Wash Away My Guilt

Slide: Tide commercial

Yeah, it’s kinda funny. Of course, it wouldn’t be if that was you trying to get the job. And it also isn’t when we are stained with sin and trying to anticipate an interview with a holy God…

Those stains in our lives bother us. They bother others also. And they really bother a holy God. He puts it this way through Jeremiah:

Slide: “Although you wash yourself with soda and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me,” declares the Sovereign LORD.” (Jeremiah 2:22 NIV)

It is always going to be there despite your hardest efforts to remove it – until you allow God to be the One who washes it away in the blood of the Jesus Christ our Lord. It’s the Lenten season, so in a few weeks we’ll be reading about Pilate. Do you remember what he tried to do with the stain of his guilt?

Slide: “When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”” (Matthew 27:24 NIV)

If only it were that easy. Well, he could cleanse his hands, but he could never cleanse his heart from his guilt at putting to death an innocent man – unless he allowed the blood of that man to fall on Him in true forgiveness. And the same is true for all of us, whose sins caused Jesus to go to the cross to be punished for them instead of us. And so again we pray the prayer of guilty David:

Slide: “Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” (Psalms 51:2 NIV)

And that is exactly what God is ready and willing to do in His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Hear again those beautiful words that we often repeat in worship:

Slide: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9 ESV)

Folks, that’s what we’re about in the Lenten season and with this series. Lent is not about what we do or don’t do for God. It’s about what God has done for us through Jesus. Through faith in Him we do receive mercy, in Him all our wrongs are washed away, in Him we are cleansed from every stain and we receive a clean heart.

Well there’s a lot more to say, but there will be other sermons in the series in which to say it, so we’ll cut it off here. I would say, we’re giving you another charm for this series. I hope it can help remind you of the honest prayer that you are praying to God in Psalm 51, but I hope you can also wear it or put it on your keychain and use it to witness to what we’re doing here and to the forgiveness and grace that is also available to your friends, neighbors, relatives, and coworkers when they pray “Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”