The Unqualified

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.”