Unleashed: As You Go – Pray

“Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” Matthew 9:2

Do you remember your first loan? I signed my name on the loan papers for a used 1968 Dodge Charger when I was in high school! Over the next many months, working after school, doing odd jobs, I made the monthly bank payment for my car. I quickly learned the definition of debt, “Something owed, such as money, goods, or services. An obligation or liability to pay or render something to someone else.” I drove the car, but technically the car belonged to the local bank until the day I made the final payment and my debt was paid in full.

The feeling of being debt free was as amazing then as it is now. The same feeling was experienced yesterday as our church celebrated being Unleashed. It was an amazing day of celebration and praise as we watched the note that had kept us leashed to debt for years, go up in flames. Yesterday marks a new beginning when our church will no longer be leashed to debt.

Paying off a debt places the responsibility on us as an obligation, compared to forgiveness that places the responsibility on another person to extend grace. The lender holds no claim on you since you made the last payment but in a richer life-giving way, the one extending forgiveness holds no claim on you since you have been forgiven. I knew I could pay off the car loan given enough time and payments. Our church knew that we could pay off the building note even if it took years. However, there is one debt we could never pay off without help. Scripture tells us that, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).

Jim Denison tells the story of a priest in the Philippines who carried the burden of a secret sin from years before. He repeatedly confessed the sin to God but never found peace until he learned the power of forgiveness. A woman in his parish loved God deeply and claimed to have visions in which she spoke directly with her Lord. The priest was skeptical and said “the next time you speak with Christ, I want you to ask him what sin your priest committed while he was in seminary.” The woman agreed.

“A few days later, the priest asked her, “Did Christ visit you?”

“Yes, he did,” she replied.

“And did you ask him what sin I committed in the seminary?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“He said, ‘I don’t remember.’”

Forgiveness is freedom. No longer do we carry the burden of debt. No longer do we worry about the next payment. No longer do we allow our past to destroy our future. Astronomer Copernicus asked that this epitaph be on his grave: “O Lord, the faith thou didst give to St. Paul, I cannot ask; the mercy thou didst show to St. Peter, I dare not ask; but Lord, the grace thou didst show unto the dying robber, that, Lord, show to me.”

Matthew records that Jesus confronted the teachers of the law who objected to Jesus’ words to the paralyzed man in chapter 9 that his sins were forgiven. Most likely they would have been OK if Jesus had simply healed the man but not the bold declaration of, “your sins are forgiven.” Yet Jesus would not let the man be held in bondage and responded to their unforgiving legalism by saying, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven, or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” Then he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” (9:4-6)

We are wonderfully and beautifully reminded that, “as far as the east is from the west…he removed our transgressions from us,” (Ps 103:12) and “whose sin the Lord will never count against him.” (Romans 4:8) Forgiveness based on the promise “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” (2 Cor 5:19)

In Jesus, our forgiveness is complete.

God is great,

Pastor Lynn