These are notes on the sermon, Count On Your Forgiveness, preached by Pastor Joseph Prince on Sunday, February 16, 2025, at The Star Performing Arts Centre, Singapore. We hope these sermon notes will be an encouragement to you!
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Pastor Prince has been sharing over the past few weeks on the theme of the year given by the Lord—the Third Day. The first mention of “third day” in Genesis 1:9–13 shows us God bringing forth dry land from the waters and causing trees to bear fruit—a beautiful picture of the resurrection and fruitfulness we can look forward to as we step fully into the third day that our heavenly Father has prepared for us.
Now, in this third day of His prophetic timeline, our Abba wants us to be established upon two main teachings: our righteousness in Christ and the power of His resurrection. And it isn’t a coincidence that the enemy has been fighting to dislodge these two core doctrines from taking effect in man’s life since the garden of Eden.
In the garden, God planted many trees to provide for man, including the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is essentially morality, and man’s eating of this tree represented his choice of seeking to establish his own righteousness as opposed to depending on God’s righteousness. This choice also meant that man forfeited eating of the tree of life, a picture of Christ and His divine life.
During our Lord Jesus’ earthly ministry, there were two groups of Jews who constantly opposed Him—the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They were used by the enemy to attack our Lord throughout His earthly ministry and what they stood for or denied were exactly the two main doctrines necessary for believers to walk fully in the third-day blessings.
The Pharisees were obsessed with the law and legalism. They were against the receiving of God’s righteousness as a gift and were busy trying to establish their own righteousness. As Romans 10:3 tells us, “They being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.” On the other hand, the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection. They denied this fundamental truth of our Christian faith.
So we can see, the enemy hasn’t changed his tactics since man was created. He’s still trying to keep believers from understanding their righteousness as a gift of God through Christ’s finished work and from experiencing the power of our Lord’s resurrection. This is why the preaching of the gift of righteousness and of His resurrection is most important in these last days!
When you understand your righteousness in Christ and the reality of His resurrection power working in you, you’re positioned to experience all that the Lord has for you in this third day. The very things the enemy tries to obscure through religious opposition are the very truths that will cause you to walk in fruitfulness and victory today!
While the cross is undeniably significant in God’s redemptive plan and is the basis of our righteousness in Christ, we must not neglect the importance of the resurrection in sealing the deal. Both are vital! The cross dealt with our sins and the resurrection secured our justification and new life.
When Jesus went to the cross, He became the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. John, the apostle of love, testified that the Lord had no sin in Himself. Peter, the man of action, declared Jesus did no sin, and Paul affirmed that the Lord knew no sin. Yet, the sinless One became sin for us, bearing even our sinful nature—that rebellious part of us that leans toward sin.
Consider this: As the perfect, sinless Man, Jesus could not die. It was only when He took on our sin nature and all our sinful deeds and became sin that death could fasten itself upon Him (Rom. 6:23). Now, our Lord is both fully God and fully man, but at the cross, He laid aside His deity and died as a man for our sakes. When He cried, “It is finished,” the temple veil was torn from top to bottom, indicating that it was a divine act. He dismissed His spirit, voluntarily submitting Himself to death, and was buried.
Were our sins truly forgiven at this point?
The apostle Paul makes this crystal clear in 1 Corinthians 15:17:
To understand this fully, we need to examine what happened in ancient Israel on the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur.
Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Every year on this day, Israel would provide an offering for the sins of the nation and everyone in it. During the ceremony and in the people’s presence, the high priest, representing the nation, would lay his hands on the sacrificial animal, transferring all of Israel’s sins for the entire year onto it. Then, bearing the nation’s sins, the animal was killed. This was a picture of what Jesus would do for us as the Lamb of God at the cross—becoming our sin-bearer.
The high priest would then enter the Holy of Holies, a place so sacred that if he wasn’t properly prepared, he might be struck down in God’s presence, with a bowl of the sin offering’s blood. The people waiting outside would not be able to see what was happening behind the thick veil, and could only wait in hope. Inside, the high priest would sprinkle the blood seven times before the mercy seat. It was only when the high priest emerged alive from behind the veil that the people knew their sins had been forgiven!
But there’s more—the high priest’s reappearance was also a sign that the nation could expect God’s blessings for the coming year! The moment the high priest emerged, the people would break out in celebration, knowing that not only were their sins atoned for, but that they could also look forward to divine protection, fruitful harvests, and God’s favor.
This was exactly what happened with our High Priest, our Lord Jesus! When He emerged from the grave on that resurrection morning, it was akin to the high priest emerging from the Holy of Holies. Our Lord’s resurrection is our divine receipt showing that our sin debt has been paid in full and that we have our heavenly Father’s complete forgiveness!
Furthermore, Jesus’ blood is not like the blood of bulls and goats that needed to be offered yearly. His blood is divine blood and has remitted ALL our sins, past, present, and future. We are forgiven forever!
This is also why Hebrews 1:3 declares that Christ, having “purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” If our Lord had missed carrying even one speck of sin, He couldn’t have sat down next to our heavenly Father. His seated posture is our eternal assurance that His work of redeeming us is truly finished.
And just as the Israelites could expect a year of God’s blessings after their high priest emerged, our Lord Jesus’ resurrection means that He has secured not just our total forgiveness but also every blessing that comes with being righteous in God’s sight (Prov. 10:6)!
The truth that we have complete forgiveness with our heavenly Father is not just a theological concept—it’s a life-changing reality! Unfortunately, believers are often so slow to believe that our sins have truly all been forgiven.
To this day, many believers still struggle with this idea of total forgiveness. They often feel, out of the sincerity of their hearts, that they need to feel remorseful, to confess if they have sinned, and to atone for their own wrongdoings to maintain fellowship with God. But the truth is, we sin more than we realize, in our thoughts, words, and deeds. So let’s say if a person believes in confession, it is impossible to have confessed every single sin, every single time! If one unconfessed sin can break that person’s fellowship with the Lord, then this person would be perpetually out of fellowship.
This is contrary to what the Bible tells us! King David says in Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” That’s an infinite distance—these two points on a compass can never meet! Jesus’ resurrection is the Father’s declaration that He has fully forgiven us of all our sins, even the ones we are unconscious of.
Every time we remain sin-conscious, we are actually saying we don’t believe in our Abba and in the finished work of the cross. This unbelief is what prevents us from experiencing the power of the Lord’s resurrection. When we stay under condemnation, our bodies break down, our minds become troubled, and we can’t receive His healing power.
Remember the story of the paralyzed man whose friends broke through the roof (Mark 2:3–11)? Notice what our Lord Jesus said first: “Your sins are forgiven you.” Only then did He say to the man, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”
This shows us that believers need to know they are forgiven before they can receive their healing and walk in victory!
Now, does this complete forgiveness give us a license to sin? Absolutely not! In fact, 2 Peter 1:5–9 shows us something remarkable:
When listing wonderful characteristics like virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love, Peter reveals a fascinating truth: If we’re lacking in any of these areas, it’s not because we need to try harder; it’s because we’ve forgotten that we’re forgiven!
When you truly understand and count on your forgiveness in Christ, these godly characteristics will flow naturally in your life. But when you’re busy trying to achieve forgiveness through your own efforts, trying to establish your own righteousness (self-righteousness), you become hard on yourself and on others. So don’t negate what the Lord has done for you. Instead, be quick to receive the forgiveness He paid for and has freely given to you, and to thank Him for it!
In the book of Revelation, we see two churches that are prophetic of our times today—Laodicea and Philadelphia. The Laodicean church represents those who are wealthy and proud, saying “I am rich and have need of nothing” (Rev. 3:17). Notice how Jesus isn’t even mentioned in their confession? They’re self-sufficient, but the Lord’s indictment of them is: “You don’t know that you are blind.” In contrast, the Lord declared the Philadelphian church a faithful church, one that had “kept [His] command to persevere” (Rev. 3:10).
Now, being spiritually blind or shortsighted is a serious spiritual condition. Why and what does it mean?
When you’re shortsighted, you can only see what’s right in front of you but can’t see far ahead. You lack prophetic vision. This is not what our Father wants for us. Think of the eagle—it has incredible vision, able to see almost 340 degrees with thermal vision capabilities. God likens His people to eagles (Isa. 40:31) because He wants us to have clear, far-reaching spiritual vision.
But, when we forget we’re forgiven, we become spiritually “shortsighted, even to blindness” (2 Pet. 1:5–9).
Now, let’s look at the parable Jesus taught about forgiveness in Matthew 18:23–33. There was a king who forgave his servant an enormous debt when he couldn’t repay it. But when that forgiven servant left the king’s presence, he found someone who owed him a smaller amount and demanded that that person pay him back. When he couldn’t, the forgiven servant had him thrown in prison!
You see, it’s possible to be like that servant, forgiven yet not extending forgiveness to others. Why? Because he wasn’t counting on or living in the reality of his king’s forgiveness. He was not conscious that he had been forgiven!
Friend, when you truly know you have the Father’s complete forgiveness, it will transform how you treat others. As Ephesians 4:32 tells us, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” When you are counting on your forgiveness in Christ, you will naturally extend that same forgiveness to others. You become more loving, more gracious, more Christ-like. Not because you’re trying to earn something, but because you’re living in the reality of what Jesus has already done for you.
The choice is yours—will you be like the Laodicean church, blind to your need for Jesus? Or will you be like the Philadelphia church, seeing clearly through eyes of faith, and keeping His commandment to forgive and love one another because you’re conscious of how much you yourself have been forgiven? Remember, the key to developing godly characteristics and walking with clear, spiritual vision comes from being forgiveness-conscious!
We hope these sermon notes blessed you! If they did, we encourage you to get the sermon and allow the Lord to speak to you personally as you watch or listen to it.
© Copyright JosephPrince.com 2025
These sermon notes were taken by volunteers during the service. They are not a verbatim representation of the sermon.
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