Wiping the Slate Clean

SERMON: 2009-05-24--ac0921--wiping-the-slate-clean SOURCE DURATION: 00:41:38.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidates 0 through 14 are clearly lyrics from a hymn or musical interlude (non-sermon material). Candidate 15 is too short and ambiguous to confirm as the end of the sermon. Since all visible candidates are non-sermon content, no true 'last sermon token' is present in the list. However, candidate 14 represents the last complete segment of the musical transition before the final break/noise at candidate 15. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:36:36.960-00:41:37.440 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, let me begin this morning then by putting the verses that we have read from Acts chapter 2 in their context, and this will pick up where we left off last week. Peter has been speaking to the Pentecost crowd, and he has just laid a very heavy on them. He has said, "This Jesus whom you crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ." And the Bible says people were cut to the heart, why? Because they knew they were in big trouble, and so they cried out to Peter and to the other disciples, and they said, "What must we do?" And it's in that context, then, that Peter speaks the words of our text when he says to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." As I pointed out last week in that verse, there are two commands and there are two promises. The commands are repent and be baptized, and the promises are the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. To repent, I mentioned last week, means to turn your life around. It's to have a change of mind. You're going in one direction, you recognize it's the wrong direction, you come to a halt, and you turn around, and you go back the other way. The Greek word is metanoia. It is a change of mind. It's not just feeling bad. It's not just feeling sorrowful because you have been caught in sin. It's not just being down on yourself because you messed up, no, no. It's leaving it behind and changing your life. Can't do that on our own. Can only do that through faith in Jesus, and to be baptized in the name of Jesus is to be plunged into the death and the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord Jesus. It means that by faith we accept His accomplished work. Once we have done those two things, says Peter, God now promises two things in turn, the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Lord willing, next week we will talk about the gift of the Holy Spirit. Next week is Pentecost Sunday, when we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This morning in the time that we have, we want to talk a little bit about the forgiveness of sins. Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Now sin is never a popular topic. It was back in 1995 that Dr. Neil Plantinga, who is currently the president of our denominational seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, wrote a little book, the cover of which you see there, not the way it's supposed to be, a Breviary of Sin. I don't think I've ever heard the word Breviary before. I had to look it up if truth be known. That's what happens when seminary professors write books. They can't just use common English. A Breviary comes from the word brief or brevity, and it's a short book or a book of short readings performed in daily orders. And as you can imagine with that kind of a title, it's a book that talks about sin. And it talks about sin particularly in the context, as we'll see in a few moments, of the damage and the destruction that it does to all of creation. But I found the reason Plantinga sat down and wrote this little book rather fascinating because the reason that he gives is that because he has observed already back then, both in the world and in the church, a tendency to soft pedal sin. We replace it, he says, with less offensive words like shortcomings or weaknesses or illnesses or addictions. And he says what that does is it not only minimizes sin, but it robs the gospel of its power because the gospel is geared particularly to address the issue of sins. And if I don't have sin, or I think I don't, or if I don't acknowledge my sin, then I cannot come to Jesus for cleansing. And so a low view of sin will always lead to a low view of salvation. Jesus puts it this way, "He that has been forgiven much does what? Loves much. He who has been forgiven little loves little." And I suspect that one of the reasons we are probably somewhat lackadaisical often on, are we not, in our love for God is because we haven't really come to understand how great has been our sin and misery, as the catechism puts it, and how marvelously we have been delivered by the grace and the power of the Lord Jesus. So before we talk about forgiveness then, let's talk a little bit about sin. Now the word sin used in this particular passage is the Greek word hamartano, and it literally means to miss the mark or to fall short, and the picture there is that of an archer shooting his arrow at a target and missing his target. Or another example, a high jumper trying to clear the bar, but he falls short. And so the Bible talks of course, in the book of Romans very specifically, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And the whole idea of sin in the Bible rests on the assumption that there is a God who is infinite and holy and righteous, who made the whole universe and who created it with certain structures and who instituted certain laws, not only physical but emotional and spiritual too. And sin then is a falling short, a missing the mark of what God has ordained is necessary for life lived in obedience. Those standards of course are best summed up for us in the commands of the Lord Jesus to love God above all and to love your neighbor as you love yourself. And historically theologians have talked about the sins of commission and the sins of omission. The sins of commission are the things you and I do that are just simply wrong. When I trust in you more than I trust in the Lord. When I violate one of his moral commandments, when I act selfishly, when I take advantage of you or you take advantage of me, that's not only sin but that's the sin of commission. And the sin of omission are those things that I ought to be doing but I'm not. And so if I see you in trouble and I come marching by and I have what it takes to help you out of trouble, that's the sin of omission. When I fail to give thanks to God for the blessings that he's poured out upon my life, that's the sin of omission. And when I fail to fulfill my obligation to God or to my neighbor in any way, that is the sin of omission. The old Anglican book of common prayer puts it more eloquently than I ever possibly could when it says we have left undone. Those things we ought to have done and we have done those things we ought not to have done. There is nothing good in us. As I said, not popular. But sin in scripture is simply the most serious of all business. And it doesn't matter if it's the sin of commission or if it's the sin of omission. And all is serious business and I can give you four quick reasons why that is. Number one, sin is serious because it is universal. The apostle Paul puts it this way, "As sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, in this way death came to all men because all sinned." You and I, we can look in the face of a baby like we did this morning, witness the baptism, admire the beauty and the charm of a newborn child, but any parent here can tell you that child does not have to be taught as it grows up to be naughty. Doesn't have to be taught how to fight. Doesn't have to be taught how to be selfish. It's automatically there. Why? The Bible says we're all conceived and born in sin. There is nobody who is good and righteous outside of Jesus. The Bible says not even one. An offensive doctrine for a lot of people. And as I said earlier, a lot of people have no use for Jesus because they haven't come to understand the depravity of the human heart. If I compare myself to myself or perhaps to somebody who is worse than me, it's not hard to pat myself on the back and say, "Hey, Visser, you're doing pretty good." But if I compare myself to the standard of God and the righteousness manifest in Jesus, then all I can do is fall flat on my face and say, "Well, it was me. I'm undone." Sin is universal. Not only that, but our sin is a personal affront, a personal affront to a holy God. David puts it this way in Psalm 51 verse 4, and Psalm 51 comes out of the context of his adultery with Bathsheba, and he says to the Lord, "God, against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight." Even when we sin against each other, it's not merely sinning against each other. It is always sinning against God because our sin is a personal affront to a holy God. Here's how Plantinga defines sin in his book, not the way it's supposed to be. He says, "Sin is a culpable," another big seminary word, "a culpable and personal affront to a personal God." Culpable means blameworthy, and we are worthy of blame because in our sin, we personally offend a personal God. There's no question in my mind that one of the reasons we're not more exercised about sin is because our tendency is to view God as somebody big and far away who is used to the whole world messing up, and he doesn't particularly take it personally when I let him down. But the image of God in Scripture is not of some remote potentate who has no personal relationship with me. The picture of God in Scripture is a personal God who is in personal relationship with his people and whose feelings, believe it or not, get hurt when we mess around with him and we don't keep our promises. So the model I want you to think of, those of you that are parents here, think of what it feels like to be a parent. And you have this relationship with your children, and for all your shortcomings, you want what's best for your child, but your children show their depravity. And so one of them outright disobeys you, gets himself into trouble. You get called into the police station to bail him out. Another one pretends to obey you, but underneath has this "I want what I want" and has just learned how to skirt around all of the issues, and he gets himself into trouble but blames everybody else for it. And pretty soon your whole family is beginning to cascade down into chaos because you've got all this garbage taking place and your heart as a parent is broken. Not just because your kids do stupid kid stuff, but because they don't value their relationship with you. They don't believe your love. They don't believe that you have the best in mind for them, and they go out of their way to skewer your heart, and your heart breaks. Do you know what I'm talking about? Now transfer that to God and understand that's how God feels when you and I ignore what he has said, when you and I more often than not willfully go against what we know to be right, and we just brush it all off because somehow God is supposed to be big enough and let it run off his shoulders. Well, he's big enough, but sin is blameworthy because of our personal choices in offending a personal God. Listen to how God puts it in Genesis chapter 6 when the world had gone to pot in the days of Noah. The Bible says the Lord was grieved he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. We don't think of God that way, do we? His heart was filled with pain. Then a little bit later on in 1 Samuel chapter 15 the Bible says the Lord was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel, and again his heart was broken. Sin is a personal affront to a holy God. Sin is universal. Sin is a personal affront, but sin is also highly destructive. Romans 6.23 puts it this way, the wages of sin, even in the age of inflation, I might add, always remains death. What is death? Everything becomes unglued and comes apart. Everything again talks about death and the destructive power of sin by saying it does three things. It perverts, it pollutes, and it disintegrates. To pervert means to twist and distort the good things that God has made. And so God has created us as sexual beings, for example, a way of communicating love and intimacy one to another. Sin perverts our sexuality into lust and power and destructive relationships. To pollute something means that you destroy its purity and you add impurity. If I take a gallon of water and add a couple of cups of hydrochloric acid, the water continues to look the same, but take a drink and you will discover its polluted nature and how sadly destructive it is. Sin pollutes. And all of us know that reality, don't we? We have crossed certain lines. You come away from a situation, whether that was drinking too much, sexing too much, a highly destructive relationship, a bad fight that you know went badly, and you feel slimed. You feel dirty. And a lot of people, once they've crossed that barrier, they feel so dirty, they just keep on sitting because they don't know how to get back out. A lot of girls who have lost their virginity once will now continue on that lifestyle because they figure they've lost it anyway and there's no way to recover. It pollutes and then it disintegrates. Disintegration means it comes apart. Not only is our intimacy with God destroyed, but our intimacy with each other is destroyed because now we're hiding. We can no longer open up our hearts to each other and we're like Adam and Eve covered with fig leaves because I don't want anybody to look into me and to see what's really there. I'm ashamed of what I feel deep down on the inside. But not only do those relationships disintegrate, our own heart and our own life disintegrates because what sin does, it destroys our soul. And now there's a dark spot in my soul that I don't know how to live with. I don't know how to escape from it. It pursues me everywhere I go. And so now I've got to start splitting off. I've got to keep the light out. I've got to pretend that I'm better than I am. I can never stop in the presence of God because I'm deadly afraid of what he's going to find there. And this disintegration ultimately affects all of creation because listen to these verses from the book of Isaiah. The earth dries up and withers. The world languishes and withers. The exalted of the earth languish. The earth is defiled by its people. They have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse consumes the earth. Its people must bear their guilt. Therefore, earth's inhabitants are burned up and very few are left. Someday Lord willing I want to speak on that passage because it is a pertinent passage in connection with global warming and all the other stuff that we talk about. I have never yet heard anybody address the issue of the world groaning under travail because of the destructive nature of sin affects all of creation. That's why Paul says in Romans 8, the whole creation is longing for the revealing of the sons of God because when the sons and the daughters of God come into their inheritance, creation will get in line. Adam was put in charge. Adam messed up. The very creation groans in pain because of our sin. The Bible says in the Old Testament about the nations in the land of Canaan, the land is polluted because of their sin. So sin is universal. It's a personal affront to a holy God. It is highly destructive and it makes us into slaves. Listen to how Paul puts it again in Romans 6. "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, whether you are slaves to sin which leads to death or to obedience which leads to righteousness." I love the story of little Johnny. He was visiting his grandparents. They gave him a slingshot. I don't know why grandparents would do that, but they did. He went out into the woods to practice. He wasn't much good at anything and he came back to the yard and took aim at his grandma's pet duck. Let the stone fly and wouldn't you know, it hit him dead square on the head and killed it. Johnny was beside himself. He knew he was in trouble, so what does he do? He takes the duck and he hides it in the woodpile. Then he looks up and there is his sweet little sister, Sally, watching him. Sally doesn't say a word. They go back in the house. Grandma says, "Sally, let's wash the dishes." But Sally said, "Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Don't you, Johnny?" And she whispered, "Remember the duck." So Johnny did the dishes. Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing, but Grandma said, "I'm sorry, but I need Sally to help me make supper." Sally smiled and said, "That's all taken care of. Johnny wants to do it." And again she whispered, "Remember the duck." And Johnny stayed while Sally went fishing. After several days of Johnny doing both his own chores and that of his sister's, he couldn't stand it any longer, and he confessed to Grandma that he had killed the duck. And she said, "I know, Johnny. I was standing at the window and I saw the whole thing. And because I love you, I forgave you. But I wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave of you." And that's what sin does. It enslaves us. We have been created to have dominion. And when we fall into sin, we yield to Satan and the world and its power. And don't ever think for one moment that there is any love lost. Because once they're done with us, they chew us up and they spit us out. I tell you, I have seen it so many times. The devil has no loyalty. When he has done with you what he wants to do with you, he'll spit you out, trample you into the ground, and go on to the next person because there is no love lost with him. And the story of the protocol in Luke chapter 15 is a powerful example of what happens when we turn our back on our Father and we get lost in the power of sin. That of course then is why in Scripture, sin is such incredibly serious business. And that is why throughout Scripture, God's preoccupation in making all things new is focused on dealing with the issue of sin. Somebody has said, "If our greatest need was for information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need was for technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need was for pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. If our greatest need was for money, God would have sent us an economist. But since our greatest need is for forgiveness, God sent us a Savior." Here's how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. He says, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." As we saw last week when we understand that gospel message, when we stop avoiding the reality of what Scripture says about sin, and we recognize that we cannot save ourselves and we turn ourselves over to Jesus and we are joined to him by faith. At that point, we are reconciled and we are restored to God and we receive the forgiveness of sins. Brothers, what shall we do? They cried out in the day of Pentecost and Peter said, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins." Now, as we wind up in a few moments, let's talk about what that looks like because if that is the greatest gift, if that is the greatest gift that God could give to anybody, what does forgiveness look like? What happens when I repent? Truly repent in the biblical sense of the word. What happens when by faith I'm joined to Jesus and all of the benefits of Jesus are entrusted to me? Well, here's what happens. First of all, the charges against us are dropped. Romans 8.1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." No condemnation. Now think about that for just a moment. Think of all the sins you have committed in the course of your life. Sins of commission as well as sins of omission. That time you stole your mother's cookie. My mother with my older brothers got so frustrated that they're stealing of her cookies that she put locks on her cookie tins. Didn't help her much because they were cheap locks and they learned very quickly how to pick them. My brothers, I've told you before, truly depraved in the heart. But think of your own sin, the time you cheated on an exam, the time you failed to give thanks to God for the blessings that God had given you, the time when you deliberately stepped out into sin rebelliously and knowingly and you said, "I don't care. I want what I want." How many sins do you suppose you've committed in the course of your life? 10? 20? 100? 100,000? I think we can't even begin to fathom it because even the ones we think we know, what we don't know is probably far greater. That's why in the Bible sin before God is viewed as a debt so huge you can never pay it. Now, imagine if you had to pay back to God what you owe him for the violation of his majesty. Imagine being dragged before his court and him saying to you, "You're going to be in jail until every last penny has been made right." That's what hell is because you could never, ever get out of there. But because of Jesus who died shamefully on the cross and rose from the dead, not only has the whole debt been erased, it's like it never existed, God has wiped it out and now when he looks at me all he sees is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am declared without debt. The charges against me have been dropped and God doesn't even remember them anymore. I don't know about you but I think that's kind of good news. Number two, because of Jesus our relationship with God is fully restored. All again in Romans, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Peace with God not only means that God is no longer angry with me, he now turns his face towards me and he delights in me. The Bible says, "You will again have compassion on us. You will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities in the depths of the sea." Somebody has said, "God takes our sin, he throws it into the sea of forgetfulness and then he puts up a no fishing sign." God never dredges our sin back up to throw it back in our face as we often do with one another. No, no. He wipes it all away and he doesn't even remember what it is that we have done and he allows his face to shine towards us and all of a sudden I tell the story about the young man who was charged by his father to keep an eye on the greenhouse and to open the windows in the heat of the day because he said, "If you don't, the plants are going to fry." Father went away, the kid got distracted, forgot to open the windows. The father came back and said, "Did you open the windows?" The kid went as white as white can be and he says, "Oh my goodness, I didn't." Father didn't say a word. They drove in his pickup truck to the greenhouse and sure enough, the temperature inside the greenhouse was 146 degrees. The plants were dead, 46,000 of them. Too late to plant a new crop, devastating financially for the family. The kid said, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." The father said, "Listen, you messed up. I know you're sorry. I forgive you. I'll never mention it." Again and true to his word, he never did. That's forgiveness and that's the kind of forgiveness that God extends to you and to me when by faith, we have been joined to Jesus. And then of course, we're free to do life because Romans 5 goes on to say, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus." And then it says, "Through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand." Grace is God's riches at Christ's expense. It means not only that the charges against me have been dismissed, it not only means that God now allows his favor to rest upon my life. But it's like I got a brand new start. It's like coming out of jail and I don't ever have to hang my head in shame anymore. I don't have to worry about my employer looking at me askance, wondering what I did time for. I don't have to feel when I'm in a crowd, somebody's looking at me and they're remembering all the cruddy things that I did and I can never, ever escape my past because I have been pigeonholed and everybody knows that I'm a screw up and nothing is ever going to be different. No sirree. If I'm in Christ, I'm a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, all things have become new and God will even take the messes of my life, my bad experiences and my sins and he'll weave it into a marvelous tapestry of his amazing and his saving grace. And I think come eternity, and I've said this before, we're going to sit around, we're going to swap stories of how the amazing love and grace of God in Jesus Christ has rescued us from where we were, who we were, and he has done the impossible. He has taken sinners like you and me and he has presented us before him without wrinkle or spot or blemish with rejoicing for all eternity. We're just going to dance around his throne saying praise be to God that he could take the likes of you and me, forgive our sins and make us heirs of his eternal kingdom. So here's the question for you as we wind up this morning. Have you been to the cross? I know you come to church and I know you most likely believe, have you been to the cross? Has there been a time in your life where you have truly repented, where as much as you have been able and have received grace, you could say to the Lord, you know, my life's a screw up, I've tried to run it myself, I can no longer do it, I put my hope and my trust in Jesus. And have you received the gift of forgiveness? Do you know that you are washed whiter than snow? Well somebody says I tried all that, I still don't feel very clean. Remember, it's not based first on feelings, it's based on truth. If God says you're clean, then you're clean and we need to take that by faith. And if that still doesn't get through to the very core of our hearts, then what we do around here is we encourage people to pray for one another. The Bible says confess your sins to one another because it's in that context that God ministered to us his healing and his saving grace. And I'm going to do again what we did last week. If you are in a place where there are certain things that just do not leave you alone, where you cannot forgive yourself and where you cannot really believe that you're forgiven, maybe you cheated on your spouse and nobody knows about it but you. Maybe you've stolen money, maybe you did something in your youth that you were desperately ashamed of and you try to get rid of it all the time but it stays with you and you cannot get rid of that. Stay behind after the service, I'll ask the elders and whoever else is around to hang around after the service and pray with you because the gift of forgiveness cost God everything and because he paid the price. There's no need for you and me to be stuck with our garbage. We don't honor God with our unending weeping and wailing. We honor God when we receive the gift of forgiveness, believe his word, and allow him to declare [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:36:36.960; remove through 00:41:38.000] us righteous [CUT] in the name of Jesus. To the river I am going, bringing sins I cannot bear. Come and cleanse me, come forgive me, Lord I need to meet you there. In these waters, healing mercy flows with freedom from despair. I am going to that river, Lord I need to meet you there. My precious Jesus, I am ready to surrender every care. Take my hand now, lead me closer, Lord I need to meet you there. To the river I am going, bringing sins I cannot bear. Come and cleanse me, come forgive me, Lord I need to meet you there. In these waters, healing mercy flows with freedom from despair. I am going to that river, Lord I need to meet you there. My precious Jesus, I am ready to surrender every care. Take my hand now, lead me closer, Lord I need to meet you there. Come and join us in the river, come find life beyond compare. He is calling, He is waiting, Jesus longs to meet you there. He is calling, He is waiting, Jesus longs to meet you there. My precious Jesus, I am ready to surrender every care. Take my hand now, lead me closer, Lord I need to meet you there. My precious Jesus, I am ready to surrender every care. Take my hand now, lead me closer, Lord I need to meet you there. [CUT] you [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:41:38.000; resume after this marked segment]