Take Out The Garbage

“He’s standing,” she says. “He’s standing!”

They all turn. They see him—he’s standing—fresh and clean and new. No garbage!

What a marvelous picture of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Like Lucado, have you ever thought of the cross of Calvary, the mount of Calvary as a trash heap—as a place to dump your garbage? I have to admit—I’ve never thought of it that way.

A pastor friend of mine was telling me about a mission trip that he and a group took to Venezuela, and he talked about how they ended up at the Maracaibo City Dump. He said it wasn’t unlike most dumps one would see—except that it was HUGE—and there were people living off the contents of the dump. He said as they looked out over the vast expanse, it almost seemed to them that the dump site represented the sin in their lives.

It’s true that Jesus wants to take all the sin that you are struggling with on Himself. That sack of garbage that we have been carrying around for so long—that sin—Jesus wants to wash it all away for us—through the blood He shed on Calvary. He wants to wash away all of our sins—if we’ll just turn it over to Him. You see—He became sin for us!

You see if we don’t unload ourselves by turning over our garbage to Jesus, like the lady in Lucado’s story, we’ll just keep carrying it around, and it gets heavier, and it gets filled with more and more garbage until it becomes a burden to big for us to bear.

So the question I have for you this morning is this: “What’s in your trash bag?” If you like to watch TV shows like C.S.I., you know that they search for clues, they just go about anywhere. They may even go to the dumpster and sift through trash.

If someone were to look through the trash bag that you put out on the street for collection each week, what would they find? What things would they discover about you? What you like to eat—what you like to drink—what your favorite soap is—what you like to read. They would find out a lot about you by going through your trash bag.

Some of us this morning need to go through our trash bag and throw it out—get rid of it.

I’m praying that in our time together this morning you will allow Jesus Christ to take your trash bag—whatever it is—the guilt, the shame, the pride, the loneliness, the selfishness—Whatever it is—that you will allow Him to take that sack of trash and pour it over His head—and relieve you of the weight.

You see, you weren’t made to walk through life dragging those bags of garbage. Some of you this morning are broken. Some of you don’t know which way to turn. Some of you almost wish you weren’t even alive because you have been carrying that weight around with you for years—and you can’t find anyone to take it.

You tried to pass it off to other people—and maybe they listened casually as you told them about your burdens, but they didn’t really want it.

You see, nobody really wants your garbage—except one person—the Lord Jesus Christ. He would say to you and to me today—“Come to me with your garbage sacks. You’ve been toting them way too long. My yoke is easy—I can take all your garbage.”