We’ll be looking at Psalm 25 today, paying particular attention to verse 7.
This is an acrostic psalm, one of the four psalms using the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet as the first letters of each line.
You remember the old acrostic song we used to sing about mother.
M is for the many things she gave me.
O is only that she’s growing old.
T is for the tears were shed to save me.
H is for a heart of purest gold.
E is for the eyes with love light shining.
R means right, and right she’ll always be.
Put them all together; they spell mother,
The word that means the world me.
This is written like that.
A graduate of Yale University was called upon to make a speech at a civic club, and he decided he would take the acrostic Y-A-L-E and make a speech about that.
He talked about Y for about fifteen minutes ... for youth and a lot of other things. Then he took A and talked for fifteen more minutes ... action, attitude, and all of these things. After thirty minutes, one listener said to another, "I’m certainly glad he didn’t attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."
This psalm is written as an acrostic, and it is a marvelous prayer. A strange thing is prayed in this acrostic. This is David praying, a man of many sins,
and you wonder, "Can a man like him pray like this?" Read verse 7: "Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O Lord."
Is It Possible?
Is it possible for David or us to pray, "Forget my sins; remember me"? Is it possible that God would forget our sins and remember us? That’s really the way of God. It is His way to forget sins. That’s what God is like.
I’ve decided if you want to find the mind of God, you get together the sharpest people on this earth, find out what they think, and then think just the opposite. God says, "How do you become great? You become a servant. Who’s going to be first? He who is last. How can you work your way to heaven? You can’t. It’s a gift." God’s way is not our way, and God’s way is to forget the sins of His people.
In Jeremiah 31:34, the prophet says God will forget our sins and remember them no more. Two chapters later, he says God will forget our sins and remember them no more.
In Hebrews 8 and 10, it says God will forget our sins and remember them no more.
God is trying to tell us something. He can forget our sins and remember them no more. That’s the way of God.
That great missionary E. Stanley Jones said God buries our sins in the sea of His forgetfulness and puts up a sign that reads, "No fishing here." He forgets our sins and remembers them no more.
I remember several years ago when I got my first computer. I had typed several pages in my computer for an assignment for seminary. I had worked long and hard, done hours of research, had labored over the correct word, the correct grammar. I had been careful to include the right scriptural support and had documented my sources by footnoting. I accidentally hit the wrong button and I wiped out the whole assignment. I was devastated. I tried to find it. It was in some never, never land, never to be retrieved again. That was tragic enough, but that was not the only time that I have done that. I try now to be careful to save my work as I go along. I stopped and saved this when I was working on my sermon.
Well, God says our sins are gone. They’re no longer there. He has pushed the "delete" button, and they’re gone.
I wish we had never invented church language. I don’t much like it ... those words only Christians use. I remember going to church when I was a child. I remember hearing people get up to share a testimony, and saying something to the effect, "I went forward and I was washed in the blood of the lamb." Can you imagine how thrilling it would sound to a child to go forward, whatever that is, and be washed in the blood of a lamb? It’s a wonderful thing to study the life of Christ and develop an understanding of His sacrifice on the cross of Calvary.
To understand from God’s Word about His being a sacrifice like a lamb taken to slaughter. And that without the shedding of blood, the blood that Christ shed on the cross, there can be no forgiveness of sins. It’s a wonderful thing, but I didn’t know that as a small child.
The beautiful thing about the New Testament is it was written in secular language. There was no church language in the common Greek language. So when the New Testament was written, it uses a business word or a term from everyday life that everybody understood. When the Bible speaks of God forgiving sins, the word used for forgive, comes from a word that meant "to pay a debt." And in those days, they had a slate on the wall of a business. When a business extended credit to anyone, they wrote their name and how much was owed on the slate so that everybody could see it. That encouraged paying the bills. Then when the debt was paid, there were two words that described what the business owner did.
The Greek language is very precise, and there were two words that have to do with the paying of the debt. One means you draw a line through it, like stamping paid on an invoice. The other means the merchant took a wet rag and wiped the record clean. There was no more record of that debt. Every time, without fail, in the Word of God, when it says our sins are forgiven, it uses that word that means the record was wiped clean. There’s no more record of it.
It is the way of God to forgive sins and remember them no more.
We have trouble with that don’t we? It’s not just the way of God, it’s the challenge of Christians to live like that. A husband asked his wife, "Why are you always reminding me of my past mistakes? You told me you would forgive and forget." She answered, "Well, I don’t want you to forget that I have forgiven and forgotten."
That’s the way we are. We keep those records. It’s hard for us to forgive and forget. Do you realize ours is the glory of a faith you can’t live up to? You cannot be everything God calls you to be in the Bible. Nobody has arrived. No one gets there until Christ comes again.
We’re all struggling toward what God has called us to be, but we won’t be there until He comes and changes us. Jesus says in Matthew 5:48: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Has anybody kept that commandment, because you see it is a command from our Lord.
Our Lord calls us to be something we can’t be, but the struggle is always there. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her ..." (Eph. 5:25). Is there a husband who loves his wife as much as Christ loved the church? I’ve been married almost 38 years. I haven’t gotten there, but I’d like to. "Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord" (Eph. 5:22).
Is anybody able to do that. Of course not. It’s a goal.
Here’s another one of those goals before us. In Ephesians 4:32, it says, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ forgave you"
What a challenge. That’s what God has called us do, to forgive each other just like we have been forgiven by Christ. How have we been forgiven by Him? He has forgotten our sins and remembers them no more.
There was a pastor in Boston who was plagued by a certain member of his church.
This lady lied about him and slandered him. She wrote letters to the bishop to try to get the pastor removed from the pulpit. Then she moved to another town and had a real experience with Jesus Christ. Immediately, she was convicted about her sin of what she had done to her former pastor. She wrote him a long letter, saying in essence, "Forgive me. I’m sorry." He wrote back a telegram, and it said, "Forgiven; forgotten; forever."
That’s the challenge of being a Christian.
1 Corinthians 13 describes what love looks like. In verse 5 it says, "...it keeps no record of wrongs." Our challenge is to forgive and forget. We don’t keep records of wrongs. God does not keep that score in heaven. You should not keep that score here. It’s the way of God. It’s the challenge of Christians.
Tell me, do you think it’s possible to remember people without remembering their sins? In Shakespeare’s version of Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony said, "The evil that men do lives after them. The good is often interred with their bones."
It’s true, isn’t it? When you speak a name, you usually remember a mistake or an evil.
What do you remember when we say the name Brutus? Even in his speech, Mark Anthony made sure we remember he and Cassius and some others were the ones who stabbed Caesar. What do you remember when you say the name Judas? He’s the one who betrayed Christ. What do you remember when you say the name Pilate? He’s the one who washed his hands and said, "I’m going to let you kill Him, but I’m not going to have anything to do with it." What do you remember when you hear the name Herod? He’s the one who killed the babies. He’s the one who tried to trick the wise men into telling him where Jesus was.
We always remember the mistakes that people make. Remember the guy who ran the ball back the wrong way and was forever nicknamed "Wrongway"? The evil men do lives after them.
So is it possible to do it and why should God do it? Why should He answer our prayer, "Forget my sins and remember them no more"? Why shouldn’t He respond to our prayer by asking, "Why should I?"
The answer to that is in Psalm 25:7. It says, "...according to your love remember me, for you are good, O Lord." Why? Because He loves us. He died on the cross to pay for our sins. He paid a giant price in order to forget our sins.
The Bible describes it as having our sins covered by the blood of Jesus. The Bible says that when Christ was nailed to the cross, our sins were nailed to the cross. That’s how our sins are forgiven and forgotten. The Lord took them with Him on the cross.
When the Roman soldiers got those nails for the crosses out of the commissary that morning, they could have been used to build a boat or a house or a bridge. But instead, they were used to hammer the Son of God to those hideous logs. Hate took those nails and said, "These are my nails, and with them, I’ll kill You." But love took those nails and said, "No, they are my nails, and with them, I’ll save you." God does, indeed, forget our sins and remember them no more because He loves us and He paid that price on the cross for us that we might have eternal life.
How Does It Happen?
How does it happen? How do we know He has forgotten our sins and remembers us?
We find the answer in Psalm 25:1 "To you, O Lord, I life up my soul; in you I trust, O my God." How do you do it? "To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul..."
Soul means "life." It means you ... your emotion, your intellect, your will.
It is that part of you that’s never going to die. It is that part of you that will not return to dust like your body does. If you want to know He has forgotten your sins and remembers you, then you give your life to Him, and He gives you back the life He wants you to have and intended you to have.
What was David giving to the Lord when he said, "To you ... I lift up my soul..."? Look at verses 16-19. He said, "I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish. I have sins. I have multiplied enemies." This is the life David was giving up. God said, "I want that life." He wants your sins and afflictions. He wants everything you are. Some people are guilty of pride which is the greatest sin, and God says, "I want your pride. Bring that sin to Me, and I’ll forget it. I’ll make you what you ought to be. I’ll help you."
Do you remember when David sinned his most famous sin and was confronted by Nathan? In Psalm 51, David prayed:
Psa 51:1 Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.
Psa 51:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin.
Psa 51:3 For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me.
Psa 51:4 Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.
Psa 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.
Psa 51:6 Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.
Psa 51:7 Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Psa 51:8 Make me to hear joy and gladness, Let the bones which You have broken rejoice.
Psa 51:9 Hide Your face from my sins And blot out all my iniquities.
Psa 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Psa 51:11 Do not cast me away from Your presence And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Psa 51:12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.
Psa 51:13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners will be converted to You.
David took his sins to the Lord and gave them to Him. Then later, he could write in Psalm 32:
Psa 32:1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered!
Psa 32:2 How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!
Psa 32:3 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long.
Psa 32:4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah.
Psa 32:5 I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"; And You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah.
In 2 Samuel 12, Nathan was called of God to confront David with his sin ... adultery with Bathsheba and bringing about the murder of her husband Uriah.
David could have banished the prophet. He could have had him imprisoned or killed, but David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." Nathan told him, "There are going to be terrible consequences for this sin. The scars are going to be there forever, but the Lord has forgiven you." That’s when David wrote, "What a blessed thing to be forgiven by the Lord."
In 1 Samuel 13, God talks about David. What does He say? "David, that guy who used to be an adulterer, who manipulated and murdered, that David is a man after My own heart."
Now get this.
To many people ... a person is his sins.
To many people ... a person is his mistakes.
To God, you are as spotless as Christ when you become a Christian, and you are what God pictures you to be, what He had in mind for you.
Alice in Wonderland said, "It’s a poor memory that only works backward." God’s memory does not just work backward. It works forward.
Saul of Tarsus was religiously evil. The worst kind of mean people in the world are the religious mean people. Isn’t that right? He was one of those religious mean people, and he was trying to get rid of every Christian he could find. He was there when Stephen was killed. He was blaspheming God and Jesus. Then he met Christ. Jesus forgave him and saw something in him. Do you know what Jesus saw? The greatest missionary who ever lived, the author of half of the New Testament. All of this was because Paul experienced what David prayed, "Forget my sins; remember me."
Mary Magdalene was evil. The Bible describes her as having seven evil spirits.
She met Jesus Christ and confessed her sins. He remembered her, the person He made her to be. She became that. She became a committed follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Her name is in the Word of God because He forgot her sins and remembered her.
Simon Peter was a guy with up and down emotional swings all the time. He was valiant one minute ....vacillating the next, brave on the one hand ... cowardly on the other. Jesus met him one day and said, "You are Simon the son of Jonah. You are going to be called the Rock." Peter means "rock." He saw him. He forgave his sins. He remembered him.
So the Lord says in His Word, "If you will turn to Me..." "To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. Lord I give you my sins. I give You my weakness. I give You my life such as it is. I give it to You. Then, O Lord, I trust You to remember me, to make me what You intended me to be." He can begin that process in you right now.
