SERVANT LEADERSHIP - The Blue Letter Bible Institute

Servant Leadership – Lesson 10 4
Self-Promotion in Ministry by Jon Courson
You say, “I thought the Lord was forgiving.” He is! “I thought the Lord was gracious.” He is.
When I sin, the moment there is confession there is also absolute forgiveness. He declares to us,
“Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” Micah 7:19 tells us they are buried in the
sea. For the people of Israel, the open ocean was a place they did not go poking around and
digging stuff up in. The people of Israel were not a seafaring people. So when Jesus told them
that if they offended a child, it would be better for them that a millstone was hung around their
neck and they were cast into the sea, that caused a terrifying image to be conjured up in their
minds (cf. Matthew 18:6). We explore the sea. We scuba dive. We send submarines down and
film Jacque Cousteau specials and all of that. I suggest to you that a present-day kind of
application would be to have your sins put in the bottom of a toxic waste dump where nobody
wants to go poking around. Nobody should go poking in a toxic dump.
When I sin, because of the work of Jesus on the cross, I am forgiven. The moment I make
confession—with confession comes forgiveness—right then, I am forgiven.
I need to remember that there is a serious thing about sin. The seeds that I sowed in my sin will
still come up. It is inevitable. With confession comes instant forgiveness. In fact, it is already
done. The price has already been paid. It has already been taken care of, as far as the Father is
concerned, because of the propitiating work of Jesus Christ. Now I am declared justified. It is just
as if I never sinned. I am free, but the seeds I planted in that season are going to come up.
That is why a lot of us are beginning to learn to hate sin. The beginning of wisdom is to fear God,
we are told. And the fear of God is to hate sin. We begin to realize that even though we are
recipients of grace and joyous forgiveness, sin brings some real stinking repercussions. The birds
come home to roost inevitably. It is not God’s doing. He is not punishing me. That has been taken
care of at the cross of Calvary. It is the results of the crop that I planted. The birds come home to
roost.
This story in our newspaper last fall cracks me up.
The story goes on—
The birds come home to roost. A man showing off a turkey he
thought he had killed, was shot in the leg when the wounded bird
thrashed around in his car trunk and triggered his shotgun.
Sheriff Warren Silk said, “The turkeys are fighting back.” The
accident occurred last week after Lan shot the turkey, put it in
his car along with his loaded shotgun. They drove to a
neighbor’s house to show the bird off. While the son was pulling
the turkey out of the trunk, it began struggling, according to the
sheriff, and his claw fired the gun. The shot went through the
side panel of the car and shot the senior Lan’s leg.
He shot this turkey a week before turkey season began. So not
only was he shot in the leg, but he also was stiffly fined for
doing it. The turkeys are fighting back. The birds come home to
roost.