Forgiven Forever

2 Corinthians 5

¹⁶ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.  Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.  ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.  And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.  We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In a few weeks we will look at the way Jesus gives the Apostles – and the whole church, from then to now – the task of continuing the mission Jesus was on as he walked with them as disciples.  It is the task of the church to be on the mission of Jesus, to bring the message of the Gospel, forgiveness and reconciliation with God, to all people.  The mission ends when all have become part of the ones following Jesus or he returns for the final resurrection.

It is easy to equate our experience of reconciling, or not reconciling, with others into the way we are reconciled with God.  We have some limitations.  We are still fallen, though redeemed.  Not yet complete in being renewed by the Spirit at work in us.  We can be in the position of forgiving, as best as we are able, but not necessarily being able to reinstate all people back into our lives.  Some things are forgiven, but we still need to take care of ourselves.

But God takes us into a place of complete reconciliation.  We hear in Psalm 103.11-12:

¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

God takes the sin away and it is no more.  We might remember some of them.  He lets them all go away.  Wouldn’t it be great to be able to do that ourselves?  To be able to forgive so completely that there is nothing left of whatever someone else has done.  It would be great just to be able to let go of our own things where God has already told us that he has left nothing of it for us. 

It brings me back to one of the songs from Sunday, Forgiven.  We can let go of the things that we find in ourselves as we see that we are forgiven.  Listen again to the words of that remind us that we are a people who are forgiven.  And it is removed from, gone forever.

Song - Forgiven