“If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.”
~ Psalm 130:3&4 (NIV)
As a congregation we read this verse out loud in church this morning, and it struck me.
This sums it all up. This is why we follow Jesus! We follow him because he forgives. Without that forgiveness we would have no hope, so we wouldn’t even try. We know we can never be perfect on our own. That is why I’m doing the World Race.
So why exactly is this forgiveness so important? Let me explain it to you.
My senior year of high school I very nearly got an “F” in a class. On the first day of the semester the teacher gave us a homework assignment. We had to look up a specific article online, read it, then write a one paragraph response to it. This response needed to be turned in at the beginning of class the next day. Well, that night I spent well over an hour online trying to find this article. I couldn’t find it anywhere. I found the website it was supposed to be on, but I couldn’t find the article. I tried and tried, but eventually I had to move on and get homework done for my other classes. Thus, the next morning in class I had nothing to turn in, but not due to lack of trying. I simply could not write a response to an article I could not find.
I explained the circumstances to my teacher. He didn’t care. In class he handed out the illusive article. I read it and wrote a response, which I tried to had in at the end of class. He wouldn’t accept it. Homework could only be turned in at the beginning of class, he told me, no exceptions. It didn’t matter that I had spent hours the night before trying my best to do this stupid assignment, all that mattered was the fact I’d been unable to get it done. There was no understanding.
After that second day of class I gave up. If my best wasn’t good enough, why even try? I went to class. I participated in discussions, that is until the teacher told me I talked too much and needed to be quiet, then I just stopped paying attention in class. I very rarely did my homework. No surprise, by halfway through the semester I had an “F” At that point the teacher called my mom, we had a rather unpleasant meeting with the teacher, I cried and promised to try better. I did too, but not for that teacher, whom I had decided I could never please. No, I did it for my mom, who only wanted the best for me. My final grade in that class was a “C”, my worst grade in all of high school, but at least I passed!
As humans we don’t like to do things if we have no hope of success, if our best isn’t good enough. We can never be perfect, so most of us don’t even try. Why try if you know you are going to fail? We try because God wants the best for us.
This is why God forgives. He knows as humans we can never meet the standards of holiness he has set. We sin, we fall short of the mark no matter how hard we try. So he sent his Son, Jesus, to be perfect in our place and to be the sacrifice for our imperfection.
God forgives our sins, because of this we follow him. If he didn’t forgive there would be no point in even trying to follow him, but because he forgives our shortcomings we keep trying.
This is why I’m doing the World Race. God created us to follow him, to have a relationship with him. When we fail, as we will inevitably do at some point in our lives, he forgives. I want every single person on Earth to know this, to know that there is hope, because God loves and forgives! So, I’m going to tell them.
However, it’s not easy to think about things like that when you’re stuck in a bad situation, when your physical needs aren’t met. Because of this, we will be working with established churches and ministries in each location. Our ministry hosts will know what their people need most and how we can help them as we evangelize and disciple. In some places we will be teaching English. In other places we will be working with women who have been sex trafficked. In still others we will be spending time in orphanages, caring for these children, helping to meet their day-to-day needs. Everywhere we will be praying for people. Everywhere we will be sharing the Gospel.
We follow God because he forgives us. He loves us, no matter what. Everywhere we go, I want to be sharing this message.
