Overview

1. God’s ways are higher than ours
2. His mercy meets us in our weaknesses
3. Understanding our total forgiveness leads to true transformation
4. What it means to walk in the truth of the gospel

God’s ways are higher than ours

Pastor Prince began this message with Isaiah 55:8–9:

Many of us have heard this verse as a general statement about God’s greatness, or the depth and breadth of His mind. But what exactly is God referring to when He says, “My ways are higher than your ways”?

Let’s look at the context of this passage to discover what He really wants us to catch. Just one verse earlier, He says:

So when He says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts,” He’s referring specifically to the quality of His forgiveness and how full of tender mercy He is. His thoughts of mercy are higher and His ways of forgiveness greater than we can ever fathom.

This can be hard for us to grasp because our forgiveness is often limited, conditional, and self-focused. Even with those we love, we can be quick to judge and slow to forgive—despite the fact that we may have made the same mistakes ourselves.

But our heavenly Father is not like us.

In our moments of weakness, moments when we might disqualify or condemn ourselves, He abundantly pardons us. He doesn’t turn away in disappointment. He doesn’t wait for us to clean ourselves up. He steps in to restore us.

We see this in the parable of the prodigal son. While the son was still far off—dirty, broken, and rehearsing his apology—the father ran to him. He embraced his son and kissed him repeatedly. He didn’t wait for the son to explain himself or prove that he had changed. The father simply received him fully.

This is a picture of our heavenly Father. And this is what it means when God says, “My ways are higher than your ways.” His forgiveness operates on a level of grace we can hardly imagine.

His mercy meets us in our weaknesses

We see the Father’s heart of mercy most clearly in Jesus’ ministry on earth, especially in how He treated those the world was quick to shun and condemn for their outward sins.

In Luke 15, we’re told that tax collectors and sinners drew near to Jesus to hear Him.

And here’s what’s beautiful: Jesus didn’t turn them away, nor did He shame them. Instead, He welcomed them. And rather than rebuking them for their sins, He shared three of the most powerful parables ever told—about the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son. Why? Because they saw their need for a Savior, and He delighted in them. Through these stories, He revealed the Father’s heart toward them.

• In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to go after the one. And when he finds it, he doesn’t scold it. He doesn’t beat it back into the fold. He lifts it and carries it home on his shoulders. Every burden, every step, every weight, He alone bears them. All that lost sheep does is rest. That’s our Lord Jesus, our Good Shepherd, who tends and cares for us. Even when we think we’ve gone astray, He finds us and restores us to wholeness.
  
  
• In the parable of the lost coin, a woman sweeps through her entire house, turning it upside down just to find a missing silver coin. Many scholars believe it was part of a bridal ornament, making it deeply personal to her. And when she finds it, she rejoices. The woman is a picture of the Holy Spirit—searching, pursuing, restoring the lost image of God in each of us. This is how precious and dear we are to the Father.
  
  
• And finally, in the parable of the prodigal son, we see the Father’s heart laid bare. While the son is still far off—the same son who had sinned against his father—the father runs to him. He throws his arms around his dirty and disgraced son and kisses him again and again. He clothes him and prepares a feast. He restores him fully, not because the son proved he had changed, but simply because he came home.

In these three parables, we see the heart of the triune God at work—the Son, our Good Shepherd, who lifts the sheep and carries it home; the Holy Spirit, sweeping and searching to restore what’s been lost; and the Father, always watching the horizon, waiting to welcome His children home.

That’s the beautiful gospel of grace! That’s our God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—working together to seek, save, and restore the lost.

Understanding our total forgiveness leads to true transformation

Why is the revelation of the Lord’s abundant forgiveness so important?

Because understanding our total forgiveness in Christ is what leads to true transformation. It’s also the key to walking in true holiness.

We all want to live morally excellent lives, lives that are pleasing to the Lord. But what gives us the power to overcome sin isn’t found in trying harder or telling people to keep the law. It comes from having a clear and complete understanding of how forgiven we are in Christ. When we believe right, we will live right.

Now, what’s said in the above paragraph is not a license to sin, despite what many critics of the gospel of grace may say. In fact, Scripture answers this accusation clearly:

“We who died to sin”—what does that mean? It doesn’t mean we’re in the process of dying to sin every day. In Greek, the phrase uses the aorist tense, which denotes an action that happened once and for all, decisively, in the past.

Friend, your sins have been put away completely and permanently. When Jesus died on the cross, He didn’t just bear your sins; He also bore you. You were in Him, and when He died to sin, you died with Him. When He rose, you rose with Him.

And this is how God sees you today: Dead to sin; justified and fully alive to Him.

So, how are we to live today? As Romans 6:11 says, “Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

To reckon doesn’t mean to wish or hope. It’s an accounting term that means to count something as true because it is true. This means that today, we are to see ourselves indeed dead to sin the same way Christ has died to sin.

How did He die to sin? We need to understand that Jesus was never under the power of sin (2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Pet. 2:22, 1 John 3:5). At the cross, He bore only the condemnation, guilt, and judgment of sin on our behalf. That’s what He died to. And now we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin in that same way.

But this is where many believers still struggle. They may know they’re forgiven, though their understanding of what that really means is vague. Many still ask questions like, “Did I confess it right?” or “Was I sorry enough?”, as if their forgiveness can and must be earned through their works or sincerity.

That’s why right believing matters so much. When you know you have been fully forgiven, that the Lord has dealt with the condemnation, guilt, and judgment for all your sins—past, present, and future—only then can you truly walk in the freedom that the Father’s abundant pardon gives. And when you believe that you have been forgiven, justified, and are greatly loved, then true transformation can begin to take root.

What it means to walk in the truth of the gospel

We see this true transformation demonstrated so clearly in the life of the apostle Peter.

Peter’s story isn’t so much one of failure, but more of the Lord’s grace and restoration, and of Peter’s transformation. It shows us what can happen when someone truly receives the Lord’s forgiveness and begins to walk in the truth of the gospel.

Peter was the disciple who boldly declared, “Even if all forsake You, I never will.” But just hours later, as Jesus was arrested and taken away, Peter denied Him. Not once, not twice, but three times and with cursing and swearing. The very thing he swore he would never do, he did.

Yet how did the Lord respond to Him?

As Peter denied Jesus the third time, the rooster crowed. And in that very moment, “the Lord turned and looked at Peter” (Luke 22:61). Jesus, bruised and bound, in the middle of His trial, turned and looked at the one who had just denied Him—not with anger or disappointment, but with love. It was as if He was saying, “Peter, even though you took your eyes off Me, I never took My eyes off you.”

That broke Peter, and he went out and wept bitterly. Though we don’t know where he went, we can only imagine the crushing weight of guilt and shame he must have carried.

But Jesus didn’t leave him in that place.

After His resurrection, the first disciple Jesus appeared to… was Peter (1 Cor. 15:5)! Before the twelve, before the crowds, Jesus sought out the one who had fallen the hardest and restored him.

Scripture doesn’t record what happened in that private encounter between the Lord and Peter. But Peter must have received a deep revelation of the Lord’s forgiveness. Because not long after Pentecost, Peter stood in the temple courts—in front of the very people who would have witnessed and remembered his denial—and preached the gospel with boldness and conviction.

He even said to the crowd, “You denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you” (Acts 3:14).

How could someone who had once denied Jesus in front of a servant girl and others outside the high priest’s house now proclaim the gospel so audaciously?

Because Peter knew that he had been completely forgiven and was still deeply loved by the Lord. That’s why he was no longer hindered by guilt or disqualified by shame. He had been restored by grace.

And that’s what it means to walk in the truth of the gospel.

To walk in the truth of the gospel means living every day fully assured of your complete forgiveness in Christ—so much so that you live unencumbered by guilt and shame, or by what others think of you (Gal. 2:14 NIV). It means you no longer live trying to earn God’s love or qualify for His blessings, because you know you are already accepted, already righteous, already completely forgiven.

And that kind of assurance doesn’t make you want to sin. It makes you want to love Him more. It empowers you to live a life that honors Him, to forgive others freely, to love deeply, and to walk in the freedom He died to give you.

So this week, be conscious of how forgiven you already are. The more you know that He loves you, the more you’ll love. The more you know He has abundantly forgiven you, the more you’ll forgive!

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These sermon notes were taken by volunteers during the service. They are not a verbatim representation of the sermon.