The Forgiven

Illumine's current sermon series, "The Given," uses God's promises to dissect this sentence: 
THE FORGIVEN ARE GIVEN THE GIVEN FOR GIVING.

Our first Sunday, which was 11/6/16, focused on the group of people known as "the forgiven." When Jesus died on the cross, he paid for all sins that ever had been or ever would be committed, but that doesn't mean that all sinners are part of the group we're thinking of in this series when we talk about "the forgiven." 

One of the ideas that exists in the meaning of "forgive" is to remove or to take away. When we think about "the forgiven" in our key sentence for this series, we're thinking about those who, through faith, have had their sins taken away from them. They don't hold onto them any more. 

Imagine you were on an island in the South Pacific, and you stumbled on an old US soldier who didn't know World War II had ended. Though the victory has been won, he was still carrying the weight of the war. The Gospel means that Jesus has one the victory, and faith in that Gospel means we don't have to be carrying the weight of our battles against sin anymore. That's what it looks like to be "the forgiven."

There's nothing that you can see or touch or hear that God has not given you as a gift - but let us not forget that it started with him taking something away. 

Psalm 103:12 |  ...as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

- Pastor Kent Reeder