SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This morning I want to look in our second thought.
SPEAKER_00: We started last week about how the cross changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: The cross changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: We looked specifically last week and how the cross changes our identity.
SPEAKER_00: We started at the very foundation of our identity with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The second that we would have uh accepted Him, how everything changed.
SPEAKER_00: And this week I want to go a little bit deeper and I want to look in Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms 103, and I want to look at this thought.
SPEAKER_00: The cross changes my past.
SPEAKER_00: And I love how David put these words together in this particular Psalm because, and I'll give you some in in in way of introduction of the psalm here in a moment, but I love how the words are placed because it lets me and reiterates to me that because of the cross, my sins are removed and not managed.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I like about it.
SPEAKER_00: It encourages my heart.
SPEAKER_00: It's not something that he had to manage.
SPEAKER_00: They are taken away.
SPEAKER_00: And I like that because it sort of resonates with me and it allows me to see it a little bit clearer.
SPEAKER_00: As you find your place there in Psalms, I'll read it here in a moment.
SPEAKER_00: But I was thinking about something that sort of went exactly with this uh thought.
SPEAKER_00: And here's a question I want to give you.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever carried something that got heavier the longer you carried it?
SPEAKER_00: Didn't feel like it got lighter, felt like it got heavier.
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking about not too long ago, I was watching the kids as they get home from school and they're toting their book bag, and it has it seemed as if the book bag was making them pull backwards.
SPEAKER_00: It was so heavy.
SPEAKER_00: And I asked them, what was up?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you got in there?
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Dad, I don't know why my book bag is so heavy.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, what do you got in there?
SPEAKER_00: You know, it seems as if you're gonna fall backwards.
SPEAKER_00: This thing's got you way down.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, It seems heavier than it usually is.
SPEAKER_00: So, like any good dad, I open it up.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see what you got in here.
SPEAKER_00: You wanna you want me to be honest with you, what I found in this book bag.
SPEAKER_00: There were things in there that had probably been in there since the first day of school.
SPEAKER_00: There's some stuff in there that didn't need to be in there.
SPEAKER_00: There was old papers.
SPEAKER_00: There was books that had been, should have been back to the library weeks and weeks before.
SPEAKER_00: There was uh assignments that had already been graded and little smiley faces were on them, like they should have came home happy to show us.
SPEAKER_00: Things that were completed but never removed.
SPEAKER_00: And I told them, I said, look, your book bag wasn't heavy because you were carrying stuff you needed to carry.
SPEAKER_00: Your book bag was heavy because there were some things that you forgot to remove.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a different perspective that we got to look at.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm not careful, I'll think, man, the things that I'm toting around in my life are heavy because, man, I gotta carry them.
SPEAKER_00: And I maybe, just maybe, I'm toting some things in my life that I don't actually need to tote around.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to look at today.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you might be carrying some stuff that God never intended you to carry.
SPEAKER_00: It could be old guilt.
SPEAKER_00: It could be regret for some things that you wish you wouldn't have done or done differently.
SPEAKER_00: There's many of us that could be toting around shame that I don't have to carry.
SPEAKER_00: There could be some of us that hold mistakes in our bag that we don't need to carry around with us.
SPEAKER_00: Things the cross dealt with that I'm still carrying.
SPEAKER_00: I've still got in my book bag.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I love about Psalms 103.
SPEAKER_00: Something incredible that God shows us in this text that He doesn't just forgive us, He removes those sins.
SPEAKER_00: Look with me in the text if you found your spot.
SPEAKER_00: I want to focus in on verse 10, 11, and 12, but I really want to give the full context of this Psalm.
SPEAKER_00: So we'll begin there in verse number one.
SPEAKER_00: David begins with this Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.
SPEAKER_00: Bless his holy name.
SPEAKER_00: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where David begins to lay some things out.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 3, Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.
SPEAKER_00: Verse seven, He made known his ways to Moses, He his acts to the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abiding in mercy.
SPEAKER_00: He will always strive with us, nor will he keep his anger forever.
SPEAKER_00: Verse ten.
SPEAKER_00: He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities.
SPEAKER_00: For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him.
SPEAKER_00: As far as the East is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us.
SPEAKER_00: The beauty of this psalm that David lays out is so interesting to me before we get into the meat of this text.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you somewhat of an introduction to the text.
SPEAKER_00: The importance behind this particular text is oftentimes in Psalms I can look and find a spot where David struggled with something mighty, a situation where he messed up, or where even Saul was chasing him, and there was times where he was hiding in enemy territory and he's crying out to God in a psalm, and it resonates with us because we might can relate to where he was struggling to now praising the Lord through it.
SPEAKER_00: But what I love about Psalms 103 is a little bit different because it wasn't as if David was immediately struggling with something and he stops and gets some help and praises the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost as if David is reflecting over a lifetime of God's mercies.
SPEAKER_00: He's reflecting over a lifetime of his being restored after his many failures.
SPEAKER_00: He could have been thinking about a sin that he did.
SPEAKER_00: He could have been thinking about a failure that he had.
SPEAKER_00: He could have been thinking about something that he messed up and nobody knew about, and he was praising the Lord for the mercies that God showed.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, he could have been thinking about the many consequences that he had to face as he was living life, but yet forgive it at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: David was putting all that together as he's praising God with these verbs and these words that you and I just stated.
SPEAKER_00: I think David wrote this as he was older in life, aged with experience, and now looking backwards at a life that he lived, and I think he was reflecting of God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And before we get into the meat of this text, I want you to be reminded that we've got to stop sometimes and pause and just be reminded of God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to be gray-haired and elderly like David was when he pinned this.
SPEAKER_00: It could be right where you're at in this moment, looking over the last few years of God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: He could have been looking back and just recounting God's goodness to him through it all.
SPEAKER_00: I think as David wrote this, he was overwhelmed by God's compassion towards him.
SPEAKER_00: You can see that in some of the words that he used with the words forgiveness and healing and redeeming and compassion and mercy that David used verse after verse through this entire psalm.
SPEAKER_00: I think he was overwhelmed with God's compassion.
SPEAKER_00: I think David was celebrating God's love for him, knowing that God did all this for the love that he had for him.
SPEAKER_00: For somebody to forgive us and to remove those sins out of our lives and not necessarily manage them, but to remove them, it takes a level of love.
SPEAKER_00: And I think he was celebrating not the fact that he was perfect because we know that he wasn't, but the fact that God's covenant, faithful love never ever stopped.
SPEAKER_00: He stopped where he was doing and called a praise to God for all the many things that God had done.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to know that as we walk in to this particular psalm.
SPEAKER_00: So let me show you three things.
SPEAKER_00: You understand why he wrote it, you understand what he was doing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me give you a few truths here that I found in just a few verses in this psalm about how the cross changed my past.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing I want to show you is gonna be in verse number 10.
SPEAKER_00: And here it is.
SPEAKER_00: You ready for it?
SPEAKER_00: God does not treat us according to our sins.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to praise him there because if he did, we'd all be messed up.
SPEAKER_00: If he treated me as though the sin that I committed, I'm up a creek with no paddles.
SPEAKER_00: You understand?
SPEAKER_00: We're doomed and gloomed, right?
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: So I love that.
SPEAKER_00: In verse number 10, he goes and says, God has not dealt with us according to our sins.
SPEAKER_00: The verse that he begins this sermon with in verse number 10, this verse, I think, reveals the true heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: When he tells us in verse 10, he has not dealt with us according to our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Now, all of us can stop and reflect on your individual personal sins because it's a personal message.
SPEAKER_00: We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: We all have.
SPEAKER_00: No matter how good we believe that we are, we've all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: So he hasn't dealt with us according to that.
SPEAKER_00: So what has he done?
SPEAKER_00: See, I think we deserve what we deserve and what we receive are not the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: What does sin deserve?
SPEAKER_00: Judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Sin deserves judgment, but you know, somebody paid the price.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 6 and 23 says, For the wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: The wages of sin, the cost of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I can look on this side and think, man, man, my salvation cost me nothing, but yet it cost him everything, which was his life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus laid his life down for you and I, so that you and I can have the forgiveness of sin and not the judgment that sin created and caused.
SPEAKER_00: He took on that because of the love that he had for you and for me.
SPEAKER_00: So guess what?
SPEAKER_00: What we deserve, we don't receive.
SPEAKER_00: If God dealt with us according to our sin, none of us would be able to stand.
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't be able to stand tall and strong with confidence.
SPEAKER_00: No, I would be uh doomed and gloomed, uh head to hell.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms 103 in a nutshell says this.
SPEAKER_00: He has not dealt with us according to our sins.
SPEAKER_00: And you might ask the question, why?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when I've studied the Word of God, I ask questions like, why?
SPEAKER_00: so that I can sort of understand why he's writing this.
SPEAKER_00: It makes my brain think and it makes me stop and pause and meditate and pray and just soak in what God has.
SPEAKER_00: Why has he not done that?
SPEAKER_00: Why did he choose to do what he did?
SPEAKER_00: Why do I not have to deal with my own sins the way he's talking about?
SPEAKER_00: He blotted them out.
SPEAKER_00: He's forgotten them.
SPEAKER_00: Why do I not?
SPEAKER_00: What is the title of the sermon series?
SPEAKER_00: The cross changed everything.
SPEAKER_00: Because of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I don't have to deal with my sin at judgment.
SPEAKER_00: He dealt with it on Calvary's Hill.
SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus took the punishment we deserved.
SPEAKER_00: That right there should be a motivator to do everything for him.
SPEAKER_00: He took the punishment I deserved.
SPEAKER_00: It's no different than, you know, growing up or even watching my children grow up, every once in a while when you got a bunch of kids, one of them might get in trouble for something the other one did.
SPEAKER_00: It just happens, right?
SPEAKER_00: We make mistakes.
SPEAKER_00: And so if one child is getting in trouble for one something, do you think they tell?
SPEAKER_00: Nah.
SPEAKER_00: Nah, they're going to, yeah, let them get the punishment for what I've done.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I did growing up, of course.
SPEAKER_00: What you would have done in the same accord.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, Jesus took on what you and I deserve.
SPEAKER_00: I love in Isaiah when he was prophesizing about the end and what Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah 53 says, He was wounded for my transgressions.
SPEAKER_00: You can visually see what Jesus went through as he was heading to Calvary's Hill and as he hung on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: He was wounded for me.
SPEAKER_00: Every lick he took, every mocking, every everything that he endured, it was for me and for you.
SPEAKER_00: What's the point?
SPEAKER_00: Why did he do that?
SPEAKER_00: Because of love.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way around that.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I think.
SPEAKER_00: I think many believers, could be some here in the room today, it could be some that are watching online.
SPEAKER_00: Many believers still live like they're waiting for God to get even.
SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is we don't live as if God's taken away the penalty of sin.
SPEAKER_00: We live as if God's trying to get even.
SPEAKER_00: We might live like this: is God disappointed?
SPEAKER_00: We might ask this, God disappointed me?
SPEAKER_00: We might say, is God holding this against me?
SPEAKER_00: We might say, Will God ever fully use me for what I did?
SPEAKER_00: It could have been from years ago or just last week.
SPEAKER_00: Could God use me?
SPEAKER_00: Those are questions sometimes we ask when I wonder if God has forgotten the sin or he's just trying to manage them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I'm reminded one of my favorite uh illustrations on this would probably be Peter.
SPEAKER_00: You get in the end of the book, I like reading it in the book of John.
SPEAKER_00: And you start reading towards the tail end of John, and Jesus said aloud that, Peter, you will deny me three times.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, what did Peter do?
SPEAKER_00: Peter said, No, man, I ain't gonna do that.
SPEAKER_00: We're good.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not gonna do that at all.
SPEAKER_00: And it was within probably the same chapter, if I remember well, that Peter denied him for the very first time.
SPEAKER_00: And then it was several verses later that somebody said, Do you know Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: This is after Jesus had been taken from the garden and all the process had begun.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, Peter standing there in the crowd said, No man, I I don't, I don't, that's that's not, I don't know him.
SPEAKER_00: He denies him not once, not twice, but he publicly denies him in front of people three times.
SPEAKER_00: Just like Jesus said that he would.
SPEAKER_00: And what I love is that the story doesn't stop there.
SPEAKER_00: See, if you and I read that, we would think, man, listen to me, the the cross didn't take away the penalty, the cross didn't take away all this.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, uh, I'm gonna have to get managed of my sin and not it removed.
SPEAKER_00: But no, what the story continues to say in the book of John at the very last chapter is that Jesus, after he rose on the third day and began to make himself known on those 40 days before he ascended into heaven, he reveals himself to many people and he goes and begins to cook some breakfast right there on the side of the water.
SPEAKER_00: You can't get much fresher than that.
SPEAKER_00: Catches some fish and begins to cook it, and they have breakfast right there by the sea.
SPEAKER_00: And you can read in depth the conversation that he had with Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And there for verses for several verses, he has a conversation with Peter about the denial, about everything that had gone through, and he asks Peter some questions.
SPEAKER_00: Do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: Do you love me three different times?
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, in that breakfast conversation, in that intimate moment with Peter and his Savior, who had died and already rose again and now is walking around before he ascended, Peter is restored by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's a perfect picture of you and I.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I get it here.
SPEAKER_00: There's probably nobody here that's denied Jesus publicly.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's nobody here that got asked if you walk, if you will follow Christ, and you say, no, of course I do not.
SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: There's sometimes the way that we live or the way that we don't follow him, it appears as if we have denied him.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has forgiven us and he has restored us.
SPEAKER_00: You and I don't have to carry that on a heavy load.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to try to manage that.
SPEAKER_00: He has forgiven it as far as the east is from the west.
SPEAKER_00: He shows us in the book of John how he restored Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Don't walk around with a heavy weight thinking that God's not going to restore you from how you have messed up in the past.
SPEAKER_00: The cross changed Peter's past.
SPEAKER_00: The cross changed your past as well.
SPEAKER_00: The cross took the punishment so that we don't have to carry the penalty.
SPEAKER_00: The cross took the punishment so that you and I do not have to carry the penalty.
SPEAKER_00: What are you toting around?
SPEAKER_00: What's in your backpack that's weighing you down?
SPEAKER_00: What are you holding on to that God's already released?
SPEAKER_00: What is it?
SPEAKER_00: Let's move on.
SPEAKER_00: Verse number 11 in our text.
SPEAKER_00: What I love in verse number 11 is God shows us that God removes our sin completely.
SPEAKER_00: God removes our sin completely.
SPEAKER_00: Verse number eleven says, For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him.
SPEAKER_00: Then he goes on in verse 12, as far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us.
SPEAKER_00: Notice in verse 11 as he begins, for as the heavens are high above earth.
SPEAKER_00: He uses the word heavens because we know as studying the scripture, there's levels, there's three levels.
SPEAKER_00: The first level is where the birds fly, we can see it.
SPEAKER_00: The second level is where the stars are.
SPEAKER_00: You and I can see it at night, but it ain't cloudy.
SPEAKER_00: And the third level is where God is, that you and I can't see physically, but we can imagine what it is according to the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: So when he says in the text, for as the heavens are high above the earth, they are, we know that because you and I can look up and see how seemingly far it is.
SPEAKER_00: And he tells us, and I think that David is using God's creation as a way of praising him in this moment, for as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards us.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, David essentially is using two massive pictures to explain God's forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I can't tell you how ta how far away that is, neither could he.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm sure in some science class I took that I probably wasn't paying attention in, the teacher said it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: We got anybody in science that can tell me?
SPEAKER_00: I didn't think so.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all didn't pay attention either, right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know the distance, but I know it's far, okay?
SPEAKER_00: It seems a good ways.
SPEAKER_00: But these two massive pictures that he sort of lays out here and paints right before us, the first one's gonna be God's mercy, I believe, is not measurable.
SPEAKER_00: When he says that the heavens are high above the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Now listen to me, I've flown in an airplane before.
SPEAKER_00: I've been higher than the birds, but man, I hadn't been in where the stars are.
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't been that far.
SPEAKER_00: And I surely haven't been to heaven yet, that where God lives, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm still here.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, it is far.
SPEAKER_00: It is a moment where you and I cannot measure.
SPEAKER_00: And he is showing us in the scripture that essentially, as the heavens are high above the earth, so is God's mercy towards us who fear him.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, we should live in a life that fears God.
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the biggest problems, and I say this a lot, in our men's gatherings as we gather up, is that we we uh have a generation where there's not too many men that fear God as a respect, and I think we should, because God is all powerful, all-knowing, all everything.
SPEAKER_00: But he shows us in the text, in verse number 11, for as far as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him.
SPEAKER_00: See, in David's day, I don't know that they had the ability to measure how far away the sky was or the stars were.
SPEAKER_00: They could have, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a few of them could.
SPEAKER_00: But what is David saying?
SPEAKER_00: David is not saying that he got his tape measure out and and started to figure this thing out.
SPEAKER_00: What he is saying is that it's so vast and so deep and so large and so big, there's no way to actually measure the depths of God's mercy.
SPEAKER_00: His mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Is bigger than any sin that you could have ever committed.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know sometimes when sin gets mentioned, you might be thinking of an individual sin that you have committed in the past or thinking of something that sort of weighs you down.
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
SPEAKER_00: You can think about that.
SPEAKER_00: But listen to me, God's mercy is bigger than any sin that you could have ever committed in your life.
SPEAKER_00: His mercy is bigger than that.
SPEAKER_00: I know Paul said in Romans 5, in verse number 20, where sin abound, grace abound much more.
SPEAKER_00: Great verse.
SPEAKER_00: Because what it's showing you and me is that no matter how large that you think the sin was that you committed, and what I mean by that is you as humans, us, we'll measure our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is sin to God.
SPEAKER_00: But I'd categorize mine.
SPEAKER_00: Most people try to do, ah, this wasn't as bad as that one and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: But listen, sin is sin.
SPEAKER_00: As humans, we sort of compare it, but he is saying no matter what sin you committed, his mercy is bigger than that.
SPEAKER_00: I think about some people believe their sin is too big for God's grace, could be here today.
SPEAKER_00: You may be in a spot in your life, God couldn't forgive me for that one, and you can't get over that.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: That could hold you back from God using you and what he has placed you on earth to do.
SPEAKER_00: You're being held back by the backpack if you can visualize that.
SPEAKER_00: You're weighing yourself down, thinking, man, God can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me, God's grace is way bigger than anything that you could hold on to.
SPEAKER_00: What I love in verse 12, as far as the east is from the west, so far as he has removed our transgressions from us, how far is the east from the west?
SPEAKER_00: They never intersect.
SPEAKER_00: They're so far away that they never actually intersect.
SPEAKER_00: East and west never meet.
SPEAKER_00: So he uses this terminology, this text, as far as the east is from the west, so as he's removed, he uses this terminology because it's so vast and so big and so permanent, there is nothing else that can be measured.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can travel west and you'll continue to travel west, isn't that something?
SPEAKER_00: It's like you want to get on an airplane and just go.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep going west till you run out of fuel.
SPEAKER_00: You'll keep going west all the way around.
SPEAKER_00: It never hits east and west.
SPEAKER_00: That means that forgiveness is permanent separation.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is a permanent separation from sin.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't move your sin a few miles away.
SPEAKER_00: No, he moves it indefinitely.
SPEAKER_00: A moment that you and I can see bigger than anything.
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about how to illustrate this, and sometimes it's sort of hard because it is something that's immeasurable.
SPEAKER_00: And I was reading this story and this article about uh at the end of somebody's life, imagine standing in a courtroom.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know, do y'all like watching, I like watching that court stuff, especially if I need to get my mind off of something.
SPEAKER_00: I can watch one of these mysteries or a court case, and it sort of helps my mind not think about anything but trying to figure that case out.
SPEAKER_00: So I imagine in this story, I was reading it almost like it was me standing in a courtroom at the end of my life.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of my life, thinking about the entire record that I did being brought before the judge.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking every mistake.
SPEAKER_00: Even as a child stealing the piece of bubblegum from somebody, or the little things that I didn't think anybody knew about, every wrong decision that I ever made would be laid out.
SPEAKER_00: Every sin that I'd ever committed would be laid out.
SPEAKER_00: Every thing that I did wrong would be laid out.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the verdict would say guilty.
SPEAKER_00: There's no doubt about that.
SPEAKER_00: But imagine as everything gets laid out that you've ever done and the verdict comes out as guilty, and then somebody steps in and says, I'll take the punishment.
SPEAKER_00: I'll take the punishment.
SPEAKER_00: The judge says, Man, okay, accepts the payment.
SPEAKER_00: And then something incredible happens.
SPEAKER_00: The judge didn't just say, all right, the punishment has been served.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says, I'll remove it from your record.
SPEAKER_00: I'll remove the punishment as if it never happened.
SPEAKER_00: I will remove the record.
SPEAKER_00: I will erase the charges.
SPEAKER_00: I will destroy the file.
SPEAKER_00: I will make it as if it never happened.
SPEAKER_00: As far as the court is concerned, none of these instances ever took place.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what happened when Jesus hung on the cross, died, and rose on the third day.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what happened.
SPEAKER_00: There's no file system that keeps track of it.
SPEAKER_00: It's deleted, it's blotted out.
SPEAKER_00: When God forgives you, he doesn't keep it in a filing cabinet in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine how large that filing cabinet would be.
SPEAKER_00: Trying to figure it all out.
SPEAKER_00: David saying, When God forgives your sins, he throws the file out, destroys it, it's over.
SPEAKER_00: It's done.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Psalms 103, he says he removes it as far as the east is from the west.
SPEAKER_00: Why do we tote it?
SPEAKER_00: Why do we carry it?
SPEAKER_00: Why do we let us drag us down?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we hadn't given it to him.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me leave you with this and I'll go to my last thought.
SPEAKER_00: If God removed the record, if God removed the record, if you believe that, stop rehearsing the charges.
SPEAKER_00: If God's removed it, stop rehearsing it.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's times that I realize in my faith walk that, man, I know it's gone.
SPEAKER_00: Then I'll sit there in bed when I can't sleep, and I'm watching the fan go round and round and round, thinking of everything that I shoulda, woulda, coulda.
SPEAKER_00: Why did I do it that way?
SPEAKER_00: Why didn't I do it this way?
SPEAKER_00: Why did I mess up here?
SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't have said that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking, God, thank you for forgiving me.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord, for what it is.
SPEAKER_00: Stop rehearsing the charges and realize that God's removed the record.
SPEAKER_00: Let me get together in verse, in this, I'm gonna probably put them all back together in verse 10, 11, and 12, but here's the thought I want to give you.
SPEAKER_00: You and I have got to stop carrying what God's already removed.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to stop.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us need to open the book bag and clean it out right now.
SPEAKER_00: Throw it out.
SPEAKER_00: Get rid of it.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is where believers that know the Lord as their savior that's been saved, whether their entire life or relatively new believers, I think this is where they struggle.
SPEAKER_00: We carry the stuff that was never meant to be carried.
SPEAKER_00: God removed it.
SPEAKER_00: Why am I carrying it?
SPEAKER_00: God forgives us, but we still rehearse it.
SPEAKER_00: We replay the moments.
SPEAKER_00: We relive the guilt in our minds.
SPEAKER_00: We relabel ourselves that God can't use me to the same capacity in the caliber that I thought he could.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way I did this or I did that.
SPEAKER_00: God could never do that.
SPEAKER_00: I think some of us have allowed our past to define our future.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of allowing the God of creation to define my future.
SPEAKER_00: The second I got saved, God could do everything if I make myself available.
SPEAKER_00: He could change the trajectory of our lives, but I can't let my past dictate my future.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta let him.
SPEAKER_00: You may say things, man, God could never use me.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's times in my life where I've had to sit across the table from somebody that said, God couldn't use me anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And I have to tell him, yes.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know that?
SPEAKER_00: I can take him to this verse and many other verses.
SPEAKER_00: I've had to sit across the table and say, man, if you knew my past, you would never think that God could use me.
SPEAKER_00: That may be you sitting here today thinking, man, if only this was known about me, I would never be used by God.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to use you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse number 11 and 12 teach us that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I've always struggled because of what I did or should have done.
SPEAKER_00: But listen carefully, you ready?
SPEAKER_00: If God has removed your sin, why are you still carrying it?
SPEAKER_00: I wish somebody would answer that in their heart.
SPEAKER_00: If God removed it, why are you still carrying it around?
SPEAKER_00: Man, one of the greatest illustrations that I can give you in the entire text of Scripture, I believe, would got to be Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Who was Paul?
SPEAKER_00: Before he got saved, he was Saul.
SPEAKER_00: What did Saul do?
SPEAKER_00: He was a bad dude.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean bad cool, I mean bad, bad.
SPEAKER_00: What was he?
SPEAKER_00: He was uh his pedigree is written in scripture.
SPEAKER_00: He came from the right tribe.
SPEAKER_00: He went to the proper Jewish schools.
SPEAKER_00: He went to all the places that he should have gone to build his way up in the in the synagogue.
SPEAKER_00: He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, is what scriptures say.
SPEAKER_00: He knew, he understood the complexity of the Hebrew, he knew the Old Testament better than most.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: When when everything began, you can read in the scripture about how he was persecuting the church.
SPEAKER_00: The beginning of Acts, when the church began essentially.
SPEAKER_00: He was there persecuting.
SPEAKER_00: He took part in the stoning of Stephen.
SPEAKER_00: What was Stephen doing?
SPEAKER_00: Preaching the gospel of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He came for the remission of our sins.
SPEAKER_00: He was preaching it in the in the in the streets, and he took part in stoning a man for standing up for truth.
SPEAKER_00: He would be a perfect picture of somebody persecuting Christians today.
SPEAKER_00: And then God got a hold of his heart, walking to where he was supposed to go on the on the uh on the way to Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: He's walking on the road, just visualized nothing around, nothing to be seen.
SPEAKER_00: And he's walking.
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't Uber back then or drive, right?
SPEAKER_00: They had to walk where they were going.
SPEAKER_00: And as he was walking and going step by step, God showed up.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus showed up.
SPEAKER_00: This is in Acts.
SPEAKER_00: The scripture is it's if you read it, it's in red.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was literally had came there and knocked him upside the head.
SPEAKER_00: I like this.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us need knocked ups.
SPEAKER_00: Who needs knocked upside the head?
SPEAKER_00: I might do it.
SPEAKER_00: Couple of y'all, somebody's pulling, come here, I get you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean I'm not this ain't one of them name and claimants, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I just thought I'd just knock you upside the head.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm just listening to me.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, he's walking.
SPEAKER_00: Think about all the things that he did, the pedigree of his life, the things that he's done for the Jewish faith and the persecution of the Christians, and then all of a sudden he's walking on the Damascus Road, and Jesus comes out of heaven and knocks him upside the head.
SPEAKER_00: And what happened?
SPEAKER_00: They had a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: And made him where he could not see.
SPEAKER_00: We know that if you read the story.
SPEAKER_00: But what's so interesting about those words that are used in those verses is they knocked him upside the head and he's lying there.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, who was at the time called Saul, says, Lord, is that you?
SPEAKER_00: He knew it was Jesus just by the mere presence that Jesus was there.
SPEAKER_00: And they had a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: And what happened?
SPEAKER_00: Paul got saved.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus told Paul where to go.
SPEAKER_00: And he took off.
SPEAKER_00: And as he got there, the scales off his eyes were removed.
SPEAKER_00: And for the next whatever many years he lived, he lived for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now guess what?
SPEAKER_00: When he first started preaching the gospel of Jesus in the synagogues, what do you think happened?
SPEAKER_00: Those Christians that he was around said, are you for real?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you just trying to get me to persecute me like you persecuted Stephen?
SPEAKER_00: Is this real is this odd?
SPEAKER_00: Is this real?
SPEAKER_00: How many moments do you think he had to endure where there was people questioning if he had legitimately had a conversion?
SPEAKER_00: Do you think his past haunted him?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think it haunted him in the immediate time after salvation, probably all the way to the end.
SPEAKER_00: He gave it to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He stopped toting it around, but I'm sure that people being people reminded him of that.
SPEAKER_00: And time and time again, and let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: God used him in a dramatic, big way because he knew the Old Testament Hebrew law.
SPEAKER_00: He knew it.
SPEAKER_00: He had a way in, and he could use that to reach people, to speak to people, then he would do the Gentiles, and he preached the gospel like nobody's business.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, he went through what you and I would call hell on earth, through the process, being beaten with rods, being shipwrecked, being mistreated, being imprisoned for doing nothing but preaching the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: The man lived for Jesus, denied himself, lived for the cross each and every day, and he did it because he knew what you and I just read.
SPEAKER_00: As far as from the east is from the west, he has removed our transgression.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that in verse number 11, as far as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear.
SPEAKER_00: He knew those texts.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that God forgave him, removed it, and he said, I'm not gonna let human beings hold me back.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna let God propel me into what God would have for me.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't tote them around, he threw them down.
SPEAKER_00: There's somebody in the house today, I believe, that's got to stop carrying what the cross has already removed.
SPEAKER_00: There's somebody in here that's got to stop carrying around what the cross has already removed.
SPEAKER_00: As we conclude our time together, Psalms 103 is so important.
SPEAKER_00: Think about this thought.
SPEAKER_00: God didn't say he would hide your sin.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say he would ignore it.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't even say that he would pretend it never happened.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'll remove it.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are walking around this morning and every day carrying something from my past.
SPEAKER_00: Could be a decision, a season of regrets.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're telling yourself, I'll never be able to move past this.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: It was moved past on the cross of Calvary.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to give it to him and stop toting around.
SPEAKER_00: Give it to God this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray as I do?
SPEAKER_00: God, I come to you this morning praising you and thanking you for all that you've done and that you have done and will do.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that we would be reminded of this text and these verses, God, that you have removed our transgression as far as the East is from the West.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, God, in the name of Jesus, that if there's somebody under the sound of my voice that has been toting and carrying some of the sins of their past and the regrets and the wishes and the things that they feel as if they let you down.
SPEAKER_00: They've been totening around step by step of their life.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray in the name of Jesus that they would reflect on these verses and realize that your mercy is something that can't be measured.
SPEAKER_00: And your forgiveness is permanent.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that they would take them out of their book bag and put them on the altar this morning and give it to you.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that if they would come and kneel and pray and give it to you, I pray, God, that they would pray in a way that say, God, take this and let me leave it here, not tote it back with me.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray in the name of Jesus you do something supernatural in somebody's heart this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Do something big.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, let somebody feel the freedom that they have in you.
SPEAKER_00: Let somebody realize that they don't have to be held back by their past, but they can be propelled because of you and what you did on Calvary's Hill.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray all of this in the name of Jesus.