Quote of the Week:

"Soft preaching makes hard hearts; hard truth produces soft hearts."  -  John MacArthur

Based on an outline by James MacDonald

Choose Gods Forgiveness  [Identity Choice 2]
taught 6/18/08 to Jr & Sr High
Matthew 9:2-8
Eric Fehrman

INTRO
• Two IDENTITY Choices... Who am I in Christ?  I need to choose God's l, and choose God's forgiveness.  These are UNIVERSAL needs.

• What is mankind's greatest NEED?  (I am suggesting forgiveness).  Lets talk about the GOSPEL!

• Consider... What if I told you that I mastered a new Kimo therapy treatment for brain cancer.  It will make you sick, and cause your hair to fall out, and make you feel fatigued... BUT... its 100% effective.  Is that "good news"?... (no, not if I am healthy)... What if I told you that you were accurately diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.  Now is it good news?... (yes!)

• Lets talk about the BAD NEWS first... read Matthew 9:1-8

1.  The Problem is... SIN
  • vs 2 "...your sins are forgiven..."

  • Jesus begins with the BIG ISSUE.  Sin is behind every serious problem in the world.  Everything is BROKEN by sin...
      >  The Universe... winding down, entropy... broken
      >  The Earth... weather, earthquakes... broken
      >  Mankind... body, soul, relationships... all broken

  • Consider the 10 Commandments... if your honest you must admit to breaking them all!

  • 5 Things that the Bible tells us about our sin...
      >  We Are Determined Sinners... Psa 51:5
      >  We Are Diseased by sin...  Gen 6:5
      >  We Are Deceived by sin... Jer 17:9
      >  We Are Desperate b/c of our sin...
      >  We Are Dead in our sin...  Ezek 18:20

2.  The Prognosis is... PERISH
  • John 3:16 "For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not PERISH but have eternal life"

  • Do you rightly understand SIN?... do you rightly understand the HOLINESS of God?

  • Heb 9:27 "it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment" ... get ready NOW, no one knows how much time you have!

  • God does not grade on a curve... NARROW is the road that leads to eternal life!

  • Hell is eternal, conscious punishment.  A dark, fiery place.  A place to experience both the complete lack of Gods presence/goodness AND to experience His just justice.  As AWESOME as heaven is, hell will be equally AWFUL

  • If God had not stepped in that is the destiny of every person on earth.  This brief moment we have here on earth is our time to CHOOSE... Are you ready for some "good news"?

3.  The Provision is... FORGIVENESS
  • vs 2-6

  • Jesus was not going to heal this mans body w/o first healing his sin-sick soul !  Jesus goes straight to his MOST CRITICAL NEED

  • Jesus ALONE has "the authority" to forgive sins... no one else in all the universe can make that claim!... don't get tricked into thinking there is some "plan B"

  • Who can forgive sins but GOD?
      >  Exo 34:6
      >  Psa 86:5
      >  Mic 7:18-19
      >  Psa 103:12
      >  Ezek 36:25-26

  • Illustration:  Edgar Allen Poe... "the telltale heart".  No matter how we try and cover up our sinful deed it still calls out to our tortured conscious... it still "beats" beneath the floorboards of our so called "good deeds"

4.  The Payment is... CHRIST
  • This is the GOOD NEWS!... this is what separates Biblical Christianity from everything else

  • All false beliefs begin with me... what can I DO... what can I DO instead of what Christ has DONE.

  • lookup Isa 53:5-6;  1 John 4:10-11

  • He paid a debt he did not OWE... I owe a debt I could not PAY!... we call this "Substitutionary Atonement"

5.  The Choice is... BELIEVE
  • vs 2  "Jesus, seeing their faith"

  • NO ONE else can do this for you... Faith overcomes obstacles!.  Consider the "Pear of Great Price"...

  • Believe on Jesus... and what he accomplished on the cross... Tit 3:5;  Eph 2:8-9;  Rom 6:23

  • Abandon your PRIDE... abandon your STUBBORNNESS!

  • Illustration:  You have a brother... I am a murderer and sentenced to death... your brother stepped in and took my place... imagine then if you heard me talking about why I was pardoned and I explained that it was because overall I was still a pretty good person and they let me free... how great would be your rage?  How great is Gods just anger when we exalt our works over the cross work of His Son?

  • Heb 10:29-30  Hell is not deep enough to satisfy the wrath of God against those who treat the sacrifice of Christ as a trivial or worthless thing

6.  The Time is... NOW!
  • The problem is SIN... hell is your future... and forgiveness is your need... Jesus is your ONLY HOPE... The choice is yours...

  • Are you ready to CHOOSE?... ready to choose the forgiveness of Jesus.  Make the choice to believe that Jesus alone has the authority to forgive sins.  Repent of every other way and trust in Jesus as your Lord and as your Savior

CONCLUSION
  • Choose God's Forgiveness 
  • Do you KNOW FOR SURE that you are forgiven?  You can be forgiven.
  • confess your sin to God...confess that you deserve hell but that you NEED and want to RECEIVE Christ... receive His forgiveness and His Lordship over your life.  Receive eternal LIFE!  Thank you God!

I have shared this with a few of our youth group teens, and some people have heard me talk about "preaching the gospe to yourself" and they have wondered what I meant.  So here goes...

  One
of the best pieces of advice I have ever received was that the believer
needs to preach the gospel to THEMSELVES. We tend to think that once we
are saved we don't need the gospel anymore and that only "lost people"
need the gospel but that's not true. Rehearse the gospel to yourself...
tell yourself everyday the story of how sinful and lost and undeserving
you were... how high and holy and awesome God is... and that Jesus
Christ, the righteous one, descended to an ungrateful, sinful, broken
world so that He could redeem and rescue a lost and undeserving
people... and that all that is required of me is that I respond to
Jesus by turning from myself and trusting in Him as my Master and my
Savior. WOW! that is awesomely awesome!!

  If you do that
everyday, that will change your life... when I think about the gospel I
can't help but praise Him... I can't help but be filled with joy... I
can't help but to want to read His Word and Pray to Him and meet with
His people and share His message with others.  I want to serve Christ not out of a grudging sense of duty but out of a heart overflowing with gratitude.  I can't help but forgive other people because when I preach the gospel to myself I am reminded of how much I am forgiven.  Every motivation for every good thing is rooted in the Good News that "Jesus Saves".  When I consider the Great God of the universe becoming a Man, stepping into our broken world, and rescuing a rebellious, wicked, lost people... How can I be selfish, who am I?  How can I be proud, of what?  How can I be bitter?  How can I indulge a sin Jesus died to pay?  How can I be apathetic toward spiritual growth, or the church, or the lost?

Get it?

  Life
WILL ebb and flow. It will go up and down. Its nothing to feel ashamed
or guilty about. BUT rehearse the gospel to yourself and you might be
surprised how it totally changes your point of view. Everyone has time
of happiness and times of sadness... what separates the spiritually
MATURE from the spiritually IMMATURE is how you RESPOND to it.
Constantly, consistently reminding yourself of the good news of Jesus
is a mature way respond and a mature way to improve your attitude.

  Some time ago I
memorized a little acrostic that I could use to help me remember the
key points of the gospel when witnessing to someone. The interesting
thing though is that it has been invaluable to me to rehearse the
points of the gospel to MYSELF. Maybe you will think its helpful to.
The acrostic is based on the word "GRACE"...

G od is our Holy Creator & Righteous Judge
R ighteousness is required (only God is)
A ll have sinned (thats us)
C hrist died for sinners (the righteous for the unrighteous)
E veryone must repent, trust Jesus as Lord & Savior

  To
sum up the story... The good news is that God is our holy Creator and
righteous Judge. He created us to worship Him and enjoy Him forever,
BUT we have all sinned, both in Adam as our representative, and in our
own individual actions. We therefore deserve the judgment of death
(spiritual separation from God in hell). We are in fact, already
spiritually dead, completely helpless in our sinful state and in need
of God to impart spiritual life to us and rescue us from the penalty of
sin. God sent His Son Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, to be
punished in our place. He died on the cross and rose from the dead to
pay the penalty of our sins. God’s forgiveness and the gift of eternal
life are neither earned nor deserved, but rather it is available to men
by God's grace alone, through faith alone. If we would have Christ's
perfect righteousness credited to us, and the penalty of our sins
accounted to Him, then we must respond by turning from our sin and
trusting in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

  Remember... In
this life believers are promised trials, temptations, and persecution
(2 Tim 3:12). Christians don’t come to Jesus for an easy life, we come
to Him to be made right with God, for forgiveness, and eternal life. We
know God loves us NOT because life becomes easier, BUT because He
demonstrated that love for us on the cross.

1.   She's my best friend.
2.   She loves Jesus!
3.   She's often hilariously funny.
4.   She laughs with me, and only rarely laughs at me!
5.   She's smart and has a good sense about people.
6.   She's ridiculously cute.
7.   Nice booty!
8.   She's a great mom (is it bad that this comes after the "booty" one?).
9.   She is supportive of my ideas and dreams.
10.  She is the only person I completely trust.
11.  She loves the church and uses her spiritual gifts.
12.  She endures my endless piles of books.
13.  We have a lot of fun together and she still enjoys a "date night" with me.
14.  She totally geeks out with me at superhero movies.
15.  She has beautiful eyes!

The Quote of the Week:

"...You're gonna have to serve somebody, Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you're gonna have to serve somebody.  You might be a rock 'n' roll addict prancing on the stage, You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage, You may be a business man or some high degree thief, They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You're gonna have to serve somebody"  -  Bob Dylan