Redemption

So an amazing thing happened at church today. I witnessed something that was so personal I wanted to leave but was so encouraged that I had to stay. I'm going to give you just a shortened version of the sermon that he gave. There was much more to it and it was long so I don't really want to type it all out.

The pastor spoke on what I thought at first was going to be forgiveness which it was but it was more than that, it was about God's heart and purpose of redemption. He used the text of the parable in Matthew 18:21-35 and the story of the adulterous woman in John 8:3-11.

His main point was that there are so many times in our lives that we have the legal right to punish and condemn people for their actions against us but morally God calls us to a standard which is higher. In the parable of the forgiven servant he had every legal right to go to his fellow servant and demand that he pay his debt in full. On a solely legal ground he was completely within his right but as the other servants and the king himself attested that the forgiven servant was acting immorally. The forgiven servant had been given so much, his life as he knew it but when the situation was reversed he didn't extend that grace to his fellow servant. Jesus came to show us the way of first grace and then truth.

In the story of the adulterous woman the Pharisees proved that this woman, by law, could legally be punished for the act that she committed. They had the "right" and the truth about her to legally have her killed. Jesus reached out to her first with grace,
"Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
"No one Sir"
"Then niether do I condemn you,"
He doesn't stop with grace though, he brings the truth to her as well, the fact that she was living a sinful life.
"Go now and leave your life of sin."
The woman could have been condemned to death but Jesus' purpose was to redeem the woman to life. It's too often the other way around for us, we condemn, point out the flaws, reject people on the things that we see because it's the truth. We tattle to the Father about what our brothers and sisters do, and question whether or not they are really Christians.
We need to put grace first, forgiving those who repent of their sins....seventy times seven.

Now to the amazing thing. The pastor called a couple up to the stage and said that this couple was coming to publically confess, repent and ask for forgiveness of the church family. I was very scared at this moment because I had heard so many stories from people about this kind of thing but the pastor said that it was the couples choice to do it. I'm not going to tell what they were asking forgiveness for because it's not your business. I didn't even want to hear or be there because it had nothing to do with me. They both explained what they had done, how they had repented and God had dealt with them about the issue, what the pastoral staff had done and then asked the congregation for forgiveness. The pastor asked them to stand at the front of the church and asked the congregation to respond not just because they felt they had to give some sort of response but because God's Word tells us what we are to do when a brother or sister asks for forgiveness. The whole congregation rose to their feet and made their ways to the front and surrounded the couple. They broke down in heaving sobs. They all prayed together and then we had communion.

There was the most amazing presence of the Spirit there with us. I've never experienced anything like it before but I hope that it's not the last. Instead of letting rumor and gossip destroy relationships in the church they did as God's Word says, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed" (James 5:16).

The lesson I learned today...

God's plan isn't for us to go and act only in truth or even truth first but we are to be first and foremost vessels of His grace. I need to practice this more.