Feeding Lambs S1E7 God Forgives Me

Feeding Lambs is for our youngest believers and friends in the kingdom. In season one, we are mirroring Feeding Sheep in the sense that we are covering topics that are getting us “back to the basics.”

We will be discussing foundational truths in this season that everyone needs to know and be able to grow and build upon in the times to come. 

“God Forgives Me” uses 1 John 1:9 as our text of choice and memory verse for the week. We will discuss how God not only forgives us, but He also cleanses us. We journey back to last week and connect the dots between how Jesus was wounded and bruised for our iniquities and transgressions allowing forgiveness to take place because He paid the debt of our sins with His blood on the cross.

He was wounded and bled on the outside for the sins we commit outwardly that everyone can see. He was bruised and bled on the inside for the sins that we commit inwardly that only He can see. Sin requires a payment of blood through a sacrifice that must die, going all the way back to Old Testament law. Jesus became that sacrifice for our debt of sin and paid it in full with His blood on the cross.

In 1 John 1:9 the original meaning of forgiveness is to let go, to release from the penalty of a debt, to willingly choose to not hold a grudge against the accused. Not only does God forgive us when we take responsibility and confess our sins, but He cleanses us from the stains that sin leaves behind in its aftermath. He wants to forgive, but until we confess, it won’t take place. It is important to be truthful and take accountability for the wrongs we have done. To not only confess and be sorry for them, but to walk in repentance which means to turn away from that sin and go in a new direction—His direction.

His forgiveness doesn’t always release us from the consequences on this earth for our sins, but it does release us from the eternal punishment and we stand before Him justified, cleansed and forgiven—as if it never happened. He doesn’t remind us of our sins, or beat us over the head with them. He chooses willingly to not harbor bitterness against us.

It is important to create a safe environment for our kids to be open and honest with us, to show them they can be open and honest with God. That consequences are probable for sins/wrongs committed, but once it’s over, it’s over. Let us love them like God and not hold their mistakes over their head. It will make them misidentify themselves with the wrongs they have done, instead of being able to move past those things and into their futures.

The most important place we can connect with our children is through sharing our faith. God at the center of any relationship only allows it to become as strong as it can be. Don’t just build memories of vacations, adventures, sports, or school, build memorials of faith that will last throughout eternity. 

We pray that you will listen with your children and let these “mini podcasts” be a doorway to having important conversations about living out their faith, and what it means. Take time to ask them questions and really engage in their spiritual walk! It’ll transform the whole spiritual dynamic of the family if you will.

Please feel free to let your children know that they can reach out—with help from their parents of course—with any questions or topics that they would like to see covered, or they can send in recordings of them doing their weekly memory verses! 

We want them to know that this podcast is just as much for them as it is for the teens/adults. Can’t wait to see how they grow from here!

God bless, and thank you for the opportunity to speak into their lives. What an honor it is!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Good morning, my little lambs. Welcome to Feeding Sheep Podcast, Little Lambs Edition. It is such an honor to be with you today, and I can't wait to dive into a very special topic. It ties into last week's lesson on God Heals Us, and we'll get to that in just a few minutes. But today we are going to talk about God forgives us and what it means to be forgiven by the Lord. And before we get into all of the things, we're going to go into our memory verse for this week. And it has some big words in it, but I have no doubt that you're going to be able to do it. I'm going to read it first, like always, and then we'll do it together, and you can repeat after me. Okay. So this is our first run through. Our memory verse comes from 1 John chapter 1, verse 9. And it says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Okay, are you ready? It's a big one. Here we go. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. First John 1 9. Okay, so let's get started. Last week we talked about God heals us. And we took a verse from Isaiah 53 as our memory verse, and it said, But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. And we talked a little bit about how Jesus was crucified on the cross, that he was wounded for our transgressions, and transgressions are sins or they're wrongdoings. Um they're they're for lack of a better word, they are God has certain rules for us, and there are guidelines that he sets out, things that we can do and things that we shouldn't do, because those things break people's heart and they break God's heart. Um, the Ten Commandments, you know, some of those God said you should not lie, you should not steal, you should not murder, um, you should honor your father and your mother. Uh, you should honor the Sabbath day, you should have no other gods before him, so on and so forth. And those are just basic, basic life rules that are going to keep us in check and following Jesus, following the Lord and loving the people around us well. And Jesus went on in the New Testament to say all you can you can fulfill all the commandments and you cannot break any of the rules if you'll love Jesus or you'll love the Lord with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your strength, and if you'll love your neighbor as yourself. Because if you love the Lord, you don't want to sin on purpose. And if you love your neighbor, you certainly don't want to sin against them. You don't want to commit a transgression. And we talked about how transgressions are sins that everybody can see. There's sins you can see on the outside. If you steal, that's noticeable. It's something that happens on the inside or on the outside. So he was wounded on the outside of his body with many stripes. He was wounded with a crown of thorns on his head. He was wounded in his hands and in his feet to pay the debt that our sin incurred. Our sin incurs punishment. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. So the payment, the eternal payment for sin is death. But Jesus came and he died on the cross and he paid the debt that my sin grew for me, and he shed his blood as a payment for my sin, so that I wouldn't have to die. He died in my place so that you wouldn't have to die as punishment for your sins. Jesus came and he died on the cross for you. He was wounded on the outside for the sins that we commit on the outside. He was bruised for our iniquities. And we talked about those are sins that happen in our heart that nobody can see, that we can walk around with a smile, but we can hate and we hate in our heart and we think bad thoughts about people or ourselves or what have you, or we we say bad things about our appearance in our head because we're frustrated and we're angry. Um, and nobody can see that. Nobody knows that we sinned, but we knew that we sinned and God knows. And so he was bruised and he bled on the inside for the things that we commit on the inside. And so he paid this debt because sin has to be paid for. And it started all the way back in the Old Testament, and maybe one day we can go all the way through that. Um, but I won't have time to do all of that today. But maybe in the future we can get through all of that. For sin to be paid for, there had to be a sacrifice, there had to be a death. So Jesus came to this world and he lived a sinless life. He didn't do anything wrong. Can you imagine living your whole life and not doing anything wrong? It's incredible. But Jesus did that and he gave his life on the cross so that our sin could be paid for. So that just like 1 John 1 and 9 says, if we confess our sins, which means if we admit that we've done wrong, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins. Okay, he's faithful and he's righteous, which means that you can count on him to do what's right. You can count on him to make the right decisions, that if he says something, he means it. If he says he'll do it, he will. If we confess, if we admit that we've done wrong things and we've committed wrong actions, he will do the right thing and he will forgive us of our sins and he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That word forgive means to release us from the penalty of our offenses. Remember, I told you the penalty of sin was death and is death. But Jesus died and he paid the penalty, and all we have to do is say, Jesus, God, I did something wrong. I sinned, I admit it, I did it. And if we will confess it, if we will admit to our wrongdoing, he will forgive us and he will release us from that punishment. And not only will he release us from the punishment or the penalty of our offenses, he lets it go, he cancels our debt, and he refuses to hold bitterness against us. Have you ever done something wrong against someone or a person that you know and they say and you said you were sorry, and they said that they forgave you, but they bring it up all the time, and you're thinking, man, I thought you forgave me. If you forgave me, why are we still talking about this? But that's not what God does. When he forgives us, he forgets about it. He doesn't bring up our past, he doesn't throw our transgressions in our face, but he lets it go and he refuses to hold on to bitterness. He refuses to be angry with us forever. Once we confess it, once we repent, which means I'm sorry and I'm not going to go that way or do that thing again. I'm gonna be sorry and I'm gonna turn away from this sin and I'm gonna go in a different direction. When we do that, he doesn't hold anger towards us. He's not um, he's not going to treat us like we're guilty all the time. We're going to be forgiven. We're going to have a clean slate. And not only that, it says that he cleanses us from all unrighteousness. So, say, in your mind, if you want to think about it, what what this is like when we say he cleanses us from all unrighteousness. It's like if you're playing outside and you get and you're wearing your really good clothes, you know, your good school clothes, and you don't change into your play clothes, you go outside and you get filthy dirty, and you have to come home, and mama knows that you've been in the mud hole or that you've been playing in the dirt because you're filthy from head to toe, she's gonna be angry. But if you say, Mama, I know I shouldn't have done it, but I did, and I'm sorry, what's mama gonna do? She's gonna say, Okay, you know, you might get a spanking, you know, you might get in trouble, you might, whatever, however, your mama deals with you, she might just say, I thank you for telling me the truth, and thank you for not trying to hide it from me. And she'll take those clothes and she'll put them in the washing machine and she'll wash them and she'll take you and send you to the bath and you'll take a bath and you'll wash all of that dirt off. Because if you don't wash that dirt off, you're not gonna be clean. And so not only does God forgive us, but he washes us clean. He gets all of that filth, all of that dirt that our sin brings on our life. He gets all of that off of us and he makes us clean and brand new. He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. There's no trace of sin left when he gets finished with us because God forgives us. All we have to do is ask him, confess that we did wrong and say, Lord, I am sorry. Please forgive me for lying. Please forgive me for cheating on my test. Please forgive me for doing this wrong thing, and I am not going to do it anymore. And he will. He will forgive you and he will treat you like you never did it. Um, because that's the goodness of God. He's good to us, he loves us, he chose us, he made us, he hears us, he listens to us, he heals us, and God forgives us. Let's go over our memory verse one more time. First John 1 and 9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I hope you have a wonderful day. And if there's any sins in your heart or anything that you've done that you know is not right with the Lord or with your parents or with your friends or your teachers, make that right today. Tell the Lord that you did wrong and that you're sorry and you want to be forgiven. And just watch as He forgives you. If you confess it, He said, I'm faithful and you can count on me to forgive it, and I'll wash you clean and I won't leave any stains of sin on your life. What a wonderful God we serve! What a wonderful Jesus we have that would pay the penalty for our sins in our place so that we don't have to. He's so He's so wonderful to us. I hope you have the best day and a wonderful weekend. And I will see you next week when we talk about the topic. God helps me. I can't wait. I hope that you're excited too. God bless you, and I'll talk to you later. Bye bye.