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Hillview Bible Chapel is a vibrant Bible-based church centered on the Lord Jesus Christ, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Join us each week as we learn from God's Word together. To learn more about Hillview Bible Chapel, please visit https://hillviewbiblechapel.org
Good to be here this morning. Thank you for the opportunity to share from God's Word.
I would encourage you to open up your Bibles to Romans chapter 4.
We're going to continue our journey as we consider the cross-shaped life.
And I think of like living in the shadow of the cross.
So let's read from Romans chapter 4 starting in verse 1. We're going to read the first 8 verses.
What then shall we say was gained by Abraham our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.
And to the one who does not work, but believes in him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.
Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.
Let's just pray again together this morning.
Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for these words that we'll look at this morning.
May it empower our lives to live lives shaped from the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
May it shape our Monday, Father, not just our Sunday in our ears that we hear, but in our lives that we live out day to day.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Well, I've told a story about me, you know, back in 1988, I know whenever, I've seen these little memes on Instagram where you say, when were you born? As soon as you say 19, like this ominous music plays, so yeah, I know, I've seen those, and it hurts, but it's okay.
So back in 1988, I drove from Hayward and came here, and this young lady over here was playing the piano, and we won't talk about the history, but I didn't tell the story of something that happened on the way to that actual day I was driving.
And of course, 880 was pretty lonely as it often is on Sunday morning at whatever time it was, 730 or something. And as I gazed into my rear-view mirror, all of a sudden there was this black sedan behind me that looked awfully similar to the fellows of the CHP. And all doubts left aside when the red light came on and I was pulled over.
I had this cute tie on. My Bible was in the right-hand seat. He pulls up and of course asked for the normal things.
I did that and gave it to him. He went back and did all his checking.
And for those of you who were around in 1988, this was the car that I was driving. It was kind of cool.
And anyway, you can see what we look like in 1988. There we are. Or that's 1989. But anyway, and so he came back and he had my license registration and asked me where I was going in such a hurry. And I said, well, believe it or not, I'm going to church. You know, and he basically said, well, slow it down.
And then he walked away.
No ticket, no written warning, just slow it down and walked away.
I mean, at that moment, if you have been in that situation, like the immense relief that you feel, like I don't have to go do the, what is it, the, you know, obviously pay the ticket or do the time, you know, it's like what is it, you have to go do a driver's safety or I mean just the relief of not having to do that.
I kind of thought like this is what the front of the car looked like, not mine, but others.
It's like, I think I was profiled, honestly, a little bit, if I have to be honest.
But I mean, that immense sense of like, wow, I just have escaped.
I've been forgiven.
I don't have this hanging over me, these points or whatever. I mean that's a small flavor of probably what you felt when you've experienced forgiveness, right? You have this sense of relief like, wow, I feel different. I feel like I'm a changed person. And of course, if you were here this morning for Breaking like I'm a changed person.
And of course, if you were here this morning for Breaking Every Day, we talked about forgiveness, and these songs talked about forgiveness.
And we're going to talk about these three words, and I'll highlight them in this passage.
This is really the only passage in scripture where all three of these words occur.
And there's so many passages you can go to when you're talking about these three words.
Matter of fact, if you read these three words, and I just said, forgiven, justified, righteous, you're like, what is a theology class? Are you breaking out the systematic theology books so we can dig in? And we're gonna do a little bit of that, right? Because that's kind of what it's about.
But the end result is this idea of we want to understand our position in light of the cross and how we work that out in our lives.
And so we're going to talk about all three of these words as we go along to help us understand really why we need these three words.
I want you to know that if you haven't placed your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, these three words don't really apply to you.
Most of what I'm going to say is not about you because you haven't experienced this forgiveness, this justification, and this righteousness.
But if you want to, if you want a little bit of this, man, come talk to me, come talk to somebody on this stage, because there's joyful and full abundant life in these three words.
So if you haven't experienced that, come talk to someone, because this can make a difference in your life.
But if you have placed your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is all about you, and sometimes you don't step into these words in a way that can change your life tomorrow morning when you go to work or school or whatever. So we want to talk about these things. So we're gonna start with this idea of forgiving. You know, these aren't these aren't sequential things, right? We, our minds think in like, okay, step one, step two, step two, step three, I've got these three points, and sometimes we think that salvation is this like, okay, it happens and then this happens.
These are all things that are happened all at once.
That's what the scripture teaches.
These things happen at the moment of salvation.
But we're gonna talk about them kind of in reverse order because, I don't know, Paul, maybe he got it out of order here, no, he didn't. But we're going to talk about them kind of in reverse order because, I don't know, Paul, maybe he got it out of order here.
No, he didn't.
But we're going to start with forgiven because that's, I think, the first thing you think about when you have salvation because we saw it in those songs, right? We're forgiven.
We talked about it this morning.
And this word carries the idea of sending away or releasing, of letting go, canceling, and that feeling that you had, right, when that guy walks away in that cool-looking uniform and leaves nothing to you in your hand, you're like, wow, he sent it away.
He canceled it.
I owe nothing.
I was thinking about in John chapter 8, I think it is, the woman caught in adultery, right? When Jesus was there and they're about ready to kill her, like if she's guilty, she's dead.
They're gonna stone her.
And he says, who he who is without sin cast the first stone.
Then he kind of looks away, walks right on the ground and everybody leaves.
And what does he say? Is there anyone who accuses you? She's like, no, there's no one here.
He's like, neither do I condemn you.
Go and sin no more.
Can you imagine from I'm gonna die, to all of a sudden, there's no condemnation.
Of course, we don't have any idea about her life in the future, but can you imagine in that moment, the sense of relief that she felt, that idea of forgiveness? And that's what David is saying here.
Paul writing about David speaks of the blessing.
Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
You know, if you go back to the passage, you know, this is Psalm 32, and of course, David, we know, bad sinner, murderer, adulterer, and this is kind of that result of him confessing.
It took a year, right, for him to go, okay, I confess, and really he didn't do it on his own.
The Nathan came and like convicted him of it.
But in his heart he said, for when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
I mean, sin, what a horrible guilt.
What a horrible burden. But forgiveness, forgiveness is a blessing.
Blessed are those who lawless deeds are forgiven. Blessed are those who the Lord does not count His sin.
What an amazing thought. Are you reveling in the forgiveness that you received through the Lord Jesus? I'm gonna look at some verses because and I'm gonna put them up here we're gonna see maybe 15 or something verses and you know when you're talking about a you know a topic like this you kind of want to go over because there's so many key verses so we're gonna start with this verse here in Colossians chapter 1.
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his dear son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin.
If you go another chapter you see, and he, you who are dead in your trespasses and sin and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing to the cross. You know, we have debts to pay, right? I put this up here. Probably, you know, if you're much younger than me, then you haven't actually done anything with a ledger, you know? We used to balance the checkbook, you know, you got the pluses and the minuses, you do every month, you write whose balance checkbooks in their time? Most people with gray hair, right? But this is what we have, right? We have these debts that we have to pay. Can anyone relate to any one of these debts? Probably you don't have to raise your hand. Okay, yeah, okay.
Everyone raise your hands. Sure, sure. There's enough here to pretty much capture all of us. And these are debts that we owe, right? We, as was already said, we can't pay these off. No amount of money, church attendance, good works. You don't have enough promises that you can give to God to pay for any of this. And so we've got to have a way to get rid of this but God in His mercy did that for us, right? He cancelled our debts. I mean can you imagine all these things that we have if you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, they're cancelled. They're gone and forgiven.
That's hard to imagine, right? Because we don't feel sometimes forgiven. We don't feel like we've really changed. And we know we can't work it out, but the gospel comes along and says the debt has been paid. It's not like sin doesn't matter, right? God doesn't say, you know what, it's just a little mistake or it doesn't really matter. It matters so much that God had to send his only son, the Lord Jesus, and take those debts on himself and pay for it on the cross of Calvary.
That's how much my sin and your sin matter to God.
And yet He still forgives us when we trust in Him.
1 John 1 says, If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from what? All sin.
All sin.
That's kind of what this says, right? All our trespasses.
All our trespasses.
I mean past, present, future, all our trespasses.
That's what that means. That we're forgiven past, present, future, all our trust, but that's what that means, that we're forgiven past, present, and future. That's living the cross-shaped life, realizing that even though I sin now, God has forgiven all those sins. So when we confess our sins, which He wants us to do, we're just establishing that relationship again. It breaks the relationship when we sin. But our sins have been forgiven and taken and paid for by the blood of the cross through Calvary.
There's this verse that someone actually already read. It says, Psalm 103, as far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us.
I was a navigator and so I kind of know my way around like latitude and longitude.
You've probably heard this but if you start going like North or South you eventually have to reverse.
You start going North eventually you have to go South again, right? And when you start going South eventually in the globe you got to go North again.
There's no way around it but But when you start east or west, you're always traveling east or west. Meaning east and west, it's infinite. The difference between east and west on our globe is infinite. That's how far God has separated us from our sin. That's pretty remarkable. Not only does He separate from us but He decides to remember them no more. He has decided to not remember our transgressions. I will remember their sin no more. Fortunately, the way God paid for our debts through the Lord Jesus Christ, it's not about how worthy you are or I am to merit forgiveness, right? Our forgiveness is not based upon how worthy you and I are.
It's based upon the worthiness of the Lord Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for your sin. Is the Lord Jesus Christ worthy enough? Absolutely. Are we? No. No, because we rest on the worthiness of the sacrifice, not on our own worthiness. And so sometimes I think we feel like, yes, I believe I'm forgiven, but man, I still don't feel that great because I still fail, I still sin, I'm not sure.
And this is really where justification kind of comes in.
Justification basically gives us the insight into how that guilt is taken care of that lingers in our hearts.
Justification is used twice here, and it's used about Abraham, right? We can see the words.
I love this rhetorical question.
He never really answered this question directly, verse one there, what should we say, you know, what was gained by Abraham our forefather according to the flesh? In other words, he's trying to do these works. Does Abraham gain anything from them? And he doesn't actually say no, but that's the answer, right? I mean over and over again he's justified not by the works that He's done.
He's justified by faith, by believing.
You know I was thinking about this story that Jesus told in Luke chapter 18. You probably know it about the tax collector and the Pharisee. They both go into the temple. Jesus is telling the story and the tax collector or the Pharisee is like, I'm glad I'm like everyone else, right? And what does the tax collector do? Beats his breasts, you know, and God be merciful to me a sinner. And what does he say I tell you this man rather than the other went home what? justified before God the humility humbling himself You know just like Justification we have these we have these debts right and so we we have these debts and we know they're canceled but we don't feel that great because we still sin. We still feel like, am I going to be accepted before God even though these things, I kind of understand that they're they're forgiven. And the reality is we have to understand what justification is about, right? What's interesting is in this passage I kind of hit it, I'll go back, is that look at that that phrase in verse 5, God is the one who justifies who? God justifies the ungodly. Anybody? Raise your hand for that one. Yeah, that was us, right? That's us. You know, you got Abraham. He talks about Abraham. He talks about David.
And we can all fit into this idea of God justifying the ungodly. I mean, probably if you were going on the street, you know, out of a thousand people, probably 950 would say, what? I'm actually pretty good. You know would they say you're ungodly Maybe not, but that's the reality God justifies the ungodly Justification has a lot of meanings. It's really it's an accounting term. It's a legal term, but as I thought justification my mind went back again to the 1980s. And you know, if you were writing a paper like I was in the 1980s, a few of us were, you used a typewriter. I know you guys don't know what that is, but there we used to use typewriters. And the left side looked pretty good, but the right side would always be jagged, right? It would, it would be kind of edgy.
If you were represented in that right-hand side, you'd be like, if I bumped up against you, you'd be like, ow, that's a little edgy, it's a little jagged, right? And the idea of justification is that God takes that jaggedy edge and all of a sudden, the power of Microsoft Word, you know, it's justified, it's straight, it looks really good, it looks right and that's what God does when he justifies the ungodly is that he takes these jagged edges and makes them look straight. So let's look at some verses about justification.
Galatians, I mean if you want to talk about justification, you basically are in Romans and Galatians mostly.
Galatians and Romans are so similar in this. We know that a person is not justified by the work of the law.
I mean they were trying to do everything in their power to earn justification in Galatians and Paul was like, no, stop it.
It's not about circumcision or keeping the law or doing traditions or whatever.
Ceremonies? No. He says a person is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law because by the works of the law no one will be justified. I mean three times he mentions justification and basically says works of the law, no. Faith in Christ, yes. You're justified, justified, justified.
Not only does He do that, so the work that we do, the things that we accomplish, the ministry that we do is not justifying us before God.
Familiar passage in Romans 4, if you keep going in Romans 4, who was delivered, speaking of Jesus, for our transgression and raised for our justification.
So we gotta remember that our work doesn't do it, but Jesus did it all, raised.
I mean, He died and was raised again for our justification.
So the idea of justification again is not about us, it's about what Jesus did on the cross. And then you're familiar with this verse if you read Romans 3, 23 which we'll look at again today, but in 26 it says, it was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be what? The just and the justifier, right? Of the one who has faith in Jesus. You know, if I had probably decided I wanted to talk to that policeman a little bit like, hey, have you been speeding lately? He probably wouldn't appreciate it, probably would have written me a ticket. He probably wouldn't have had that internal thing like, yeah, you know what? I'm kind of guilty too. I'm going to let you go.
That would have been probably the right answer.
But he wasn't probably perfect in that.
He wasn't just.
But here we have a just God who is just, but He's also the justifier.
So He's perfect.
He's just.
And yet He is also the justifier. So He's perfect. He's just. And yet, He is also the justifier. I think of this thought came into my mind as I was thinking through this that God knows the very worst of who I am and still decides to forgive me and justify me.
Have you thought about that? Whether that's in your past, whether that's in your present, whether that's in your future, God has already known the worst of who you are and says, forgiven. He says, justify, and you place your faith and your trust in Him. And it's all because of what Jesus did. We must go on. It was to show His righteousness at the present time in Romans 3.26. Oh, I'm sorry.
I didn't click it. There we go.
So God is just. He's the just and the justifier. And then in Romans chapter 5 verse 1, again a very familiar passage.
Since we have been justified we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace is really the outcome right? It's the result of this. If God knows us 100% and we are forgiven and justified, that should give us peace, that should give us rest despite even when we're not doing what we should do.
Romans 8, Paul writes, who is going to bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
Who is to condemn.
So God has basically said, you're justified.
I place a verdict.
This idea of justified, in every way we see this over and over again, piece of the result of how do we get justification, how do we get forgiveness, how are we going to get the next word which is going to be righteous? It all comes through faith. I mean look at the amount of times in these verses that we see these words believe in faith believe and faith You have to understand that your obedience is not the basis for your acceptance by God.
Your obedience is not the basis for your acceptance by God.
It actually is the fruit of your acceptance.
When we are accepted by God, the fruit of what we do is what that's about.
It doesn't earn us.
It's an outflow of our acceptance before God.
And so this idea of believing by faith is kind of interesting.
Romans chapter 4, the part that we read, it's like 11 times I think in Romans chapter 4, he uses faith and belief.
It's foundational to our salvation and when we have faith, when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ These are the things that that we get we get forgiveness we get justification So As we can see our heart little debt. You know they kind of mounted up forgiveness God's Cancelling that debt so so how does justification fit in if our debts are canceled? The reality is that we've been given a divine verdict. Not a verdict that we deserved. Not a verdict that we earned because, well, it's been pretty good this week. No, it's a divine verdict that you and I have received at the moment of salvation. And it basically says you're not guilty. It basically says that you've been acquitted, just, innocent, you're right.
That's what justification is all about. That we get at the moment of salvation. I know it's still you're kind of like, wait a minute. I mean I know a little bit about who God is. I remember, you know, Isaiah when he came into contact with the Holy God, he fell on his face and we've seen in Scripture like, holy, holy, holy, how am I possibly going to be accepted into that person, that God who is holy, holy, holy, how is that possible? And this is where really that last word comes into play because you can see it here right, right? That's just part of this third word which is righteousness, righteousness.
And this is again, goes back to David.
He talks about it three times that he uses this idea of righteousness. Notice, notice he talks about, again, he talks about Abraham. He talks about David and he talks about you and I. We're, we're these ungodly people, right? Along with David and Abraham, but that, he gets everybody in this group that we all can enjoy righteousness. And notice Paul doesn't say that you know Abraham because he was such a good guy earned his righteousness. You know he didn't say that David you know he yeah he stumbled but man he was a man of God's own heart. He rated righteousness and he doesn't say that you and I merited righteousness.
He uses a term five times in this passage.
He uses this idea of counting.
If I underline it, you'll see it.
Counting, counting, counting.
Again, a lot of this goes back to legal and accounting terms, right? And it doesn't mean we do anything, it just all of a sudden it like appears on our credit side.
It appears in our ledger that like what is all this stuff on the right hand side that I didn't deserve, that I didn't earn, this righteousness.
What is this that you're speaking of? I mean if you and I had tried to submit our claims, you know, that credit side, all the things that we've done, we would fall woefully short.
It would be all kind of a laughing matter, really. If we said, look, God, matter of fact, Dave Westwood even said, like, here's some pistachios, here's some almonds, here's some good things that I've done. Probably Isaiah said it most appropriately in Isaiah 64, 6.
For all of us have become like the one who is unclean. All our righteous deeds are as what? Filthy rags.
All our righteousness is filthy rags. It says there is no one righteous. No one does good. I mean it's an indictment against who we are and the only way out is to figure out what is God doing in that right hand column that gives us relief from all that. So let's look at this idea of righteous and let's read a few verses that would help us.
In 1 Corinthians 5 21, for our sake, He, God, made Him, Jesus, to be sin who knew no sin that we, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God, the righteousness of God.
So again, it's not ours.
We didn't earn it.
It's the righteousness of God. So again, it's not ours. We didn't earn it. It's the righteousness of God, right? The one who knew no sin was made sin so that we might have the righteousness of God. Now we'll look at a long passage, very familiar. I won't read it all, but let's just look at some of the key verses. Obviously we have Romans 3 and 23 which we all know, for all have sinned and fall short. Okay, that's...
yep, got that. That's probably a key verse. And yet here we see over and over again the righteousness of God, the righteousness of God, His righteousness, God's righteousness. That is nothing that we earned, nothing that we deserved.
You know it's almost like when we're grafted into the vine that God uses that terminology, right? The nutrients, we're not producing this on our own. We have to be grafted in and we're part of the true vine, right? The righteousness that we have does not come from ourselves.
It's interesting, because Martin Luther, he writes this, I'll butcher this, but he writes, simul justus et practore, it's way off, but that's okay, but it means at the same time, righteous and a sinner, at the same time time righteous and a sinner. At the same time righteous and a sinner. And that's what God does for us by giving us His righteousness even though we fall short. We're like how is that possible? God gives us His. We see examples of that in Scripture many times, you know, but we lay all of our unrighteous deeds, all of our ungodly deeds, it's at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, right? And then He credits our account with with righteousness. So we have God's righteousness. We can't forget that. So often we are working so hard at righteousness about doing all the things. And legalism is what captures our hearts and like we can do better. I can work harder. I know God will accept me if I just put in the extra work.
And God says, I'm going to give you my righteousness.
And you work from a righteous position, a righteous standing.
Look at also what he says in these passages right here.
He says, I'm going to show, I'm going to manifest, I'm going to show.
In other words, God wanted to demonstrate what His righteousness was all about and that's why He sent the Lord Jesus.
He could have stood in the throne of heaven and declared as He did, holy, holy, holy, I am the perfect God.
But what He did to buy our justification, our forgiveness and our righteousness, what He demonstrated through the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect sacrifice.
He demonstrated and showed just how important this was by sending His own Son, the Lord Jesus.
By a single offering it says in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 4, He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Notice, we're being sanctified.
We're not there yet, right? We're still struggling, and we should struggle with this idea of sanctification wrestling, but at the same time it says He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
That's why Martin Luther says, oh, how can you be a sinner and righteous at the same time? It's because of this.
He is perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
And so we are perfect.
You're perfect.
I know you and I, you know, Rosanna can attest, if, if you ask her, she'll tell you, reluctantly maybe, hopefully, that I'm not perfect.
But in God's eyes, He sees us as perfect because He sees the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He doesn't see what we've done.
So He were perfect. And then again, this doesn't come by effort, this comes simply by faith. I mean, look how many times in this passage of Romans 3, four times talks about believing in faith. There's not an effort there. There's trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, as we think about this idea of these debits and these things that we all raise our hands and say, yes, God has forgiven all of us.
Past, present, future, God has forgiven us.
At the moment of salvation, said, I forgive you.
And then, he takes our guilt, he takes all the things, the icky feeling that we feel inside and he says, I'm going to justify you and declare you not guilty.
I'm going to declare you right and acquit your, the verdict that we have and I'm going to acquit you and make it so that you're innocent and standing.
But you can say, you know, what then but then what? I don't know. I kind of think about this idea of have you ever been to a place and you found out either maybe you had a big stain on your garment or perhaps you were underdressed and you walk in you're like, ugh, I just don't fit in here, right? Well, forgiveness is they go, you know what, we'll just overlook that.
Come on in. Come on in and enjoy the food.
You're good. You're going to be good.
And you're like, okay, I can enjoy the food.
I can enjoy fellowship even though I'm dirty or stained or maybe it's jacket and tie and I came in a polo.
They just say, come on in.
And justify means like, hey, I've got this poncho.
I mean, it's not a jacket, but it'll cover like all those things so they won't know that you're actually you know not wearing cool clothes or the right clothes I'm gonna put that over you and then they'll just be guessing but there won't know but but then someone comes along hey come here upstairs come upstairs to my bedroom I got this jacket and this tie and this shirt. Let's put it on.
And now you have the righteousness, right? So you're welcomed in, just kind of justify you're declared innocent because they don't really know, but then you have the righteousness of God by having a new clothes.
So you step in and you're like, wow, I feel better. And so you have your credit side is all about the righteousness of God and what you receive. So what an amazing thing we have when we think about these three words, right? So how do we live that out tomorrow? How do we live the fact that we're going to be facing things tomorrow? The knowledge that our sins are forgiven, that Jesus took the debts on that left-hand column and said, I forgive you, my debts have been canceled. This idea of Jesus being raised and the power of his resurrection, he basically says, I declare you innocent.
And then Jesus being the perfect sacrifice.
So God showcased, not just some cool guy, but showcased the perfect sacrifice, the one who knew no sin became sin.
The perfect sacrifice.
So my standing, my standing is perfection. So trying to live that out when you face anxiety, this person is super good and you're just not feeling it.
How do you step into that without the feeling of being trapped in legalism and self-doubt? And if you can embrace these terms that God has given you as a result of your salvation, that You're forgiven, you're justified, and you're righteous.
So we have this resting in the complete forgiveness of what He wants.
We don't, you know, we confess our sins to have a better relationship.
We confess our sins with each other.
Sometimes we don't feel forgiven because why? We remember, right? If you're like me, you remember sins, but God says He doesn't.
And so we can rest in that.
We don't need to earn God's acceptance.
He's promised to accept us because of what the Lord Jesus has done.
He also says we can live in freedom because of that acceptance. And the outflow of thatgrims Progress, and all along the way, you know, he's been carrying this backpack loaded up with horrible things, all the things of his life that weighed him down.
And he couldn't figure out how to get rid of that burden.
And then he goes through these walls that are labeled salvation, and he sees a cross as he comes to the crest of the hill.
And he comes to the crest of the hill.
And he comes to the cross.
And you know what happens? He doesn't get to the cross and like, okay, let me untie myself from these straps so I can get rid of this.
No.
The burden just falls off.
He comes to the cross and the burdens are released and they fall into a tomb.
Not because he had to like struggle to get them off, not because he had to untie his burden.
No.
At the feet of the cross, the burdens fell away.
It was kind of this automatic release.
He didn't untie the pack.
The straps snapped on their own and they tumble down the hill. And Bunyan writes a simple but profound line, and I saw it no more. I saw it no more. Are you seeing things that God has said, I'm not seeing that. Are you seeing that freedom apart from that? And Christian, you know, he stands there weeping, realizing that the solution to his guilt wasn't all that walking and going to different places and the personal effort but the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus.
And he said, He has given me rest by His sorrow and life by his death.
I hope that you can rest in the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus, rest in his justification, rest and live out of the abundance of the righteousness that we have.
Let's just pray.
Father, thank you for the truths of your word that give us the freedom to walk an abundant life.
So often we're trapped by guilt, by sorrow, by comparison, by legalism, so many things that capture our hearts.
Father, it weighs us down, and in the end it causes us to want to work, to be accepted into your presence. and as we've heard already today Father we can come boldly into the presence of the Lord the throne of grace to find mercy and help in time of need. Father help us to not run away from you as Adam and Eve did when they sinned but run toward you. You know our sin. You know our difficulty. Help us run to you knowing that we've been justified, we've been made righteous so that we can find the freedom to live a life of abundant life for you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.