Messages • King of Kings Church

Forgiving Challenge: Introduction

October 03, 2021 Pastor Zach Zehnder
Messages • King of Kings Church
Forgiving Challenge: Introduction
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Listen as Pastor Zach Zehnder introduces The Forgiving Challenge. 

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Vibe music there. Well done, King of Kings team. Good morning. It is so good to be with you. I am actually. Leroy asked me, said, Hey, feelin you excited about, you know, kicking off a new challenge? I said, Leroy, what's the word for beyond excited? And he said, amped up. And so I am amped up this morning and really, really excited to see what God's going to do over these six weeks, these next 40 days. So welcome to forgiving challenge my hope. And I really believe that it'll be a 40 day life changing journey leading to your freedom. And so I'm really excited with you to dove into what God's forgiveness looks like and and really just hoping that God would show show a glimpse of what I feel like over the better part of the last year my wife and I have been digging into and that is God's grace. God's grace never gets old. And so I hope it's revealed to you in a new way, in a fresh way that changes you forever. And so I want to start by actually telling you what your challenges for the week. This is kind of like the next step, and it is exactly what Dan just talked about. We really want you to commit over the next 40 days to be with us and to join with us. And so that looks like joining in on Sundays. You come in person if you're able to, if you can only watch online, you watch online and you you log in and you join in with us and and you hear the messages and the kids are hearing the same messages as well. But outside of that, we would love for you to grab a book and get a deeper, immersive experience into reading. The reading starts on Tuesday, and we would love for you to join one of those small groups again. You could find in if you like Dan, which is up here, but I forgot what he looked like. Just go out to the hallway and find the tallest man. You know, either find Dan or his dad, but they can both help you, I'm sure. But please join in and commit and I want over the next, I don't know, 28 minutes or so to kind of show you where we're going to be headed and what you're going to be committing to. That's my goal today is to just really tee this up for us as a church family with a great understanding of where we're headed. And there are some sermons that are like, it's a single sermon and God does a thing and it's beautiful. This is not one of those. This is a six week sermon. And so think about if you go to a restaurant and you're going to enjoy a five course meal like I want you to know today, we are honestly just driving to the restaurant and I'm showing you the menu, but we ain't eating till tomorrow or till next Sunday because you got to come back next week. We're going to have an appetizer where you're going to get to the entree in the desert, and I guarantee you this meal will taste much better than Roger can cook. Now we're going to see King Jesus cooks a pretty good meal in every single course. There's going to be something beautiful and powerful, but when you would take it all together, it's going to be awesome. And so I really want you to commit to joining and seeing what God can do and seeing the freedom that he can bring in 40 days. So welcome to forgiving challenge. I am convinced that when Jesus says who the sun sets free is free indeed that Jesus has come to bring us freedom. Are you convinced of that? And yet, despite knowing that despite Jesus coming to set the captives free, I also am convinced that many of us in this room and I don't presume that all of us would label ourselves as Christians are followers of Jesus, but I would think many of us in the room are for some reason , there's a lot of us in this room that aren't quite fully experiencing that freedom or feeling that freedom that for whatever reason, we've settled into this world and this life where we're rather than being fully free. We're kind of like managing our sin or modifying our behavior and just kind of living this half hearted, hobbled version of what Jesus has come to give us. And I want to press in to what real freedom in Jesus looks like. And I want to do that by diving into the grace of Jesus as we're going to start our journey. John Chapter 20 on the heels of the resurrection of Jesus in versus 19 to 23. There are ten disciples that are quarantined in a room out of fear, and all of a sudden Jesus bursts through the wall and reveals himself to these disciples. Scholars say that in this resurrected glorified body, certainly it was different. Somehow, some way it actually came through the wall. That's kind of interesting to think about, but it wasn't until Jesus revealed his nails scarred hands. And his spear scarred side that the disciples truly knew this was Jesus. But one of the disciples wasn't there that first night. Do you know his name? Thomas and Thomas has the nickname it's not so great was Thomas his nickname? Doubting Thomas, and I don't know that that's altogether fair. Oh, OK, come on. Yeah. All right. Let's go. You mean to restart now, OK? I was saying, I don't know that that was completely fair because I think that all the disciples had doubts. They certainly all had fear. So maybe Thomas, maybe Thomas was like, You guys are all cowering in fear. I'm really going to live my life and I'm going to do my thing. Maybe Thomas was just running an errand and just happened to not be there that night. I don't know. Maybe it was a global pandemic and they were quarantine limited to social distancing, ten in room and Judith was already gone. And Tom's like, I'll be the 12th. The 11th one out. You ten have a good time. Probably not. But we see the story in John, 20, 24. It says now Thomas, also known as did Imus and as a pastor that loves alliteration. I've always been frustrated that doubting did. Imus didn't stick like, why did we go so wrong there? Anyway, he was one of the twelve, but he wasn't with the disciples when Jesus came. So the disciples told him, We have seen the Lord. And so did Imus said, Did I miss the memo? Did you miss the pun that I just did? Oh, don't worry, I got more. You're going to catch up, though, you got to be ready for him. But Thomas said to them, and this is where he gets his nickname from, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into the side. I will not believe. So a week later, his disciples were there in the house again, but this time Thomas was there again, though the doors were locked. Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Before we go on, by the way, I love the fact that when the resurrected glorified body of Jesus burst into a room that is first words to the disciples that were cowered in fear, still, the disciples that had all denied and betrayed him. I loved it. His first words are not shame filled. And how can you be so afraid? And why didn't you believe in me? And are you still doubting now? But his four first four words were, Peace be with you. I think if you're new to that faith or new, the church are still trying to figure out who Jesus is, how will you to know that our God is not an angry God? Our God is a kind, loving and caring God. In his first words, peace, be with you. I mean, I pray that like he came through the wall and just burst into a room unexpected uninvited, that that's what Jesus does in the series that even if you weren't expecting and even if you're not inviting him in, even if you're unsure of why you're even sitting in a chair right now, a king of kings on Sunday right now that he would just burst through. Say peace, be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here. See my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side, stop doubting and believe it, Thomas said to him, My Lord and my God. There's so many cool aspects to this story. By the way, the main thing is let's remember that a man that was once dead is now alive in front of them again. How cool. But one of the most interesting aspects of this story that I've pondered a lot and thought a lot about is it's interesting to me that the resurrected, glorified body of Jesus has scars. On his hands and his side like like scars are a surprising feature of a resurrected body. On the surface, scars seem like they would be a defect or a blemish. Like wouldn't we expect in our resurrected glorified bodies that there would be no blemishes and there would be no marks of our past suffering? Like I always imagined in your glorified body and my glorified body that we don't got any love handles anymore, but instead we got six packs of abs popping without even having to flex. And those of you that lost your hair, it's back. You got it again, but scars. That's interesting, why would God allow the scars of Jesus to remain? I wonder what God might be telling us through those scars? It's not. It's not to bring guilt and condemnation, is it? To remind us, I don't think so, because that's not the character and nature of our God, the same God that would, instead of condemning said peace, be with you the same God that that says therefore now there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus, the same God. That said, yes, I've come to bring life, I've come to bring it to the fullest. I have come not to condemn the world, but to save the world. So that's not it's not to bring guilt or condemnation. So what are the scars? What do they mean? Actually, I have a scar underneath my chin or raise my head up. Now you can see it, though it's really little. And this scar was from July 31st, 2001. This turns out to be one of the more pivotal days of my life. I was driving in my dad's Honda Accord with my older brother and my two younger cousins, and like the disciples, we were all in one accord. Holy car, you get in there. You get in there. And we had just got done finishing golfing, and I was driving home back to the reunion home and I was navigating roads I've never driven before, and it was actually, I think, fully focused. I mean, this was before the days of when texting and driving could occur. It was before any of that and somehow I in my pursuit to get home I I ran a stop sign that I never saw. And by running that stop sign, I had some pretty major consequences. You can see from the pictures, but I was blindsided by a pickup truck that was going 60 miles an hour and hit me right in the driver's side door. Our car spun out and, of course, went into the median and and for the next half hour is really pretty blurry for me in and out of consciousness. But in a moment of coherency, I could tell and see that my brother and my cousins were OK. They were breathing and they even were able to get out of the car. But I wasn't able to get out because it had Preston on my door and the center console was right here. I couldn't move, and the next thing I remember again in a moment of coherency is looking up and seeing this really large object called the jaws of life ripping and prying my door open so they could get me out. And they grabbed me out and they threw me on a stretcher and rolled me to the ambulance and the ambulance took me into the hospital to the emergency ward. And amazingly, through all of that. I felt completely fine. They ran some tests like they should at the hospital in a couple of hours later, I left with two things number one. I left with a ticket for running a stop sign. Come on, man. I didn't even try to break the law. Oh, but number two, this scar on the bottom of my chin. This is a precious card to me. To me, this represents the second chance that God gave me in life. And I remember July 31st, 2001, is the day I fully committed to serving God with my second chance. But what you may not know about my story. Maybe you do, but it was three years earlier in the summer of 1998 when I was here in this room. In fact, I remember exactly where I was that night. It was the it was a Sunday night and we had hearts of fire going on. And I remember being here and I remember sitting right over here and I remember Pastor Mack. Yeah, Pastor Mack. Hey, guys, how are we doing? What's your name? Andrew, Kathy, Cathy? Everybody. Let's meet Andrew and Cathy. Give it up for them. They're here today. Hope you don't mind me getting all up in your business here for a second here. But but I remember sitting probably within five feet of this and Pastor Mack up there and. I remember him saying these words, I never remember him saying them before or after, but that night, he said. Spirit is leading me to tell you that some of you tonight are being called into full time ministry. And I can't explain it. But there was this overwhelming sense of pressure, not a negative or a heavy, but this incredible presence that I just knew in that moment. That that was what God was having me do, that he wanted me to serve him in his church, that I would be a fourth generation Lutheran pastor. I'll tell you that night I was excited. It was fun. That's cool, guy, that you would place that call in my life. That's pretty cool. But after that night, like life happened, high school happened and. I never like Ran from God, like it is too strong, but I just remember walking away and like having a good moment that night, but kind of trying to forget it. And the more I got to know people and live life, the more I just kind of wanted to fit in and be a normal person. And so by the time we got to senior year in high school, when somebody would say, Hey Zach, what do you want to do with your life? I'd say anything but a pastor, anything but a pastor. And yet I still had this like knowledge that, yeah, I think that's what God wants me to do, though. But I didn't want to. So I like sports and you can tell I like to talk in front of people. So I like broadcasting corona, like writing a little bit. So I thought maybe sports broadcasting or journalism is my thing. I really love the Cleveland Browns, so my dream job would be to be a reporter for the Cleveland Browns. And as I look back at the last 20 years, I'm like, Wow, thank you God for sparing me from that misery. Hey, man. But I got good news. This is the year. And by the way, Husker fans speaking to 20 years ago how good football was. Did it last night feel a little bit like that again? And so I remember after getting back from the hospital, hitting my knees and thanking God for a second chance and declaring that I know I'm going to mess up. But what I'm going to do my able best to give you the rest of my life. Because at the end of the day, I don't exist for my glory. I exist for God's glory. And I am so grateful that I got this beautiful wakeup call at the age of 18. It was the greatest car accident I could have ever gotten into. Because it changed my perspective. And also because it was my dad's car, so it didn't even hurt my insurance, it hurt his awesome. But I called the university the next day and I said I'm getting into pastoral ministry and that was my major, not too many, not too many areas and things you can do with the pastoral ministry degree. Locking myself in and then going to seminary. And what's cool, though, is the moment that the thing you're running from it, all of a sudden when you know it's from God and you start running towards it, the thing you were running from actually starts becoming your dream again. And my dream got realized in June of 2010, when I got called to plant this amazing church in Florida, and I've spent the last eleven years planting and leading this world changing church, seeing God do incredible thing after an incredible thing in the middle of that ministry, all of a sudden inviting a resource that I never planned to write and all of a sudden God's anointing is on it. Now he's changing our lives and he's helping us write resources for churches, one that we're going through right now that we know is going to blast a lot of churches beyond. And then a few months ago to to officially be installed on the teaching team here at King of Kings, like I can just see God's full circle and how cool and privileged I am, that now I get to come back to the very place where so many people poured into my life and I can do whatever I can to pour into years. I'm going to be perfect. We're going to anger and get on each other's nerves at times, but it's awesome. That we get to do this, and this scar is a constant reminder of God's grace. And my second chance. And that's what scars do, by the way, scars tell powerful stories. They were made by God. They were his idea. He made human skin to heal in a particular way. And some of your scars, they might have very little meaning to you. Like, I don't know how I got that one. But others might have really powerful stories. But I want you to know today that as much as your scars, whatever they have to say, the scars of Jesus have the most to say. And I want to know that I have the scars of Jesus made a difference in your life, because when Jesus burst into the quarantine room of disciples, it was the evidence that proved this really was Jesus that turned this doubting Thomas into a devoted follower of his. Do you know this the Thomas? I heard this actually from Pastor Greg's first sermon here at King of Kings when he talked about Thomas. There's a lot of words for Jesus that are given in the New Testament, but the very first human being to ever declare that Jesus is God is Thomas. And it was right after he revealed those scars and he would go on to be an incredible influence for the cause of Jesus. Thomas, by all historical accounts, was the first missionary to the nation of India. It would eventually be martyred for his faith then, so the scars of Jesus turned a doubting Titmus into a devoted disciple, and his scars have the ability to mark and change you forever because his scars tell the story of a perfect, spotless man that when we had sinned and fallen short and separated us from a relationship with him, God came down in the flesh through his own son, and that son went to the cross to die at death that you and I deserve to die. The word of God says in this story that he was tears for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, but that ultimately it says by his wombs, we are healed. And so have you allowed the scars of Jesus to heal you? And his his wounds, by the way, not only bring healing to bring you in a right relationship with God so that one day you can be with him and enjoy freedom, eternity in heaven. But I am convinced that so many Christians are missing out now on the very fact that freedom doesn't have to wait until the end . Freedom can be had right now, and this is the life that Jesus invites us into. It's not a life of waiting, and one day, hopefully we'll experience that freedom. No. You can have that freedom right now. You don't have to manage your sin or modify your behavior any longer. You don't have to carry around baggage that you've been carrying for years. You can let all of that go and live freely under the grace of Jesus. That's what his scars do. They forever mark you with his grace as this child. And so you would think then that its followers of Jesus that would be known as the most gracious and forgiving of all the people in the world. Jesus is known for Grace. And he's given that to us, and so we ought to to be known for grace and forgiveness. But instead, when those on the outside are asked, Hey, describe what a Christian is, do you know the first word they jump to is judgmental? So Jesus is known for Grace and Jesus followers, Christians are known for judgment, by the way. Judgment is not like close to grace. Judgment and grace are polar opposites. Grace is getting a free gift that you do not deserve. Judgment is getting exactly what you do deserve. And I have often struggled with this reality that Jesus who has been so good to us that we would be so far away from representing him and actually be content in settling for that picture that we give to the rest of the world. Something has to change. But the answer is not gritting our teeth together. You want me to be more forgiving and be more forgiving than. It's not about that. And I don't even think it's about the question is how do we forgive others? I think we have to go deeper. And that's what I want to do in this series. In fact, let me ask this question, I'm willing to participate. You want you got to pick one or the other. I'll ask it and give you a couple of seconds to think about it. Do you have a harder time forgiving yourself or receiving God's forgiveness for yourself? Or a harder time forgiving someone else. So is it harder for you to receive that forgiveness for you or to give that forgiveness away to someone else and you've got to pick one of the two? How many of you say, I actually have a harder time forgiving myself receiving God's forgiveness for me? Gwen put hands up, if that's you, I have a harder time for giving me a lot of hands. How many say no, I'm actually I have a harder time forgiving others, a harder time, forgiving others. A decent number of hands, but nowhere near what it was in the beginning. And so look at that. And again, I don't presume everybody in this room is a follower of Jesus. Most of us are. I think though, and in this room, we struggle way more with God's forgiveness to ourselves than we do forgiving other people. And we saw with all the injustices going on in the world, spiritual and secular leaders are both calling for reform and they're calling for reconciliation. And I'm all about reconciliation, bringing two parties together to fix something that's broken and make it whole. But my premise is that if we who are struggling to receive God's forgiveness ourselves, if we are broken, then why are we sending to broken people to a party to bring wholeness? We've got to look deeper and understand that that that in order to forgive others, well, we first need to receive God's forgiveness for ourselves. And that's where we're going in this series. My conclusion is that you can't be forgiving of others until you've received God's forgiveness for you. And sometimes we can be hardest on ourselves. Sometimes we can say the rudest and meanest things to ourselves. Sometimes we can think things about ourselves that if someone else did, we would never hang out with that person. And yet we're doing this to ourselves. And so this is a series that's going to dove deep past our physical scars on the outside and look at those wounds that are still on the inside and realize that while there may be a wound or two that was unfairly done against you by someone else, I think our scariest, deepest, darkest wounds are things we've done ourselves that we're still having a hard time getting past, even though Jesus has said it is finished and paid for. And so rather than taking that from God and giving that forgiveness to ourselves instead, we just kind of suppress it under the cushion. We learn to live a life, managing it and modifying it and carrying it around with us wherever we go. When the opportunity to fully let go of all of that and to fully step into the freedom of God is truly available. And that's where we're headed. There is real freedom in the name of Jesus. This Jesus who said I have come to you may have life. And then you would have it to the fullest. So thankfully, in each of our stories, we have someone who's already taken the first step in our journey and his name is Jesus. And over the next 40 days, we're going to dove deep into the forgiveness that God has for you. Every spiritual problem that exists in the world, the answer is found in Jesus. And so what are we going to be doing over these next 40 days? Let me show you what we're going to be doing, kind of show you where we're going and what we're doing. The big question we're going to look at and how cool that we can actually see it, that we have a God sent his son to in the flesh to reveal his nature to us. We're going to look at how did Jesus forgive if we should learn forgiveness from anybody? We should learn it from Jesus is we're going to dove deep into how Jesus forgave. And what we see is that right after the story of Jesus bursting into the room and John, 20, right after he revealed his scars to Thomas, it looks like the writer John has every intention to close out his gospel. In fact, the subheading, which was added later, says the purpose of John's gospel. And it's a pretty good thing when you're wrapping up. I want to tell you the purpose one more time. And then John says these words, these two verses Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples. Which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. What a great ending. And, you know, John's the last of the four gospels, right, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This is Chapter 20, added all the chapters of the Gospels. This is the 88 beautiful chapter, beautiful gospel message where Jesus just forgives and forgives and forgives and reveals his character to us. And now, finally, John's closing up the gospels. The story is over. Believe in him, and you may have life in his name. Story done. Except when I look in my Bible. There's the John 21. There's an 89th chapter. Huh? And over the next 40 days, we're going to largely be camping out in the 89th chapter. Because in this chapter. We're going to experience what I think is my favorite story of forgiveness in all the Bible. I love how Jesus forgives other people, I love the forgiveness that he offered to the Samaritan woman at the well, the Adult Swim thrown at his feet to Zaki as the wee little man in the tree. I love the story of the prodigal son. All of these are incredible stories that show Jesus forgiveness is for everybody. But what I love about Chapter 89 is this is when Jesus is going to forgive Peter Peter. His right hand man, the man he had a relationship with, the man he trusted and empowered the church to. This is the man that Jesus is going. To forgive. And some of you may resonate more with the story of the prodigal son just going out and wasting everything. I resonate with what I call periodical Peter free periods where he got it so right. Periods where he got it so wrong. Prodigal son periodical, Peter, I hope you like alliteration and puns, did you miss my didn't miss one earlier, by the way, I got more in this series, but I can't give them to you. All right now, I don't want to peter out on the first week. Thank you. Thank you. Here's what I love, and here's the gospel message for us this morning we're going to dove deep into the words of the Chapter 89. But right now, all I need you to know is there's another chapter that when someone tries to close your story, God simply wants to write another chapter, and his best work appears when everything is over and done. And so I don't know if others have been telling you, Hey, because you did this. You're done. Or if you're telling yourself, because I did this, I'll never amount to anything. God could never forgive me. God could never use me. My story is over. What God is wanting you to say. What to hear today is he is the author and the finisher of your story. And you don't get to tell him when your story is over. I'm sorry, but he doesn't need you to be his ghostwriter in your own story. When the Holy Ghost is still working up inside of you. And so we're going to see God do an incredible thing in Chapter 89, and we'll we're going to look at as we explore Jesus in his his forgiveness of Peter. We're going to look at not only this metaphor of scars today, but it's going to form, hopefully a powerful acronym. The five phases leading to freedom. And so if you're reading along this week, you're going to read about scars and days one through five and then we're going to spend a week on each one. And then these are the five courses of the meal we're going to have in the next five weeks. We're going to look at next week, sin. How this very loaded term, we're going to define what it is, the fact that we all missed the mark. But in Jesus, any failure is simply another opportunity to fall into his grace. I know sins a tough word. The meal is still going to taste good next week, and we're going to look at confession and see that Jesus invites us every time we sin into this practice called confession. And the coolest part about confession is not the words you bring or even heart that you bring, but the fact that God himself will posture himself already to hear you and to forgive you. And that's what we see in the week. A absolution God absolves. Scott declares absolution. I declare that you are fully forgiven. We're going to see how Jesus's death on the cross was the full payment for all sin of all time, including yours. That's where a lot of people stop, though. But the forgiveness of Jesus goes deeper. It's we're going to get into the hour how God works, a complete restoration that after you've done something, the world wants to tell you again that your story is over, that your identity has to change, that you'll never amount to anything. But we're going to see God say sin doesn't disqualify you from the original call I placed in your life. You are my son and my daughter. Now let's go. And then finally, this is where it all comes together. It's one thing to know you're forgiven absolution and it's paid for. It's another to know that God wants to restore you. But until we get into that final s sanctification definition means to the process of being freed from sin. And this is where we walk hand-in-hand with God into the future until we walk in that truth. We will not be living freely. And my hope is that you will experience what we're going to see happen in the life of Peter. Stepping into the lifeguards called you into I'm just convinced that too many of us, even though we say Jesus is our savior and Lord, we're not feeling and experiencing that freedom. And we're still beating ourselves up over stuff Jesus already paid for, Jesus already declared done, and I'm tired of playing the game and walk in a half hearted, hobbled down handicap version of Who God has called to set free and walk fully. And so I hope you join me in this, and I hope you come in because you can see God do powerful things in your story. Chuck Todd, you stand right now as I read the words of Luke for 18. When Jesus says the spirit of the Lord is on me because he is appointed, anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, he has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind and to set the oppressed free. Good news for you. The one that Jesus is coming to set free is you. He's already done and paid the price he's already offered and made it available. It's time we receive it, accept it and walk in that truth. It's so God I prayed today that just like you burst through the walls of the Courante disciples, you would come up on in these walls and you would share with us a message of kindness and love and grace and peace. And the Lord, you would reveal to us your nail scarred hands, and we would truly receive what you want us to receive from it. In fact, if you're here today and it's like, yes, I want, I know I need more freedom, I know I'm not walking fully as Jesus has called me to walk. Would you just rate both your hands right now in a posture of surrender and in a posture of just expecting fear of God? I don't know what's coming, but I'm going to give you the next 40 and I want you to do your thing. So God moving, these people got even ones that don't have hands up, even ones that aren't sure what to expect. Even ones that aren't inviting you come through the wall right now and reveal yourself. And through these 40 thought I prayed God, that you would do great, glorious things that you would reveal to us how much you deeply love us. Then you would show up. Our stories are not over. There's an 89 chapter in all of our lives, and now you're not done with us. God, we rip away the lives of the enemy. Sometimes the lies become even through our own thoughts, in our own words, to ourselves. And we claim today the truth of the gospel that my god never give up on me. They got my dog will come and find me and chase me and leave the 99 to come and get back. What is who is what? Jesus. Come on now he give back. What's yours? I thank you for the reckless love. It needed a reckless love. I made so much of a mess it had to be reckless. But I think you that you came in to come on church, let's worship God right now. Let's take him to this rack with love. Didn't even qualify.

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