Oct. 19, 2025

My Sins are Forgiven (How Does that Work?) (19 October 2025)

Introduction - Several weeks ago I preached a sermon entitled “Your Sins are Forgiven.”  This is a fantastic truth!  One that, if we fully appreciated it, is almost all the fuel we need to stay happy and healthy.  Today I’ll attempt to explain why, if our sins are forgiven, the Bible still teaches us to “confess our sins” and repent.  

First, let’s consider justification.  This is a judicial act, done by the ultimate judge, (God) who knows our character well since He made each of us.  Since we are born with a sinful nature, it is only a matter of a short period of time until our sin nature shows up in the things we do.  We are then considered sinful and unjust, with a growing record of selfish, sinful deeds.  This is an obviously hopeless situation, since one sin makes us a sinner and every sinner is eternally separated from God.  We had no ability to remedy it, because we did not have the ability to change our nature.  God understood our plight and had already figured out a way to keep from having to cut Himself off from the human beings He loved so much:

Ephesians 1:6-8 - to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored us in the Beloved. 7In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace 8which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight. NASB

This series of rich, superlative words is a partial description of the undeserved favor God the Judge gave to all of us.  The only explanation for his decision to “save” us from the consequences of our sins was love.  The instant we believe in Him, He applies the value of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross to erase our name from the “books” by cancelling all penalties which would have separated us from Him.  We don’t have to pray for this or keep asking to insure it is “up to date” or “current.”  It is a gift lavished on us, explained only by His love, activated the moment we first believe. This form of forgiveness is what secures a place in heaven for us.  You could call it judicial forgiveness.

Second, let’s consider sanctification.  This is a process, much like a parent guiding a child through stages of growth.  After we are justified, God spends the rest of our lives patiently parenting us just like we guide our children.  We give them simple instructions and watch what they do.  If they obey well, things work out well.  if they disregard our instructions, they are disciplined by the difficulties they encounter.  All through this process, God never leaves us, but carefully watches over us with infinite patience until we get it right. The recognition that we have disregarded instruction causes us to confess it to God and turn from it, which is called repentance.  This verse describes the forgiveness God extends, called relational forgiveness:

1 John 1:9 - If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. NASB

I learned the human side of this forgiveness when I was about 11 years old.  I loved riding my Roadmaster 26” bike as fast as I could down our driveway, slamming on the brakes in the last few feet before sliding into our garage. Mrs sisters informed my father that I was doing this and he promptly warned me not to.  I disregarded his command and, on my final high-speed bike slide, my foot slipped off the pedal, completely missing the brake.  I crashed full speed into the front garage wall.  The crash bent the from fork of my bike’s front wheel backwards so that it no longer turned.  Reluctantly, I confessed to my father and received forgiveness, but suffered a consequence: my bike was hung up on the garage wall for a month (the longest month of my life) until I earned enough to pay for a repair.  To this day, I don’t do high-speed bike slides!

Conclusion- A response of faith one time to God’s gentle entreaty when He comes knocking at our door is all that is needed for a person to be justified.  You never have to pray about getting to heaven thereafter.  It is, for all practical purposes, permanent and eternal.  

The process of sanctification will be the flavor of our life as long as we are on the earth. We will all be learning and certainly will have matters which we need to pray about, confess to God, get help with, and turn from.  Just like a good parent, God loves us beyond what we can understand, patiently guiding us into maturity.