Sponge

Philippians 2:12-13 NIV

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence — continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

What Is Inside You?

When I was teen, I began to make rapid progress as a Christian.  I read my Bible daily, prayed, attended church services faithfully and was an active part of the youth program.  I didn’t smoke or drink or use drugs.  I was made a children’s Sunday school teacher and served as narrator for our church Christmas Cantata.  (They wouldn’t let me sing)  I had become intrigued with contemporary Christian music and was starting to read books about the faith.  During one of my daily Bible readings, I came across a verse that sent me reeling.  There was nothing profound in it; the simplicity of its message was like a hammer though.  Up to this point and even much longer I played lots of basketball and I was on the court no different than any of the other players.  I talked trash and I used lots of foul language.  Now I justified my cursing by saying that I was just expressing myself; that just like adjectives and adverbs make language more colorful and expand on communication capabilities, so too curse words were an effective way o making my points stronger and more demonstrative.  But then I came face to face with Colossians 3: 8.  But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. (NIV)  I was now up against it because I realized that God was not pleased at all the cussing coming out of me.  Profanity was clearly prohibited by the Lord.  But that profanity was within me…it did not spring out of a vacuum.  I had to decide not only how I was to deal with the swear words coming out of me but also the cursing that was within me.

If you were a sponge and were squeezed, what would come out of you?  Would it be love and mercy and kindness or anger and frustration and worry?  How do you look on the inside?  Where no one else can see, what do you find there?  This is not a matter of what have you hidden from others.  It is a question of what actually you are right now.  Much is made in the field of psychology of how we mustn’t bottle up our feelings and that may or may not be important.  Our concern today is much more profound.  What shall we do about who we really are?  What will you do about who you really are?

The Bible makes much of what you really are rather than what you or others think of who you are.  Paul the Apostle took seriously this matter of what is inside you and said, Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence — continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (Philippians 2:12-13 NIV)  There is something that happens to us when we put our trust in Jesus Christ to make us new people.  Through Jesus’ death on the cross, a profound change occurs in us.  The Bible calls it “salvation” and that is a good term for what God does in us through Christ.  Jesus referred to it as being “born again”.  In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” (John 3:3 NIV)  A miracle occurred when Jesus gave up His life on the cross.  It opened the way for God to come into us and become a part of us, His personality merged into ours.  To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27 NIV)

Now it is strange to think of Christ being a part of us and we have to adjust our thinking to accommodate this.  If Christ is in you, then that impacts every bit of your life.  You think with Christ being a part of your thinking, you have emotional responses to situations and Christ is a part of that too.  Even your actions are done with Christ as a part of them.  Through the work of Jesus Christ dying on the cross, this is actual and not symbolic.  The life of Jesus Christ is joined to yours and the two lives become one new life.  Paul put it this way.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3 NIV)

We are like a sponge filled with Christ.  The way He comes out of us though is if we obey what He tells us in Scripture or by direct revelation at a personal level.  That is what Paul means by “as you have always obeyed.”  Our salvation is worked out of us when we do what God tells us to do.  For example, when the Lord told the Apostles to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came upon them, they could have decided to go other places…to Bethel, to Capernaum, to Nazareth.  It would have been logical to leave Jerusalem because the opposition to Christ was strongest there and it was potentially deadly.  They stayed though and the Holy Spirit did come upon them and Christ came out of them through speaking in foreign languages and preaching that changed the lives of those who heard it.

Another example would be when Peter was told to go meet with a group of non-Jews and answer their questions about Christian faith.  This would have been absurd to Peter before Christ became a part of him.  Peter had thought that God didn’t want Jews to have anything to do with non-Jews but with Christ joined to him, it became clear that God loved non-Jewish people and they too were to gain salvation.  A Roman soldier was told by an angel that he needed to hear the Christian message from someone he did not know, Peter.  Cornelius stared at him (the angel) in fear. "What is it, Lord?" he asked.  The angel answered, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.  Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. (Acts 10:4-5 NIV)  When the servants of the Roman soldier came to the house where Peter was staying, the Lord spoke to Peter about going with the servants to meet with Cornelius the Roman.  Peter obeyed and like a sponge, the Lord was squeezed out of Peter and Cornelius and his family and friends became Christians.  This would not have happened though if Peter had disobeyed God.

Another example is found in the book of Acts.  Paul and Silas were traveling through what is now western Turkey when the Lord spoke to Paul in a dream to go across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia.  There they began preaching and even saw a few people become Christian but soon Paul and Silas were arrested and beaten and thrown in prison.  It was a terrible situation for them yet because Christ was living in both and had changed their personalities, like a sponge, Christ was squeezed out of them.  They joyfully sang praise songs and worshipped God in their cell.  This sort of happiness and contentment would not have been possible if the Lord was not a part of them, joined into their personalities.  When the pressure of being beaten and imprisoned squeezed them, out came the joy of the Lord.

Obedience to God brings out the best of us.  Take any command the Lord has given us:  do not judge or criticize, love your enemies, be sexually pure, pray and don’t worry, tithe.  Whenever we obey one of the least of God’s commands, Christ is squeezed out of us and our salvation is put into effect.  Your salvation is meaningless in the world about you if you don’t do what God tells you to do.  Every common act of obedience to Christ on our part is a miracle in the world.  Just think what our Lord will do through you if you do what He says!  Who knows what lives will be changed by the power of Christ working through you!  Consider just this one act of obedience.  Our Lord tells us to forgive what someone did to hurt us deeply.  We do forgive that offence.  As a result, that sin is no longer attached to the person.  You would stop talking about that sin and wrecking the person’s reputation.  People who would reject and maybe even despise that person would be open to loving and encouraging her.  She no longer has to live with the pain of what she has done…doesn’t have to hang her head in shame when she thinks about you.  Salvation has come to her and to all who could be hurt and angered by what she did.  It is not overstating this to say that generations could be impacted by our simple obedience to the command to forgive those who hurt us.  Salvation slips into lives through forgiveness.  It is a basic axiom of Christianity.

Forgiveness Journey

Hebrews 9:22 NIV

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

How Is Forgiveness Working For You?

A number of years ago I went whitewater rafting with some friends.  We were going through a particularly rough stretch of water when we came upon a bend in the river where a giant boulder stood at the turn.  The water was rushing fiercely through the gorge there and despite our river pilot in the back urging us to with our paddles turn the raft to the left, we didn’t make it and we came barreling into the boulder.  The force of our impact cause one of the guys at the front of the rubber inflated raft to be catapulted into the air and he went flying ten feet in the air backwards and into the pool of water behind us.  At that moment, we watched in shocked disbelief as he shot past us; we were going one way and he another.  We were suddenly going on separate journeys, us sliding upon onto a rock and down the river and him soaring through the air and back into the chaos of the swirling caldron of white-water.

All of us are on journeys; some going one way, others a different road.  There are those heading for higher education, others not interested in further schooling.  Some are building families, others prefer to stay single.  Many are trying to save all the money they can, still more looking for ways to spend it.  There are those wanting to connect with as many people as they can, others would prefer to be left alone.  Some like to take it easy, others would rather work hard.  Sometimes we decide what journey we take, other times the journey decides who we are.  You might be on a journey of honesty and integrity or a journey of fraud and corruption.  Our journeys may be similar or quite different but every one of us is on a journey and eventually it will bring us somewhere.

It seems that the Bible has described a pair of journeys that between which we all must choose.  The first is the journey of Sin and the other of Forgiveness.  Sin is what the Bible calls the “broad road” and many enter through it. (Matthew 7:13 NIV)  The journey of Forgiveness is narrow because few choose to take that path.  Sin is your default direction.  All are sinners and come short of God’s glory.  The result of being sinners is that we die in our sin.  The other journey is that of forgiveness.  Acts 10: 43 declares that from ancient times, the Lord has been telling us through His prophets that we can enter a journey of forgiven sins.  All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." (NIV)  The Bible throughout declares that one day and now it has come to pass, our sins would be taken from us, as the Psalm puts it, “as far away as the east is from the west.”  Through Jesus dying on the Cross, that has happened.  Paul in Ephesians 1:7 lists two results of Him dying on the Cross.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace… (NIV)  We are no longer slaves to sin and sinning and the guilt of our sin is removed.  We are now free to live completely in line with God and our lives immersed in Him.

Sin has a devastating effect upon our personality.  It leads to confusion, frustration, bitterness, depression, anger, selfishness, pride, discouragement, stress and worry.  The sins we commit always damage us and the long range effect cannot be calculated for it is too immense.  The sins others commit injure us terribly and we are mangled by both ends of sin.  What Christ has done by pouring out His blood on the Cross is begin the work of making us holy and free of the damage sin has caused us.  He is “redeeming” us, taking us out of it.  Because we have lived in a world of Sin and that is all we know, we are like a frog slowly cooking in a pot of water growing hotter by the hour.  We have never known life without the damage of sin and so we are not conscious of all it has done to us.  The Bible says that what Sin brings us is death…psychological death, social death, emotional death, mental death and eventually physical death.  The miracle of all time is that God decided to put an end to the destruction of Sin by placing all the sin of the world upon His Son Jesus Christ and letting the Sin itself die in His crucified body.

This of course may be “old hat” to you.  You understand the Cross and God’s work with Sin but here is something that must be considered profoundly in regard to sin forgiveness.  Jesus declared that our determination to forgive sins is linked to God’s generosity in forgiving our sins.  This is underscored in the model prayer He taught us during the Sermon on the Mount but given naked expression in Matthew 6:14-15.  For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (NIV)  There is an undeniable link between our forgiveness of the sins of others and God’s forgiveness of our sins.  Often it is thought that if we don’t forgive the sins committed against us, then God won’t forgive our sins.  But then, what is the point of Christ dying on the cross if not to put away our sins...if it is really dependent on what we do?

Paul cements this relationship between God’s forgiveness and ours in Colossians 3: 13.  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (NIV)  It is established by Christ and the Apostle Paul that all Christians are forgiving people.  They put up with the quirks and difficult behaviors of those in their circles and they forgive or “show grace” as it literally is, to those who treat them badly.  Now the Greek which Paul used to give us this teaching is a bit tricky.  Literally it reads, “As also the Lord showed grace to you, so also you”.  To show grace to someone is a bit broader than to forgive the sins of that person but it includes it.  The primary teaching here is that as Christ has done for us, the same is to flow out of us to others.  If that does not happen, then we have to ask what is wrong with us.

There is a most fascinating teaching found in Hebrews 9:22ff.  In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness...But now he (Jesus) has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself…so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (NIV)  Paul here declares that forgiveness of sins is not possible without the shedding of blood.  That means that I cannot, even if I wished, forgive a single sin of any person, regardless of how good or bad I view that one—good or bad.  It is beyond the scope of my ability!  So why does Christ and Paul insist we forgive sins?  There is only one explanation.  Through Christ’s death on the Cross, He brought us into His redeeming work.  He made us the freer of slaves.

Christ’s poured out blood upon the Cross completely altered the moral landscape of the world.  Every sin, before that, was irrevocable…it could not be removed and had to be punished.  If you sin against me, whether it seems important to us or insignificant, it was a deadly sin and we could not change its impact upon the one who sinned.  Paul stated this clearly.  “For the wages of sin is death…”  (Romans 6:23a NIV)  Before our Lord’s blood shedding, I could not help you out of your sins against me, even if I wanted to do so.  I could not wave it off and say “no big deal” because it wasn’t for me to decide.  God’s law said the sin brought death and that was the end of the matter.  But with Christ’s death and His loving forgiveness through it, I now can forgive the sins of anyone that has hurt me or offended me.  I am joined with Christ through His poured out blood in the work of forgiveness.

Consider this one aspect of sin.  Each sin has a devastating impact upon the personality.  One sin wrecked Adam and Eve and if you multiply that ten thousand times, there are layers and layers of damage in each of us.  Forgiveness is God’s way of healing us and making us whole.  Somehow, God uses us to bring forgiveness to those we encounter and it is no small privilege or responsibility.  Every forgiven sin is a removed sin.  What does this mean?  Forgiveness as a Biblical teaching is not me accepting whatever you have done wrong to me and saying, “No big deal!”  Forgiveness is the removal of sin in an actual way.  The word Jesus used in saying we are to forgive the sins or “transgressions” of others means “to put away”.  In other words, we do something with the sin, at least as far as it is connected to us.  Of course, that is only possible because of the pouring out of Christ’s blood.

Here is a crazy analogy on the part we play forgiving sins.  When Jonah began his journey running away from God, the Lord did not let him go very far before he sent a gigantic storm to get his attention.  It was a blazing light of chaos for everyone on board the ship…not just Jonah.  The only way the storm could be shut off, it was discovered, was to throw Jonah overboard.  Jonah knew it and he convinced the sailors it was so.  But no one wanted to actually toss Jonah into the raging sea…they felt badly about it.  We are like that with forgiveness.  We don’t want to let go of the sin.  We prefer to nurse it, coddle it, relive it and cling to it.  God though tells us to toss it away.  Forgive it.    Meanwhile, for the sailors and for us, the storm continues to rage.  The damage of sin keeps increasing as we hold onto it.  Only, when by the power of the blood of Christ, we toss the sin away does God stop the storm it creates.  Jonah, the one who caused the storm, also began a new journey when he was thrown into the sea.  He was in fact rescued and given a new life by being tossed overboard.  When we forgive the sins of someone, we in a way rescue that person.  We give him or her a fresh start.  A forgiven sin stops being an active sin; it is a crucified sin and is no longer able to damage either the one who forgives it or the one who has had the sin forgiven.  It is a new journey when a sin is forgiven…a journey of peace within and without.  We can either refuse to forgive a sin and continue being damaged by it, or forgive it, and be set free from it.  Somehow, in a way only God can explain, when we forgive a sin we join Christ in His work on the Cross and by His blood, keep the sin from hurting us or others anymore.