Introduction
- Have you ever done something really dumb?
- Have you screwed up before?
The Most Beautiful Girl Song
- It was a beautiful summer’s night and I was heading back to Silverton, Oregon to take my girlfriend home.
- I think I was about 17 years old.
- The windows were down. The breeze was perfect. Everything was going great.
- Christine started going to our church when I was about 13 years old.
- From the instant her family stepped foot in our church, I told myself that I have to go out with this girl. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.
- That started the infatuation. And 4 years later, nothing had changed.
- So now I am 17 and heading to my girlfriend, Melanie’s house on this beautiful summer’s evening.
- We were listening to country music (it wasn’t by my choice, Melanie was obsessed) and then comes a song by Charlie Rich called “The Most Beautiful Girl.”
- Here are the lyrics:
o Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world? And if you did, was she crying, crying?
Hey, if you happen to see the most beautiful girl that walked out on me. Tell her, "I’m sorry."
Tell her, "I need my baby."
Oh.... Won’t you tell her that I love her?
- It’s one of those songs that you never forget. It’s romantic and sweet.
- Do you ever just do something so dumb and didn’t think about the repercussion that it could bring upon you?
- So, as I was driving I looked over at my girlfriend Melanie and said, “Do you know who this song reminds me of?”
- And of course she said, “Who?”
- I say the brilliant line that I’ll never forget, “It reminds of Christine.”
- Just if case you didn’t catch that.
- I told my girlfriend I thought the song reminded me of a girl that I had liked for a long time (who wasn’t my girlfriend).
- That was dumb. I screwed up big time.
Forget the Former Things
- You’ve done dumb things before, right?
- I’m not the only one that have screwed up, am I?
- What does the Bible say about past failures and mistakes and sin?
- “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” - Isaiah 43:18-19
- I know that the situation I just described with my old girlfriend wasn’t that bad; I just messed up.
- But have any of you done some really stupid things before?
- Drugs, alcohol, sex, stealing, lying…
- Have you ever hated someone so much that you wanted to kill them?
- I have. (We’ll get to that later)
Mary Magdalene
- There is a cool story found in John 20.
- We all know about Mary Magdalene. She was a prostitute that Jesus had forgiven and she became one of His most loyal followers.
- After Jesus had been buried in the tomb, some of the apostles and Mary heard that the tomb was empty and that Jesus was no where to be found.
- Mary was crying. Long story short: Jesus revealing that He was Christ resurrected and then she immediately cried out, “Teacher!”
- Obviously, she missed Jesus so she ran to Him and held onto Him.
- But the He says something really weird; “Do not hold on to me…”
- This woman was so glad to see Jesus, so why would He say not to hold on to Him. She was one of His truest followers.
- Jesus was basically saying, “Mary, things are different now. Your life is going to be way different from when I was here. Forget about the past, don’t hang on to it. Something new is going to happen.”
- The prophet Isaiah encouraged us to do the same thing.
- Isaiah 43:18 says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”
- The apostle Paul told us the same thing in 2 Corinthians.
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
- King David prophesied the same thing.
- Romans 4:7-8 says, "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."
Letting Go
- For some reason, even though God tells us that He forgives and forgets our sins, we still think that we have to hold on to it.
- We might think, “Yeah I asked God to forgive me, but it’s really too bad of a sin and I don’t think He will forgive me.”
- But really, God already has forgiven you, you just haven’t forgiven yourself.
- The one thing that the devil loves to do is use our past against us.
- The devil says, “You’ve had sex before marriage. You can never be sexually pure again. You are doomed. So just go ahead and keep on doing it because God could never forgive something like that.”
- The devil is the one who brings it back up; not God.
- Paul told us about the devil’s evil schemes in 2 Corinthians 2.
- 2 Corinthians 2:10-11 says, “If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.”
- The devil is out to kill, steal and destroy our lives.
- He only succeeds if we let him.
Why wouldn’t God want to forgive you?
- You might be thinking, “I’ve had sex. I’ve done all sorts of drugs. I drink all the time. I’ve committed all sorts of bad sins. How could God ever forgive me?”
- My answer: Why wouldn’t God want to forgive you?
- He created you for a specific purpose that you need to fulfill.
- He doesn’t care that you’ve screwed up in the past.
- He just wants you to know that He’s forgiven and forgotten about it and that now He needs you to complete the purpose He designed you for.
Think God can’t use you?
- God has a plan for you like I mentioned earlier.
- But many of us think that God won’t be able to use us because we’ve had a horrible past or we’ve screwed up.
- Let me ask you a question:
- Do you think that God only uses qualified people?
- Consider these people:
- Moses was controlled by anger.
- Jonah ran from God.
- Jacob was a liar.
- Noah got drunk.
- Rahab was a prostitute.
- David had an affair.
- Jeremiah was depressed…a lot.
- Solomon was rich in wisdom but poor in lifestyle.
- John the Baptist was just poor.
- Timothy was too young.
- Abraham was too old.
- Lazarus was dead.
- Sarah was barren.
- Naomi was a widow.
- Thomas doubted. So did Gideon and Sarah.
- Peter lacked self-control.
- James and John were self-righteous.
- Paul had a short fuse. So did Peter and Moses.
God’s Army Isn’t Perfect
- God’s army isn’t perfect.
- It never has been and it never will be.
- Because we are not perfect and God knows that. He’s working with flawed people but He’s ok with that.
- Isaiah 64:8 says, “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
- We are imperfect just like clay.
- God molds us and shapes us to be used for His glory.
Closing
- We all mess up. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
- But it doesn’t mean that He doesn’t love us.
- I want to close with a passage from Revelation.
- For those who might not know, Revelation is a book of the Bible written by the apostle John.
- God gave him a vision while he was exiled on the island of Patmos.
- Revelation7:9-17 says, “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: "Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!" Then one of the elders asked me, "These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?" I answered, "Sir, you know." And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, "they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
- This is a promise to me and you. To all the unqualified people that God has chosen.
- Your sins will be forgotten and every tear will be wiped away.
- Just ask Him to forgive you and He’ll never remember it.
