I’ve got to admit something; I started working on this message the week before Christmas, and I’ve got to tell you something: working on a message for the week after Christmas the week before Christmas is no easy task.
Sitting at my desk, in front of my computer, Bibles at the ready, It’s hard not to focus on the yule-tide jollies. It certainly didn’t help having a playlist of Christmas carols playing and twinkling lights aglow.
But now, Christmas is over. A forest of wrapping paper has been torn through and tons of presents have been exchanged. Christmas the day has passed, but the Spirit of that day does not have to end. The significance of the day continues throughout the year.
So now, as many look down what feels like the barrel of a New Year, we look within ourselves to make a “New Year’s Resolution”. We determine to lose weight, determine to kick that bad habit, determine to take up a new hobby, a new skill, a new discipline.
There’s something refreshing about a new year. The last year has been wrought with our share of failures, heartaches, and disappointments, but a new year gives us the sense of a clean slate. A new start. A fresh beginning. The old year has passed away and a new year has come with all its potential, all its excitement, and all its possibilities.
Deep down inside, we all crave what a new year seems to give us: a clean slate. We desire deep down inside to be given a fresh start. Whether it’s at home, at school, at work, or even at Church, many of us desire a fresh beginning.
This morning, it’s fitting that we gather here this morning on the eve of a new year because we have an answer. The world each year hopes that January 1st will give them a clean slate, a new start, but year in and year out, they are disappointed. But this morning, we have been given an amazing gift, we have been given an incredible opportunity. We can have a clean slate of our own.
Turn with me, if you would, to Paul’s second letter to the Church in Corinth, chapter 5. 2 Corinthians 5, starting in verse 17. We’ll ready through to the end of the chapter.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
We have been given the amazing opportunity to have our slates wiped clean through our reconciliation with Jesus. Mankind has been living in a state of separation from God since the garden. This is who we are as the old creation: we are sinners: selfish, self-centered, destructive, evil.
But we have been given the amazing opportunity of reconciliation, of a reunion with Him. Paul is telling us that when we enter into a relationship with Christ, we are no longer who we were before, our slates have been wiped clean and we are made new. Note verse 19, that God is “not counting men’s sins against them”.
In C.S. Lewis’ book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, four children enter the magical land of Narnia through, you guessed it, a wardrobe and embark on all kinds of adventures. While Lucy, Susan and Peter willingly search for and assist Aslan, their brother Edmund has a different experience.
Edmund meets the “Queen” of Narnia, or as she is known to Narnians: the White Witch. She pampers Edmund, feeding him sweets and treating him like a prince. She makes promises of grandeur to him in hopes that he will betray his family and deliver them to her.
Edmund agrees to do the Witch’s bidding and betrays Aslan and his family. But the Queen doesn’t live up to her promises and Edmund finally saw her for who she really was. To her, though, it was too late, he had pledged his allegiance to her. Aslan’s army, however, rescues Edmund from the Witch and in a moving scene, forgives him in front of his brothers and sisters, saying, “Here is your brother, and there is no need to talk to him about what is past.” Even further than this, Aslan offers his life in place of Edmunds to the White Witch.
Edmund received the amazing gift of a fresh start by no accord of his own. Aslan offered him this gift free of charge. Aslan had given Edmund a clean slate.
We have been given that gift, as well. With this free slate, God has given us freedom. This morning, let’s look at how this freedom affects our lives deeply and supremely.
First, with a clean slate, we are free from our past. With a clean slate, we are free from our past.
Talk to anybody and they’ll almost all tell you that they’ve done something they’ve regretted. They’ve done something that they feel guilty for. We all have a past and for many people, their past haunts them, sometimes all their lives. There are people who never move forward for fear of the past. The past is a powerful force in our lives.
You are probably familiar with Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserables. Maybe you’ve read the book… I own it, but never finished it…I’m a reader, but a 1400 page book is a hard thing to work through. Maybe you’ve seen the musical, either on Broadway or at a local theater. Or maybe you have seen the movie starring Liam Neeson.
The story follows an escaped convict Jean Valjean. Valjean, after escaping from prison has a profound experience of mercy from a priest that he was robbing. As a result Valjean (under a new name), becomes a force for good in the world. Throughout the story, Valjean, though, is haunted by his past, literally and figuratively. An overzealous policeman, Inspector Javert, relentlessly chases Valjean, determined to make him pay for his past sins.
Throughout the story, Valjean seeks one thing: to be free from his past. He seeks redemption. He seeks a clean slate. Many of us are like Valjean, in one form or another. Most of us don’t have the law chasing us, bent on retribution…hopefully, but we understand Valjean’s plight because it is our plight. We long to be free from our past.
Christ has told us that when we are reconciled to Him, when He gives a clean slate, we are free from our past. Remember what verse 19 said? God is not counting our sins against us anymore.
Look at Psalm 103:12, the psalmist declares that “as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us”.
Or Jeremiah 50:20, which says: “‘In those days, at that time’, declares the Lord, ‘search will be made for Israel’s guilt, but there will be none and for the sins of Judah but none will be found”.
Or how about Isaiah 44:22, where God declares “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist”.
God has given us His forgiveness, and because of that we are set free from our past. You’ve heard the term, “Forgive and forget”. Most of us hear that statement and say, “That’s baloney. Nobody can do that”. That’s true…nobody, but God. In God’s eyes, when we come to him, truly repentant and seek to be reconciled with Him, he forgives us, and like the Psalmist said, he removes our sins as far as the East is from the West.
What an amazing freedom we have been given. Instead of carrying the weight of our past on our shoulders, Christ wants us to come to Him to take that burden. He casts our pasts from Him and remembers them no more. We are free from our past.
This clean slate not only frees us from our past, but it also frees us from present sin. Our clean slate frees us from present sin.
Look with me at Romans chapter 6, verses 15-18. The whole chapter deserves to be read in its entirety because it discusses this concept of being free from sin, but lets look at verses 15-18 together:
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 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? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
Paul has talked about how we have been given new life by the grace of God. We no longer live under the law, but we live under grace. Paul says that Christ sets us free from the slavery of sin, but that doesn’t allow us to be autonomous. Paul basically says that you are always serving somebody. Christ has given us freedom from the slavery of sin and death.
You often hear people…particularly teenagers, talk about independence and freedom. We want freedom. We want independence. Simply put, what is it that most teenagers want? They want to do whatever they want. They use words like independence and freedom to mean that they can do whatever they want.
The freedom that Christ gives us, though, isn’t a freedom to do whatever we want. Quite the opposite, in fact. The freedom we are given is the freedom to do what is write and good and true. You see, as slaves to sin, we had no choice: we could not live a life of righteousness. The Bible says that on our own, our righteousness is like filthy rags. But God gives us the freedom to pursue His righteousness.
Look for a moment at verses 20 through 23: When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We have been given the amazing gift of freedom from sin. We are no longer slaves to sin, but we are able to follow whole-heartedly after God. We can now live in moment-by-moment obedience to Him, free from the bounds of sin in our lives. We are free from our present sin.
Finally, the clean slate not only frees us from our past and frees us from our present sin, finally, the clean slate that Christ has given us frees us to live a life of worship. We are free to live a life of worship before Him.
This have been something I have been passionate about over the last several weeks: the idea of the life of worship, getting to the heart of worship. If you read my blog at all… and you should… check it out; it’s on the Church’s website, I’ve shared this using that medium, as well. God has given us the freedom to live our lives in worship to Him.
I believe Romans 12:1 gets to the heart of the idea of worship when it says this: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.”
Eugene Peterson wrote a fantastic paraphrase of the Bible, giving some fresh insights into many passages of Scripture. Let me share his interpretation of Romans 12:1; it really stuck with me and has become my goal:
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
What is worship? We oftentimes use the word worship as interchangeable with the word “music”. Here at church, we have worship, prayer and preaching. But is that all worship is? Is worship simply music or is there something more to worship?
We often gauge our “worship” experience based on how it affects us. We say “That worship service really moved me”. It’s easy to confuse worship with the emotional response to music Sunday mornings. The worship was “good” if the music moved us emotionally, and was “bad”, if we left emotionally unmoved.
Worship, however, is so much more than an emotional response, it’s a lifestyle. Worship is taking your everyday, regular life and giving it to God as an offering.
Here’s a thought to ponder. Something to wrestle with. I’d go as far as saying that in everything we do, we’re worshipping something. The only question, then, is “Who or what are we worshipping”. In everything we do, we’re worshipping something. The question is “Who or what are we worshipping?”
I don’t get a euphoric emotional response to cleaning up after youth group, but if I give that to God as an offering, it is worship.
Worship is a lifestyle. Now, yes, music can…no…should be a part of our worship experience. It touches our hearts and gives an emotional response that few mediums can. But if music is the extent of our worship, then we are missing the point because worship is a lifestyle. When the music fades, and all is stripped away, the worship must continue in our lives, in our day-to-day routines. When we offer up our lives, in spirit and in truth, then we have discovered the heart of worship. We have been given this freedom by Christ through our reconciliation with Him. We are free to live a life of worship.
This morning, as Sandi and the worship team joins me on the platform, I’d like to give an invitation. This morning, we’ve been talking about the freedom we have been given by Christ. We’ve looked at what it means to have a clean slate.
As the worship team leads us in the song The Potter’s Hand, I’d like to invite you to get your slate cleaned. The amazing thing for us is that it doesn’t matter how dirty and grimy and messed up our slate looks right now. Jesus doesn’t care about doesn’t care where you’ve been.
Remember the story of the woman caught in adultery. The people were ready to stone her to death, but Jesus looked at her and said, “I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more”. Or the woman who came to Jesus while he was dining with Pharisees. All we know is that she lived a “sinful” life, but she came to Jesus, repentant and he gave her a clean slate. She had her past expunged.
Jesus doesn’t care where we’ve been; He just wants to give you a new life. You have that opportunity this morning. Maybe you’ve been here before. Maybe you’ve already come to Christ and been cleansed. You’ve been given a clean slate, but with time that slate has become dirty. It’s become grimy. Or maybe you’ve never had a clean slate before. You have never experienced the overwhelming joy of being set free; of having your past expunged, of being set free to live in obedience to Him, and to live your life as an act of worship.
As the worship team leads us in song, I’d invite you to make the declaration that you want Christ to give you a clean slate- you want to be set free. The altars are opened. This is a perfect time of year to make a new beginning. There is no better time than now. Jesus is reaching out His hand to you. He wants to take your old self and make you new. Surrender to His love today.
