I'm going to share something that I feel like you might—
when you first hear it, you might say: “It's very basic, Pastor Prince.
All of us know it.”
But do we?
For the lack of understanding this, it shows us what we really believe and what we really
understand about the New Covenant.
We'll start with a very beautiful story in the life of our Lord Jesus
when He was on earth.
Look up Luke 7:36-50 right now.
“One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home
and sat down to eat.”
Now, such a man invited Jesus to his house for whatever reason, we are not told.
But Jesus went.
And during the dinner, along came a woman and the Bible says she was a great sinner.
In the King James translation and in here, it says she was an immoral woman.
And another translation says that she was a prostitute.
And she came and she started weeping on the feet of Jesus.
In those days, they would recline.
The Jewish custom was that they would recline as they ate.
Jesus was probably looking at the Pharisee and the woman came behind Him.
Both of them were reclining and facing each other.
So, she came behind and she wept on Jesus' feet.
Her tears fell and she wiped His feet with her hair.
And then she anointed His feet with very expensive perfume.
And so, Jesus looked at the Pharisee and the Pharisee was probably looking at the woman.
And Jesus knew what was going on in his mind.
He was thinking: “If Jesus is such a prophet, he would know that this woman that is touching
Him and anointing Him with a perfume is a prostitute.
She's a great sinner.
Then Jesus shared this illustration, this story in Luke 7:41.
“A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other.
But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts.
Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”
“Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”
“That's right,” Jesus said.
“I tell you her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love.
But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.”
So, Jesus said: “This woman has loved Me much!
And the reason she loved Me much is because she knows she's forgiven much.”
So somewhere along the way, prior to this incident in Simon, the Pharisee's house, that
woman had already received forgiveness from Jesus.
And she knew she was forgiven.
She didn't come to be forgiven.
She came because she was forgiven.
She came to express her love to the Lord.
What would cause someone to have all these fruits?
Isn’t that what we, as leaders, want for our people?
Amen.
And the secret is something that’s found in these words.
In the New Covenant in Hebrew 8:12, it says: “I'll be merciful to their unrighteousness
and their sins I’ll remember no more.”
It is in the forgiveness of sins.
Because we don't fully comprehend forgiveness of sins, we think it is a starting point.
And from then on, God is looking at our behavior.
God is looking at us and about to find fault with us when we fall short.
You’re forgiven of all your sins from the day you were born—when you receive Jesus,
forgiveness of sins for many Christians means from the day you were born, alright, from
that day onwards until the day you receive Jesus.
All your sins at this point of your life—your past—we call it past sins, are forgiven.
So, when the Bible says God, having forgiven you all your sins, our idea of “all” is
not the Bible “all”.
You know, we have an idea from our husbands’ “all” or our wives’ “all”.
When your wife says: “I forgive you”, what she means is that: “I forgive you of
something that happened just now.”
She's not going to forgive you for your future sins.
Amen.
Only someone who lives outside time can forgive you of all your sins—past, present, and future.
And that's the meaning of being forgiven much.
Let me show you this verse of scripture in Colossians 2:13.
Amen.
It says very clearly in in Colossians 2:13 “And you who were dead in your trespasses
and the uncircumcision of your flesh” Don't forget!
Jesus did not come—listen—Jesus did not come to make bad people good.
He came to make dead people live.
And the Bible says we're all “dead in our trespasses and the uncircumcision of our flesh.”
But “God made alive (you who were dead) together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses.”
“Having forgiven us all our trespasses.”
What do you reckon God means in His word, when God says: “I forgive you of all your trespasses”?
Does that mean that God's forgiveness is from the day you were born until the day you receive Jesus?
Whether you received Jesus at 30 years old, 35, 50, 60 years old, 70 years old, or even
at the deathbed.
Is that God's definition of “all”?
Or God's “all”—because He is outside time.
God's “all”, when God says: “I see your entire life of sins, alright?
And I have put all your sins on My Son, Jesus, at the cross.
And He paid the price for your forgiveness.
He paid the price of your redemption.
He suffered under the judgment for your sins.
He took it so that you will not be judged.”
So, the law of double jeopardy applies.
“The same sin, the same crime, cannot be tried twice—once, in the body of My surety
and then in My body.”
God would be unjust to try the same sin or crime twice.
Alright?
That's how God put it that way so that we'll never be condemned.
Romans 8:1 says: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
So, God's “all” is like if you take a drone or you know, a helicopter and you see
a parade.
You see the beginning of the parade, alright?
And you see the end of the parade.
Right?
Like in Disneyland.
You know, one of the favorite things that we like to do when I bring my children to
Disneyland is to join the parade and attend a parade.
The atmosphere is solid.
But you know, we watch it earth-bound, where we are sitting or kneeling in front with all
the crowd, who are doing the same.
We see the parade go sequentially.
We see it go one after another.
We see this character come in and now we see Mickey Mouse and now we see different characters.
We see it one step at a time.
But God sees the whole parade.
From His perspective, heavenward, God looks down and God sees the very first character
and the last wagon.
God sees everything.
When God says “all”, that’s His “all”.
So, when God forgives us of all our sins, it really means our past, present and future.
Amen.
God's “all” is not men's “all”.
So, the Bible says “having forgiven you all trespasses”.
Do you believe this?
And immediately, our flesh acts up.
“Well, if you tell people that, they'll go out and sin.”
Is that really true?
Do we really believe that?
Do we really believe that if we teach people that their sins are forgiven, instead of them
sighing a sigh of relief because all their sins are forgiven, instead of them falling
in love with God, we think they'll say: “Yippee!
I can go and sin some more.”
Do you really believe that people are out there sinning because they understand this
and have a revelation that their sins are forgiven?
And for those who have an idea of or some sort of semblance or understanding about God,
alright, they shun Him out of their consciousness when they are sinning.
What about Christians?
Well, Christians know God, don't they?
But many of them have a theoretical understanding of forgiveness of sins.
So, because of that, they are still sinning.
Why?
Because that revelation of forgiveness of sins has not broken that bondage of sin.
And that's what I'm saying, people.
If we understand the revelation, it's not just a beginning truth.
It is a truth that you live by every day.
Amen.
Now, will that make you rise up and say: “Well, now I am going to be even more bitter towards
my wife, towards my husband.
I can be more unforgiving.”
Or does that make you think: “What?
God forgave me of all those stupid things.
I feel like kicking myself when I said those things.
I feel ashamed to be a Christian.
Yet, I do not know how to get out of this mess.”
It will break the power of sin in your life!
It will cause you to feel the love of God.
And we love because He first loved us.
Amen.
So, Jesus said: “You see this woman, just like this story I told you, Simon.
The one who is forgiven more is the one who will love the money lender more.
The one whose debt was canceled more will love him more.”
You see, if the truth was known, all of us have been forgiven much!
It is just that the truth has not been preached.
We have not judged rightly.
Amen.
Our forgiveness.
We have not judged rightly of this topic.
So, when we fail, that's the time you need to realize that your sins are forgiven!
Imagine if you really believe that?
What courage, what boldness that will give you to come into the presence of God?
Knowing that—many people come into the presence of God—I would always like to illustrate
it like this.
You know, it's like they can’t be at ease and at rest in the presence of God.
So, their prayer life becomes—you know, whether you pray long or short, it's not the
criteria of a good prayer life and time spent with God.
But it does indicate many times that we are not at ease.
We're not comfortable in God's presence.
So, we come in but we still need God's help.
We want His intervention, His divine intervention.
We want Him to be involved in our life.
We want Him to help us, to protect us and to bless us.
So, we come in and because we're not assured of the forgiveness of our sins.
We might be assured that our past sins, before we accepted Christ, was forgiven.
But right now.
“This morning, I had a bad thought.”
Or maybe: “Just now, I lost my cool with my husband.”
or "Just now…”
These things will come back on us because our flesh reminds us of it.
And you know, the enemy is called the accuser.
He reminds you of it.
Imagine if you don't believe this truth?
You'll come in and no wonder people come in real fast and they throw their requests one
after another real fast.
And they are not really comfortable in God's presence and they want to get out.
But the moment they spend time with their friends out there at a nearby café, before
you know it, two hours have passed.
Even finally after we say goodbye, we know that it's never enough.
Why do we feel that way about our friends?
Because we know our friends.
They are not looking at our sins.
They're not looking at us.
They just love us.
They know that we're not perfect, but they just love us.
Amen.
They're not out to punish us or to fault find with us.
And why is it that we can't think of God that way?
“Pastor Prince, God is a Holy God.”
He is!
He is a thrice Holy God!
He's a perfect God.
But you must know one thing.
Whatever God does, exactly, is Holy and true.
But today holiness is such that God has put His holiness on your side.
Amen.
When Jesus died on the cross, God put His holiness on your side for you, not against you.
Because the holiness of God, at the cross, put all your sins on the body of Jesus Christ.
And the holiness of God and the righteousness of God had to punish Jesus because He became
liable with your sins and my sins that He bore at the cross.
And because He's been punished fully to the fullest extent and Jesus cried out: “Finished!”,
it means that it is an act that is never to be repeated.
It is in the perfect tense.
And the perfect tense in the Greek is like the perfect tense in English.
It is an act that cannot be repeated.
It's once and for all.
“Finished!”
Amen?
All our sins gone.
The judgment of God also exhausted in the body of Jesus Christ.
So today, the holiness of God has been satisfied.
The blood of Jesus that He shed at the cross, has fully met all the divine requirements
of God's holiness and righteousness on our lives because He died for us.
And God is more than satisfied!
God is glorified by what Christ has done.
All the attributes of God—His holiness, His righteousness, His glory, His majesty,
His goodness—has all been glorified by the death of Christ.
So today, God, to be righteous, cannot punish you.
If you believe on Jesus—that He bore your sins at the cross and did a complete and clean
sweep of all your sins at the cross—if you put your trust in Jesus Christ, God cannot
punish you for your sins.
Because He has punished your sins in the body of Jesus Christ.
I want to pause here and just say this.
Here again, people will say: “Well, if you preach like that, people will say…”
No, friend!
It is for the lack of preaching the truth, that people are not living the truth and
because of that, it doesn't result in much love for Jesus and in expensive perfume service.
We have to preach the truth that when people believe right, they will live right!
Now, friend, this is not: “just a basic truth and then let us move on to deeper things.”
No, this is the source.
Amen.
This is the foundation and this is the springboard of all our blessings in our life.
It is the mother of all our blessings.
If we don't believe this—in Psalms 103—the first benefit commends with forgiveness of
all our sins.
If we don't believe that, we're not ready for the healing of all our diseases.
Amen.
Benefits like “redemption from destruction” and “renewal of our youth like the eagles”.
All those benefits come later after we realize the very first benefit—the forgiveness of
all our sins.
Stop living in the past!
You are forgiven of all your sins.
Amen.
There are things that we do sometimes in our lives that make us feel like kicking ourselves.
“I wish I had never done that.”
But it's done!
Amen.
You know, to be disappointed with ourselves is actually to trust in ourselves.
And the Bible says to not trust ourselves.
Amen.
Trust in the Lord!