Faithful Forgiveness: Embracing God’s Mercy and Extending Grace - Jeff Ryan - 3TC Podcast - 3/16/2025

The podcast discusses the theme of forgiveness, emphasizing the importance of confession and God's faithfulness in forgiving sins. Pastor Jeff reflects on personal experiences of forgiveness from parents and draws parallels to God's forgiveness. The conversation highlights the story of Moses and the Israelites' rebellion, illustrating God's compassion and covenant with His people. Key scriptures from Exodus 34 and other biblical passages underscore God's slow anger, abounding love, and faithfulness in forgiving sins. The speaker encourages listeners to accept God's forgiveness and extend it to others, ultimately finding freedom in faith.

Welcome to Three Timbers Church! We are so glad you found us online and encourage you to explore all there is to learn about our church located in beautiful Bennington, Nebraska. When you come to Three Timbers, you can come as you are to experience the love of Jesus through the people of God. ​

Whether young or old, single or married, new to church, or a lifelong attendee, there's a place for you here. We invite you to join us toward a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ. Our goal is to share the passion, power, and presence of Jesus with others. We believe in supporting families through service, education, and loving one another as Jesus loves us, unconditionally.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Welcome to the three timbers podcast. We hope this will encourage and uplift you. Today, we sang a couple of songs here about forgiveness and and it's hard sometimes for us to grasp forgiveness, because we don't do such a good job of forgiving others forgiving ourselves, then why would God forgive us? And then you go to God's word, and if you believe in what the Bible says, then you can believe in forgiveness. But the thing that precedes forgiveness is confession. Is confessing that you've sinned, you've erred, you fallen short, that you've misstepped, you misspoke. It is saying, I know I need forgiveness, and it is then accepting it. And so we want to be intentional about coming before God to tell him what he knows is that we are not perfect in our thoughts, in our actions, in our deeds. And we confess that to him, and then we read together the joyful truth of God's word that we're forgiven. So I want to encourage you. Let us close our eyes, let us come before God confessing our sin, and then read responsibly the joy of forgiveness. If Father, as we kind of go through our minds and we think through our week, and the things we could have done, should have done things we could have said, should have said, if we're honest with ourselves. Lord, we know that we've come up short, and Lord, we don't like that, because we live in a world that teaches us that we should try to be perfect, and if we're not perfect, we're not worth it. But that's not the truth. And Lord, we will read in our response if we confess. And that key word is if, Lord we are we are proud. We don't like to admit when we make mistakes. We don't like to admit that we are weak. We don't like to admit that we need forgiveness. So Lord, we come and we present our mess. We just leave it here at the cross where you told us to we leave all this stuff that we deal with, that we carry around and Lord, we we give it to you, and we ask for grace. We ask for mercy, we ask for forgiveness. But Lord, I also ask that we accept when you offer it, that we allow ourselves to be covered in grace. We allow ourselves to be covered in mercy. We stop trying to earn it. I ask this in the name of Jesus amen, we read with me first John one love If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all be. So it says that with age comes wisdom and also perspective. And so as as you get a little older, and you start to gain some perspective, and you start to look back, certain things become clear, and as I've kind of started to reflect back on some things, I have come to a very simple but a very profound realization, and that is, my mother is a saint. My both my parents are amazing because all that I put them through, I don't know how I'm still standing here today. I acted up. I acted out. I just acted in all the wrong ways. I never applied myself academically at all, at all. And parent teacher conferences were the worst, because they would come home and they would literally say, What are you doing? And I would, of course, wanted to, they are all against me. They are inspiring against me. The only thing I did well in school was sports, and so I really was trying to help the officials when they may have aired in a call, and I would say, Excuse me, sir, I think you may have seen that the wrong way, and then they would give me a very technical foul. And my mother did not like that in any way. And I just remembered kind of that, that fear I had because I was always messing up in school on the basketball court at home, and I just I worked really hard to deserve the wrath and the punishment of my parents. But can I tell you what they did? They forgave me. They forgave me, and I didn't deserve it. I didn't. In any way, the forgiveness for all of the problems that I caused my parents, whether in school or on the basketball court or in any other way, and yet they forgave me. And I think sometimes we we kind of carry that concept of, I don't think I'm going to be forgiven, but not from our parents anymore, but from God, we think, Well, I keep messing up. I mess up in this area of my life, I mess up in this area of my life, and there's no way that God could ever forgive me. And so we just carry this around all the time, like I know God's gotta be so angry at me because I'm angry at me, and we sometimes picture God as this old man in heaven just kind of shaking his fist like you. What are you doing? And I think we carry that around unnecessarily, because we don't know the characteristics of God. We don't truly know who God is, because if we know how faithful God is to forgive us. We won't carry that around. And so before we read our Scripture today, I just want to pray that God would speak to us this morning. So would you just pray with me, Father, this is an area Lord that I know I struggle with, and I think so many of us struggle with. I pray Lord, that You would speak this morning. I pray, Lord, right into our our hearts and those areas of weakness, those areas of of doubt and fear. I pray Lord that you would get me out of the way. Lord my sinful, fallen heart and I pray Lord that You would speak maybe to somebody who didn't think that they needed to be spoken to this morning, maybe somebody who's wondering why they're even here, Lord, I pray that You would speak and we would hear. And so Father, thank You for the privilege, Lord, to to be an empty vessel, that your spirit would speak through. And I pray, Lord, that You would be glorified. I ask this in the name of Jesus, amen. So I'm going to read from Exodus chapter 34 the NIV version. And I'm going to do something a little odd. I'm going to read you a text, and then I'm going to give you the context, because when I read this text, you're going to be like, I don't know what in the world this has to do with anything. So Exodus, chapter 34 and we are going to start in verse five, Exodus, chapter 34 verse five, and then I'll back up and back out and help us have a better understanding of this text. So starting at verse five, it says, Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him, him being Moses, and proclaimed his name the Lord. And he passed in front of roses, proclaiming the Lord the Lord the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to 1000 generations, forgiving wickedness, rebellious and sin, and we'll stop there. So when you read this text out of context, you're like, Well, what is this mean? So a couple of things we have to understand. Number one, why did the people need forgiveness? What has brought us to this moment in the book of Exodus that the people need forgiveness Now Moses, God's chosen person, God's chosen instrument to lead the people out of slavery. He is meeting with God on Mount Sinai. And so as Moses is spending time with God, the people become distracted. And what happens when people become distracted from anything. They make bad choices. When we are not focused on the right things, we will make bad choices. And so the people became distracted. And so what did they do? They said, You know what? We need a new God. We need a new God right now. Because they were distracted, they said, You know what, we're going to complain about, Moses. How about this? Moses God? Even though God had chosen Moses to lead the people out of slavery, they started to complain. And then they got really distracted and bored, and they said, You know what, we're going to build ourselves a new god. We're going to take all the jewelry and all of the things, and we're going to melt it down, and we're going to make a golden calf, and then we're going to worship that's going to be our God. Well, God knew that people were doing this because God is sovereign. God is omnipotent. God knows everything, and God was ready to bring his wrath because the people deserved it. He brought them out of slavery. He was leading them, and yet they turned away from him, and they just kept messing up and messing up and messing up. Now that's something you and I can relate to. We're not perfect people. We get distracted from focusing on God, and we make bad decisions in so many different areas of our life. We can complain. Him, we can try to create a new God that we can control. And for many of us, we can have our own golden calves that we don't even realize that we have in life. And so God's about to absolutely bring his wrath. Moses intercedes, says, God, please, please, please, God, please, just don't. Don't do this. And so God relents. So now Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, and he absolutely sees the chaos of the rebellion of the people. What happens the tablets break. Moses took that golden calf, and he burned it down till it was ash. He spread the ash over water, and he made the people drink the water, and many of them died. And then he put this question before the people. He said, If you are standing with God, then come over and stand by me. And the only people that came over to stand by Moses were the sons of Levi and from that moment on, they became ordained, and they were going to serve God and be blessed by God because they chose to stand by God. So Moses understands what is happening, and he goes to God, and he says this in chapter 32 he says So Moses went back to the Lord said, Oh, what a great sin these people have committed. They have made themselves gods of gold, but now please forgive their sin. But if not, then block me out of the book you have written. So Moses says, I understand these people deserve your wrath. I understand what they've done and and please don't take it out on them. And Moses says, Yo, take it out on me. And so God is is moved by this. And God says to Moses, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take these people. I want you to move into the promised land. And then Moses asks for three things. Now I want you to see these three things that he asks for. Number one, he says, God, will you show me your ways? God, will you show me the way in which you want me to live? Will you show me the way in which you want me to lead people? God, will you show me your ways? Do we pray for that? Wow. Do we pray for God to show us his ways, or do we ask for God to bless our ways. So he prays for God to show him the way. Secondly, he says, God, will you go with me on this journey? Lord, I don't even know how I'm going to get where I'm supposed to go. I don't know if these people are going to follow me, But Lord, will you be with me on this journey of trying to be obedient to you, of trying to lead you? Do we pray for God to be with us, to lead us, to guide us on a journey of life. And then the third thing, which I think is the most interesting thing, he says, God, will you show me your glory? Do you ever pray for God to show you his glory? Or do we pray for God to give us glory? So Moses, God, I just, I just want to see your glory. I want to see Your Majesty. I want to see your amazingness. God, can you show me your glory? And what he's really asking for here is, God, I want to know you and see your characteristics. God, I want to know who you are. I want to know the the details of who you are. And the only way we can experience the faithfulness of God is to know God. And the only way we can know God is to understand his glory. And his glory are his characteristics. God will never lower his standards, but he will raise ours. We need to raise our standards and say, God, I want to see your glory. I want to see your glory in so many ways. And so now we come here to Verse five, kind of giving us a little context here. So it says in verse five, then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him, being Moses and proclaimed his name the Lord. So Moses says, I want to see your glory. And it says, God came down. Moses said, God, can I see your glory? And God said, yes, that if you ask God to reveal His glory to you, he will. It may not be that Theophany, which this is, which is the presence of God, but God will reveal His glory to you. He may reveal it in a sunset, he may reveal it in other people, he may reveal it in a song. But if you say, God, I want to see your glory, He will show it to you. And it says, He proclaimed his name. He came down and said, This is who I am. I'm the Lord. He proclaimed his name to Moses. You want to know the glory of God, let God proclaim His name in your life. Let him proclaim His name over your life. You want to know the glory of God, say Lord, proclaim Your name over my house, proclaim Your name over my children, proclaim Your name over my. Grandchildren over my job, over my life, and so the Lord came down and proclaimed his name. And what we see in that is God being faithful, because God promised this to Moses. If you go back just a chapter a chapter 33 if you want to flip back, if you've got your Bibles or your Bible app, Exodus, 33 verses, 21 through 23 says this. Then the Lord said, there's a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back, but my face must not be seen. What God was doing. He was re establishing the covenant with the people of God, even though they didn't deserve it, even though they turned their back on God, even though they were rebellious and unrighteous. God said, Moses, because you want to see my glory, I'm taking the initiative. I'm going to come down and I'm re establishing the covenant with you. This is a theme for what we would see in the New Testament. John 316 right? The most famous verse in the Bible For God so loved the world that he God took the initiative. God took the initiative here. God took the initiative with Jesus, and God will take the initiative in your life. If you say, Lord, I want to see your glory, because the glory of God has never seen greater than it is in Jesus. The faithfulness of God to show us his glory, the faithfulness of God to reveal his characteristics. Because, let's be honest, we all have a golden calf. We all have that thing that we have made an idol in life. There's so many. It's money, it's power, it's fame, it's stuff, right? It's us. We all have a golden calf. And if you sit here and say, I don't have a golden calf, then that's your golden calf denial, because we are sinners. Romans, 323, For all have fallen short of the glory of God. This is not a new concept. We see this in the Old Testament. We see this in the New Testament, and we see this when we look in the mirror. So we all have that golden calf. We all deserve the wrath of God for our sin and our rebellion, and yet God says, No, I want a covenant relationship with you. I want to be with you. Often tell couples who have the privilege to marry that God doesn't want to just be at your wedding. He wants to be in your life. God just doesn't want to be in your life on Sunday. He wants to be in your life every day and in every way. But you have to know the glory of God. You have to know the characteristics of who God really is, so that you can understand how faithful he is to forgive us how faithful he is to initiate that forgiveness, that offer of forgiveness. In fact, we see this theme of God's faithful forgiveness throughout the Old Testament. And so I want to read you a few passages just to reinforce what our text is said from the book of Nehemiah, chapter nine, it says this, they refused to listen and failed to remember the wreck, the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff necked and in their rebellion, appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, therefore you did not deserve them. Verse 32 but Your great mercy, you did not put an end to them or abandon them. For you are a gracious and merciful God in the Psalms, but you Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. Psalm 103, the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love, and for the prophet Joel rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and relents from sending calamity. See when you know the characteristics of God. You say God is so faithful to forgive me, he's so faithful in that his Compassionate. God is so compassionate. He cares about you. He created you, he formed you. He has a plan for you. God cares about you so much more than you and I could ever comprehend, so much more than you could think that God ever could, should or would. But God cares about who you are. He's gracious. God does things for people who don't deserve them. God does things for you and I that we don't deserve, that we can't earn, we can only accept. It. God is slow to anger. Slow to anger. We become so angry, so quick about so many things that means so little, and yet God is slow to anger with you and me. He is not that old man shaking his fist at you and saying, How could you have dare you? He's saying, I love you. You are mine. We talked about that last week, and God is abounding in love. God is not fickle. The Bible says he's the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. God doesn't change. And if God doesn't change, his love for you is not dependent on us. What you do well or what you do poorly doesn't change how much God loves you. There's nothing you can do positively or negatively to make God love you more or make God love you less. Let that sink in for a minute. Maybe we should stop trying to earn his love and start learning to accept it and accept His forgiveness. See, the big question that I think is kind of underneath a lot in our lives is that childhood question I mentioned earlier. Man, I'm going to get so much trouble at home with my parents, and I deserve it because I've messed up in school, I messed up in sports, I messed up in life. God can't possibly forgive me, but he does. He forgives you, He forgives me. He's with you. He's with me. He is faithful to us in every way. So when Moses says, God, can I see your glory? God doesn't put on this big show for him of power and might he puts on this response of faithful forgiveness. See, that's the glory of God, that He is faithful to forgive us. And the only way that you and I can experience that is through a relationship with Jesus, that when you understand the glory of God is consummated perfectly in the person of Jesus, then you will experience the faithful forgiveness. If you don't, then you will continually try to earn it. You will continually try to believe you don't deserve it. You're unworthy of it. But God is so faithful. You know this. These are not the first characteristics that Moses learned about God. Remember the burning bush. God appears to Moses again, that's what called a theophi again. And he says, Look, here's what you're going to do. You're going to go to Pharaoh, you're going to say this. And Moses like, okay, great. Who should I tell them sent me? And God says, I am who I am. He is the great I AM. God says, I want you to know who I am, and I am, I'm him, I'm him, I'm the creator of the heavens and the earth. I'm the one that will be faithful to forgive you. I'm the one that will renew the covenant with you. I'm the one that will bring you into the promised land. I am the one that is compassionate, filled with mercy, slow to anger. I am the One Lord who can save you from your sins. We all have a promised land. Everyone of us, heaven, right? We all want to be there. I mean, at the end of the day, no matter what you're going through in life, you want to go to heaven? We know it must be good, because nobody's come back to complain. But you ever ask, how? How are you going to get to heaven? Is it like, well, if I do just enough, if I do these things, if I do this checklist, that I go to heaven, if I'm really nice and I'm really kind and I help little old ladies across the street, then do I go to heaven? If I never miss a Sunday in church? Does that mean I go to heaven? We keep trying to come up with ways to go to heaven, which is the promised land for all of us, but the only ways through Jesus, but yet God took the initiative to say, you're worthy. You're worthy to be in my presence and hear this, our lack of faithfulness will never be greater than God's faithfulness. Let me say that again, our lack of faithlessness will never be greater than God's faithfulness. There's no way, because we are sinful. We are unfaithful, but yet God is so faithful to forgive you and die. Look, our God is a holy God. He does not overlook sin. He cannot tolerate sin. He cannot allow sin in any way. So the question is, then, how do we reconcile our sin and God giving us forgiveness the cross? The cross is this intersection that we must understand how powerful it is. It is the intersection of God's love and God's justice. God loves you so much that He sent His only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. But the justice that God required Amen. Perfect, sinless Lamb that was offered. They intersected the cross. The cross is the intersection of God's faithfulness and forgiveness. Remember when sin entered the world in Genesis, what did God say in Genesis, 315, I will put enmity between you and the woman. And that was the moment that God said to the devil, it's on, and you won't win. God was faithful from there to the cross and beyond, but it's also the place that we find forgiveness. And the cross is the intersection between God's righteousness and God's redemption. That's where you and I can be declared righteous and worthy to stand before God, because redemption means that a price has been paid, and that price is paid, but why would God forgive people then? Why would God forgive people now? Because God has a greater Kingdom plan for you and me, and that greater Kingdom plan is that we see His glory, that we know who he is, that God is not distant and far away and aloof, but God is here. God is near. God is real. And so God wants us to see His glory. And that glory is seen in Jesus, that glory is seen in so many way. And he says it extends to generation after generation after generation. When you think about how so many people understand the glory of God, how could the church survive as long as the church has survived, if people didn't see and believe and experience the faithful forgiveness and glory of God, no other institution has lasted as long because people understand the glory of God. And look, I've heard messages like this before. I remember sitting in the church before I was really walking with Jesus, and I would hear these messages, and you know what I would do? I would go, Yeah, but you don't know my struggle. You don't know what I'm dealing with. You may look at people in the Bible and say, Yeah, but they were Moses. I mean, they had it all together. You know, Moses killed the guy, right? Moses made a mistake. Moses did a terrible thing. You know, Paul used to hunt down and imprison people and have them killed for being Christians. You know that Peter denied even knowing Jesus three times, and you would think, pick any one of those and and so many other examples, and say, well, they don't deserve to be forgiven, but yet God did. God forgave them, and God forgives us because God is faithful. Wanna read to you just the next couple of verses, 10 and 11 says, And the Lord said, I am making a covenant with you before all your people, I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world, the people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I the Lord, will do for you. Obey what I command you. Today I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the parisites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. God says, Not only am I going to forgive you, I'm going to do amazing things for you, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to be there for you. I don't know about you, maybe it's just me. There are so many times I feel so unworthy of God. I feel unworthy to be forgiven. I mean, I should know better, right? I mean, this is what I do, and I feel there's no way God could ever forgive me. And I think one of the things I've learned is I will always think like that, and maybe you do too, if I focus on my characteristics and not his, if I focus on my characteristics, I will never forgive myself. I will never allow God to forgive me. And how can I forgive other people? But when I focus on God's perfect characteristics, slow to anger, compassionate, abounding in love, when I focus on his characteristics, then I can start to understand how much God loves me. Then I can start to understand forgiveness. And I believe that until you recognize that you need God's forgiveness, and until you accept that forgiveness, you will never be able to forgive somebody else. So let me realize that if you are struggling to forgive someone, and we all have people in our life, don't look at the person next to you. If you are struggling to forgive someone, you'll never be able to forgive them until you understand that you need to be forgiven by God and accept that forgiveness through Jesus, you can try really hard but to truly be free. Forgiveness sets you free. We can be set free from our. In in our strife and our struggle, we can celebrate the faithful forgiveness of God, and we can learn to forgive others. In this text, it says the LORD came down to show Moses His glory. The Lord came down. As we move towards Easter, the Lord came down in the flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ, the Lord came down, then the Lord went down, and then the Lord Rose so that you and I could be forgiven. Let us celebrate the faithfulness of God's forgiveness. Amen. Let us pray, Father, God, we thank you for the gift of forgiveness, Lord. We are a knowing worthy to receive it. We cannot hurt it. The only thing we can do with your forgiveness is accept it, father. I pray that anyone who is struggling right now with believing that you would forgive them, or anyone who is struggling to forgive themselves, or anyone who is struggling to forgive others, Lord, I pray that you would set them free. They don't have to be a prisoner anymore, to fear, to worry, to anxiety. They don't have to fear that you are angry with them and that you are coming to get them, But Lord, they could experience this freedom, this joy. You are so faithful to forgive us again and again and again. So Father, I pray that we would cry out and accept your forgiveness of the person of Jesus, Lord, right now, I know there's somebody in here that is really struggling with forgiveness. Lord, set them free. Set all of us free, Lord, that we can experience your faithfulness right here, right now. In the name of Jesus, I pray Amen. Thank you for joining us for more information about three timbers, church ministries and services. Visit three timbers.org. We would love for you to join us in person. You.