With her sidewalk chalk, India colored in the flowers she had drawn along the edge of the driveway. Then she stood back and frowned.
Dad came out of the house and smiled at India. “What lovely flowers!” he said. “And I won’t even have to water them.”
“No, but I’m going to,” said India. “I want them a different color.” Taking the garden hose, she aimed the stream of water at her artwork. WHOOSH! All traces of chalk soon disappeared down the driveway.
India grinned at Dad. “Now I can start all over,” she said. “Cool, huh?”
“That is pretty cool,” said Dad. “That’s a picture of what Jesus does for us. He gives us a chance to start over when we confess our sin to Him.”
“Oh, great,” India said, rolling her eyes. “I can already see my chalk flowers are going to be used in a sermon!”
Dad grinned. “Well, that’s what happens when you have a pastor for a dad!” He nodded toward the wet spot on the driveway. “Where are the flowers you drew?”
“They’re gone,” India replied, “and I know what you’re going to say–that when we confess our sins, they’re gone too.”
“That’s right,” said Dad. “Now bring those flowers back for a minute.”
“I can’t!” India said. “They’re washed down the drain, and they don’t exist anymore.”
Dad smiled. “They’re gone, never to be seen again. That’s what happens to our sins when we confess them to Jesus and turn away from them. He forgives and forgets them. The Bible says He removes them from us as far as the east is from the west!”
“But sometimes I still go over them in my mind–even after I tell Jesus I’m sorry,” India said.
Dad nodded. “Sometimes it’s hard for us to forget the bad things we’ve done, and even after confessing them, we wonder how God can forgive and forget them. When that happens, ask Jesus to help you remember His promise to always forgive your sins and remove them.”
“And thank Him for letting me start over,” added India. “Just like I’m going to do with these flowers!” Chalk in hand, she began drawing again on a dry section of the driveway.
Have you ever had one of those days when nothing goes right? It feels like the world is against you. To make matters worse, someone might tell you that God is always faithful, and you want to punch that person in the mouth. Biblically, that someone was the prophet Jeremiah. We see an example of this in Jeremiah 31:31-34.
The earliest Christians followed these words as they tried to understand Jesus’ call for them to live as His disciples. They felt called to continue living in ways that were shaped by God’s Word from the Hebrew Bible. They found that Jeremiah’s words encouraged them to let their faith in Christ fill their hearts and direct their living, so that everything they did and everything they said became a testimony to the forgiveness they had received and the lives they were called to live.
Covenants with God are not necessarily communal. When they are broken, the entire community suffers. God suffers, and our neighbours are also hurt. In this case, the Old Covenant can’t be fixed. Covenants are mere lip service if the heart is devoted to other gods. Instead of leading the people in their covenant relationship with God, the Kings of Israel sought political alliances to increase their own power. This was supposed to keep Israel from being conquered, but to Jeremiah it was a violation of their covenant with God.
Jeremiah put the earthly powers that subverted the covenant on notice. God deals with these destructive people and aims directly for our own hearts. He will know us and we will know Him no matter what our status is with our fellow humans.
The Lord solved the problem of a corrupt heart by writing His Laws on the hearts of His people. With the law written on the heart each person would act instinctively in God’s ways. They could live out the New Covenant requirements in exterior acts, but these acts would flow from a heart turned to God. In other words, by the indwelling Spirit of God, the laws of God would move from being an external reality to an internal reality. This provision of the New Covenant was instituted through the blood of Christ. The unconditional covenants God made with Israel secured her future blessings, and the blood of the New Covenant secures all those who are in Christ.
God distinguished this covenant from the one He had given them at the time of their Exodus from Egypt. The terms of that covenant were written on tablets of stone. They were broken. The New Covenant was represented by Jesus and His death and resurrection. In the New Covenant, every individual would truly know the Lord through a direct, personal relationship rather than one that was mediated primarily through priests and prophets. It is the forgiveness that washes away the barrier between God and humanity and sets up a dynamic of intimate knowing. Those who know God will participate in the blessings of salvation.
There is no possibility of true happiness until we have established friendship and fellowship with God. There is no possibility of establishing this fellowship apart from what Jesus did for us on the cross. It is only through Christ’s death on the cross that we can be forgiven and reconciled to God.
God put our sins on Jesus and judged them there so that He could put them out of His mind and deal with us mercifully. Jesus’ great atonement for our sins removed all sin from the mind of God. Believers wear a divine righteousness. When we mourn over our sins and shortcomings, we must also rejoice that God will not hold our sins against us. This makes us hate sin. God’s free pardon makes us anxious to never again grieve Him by disobedience. God continually renews the covenant we break so that we might know the One who wants nothing more than to be in relationship with us, even when we rebel.
Christians must never lose hope. Our belief in Jesus gives us hope for the future. He will always love us just like He has always loved His people. Even after generations of people had spit in His face, He still loved them. After His people had stripped Him naked and ripped His flesh, He still died for them. Even today, after billions of people have forsaken Him for power, fame, and wealth, He still waits for them. This isn’t logical or rational, but it is that lack of logic and rationality that gives God’s Word its greatest defense, because only God could love like that.
When I was doing my research for this message, I read about an interesting custom that takes place every New Year’s Eve in Italy. Just before midnight the streets are cleared. At the stroke of midnight, the windows of the houses fly open, and to the sound of laughter, music, and fireworks, everyone throws out what they no longer need-things such as old furniture, dishes, and some personal possessions. It’s a way of wiping out the old and starting fresh.
We can wipe out the old and start fresh as well when God forgives us and forgets our sins. The principle of remembering and forgetting is nowhere more important that when we apply it to our sins. God clearly wants us to remember that we are sinners. Then when God forgives our sins, He also forgets them and He wants us to forget them too. We need to remember what God remembers and forget what God forgets.
Forgiveness gets us to relationship with God so that we can be His people and know Him intimately. When things get tough, Satan will tell us that we are alone. When he does, he lies. If we are in Christ, we are never alone. Through the Holy Spirit who lives in us, we are one of His people and we know Him and are known by Him. In a lonely world, that’s great news.
There are many people today who have benefitted from the blessings of God but do not walk in His ways. Carrying a Bible, attending a good church, and outwardly presenting the appearance of a devout Christian are not enough. God’s truth must be in our hearts. Unless it is real on the inside, the outer façade will soon disappear and the truth will come out. God is not deceived by things that may hide our inward thoughts and feelings from other people. He is looking for people who will be true to Him, beginning on the inside.
Have you done something wrong? If you trust in Jesus, He’s already taken the punishment for all your sins, and He promises to forgive any sin and remove it from your life. When you do something wrong, tell Him and ask Him to forgive you. Even if you think of the bad thing you did again, He won’t–it’s gone forever! Then you can start over, depending on Him to help you do what’s right.
Bibliography
- Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible: New Kings James Version (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 2013; pp. 1005-1006)
- Guest, J. & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series Vol. 19: Jeremiah, Lamentations (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1988; pp. 211-213)
- MacArthur, J.F. Jr.: The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers; 2006)
- Lucado, M.: The Lucado Life Lessons Study Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson; 2010)
- “He Remembers No More.” Retrieved from Christianity.com@crosswalkmail.com
- Hazel W. Marett, “Gone for Good.” Retrieved from infor@keysforkids.org
- “Remembering and Forgetting.” Retrieved from Crosswalk@crosswalkmail.com
- Pete Briscoe, “Experiencing LIFE Today.” Retrieved from Crosswalk@crosswalkmail.com
- Greg Laurie, “Put It Away.” Retrieved from Crosswalk@crosswalkmail.com
- Jude Siciliano, OP, “First Impressions, 5th Sunday of Lent (B)< March 22, 2015.” Retrieved from www.preacherexchange.org
- Billy Graham, “Forgiveness and Fellowship.” Retrieved from Cristianity.com@crosswalkmail.com
- Dr. Paul Chappell, “Written on the Heart.” Retrieved from daily@dailyintheword.org
- The Rev. Dr. J. Bennett Guess, “Written Within You.” Retrieved from www.day1.org
- John Piper, “The Greatest Salvation Imaginable.” Retrieved from noreply+sj@feeds.desiringgod.org
Sermons From My Heart 