of Christ on the Cross then is the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. That’s why John the Baptist introduced Jesus with the words, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Jesus in His death was actually the substitute dying in the place of all men. Jesus paid for our forgiveness because we were totally incapable of paying for it! 4. Forgiveness will evidence itself in repentance. The recent movie, Catch me if you can, chronicled the true story of 16‑year‑old Frank Abagnale Jr., who in late 1960's and early 1970's faked and took on the identities of a reporter, a doctor, an airline pilot, a lawyer, and even a Secret Service agent. He also stole millions of dollars. He was the con of cons. But when it comes to forgiveness, we cannot “con” God. The Lord’s Prayer in Luke 4:11 includes this phrase, “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” Repentance isn’t just being sorry for our sin. Lots of people do that. If we have truly accepted God’s forgiveness, we will have a changed life. One of the greatest evidences of that is that you become a forgiver. If someone is not a forgiver, then they need to look inside their own soul...because maybe they have never truly accepted God’s forgiveness. Maybe they have difficulty forgiving because they themselves have never experienced forgiveness, God’s forgiveness. Repentance and forgiveness are two sides of the same coin. You cannot be forgiven unless you repent, and you cannot repent unless you have been forgiven. God’s grace does not just simply deliver us from some penalties and consequences of our sin while leaving us in our sin. God also wants to deliver us from sin itself. That’s the goal of God’s forgiveness, to give us new life so that sin no longer enslaves us or controls us. What does it mean to repent? Scripture gives an excellent description of repentance in God’s words to King Solomon, a passage that is frequently misapplied, “If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14). Repentance is, by God’s grace, leaving our habits of sin that we know and seeking to live righteously, in a way that pleases Him. When former President Gerald Ford issued a blanket pardon to Richard Nixon, both men showed a fundamental misunderstanding of law and grace. The resigned president had never been formally accused or indicted, tried or convicted of any crime. According to the law, he was ineligible for a pardon, having been convicted of nothing from which to be pardoned. But in offering a pardon under these circumstances, President Ford implied Richard Nixon’s guilt of unspecified crimes. In accepting the pardon without even a word of repentance, Nixon convicted himself in the minds of many Americans. Had the disgraced former president admitted his wrongdoing, he might have found forgiveness from the nation. Of course, God alone is the Judge of men. He doesn’t require anything more of us than that we cease our arrogant separation from Him. “Let the wicked forsake his way,” says Isaiah, “and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will freely pardon” (Isa. 55:7). For someone though to foolishly say, “I don’t have to repent because God has already forgiven me,” is like saying “Because my lover has forgiven me, there’s no need for us for me to be faithful.” Forgiveness will evidence itself in repentance. 5. Forgiveness is based on faith, not feelings. There’s a major difference between guilt and guilt feelings. Many a believer who has come to the Lord and been forgiven, still feels unforgiven. Sadly, there are some believers who have been forgiven but never enjoy it. They simply don’t feel forgiven. Someone once asked Martin Luther: "Doctor Luther, do you feel that you have been forgiven?" "No," he replied, "but I am as sure as I am that there is a God in heaven." This issue of reality and feeling is particularly important when we speak about forgiveness. Real forgiveness between God and man rests on the declaration of God. When God declares a person forgiven, that person is forgiven whether he/she feels it or not. Take a courtroom situation. If a man is convicted of a crime and the judge decides to show mercy and grant a pardon, removing the penalty for the crime, the defendant is in fact pardoned. Now he may not feel pardoned; he may still feel guilty (which indeed he is). He may feel that he wants to pay for his crime, yet none of these feelings changes the objective state of affairs, namely, that the man has been pardoned. The basis of the Christian’s assurance of forgiveness is the promise of God. The New Testament tells us unequivocally, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). John’s statement is only one among many. Repeatedly we are given the assurance in the New Testament that our God is a forgiving God. Part of the content of faith in the New Testament sense is that element that includes confidence in the promise of God. That is, my assurance of forgiveness should be based on my confidence that God means what He says and does what He says He will do. If God declares that He will forgive our sins if we ask for that forgiveness in the spirit of confession, then we can have total confidence that those sins we have confessed are forgiven. I must then choose to live in the realm of faith in God’s Word not my feelings.  Conclusion: Not far from the city of New York is a small cemetery where there can be found a most unusual grave and headstone. On that headstone there is no name, no date of birth or of death, no epitaph, no beautiful eulogy. There is no embellishment by a sculptor. There is, in fact, but one single, solitary word, one all encompassing word of three short syllables: FORGIVEN. But that is the most important word that can be recorded about any human being who has ever walked upon earth because the trail of the serpent has left its slime upon every human soul. Friend, have you been forgiven? Have your sins been forgiven by a holy God? Do you know it? Are you a forgiver? Is there someone that you too need to forgive just as you have been forgiven?