Well, good morning. If you would take and turn in the Holy Scriptures to Jeremiah chapter 31. This morning, we are bringing an end to our series on the subject of the new covenant. And then God willing, next Lord's day will begin in John chapter one. But you're in Jeremiah 31. We're going to read verses 31 through 34. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord, But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more. Let's pray. Father, if there is anything in me or anything in your people that would quench the Spirit of God, sin that we have left unrepented of or unconfessed, We ask this very moment that the blood of Christ would cleanse us afresh and anew, and that Your Spirit would have free course, that we would have liberty and unction and power from on high, not to exalt a mere man, but to exalt Your Son. Overwhelm us with Your mercy and with the atonement You have accomplished in Christ. Do this for those who are outside of Christ, that they may be saved this very day, that they may hear your internal call of your spirit, that they might be saved. And for us who are in Christ, Lord. Some who may be backslidden in the sense of yielding to sin, Lord, and needing renewal and refreshment in their repentance. Others who are just battling sins of our guilty feelings and overwhelmed sometimes by their pasts and need to be reminded that all their sins have been nailed to the cross. Lord, I pray that your spirit will minister to each one because you know the need of each one. And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. As we have seen throughout this series, the divine covenants that God has made with men are the Bible's own connective tissue. They are the sinews and the ligaments that show us that these 66 books are one story written by one divine author about one people who have one God. The covenants are the benchmarks of redemptive history. It is the story of God the Father choosing a people in Christ before time began, committing them to his Son, who then in his death upon the cross, in his resurrection, securing their salvation, making their salvation certain, and then God the Holy Spirit applying that redemption to their souls in their own life history. And each of the covenants is that unfolding eternal plan being revealed in time. And each of them finds its fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we've seen that Jesus is the second Adam, the promised seed of the woman who crushed the head of the serpent and whose heel was bruised by the serpent. Jesus, God preserved the messianic seed when he destroyed the earth with a global flood, but he preserved that seed through his covenant that he made with Noah. Noah is the seed of Shem, Noah's son. And Jesus is the seed of Abraham, the one in whom all nations will be blessed. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law, the Old Covenant. By His active and passive obedience, He has done what you and I cannot do. He has fulfilled the righteous requirement of the Law in our place. And Jesus is the seed of David, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, heir of His throne, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. But unlike temporal kings and temporal presidents, His reign knows no end. He will reign forever and ever. And Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant. He has secured its effectual blessings for all of its heirs by his death on the cross and by his resurrection. And so what we've been doing in this last part of this series is unpacking each of the four effectual blessings that Jesus has secured for us. We have gone through the first three thus far. The first blessing is regeneration. I will put my law in their minds and write it in their hearts. The second one is identification. I will be their God and they will be my people. The third, which we looked at last week, is reconciliation. That is, no more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them. And that brings us to the fourth and final blessing of the New Covenant, which is what I'm calling expiation. Now we need to define that word. What does expiation mean? It means the forgiveness of sins. The word expiation literally means removal, to remove our sins from us. And to give you some sense of what this word means, let me introduce three words that I know you have heard before, but they're theological terms and they're biblical terms, but they help us to understand what this word means. Those words are atonement, you're very familiar with that word, and then propitiation, and then expiation. What are these things? The word atonement itself, means simply reconciliation. Jesus accomplished a full atonement for his people. He's reconciled God to us, and he's reconciled us to God, which is what we talked about last week. But that word atonement, that's all that it means. It means reconciled. We have peace with God because of what Jesus has done. Well, then propitiation and expiation refer to what the atonement accomplished. First of all, when we talk about propitiation, what it accomplished Godward. And then expiation is what it accomplishes manward. So propitiation, that word means simply satisfaction. God the Son has satisfied the righteous demands of God the Father. He has satisfied his holiness. He has turned away his wrath from us by bearing our sin upon himself and bearing the punishment that we deserve. And God has accepted that which he's proven by raising him from the dead. So God on his part is satisfied because his justice has been answered by Christ. That's propitiation. Expiation, then, is God removing our sins from us, which is what kept us from God. He's taken away not your guilty feelings. You know, a lot of times psychologists and counselors, they deal with guilty feelings. God has done so much better. He has dealt with your real guilt, which is what your guilty feelings are based upon. He's taken away your sin and removed it from you, and that is expiation. Expiation is the manward aspect of Christ's atonement, what he has accomplished for us. So in other words, expiation is the removal of guilt, It is the forgiveness of sins, which is the fourth promise that we're told we're gonna have in the New Covenants, verse 34. I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. So I have the joy this morning of preaching an entire sermon on nothing but forgiveness. And I'll tell you that at moments like this, I really, really love my job. Because what a joy to talk about a God who forgives sinners. Because we are great sinners who need forgiveness. And so I'm going to set this before you, teach this to you under two headings. First of all, God remembers not your sins. And second, God covers your sins. God remembers not your sins and God covers your sins. So first of all, God remembers not your sins. Obviously, I am pulling that straight from our text. Figured you can't go wrong if you just pull it right out of the Bible itself. I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. The first thing you need to recognize about this phrase, that God remembers not our sins, is that there's a vast difference between remembering not and forgetting. God does not forget anything. He cannot forget anything. God is omniscient, which means he is all-knowing. Have you ever contemplated God's knowledge and the fact that because he's the creator and not a creature, his knowledge is completely different than your knowledge and mine? God's knowledge, or let's put it this way, as creatures, how do we acquire knowledge? Well, the very first thing is we have to acquire it. We're not just born with it. We acquire knowledge gradually through observation, through experience, through maturity, through reading and through deliberate study. We always have the potential to increase in knowledge, but as we get older, we also realize something else. We have the great potential to lose it, don't we? And to lose the knowledge that we've gained. You can know more, or you can know less, and even in the brightest and smartest of creatures, there's a limit to how much we can know, because we are finite, we are mere creatures. So put it this way, knowledge in you and me is imperfect, it's limited, and it's mutable. It can change, it can grow, or it can diminish. But when you're thinking about knowledge in God, it's on a whole different plane of existence. For God, as the Creator, He does not acquire knowledge, nor does He lose knowledge. He cannot forget anything. He knows everything in the past, He knows everything in the present, and He already knows everything in the future. And he knows it all simultaneously. And he knows everything and will always know everything. Let's put it this way. He ever presently knows all things about everything all the time. And he didn't acquire that knowledge. He has always had it because his knowledge is eternal. In other words, in contrast to you and me, God's knowledge is perfect. God's knowledge is limitless. And God's knowledge is immutable. It can't change. He cannot grow to know more. He cannot grow to know less. And shouldn't it comfort you to think there's no crisis in your life that some angel can come running in with a scroll and God is anxious because he doesn't know the content. No, he knows it all. He is aware of everything. He knows your every need before you even ask him. And so he knows whatever crisis you're going through. My dad, years ago, gave me a little sign that he got at a yard sale, and it said, God has a solution planned before you even know you have a problem. And there's a lot of truth in that, isn't there? It's a comfort to know that God knows all things and can't be surprised by anything. But here's the thing. Can God forget your sins? Can he forget that you did them? And of course the answer is no. And since the word of God can't contradict itself, since the Bible on the one hand affirms that God knows all things and can forget nothing, and at the same time it says God remembers not your sins, obviously he means something different than forgetting when he says God remembers not your sins. And for me this was no theoretical question, particularly when I was a teenager. And had been a Christian for a few years, This idea, I wrongfully thought, that God literally forgot about the sins I had committed. And it was a great comfort to me, and I should explain why. I was converted just about a month after my eighth birthday. So I am now 55 years old, which means that I only spent eight years being unconverted, and I've known the Lord now for 47 years. So I can honestly say to you that I have committed far worse sins after my conversion than I ever did before my conversion. As a matter of fact, I can tell you I've seen more of my own heart and my own depravity since I was regenerated than I did ever before. Because my BC days were really short. And because of that, that was a big part of why I struggled with doubts about my salvation in Bible college, because I was seeing for the first time in many ways the depravity of my own heart, and yet I'm doing so eight and 10 years after my conversion. And so wrestling with that question of why is all this here? But the idea that God forgot my sins was a great encouragement to me. Now, if you had seen me on the outside and known me as a teenager, you'd have probably thought of me as a sincere and earnest Christian who truly loved the Lord. And I think that assessment would have been accurate. But you could only see the outside. You couldn't see the inside of me. But I could see the inside of me. And what I saw inside of me, I didn't like. because there wasn't anything to like there except for the Holy Spirit living inside of me. I was aware of the sins in my own heart, the thought life, the things entertained in my mind, in the theater of my mind. I was aware of all these secret sins tucked away inside of me that I dare not open my mouth and tell anyone else that I struggled with or failed with. I was aware of the pride, that was inside of me, that tainted and infected and putrefied even the best of works that I ever did outwardly. I knew that there was always some desire for me to receive some praise and some glory for whatever I did, and that my motives were not completely pure in a desire to glorify God. I could see all those things inside of myself, but people from the outside couldn't see it looking in. Let me put it this way, I'm indebted to one of my professors in Bible College for this illustration. What if somebody invented a machine that could read your inward thoughts, and not only read them, but project them on a screen? so that people saw all the images that were in your head and all the words that went through your mind. And not only did they do so, but they captured you, forced you into the machine, strapped you down, and then showed it for all in the entire church to see it. And then they broadcast it along the national news. so that everybody could see and hear every single thought you've ever had. Imagine that being on the screen, every kind of vile, pornographic thought that's ever entered to your mind. But not just the lustful thoughts. Think about the fact that there's times when somebody cuts you off on the road, and you say things when no one else is in the car with you, or things that come under your breath that you don't want anybody else to hear because nobody will respect you as a Christian anymore if they hear you say those things, but suddenly those things are broadcast in stereo surround sound for everybody to hear. Or what about those people that you, deep inside, you really hate them, but you're courteous to them outwardly? And suddenly they get to hear what you really think about them and all your hypercritical thoughts and finding ways about them and all the things you've said bad about them behind their backs. Suddenly all that is broadcasted before the whole world. What would you think? I think I'd rather be tortured on the rack than be strapped to a machine like that. And yet let's recognize this on the day of judgment, the thoughts and the intents of our heart are going to be revealed. It's a sobering thing to think about. Every deed done in the body, whether it be good or evil. But those things inside of my heart, those were the things I saw that the outward church could not see, but I saw them. And because God said he forgets my sin, I thought, wow, this is great. This is wonderful. He doesn't remember any of those things, right? And then I began to stumble because I began realizing, wait a minute, he can't forget them because he can't stop being omniscient. Because if he stops being omniscient, he stops being God. What I began to wrestle with in my heart were things like this. Did God forgive David's sin with Bathsheba? Absolutely. But how do you and I know about David's sin with Bathsheba? Because many years after he died, the Holy Spirit, who remembers not our sins, moved the author of 2 Samuel to write in the gory details about his sin and what he did to cover it up. So the Spirit of God wanted you and I to know about David's sin as a warning to us lest we follow in the same path. But clearly, remembering not David's sin didn't mean he forgot it. And as a matter of fact, look throughout the Bible. Does the Bible hide from us the warts of its heroes? It does not. It is just blunt. I'm really glad I didn't live in Bible times or was written about by the Bible because all my warts would then be out there for everybody to read about. Think even about Peter. Did God forgive Simon Peter for denying three times that he even knew the Lord? Well, of course he did. He forgave him and he restored him and he became a great apostle. But then we read, not once, not twice, not three times, but four different times in our Bibles, four different authors who were moved by the Spirit to record the details of Peter denying that he even knew the Lord. And this many decades after he had done so and after he had been forgiven. And so all those things began troubling me when I was a teenager as I began chewing on those things because I don't want God to remember my sin. I don't want him, I want him to truly forget it, to erase it from his memory. And yet that's not what this phrase means. because the Bible cannot contradict himself. So it's in our best interest to know what does the scripture mean when it says, I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I will remember no more. Well maybe another illustration will help. Have you ever tried to actively forget something? Particularly someone's sin against you? In other words, somebody's really sinned against you and hurt you deeply. and you're trying not to think about it. I'm gonna forgive them, I'm gonna let go of it, and so I'm not gonna think about what they did to me. What happens? Does that work? No, in fact, it's like walking around in a circle in your mind, and you begin to run a groove into the floor of your mind. And you keep on going in that circle, and before you know it, that groove you've worn is 12 feet deep, and you can't get out of it. And no matter which way you turn, there it is, and you are stuck in a rut where you cannot think about anything else. And when people have sinned against you deeply, and we've all been sinned against deeply, we've all been deeply hurt by others, but let's not get too cocky, we've also all hurt other people deeply. We're not just the victims, we have made victims of others around us because we have sinned too. But when someone close to you betrays you and hurts you, It cuts you to the very bone. We've all been through that. And let's say that this person has hurt you but they haven't acknowledged their sin, they haven't repented, there can't be reconciliation because they've not acknowledged it. And so one day you're in the grocery store and you happen to push your buggy down aisle four and who's standing there right in the middle of aisle four? The person who hurt you, the person who sinned against you. What immediately comes to your mind? the sin they committed against you. And when you look at them, you see them through the lens of their sin. And what comes up in your heart is a desire for justice for yourself, perhaps a desire for vengeance. And if you're like me, you're probably also full of anxiety. It's like, let me pull back out of aisle four and go down aisle three real quick so I can avoid contact with this person. But if their eye catches your eye and you know I can't avoid them anymore, then what do you do? Probably it takes all of your self-control to be courteous and civil and to say what you ought to say, or you just throw that out the wind and just give full vent to what you really think, which would be really bad, clean up in aisle four. But what is it you're doing? You're remembering their sin. You're actively calling it to mind and you deal with them and you relate to them through the lens of their sin. There's a wall between the two of you that keeps you from being close. You feel these things and you behave this way because you remember their sin. But what happens in the mercies of God? If that same person acknowledges their sin, comes to you and says, I sinned against the Lord and I sinned against you. It was wrong, I have no excuse for it. Would you please forgive me? And you grant them forgiveness. And you are reconciled to one another. Let me ask you, does that mean then that you suddenly forget what they did? Can you make yourself erase the memory? Of course you can't. But what are you saying when you say the words, I forgive you? I'm indebted to Jay Adams for saying this. Basically, you're making a promise. Instead of the sin being between you and me, I'm gonna put it behind me. And I'm gonna treat you exactly as if you never sinned against me. and I'm not going to bring the sin up again to you again because you've asked for my forgiveness, so I'm not gonna bring it up to you, nor am I gonna sit there and keep on stewing on it in my own mind, so that when we talk to one another, it will be as if the event never happened. In other words, you're making a promise that I'm going to remember not your sin when I'm with you, so that I treat you as if you had never sinned. And how do you know when you've truly forgiven someone? When you can treat them as if they hadn't committed the sin, and when in your own mind, the sting of the bitterness begins to dissipate and go away, and trust begins to be rebuilt. Now, depending on the depth of the sin, it may take a while to regain the trust, but it begins the healing process because the forgiveness has been granted. You've made a choice to remember not their sin. And the scripture affirms this definition of forgiveness. I'm gonna take you through several different scriptures. Proverbs 17 verse nine. He who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends. Do you hear in that verse, there's a contrast being made between covering a sin and hiding it from view versus repeating the sin, repeating a matter, reminding people of their sin against them. That's the opposite of covering it. That's uncovering it. That is not forgiving them. That's actively calling it to mind. But when I treat someone as if they had not sinned and I don't bring the sin up against, to them again and again, and I've covered it up, I've hidden it out of view, then I have chosen to remember it not in the way that I treat them. And then you can see the opposite in 3 John, verses 9 to 10. John writes there and says, I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us. Therefore, if I come, notice this phrase, I will call to mind. the deeds he does, prating against us with malicious words. And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church. This man, Diotrephes, was apparently a pastor inside the church, and he wanted to use his ministry as a vehicle of self-promotion. But the problem was the apostles reigned on his parade because the apostles were popular with God's people. And so he was envious. He was jealous of them. Jealousy will move you to murder people, right? The chief priest gave Jesus over because of jealousy. Even so, in this case, he didn't murder people, but he excommunicated people. He literally put people out of the church who wanted to receive the apostles and their doctrines and perhaps have them come fill their pulpits and preach for them. And he put them out of the church because he was envious of them. In other words, Deiotrophes did not want Jesus to have the preeminence in the church. He wanted Deiotrophes to have the preeminence in the church. And so John, who as an apostle had greater authority than the atrophies, says, when I come, I'm going to publicly call to mind his evil deeds. In other words, the man who's been excommunicating people in a very ungodly way is himself going to be excommunicated. He's gonna be subject to discipline because of these things. But what John says is, it's not that I'm gonna remember not, I'm gonna call to remembrance actively his sins because he's not repentant of the things that he's done. So do you see the distinction here between remembering not versus remembering someone's sins? Well, that word cover, that word cover is used in the Old Testament scriptures over and over again to describe forgiveness. Are you beginning to get some hint, some glimpse of what it means when holy God says to you, I will remember not your sins? I'm gonna treat you exactly as if you had not sinned. I'm gonna treat you as if you have perfectly obeyed my law because of what my son has done for you. So we've seen, first of all, God remembers not your sins. Let's further refine that by considering that God covers your sins. It's a sweet word, the word cover. We've already seen it in Proverbs 17, nine. He who covers a transgression seeks love, Proverbs 10 verse 12 is very similar. Hatred stirs up strife, but love, remember the word, covers all sins. Hatred stirs up strife by reminding people of their past. But love covers their past, covers their sins against you, and creates peace rather than strife. So, hatred works hard to remember the sins of others, to keep a record of wrongs. But 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that love keeps no record of wrongs. It burns up the filing cabinet and says, we're going to get rid of that record of wrongs and not bring it up ever again. Same word, cover, is used in a negative sense in Proverbs 28, 13. He who covers his sins will not prosper. That is, when you excuse your sin, refuse to acknowledge your sin, make excuses for your sin, blame shifting. That's one of our favorite tactics. Well, Lord, you know, if you'd give me a different wife, then she gave me the fruit and I ate, so it's really your fault. You're the giver and she's the gift. And if you give me a different wife, You see, this is what we do as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. We find reasons, ways to blame others. Or, I have an excuse. Yes, I sinned, but if this person hadn't done X, Y, and Z, then I never would have done this. Well, what Scripture tells us is regardless of how you try to cover your sin, you're not going to prosper spiritually until you deal with it. In other words, God says, tear up your covering. expose your sin, acknowledge it for the hideousness it is, take responsibility and say, Lord, I sinned because I wanted to, I did it deliberately, I have no excuse, I just simply cast myself on your mercy. That's what we do, we uncover our sins and then he says, you'll have mercy. Confess and forsake your sin, then you'll obtain mercy. Cover it, you're not gonna get anywhere. You're gonna be hindered in your spiritual maturity and your spiritual growth. Uncover the sins, tear them up. And when you expose your sins to God, you know what he does? He covers them. He covers them. And that leads us to Psalm 32, verses one and two. Blessed, David says, the word blessed here literally means happy. Happy is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is not deceit. When you uncover your sins before God, a beautiful thing happens, God himself covers it. He covers it and hides it from view. And when God covers it, it's covered. He remembers it not. He treats you as if you had never sinned. Paul quotes this very Psalm in Romans chapter four, verses five to eight. And by the inspiration of the Spirit, he tells us that the joy that David is describing is the joy of having your sins forgiven because by grace alone, through faith alone, you've put your faith in Christ alone. And it's the joy of justification. He says this. But to him who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. And then he quotes from Psalm 32. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. But here's my question. If God is just, and he is, if God is holy, and he is, then how can he cover your sin? God can't just turn his back on his justice. He can't stop being holy and just arbitrarily say, I'm just gonna pardon him. Justice has to be satisfied. Well, we find a hint in one of my favorite books of all time, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. As you're probably aware, Aslan, the lion, is a metaphor for Christ, the lion of the tribe of Judah. One of my favorite portions of any of the books is the part where Edmund is about to be killed by the white witch. Do you remember that? Because Edmund had betrayed his brother and his two sisters to the white witch, and therefore, according to the laws of Narnia, he was to be killed. This was a capital crime. And yet Aslan sends his armies to rescue him. He's rescued in the middle of the night, spared from the witch's blade, and he's brought back into the camp where Aslan is. And let me read to you C.S. Lewis' own description of what happened next. Quote, when the other children woke up the next morning, the first thing they heard was that their brother had been rescued and brought into camp late last night and was at that moment with Aslan. As soon as they had breakfasted and they all went out, and there they saw Aslan and Edmund walking together in the dewy grass apart from the rest of the court. There is no need to tell you, and no one ever heard, what Aslan was saying. But it was a conversation which Edmund never forgot. And here's the part I love the best. As the others drew nearer Aslan, or as the others drew nearer, Aslan turned to meet them, bringing Edmund with him. Here is your brother, he said, and there is no need to talk to him about what is past. I love that. But here's the thing. You remember what happens next? How was it that Edmund was pardoned? Aslan had to die in his place and be resurrected. And what's He pointing us to? How does God forgive you and how does God forgive me? What does He cover your sin with? And you know the answer. He covers your sin with the blood of Jesus Christ. It is because of His finished work upon the cross that God's justice is satisfied and your sin can be washed away from you. Not just your guilty feelings, but your guilt. One of my favorite sayings upon the cross, there's seven sayings that are recorded for us in the gospel accounts. One of them is found in the book of John in John alone. And so Jesus says right before his death, it is finished. The Greek word is to telestai. It literally means paid in full. Paid in full. Have any of you ever incurred, no show of hands, but have any of you incurred any credit card debt before? Isn't credit card debt the worst? Your water heater stops heating the water. and you don't have the cash to pay for it. A car breaks down and you don't have the money to repair the car for cash and so you have to go into credit card debt. Credit card debt is like the worst. It's like Chinese water torture. It just slowly erodes your soul away. And you pay it off for many weeks or many months. Sometimes maybe it takes you several years. And if you had that joy and that satisfaction of that day when you write that final check, or for you millennials, you pay online, you don't know how to write checks, I know, but whatever you do, whatever you go through, you finally write that final bill, it's $176.33. And when you pay it and you put it in the mail or you put it online, whatever you're doing, what a joy there is. And there have been times when I've experienced that joy that I literally have taken a red pen and wrote to Telestai on my bill, paid in full. I don't know another cent. because the full debt has been paid. Now here's the point, when Jesus said it is finished, he was saying it's a full atonement. He didn't pay for 60% of your sins. He didn't pay for 98% and you've got to come up with the remaining 2%. He didn't even pay 99.9% leaving 0.1% for you. When Jesus died on the cross, He made a full atonement. He dealt with your every single sin, past, present, and future. He didn't just cover it, He more than covered it. Because where sin abounded, grace did exceedingly abound. He accomplished a full atonement for you. All the demands of God's justice are satisfied. Expiation has been granted. He's removed not part of your sin or even most of your sin. He's removed all of your sin and he remembers it not. He has separated your sin as far from you as the east is from the west. Listen to Paul's language in Colossians 2, 13 to 14. and you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. It's paid in full. I spoke earlier of the secret hidden sins in the recesses of our hearts. Those things so wicked that maybe you're hesitant even to tell it to a trusted Christian friend for fear that they won't like you anymore. If people knew what's really going on inside of here, some of the perversion, some of the hatred, some of the malice, some of the just wicked vile thoughts that are inside of me, if they could see the motives that govern my heart, how self-centered I am, how proud I am, they would spit when they saw me, and they wouldn't want to have anything to do with me. I have it on good authority. All your Christian brothers and sisters feel the same way, by the way. But the question is, okay, yeah, the obvious sins that I share in common with everybody else, Jesus has dealt with those, right? But what about the gunk in here? Well, let me tell you, if Jesus didn't shed his blood for those sins, then the gospel's no good to me. And the gospel's no good to you either. But the good news is he did shed his blood, even for those inner attitudes, even for those perverted thoughts. To put it this way, When you think about your vile, nasty, inward sins, the ones you're so ashamed of, you won't even confess it to your fellow brothers and sisters. Jesus died for those sins too. Jesus was punished for your lustful, perverted thoughts. Jesus was punished for men and women who have been addicted to pornography on the internet. Jesus was punished for men and women who engage in self-abuse. Jesus was crucified for your murderous heart, your hate-filled heart. Jesus died for all the vile words that come out of your mouth and come up to your mind when you're provoked. It says in the third verse of it as well, my soul, which I think is one of the greatest lines of hymnody ever written, my sin, Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul. Blessed, happy is the man whose sins are covered. Blessed, happy is the woman whose sins are covered. Three applications I wanna make to you. First, have you received God's forgiveness for your sins? God does not forgive every sinner. He forgives sinners who repent of their sins and put their faith in Jesus in them alone. But men don't come to Jesus though he's the light of the world because they love darkness, they love their sin, they love their misery. They would rather stay in that than run from it and come to Christ and be saved. But I wanna encourage you how merciful Jesus is. To think through the reality that his heart is full of compassion and mercy for sinners like you, and that he's able to forgive you and willing to forgive you. One of my favorite stories, forgive me if I keep on pulling things from John, I'm excited about John, so hey. John chapter eight has one of my favorite stories in all of Jesus' ministry. It's the story of the woman who was caught in adultery. You remember the story? Here's a woman who the Pharisees caught her, they said literally in the very act. They stormed into her bedroom while she's in the arms of someone else's husband. Why the husband wasn't there is a question. Either he escaped from them or this was a setup. I wouldn't put it past the Pharisees that they set it up. But whatever the case, they take this woman from the arms of this adulterous man, bring her to Jesus early in the morning and throw her down in front of him. And though the text doesn't say it, I get the distinct impression they've got stones in their hands ready to stone her. And they're testing Jesus. They say, according to the law of Moses, she should be stoned to death. Adultery is a capital crime. Now, what do you say? You see what they're trying to do? They're trying to pit him against Moses to say, you contradicted the law. You're a transgressor of it because you won't stand by it. But do you remember what Jesus did? He ignored them. He stoops down into the dirt and starts writing on it with his finger, as if he doesn't hear them. Well, you can imagine this woman, I imagine she's trembling. She's probably looking down, not looking up because she just knows what she's about to feel is the stones coming against her. And after a while, Jesus finally stands up, looks around them and says, who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. And then he squats down and doesn't look at him anymore and starts writing in the dirt again. Again, we're not told what he's writing in the dirt, but he's ignoring them. And the Bible's very instructive and it says that the older men were the first one to drop their stones. They've been around the block enough to go, okay. So they dropped their stones and they leave. The younger men, full of younger men's disease, I'm a pretty moral guy. Maybe I'm worthy of throwing the rock. No. Finally, they take the hint from the older men. They drop their stones. Don't you love what happens next? Jesus stands up and there's nobody but him and the woman. These men are gone and their rocks are just scattered around her. And he looks at her and says, woman, where are those accusers of yours? No one condemned you. And I don't, it doesn't say it, but again, I can't imagine, but that she's trembling and crying and weeping when she says, no one, Lord. Remember what he says to her? Then neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. What a beautiful picture of forgiveness. The one man who had the right to stone her to death is the man who granted her pardon. As a matter of fact, you ever thought about this? The same finger that was writing in the dirt, whatever he was writing, is the same finger that wrote upon the two tables of stone, you should not commit adultery. And yet here's this just God, this perfect man, saying, forgive. Why did he forgive her? Because he was about to be punished for her adultery. He would take the stones, as it were, upon him in her place. And therefore he shows her mercy because God's wrath will be poured out upon him. Whoever you are, whatever your background, however wicked and vile and perverted and twisted your past may be, Jesus died for sinners. Paul said to Timothy, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. And if he can forgive me, the chief of sinners, he can certainly forgive you. So whoever you are, Have you found the forgiveness of Christ? Because there's forgiveness to be found. Repent of your sins and flee to him that you might be saved. My second two, my last two applications are for those of you who are in Christ. Here's my second application. If God has forgiven your sins, then you must also forgive one another. Jesus taught us to pray. How often do we do it? That when we confess our sins, we say, Father, forgive me for my sins as I forgive those who trespass against me. In other words, in the same way that I show mercy to others who sin against me, show the same mercy to me. And if I don't, if I retain their sins, then retain mine too. That's what we're saying. And Jesus clarifies this. He expands upon this after giving the Lord's model prayer, Matthew 6, verses 14 to 15. He says, Mark 11, verses 25 to 26, he says, whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses. His point is obvious. Not forgiving others, not showing mercy to others who sin against us, is ingratitude to the God who forgave us. It's saying, their sins against me are bigger and weightier than the sins I've committed against you. And therefore I have a right to retain them. He's saying, we need to look at others with lenses of mercy. You know, the older I get and the more I see of my own stubbornness and just general fussiness, and think about even things in the past that I've done that still grieve my heart, The more I hope that my wife, my children, the congregation I serve, my family, all the people around me look at me with lenses of mercy and are gracious to me and willing to pardon and willing to remember the best things they saw in me and to kind of throw aside the worst things, I want that for myself. But how often do I not want that for those around me? I want mercy for me, justice for everybody else. Vengeance, my 20 pounds of flesh out of that person. And yet how sinful it is. What if God wanted his 20 pounds of flesh? It would take an eternity in hell for me to pay it back. And yet God has freely forgiven me even at the sacrifice of his own son. We are to be quick to forgive. You know, refusing to forgive is like letting a splinter get lodged in your hand underneath the skin. I don't mean to be gross, but what happens if you don't deal with that splinter? it gets infected. And before long, it gets red around the area and you touch it and it's hot to the touch because your body's trying to fight it off. And then, and sorry to gross you out, but then that pus begins to grow in there because it's getting infected. And you can sit there and put Band-Aids on it and try to clean the surface all you want, but that's not gonna deal with the problem. And if you continue leaving it untreated, it's gonna turn into sepsis and poison your blood and kill you. That's exactly what bitterness and unforgiveness does. How do you solve the problem? Well, you sterilize a needle and you lance it and you get the gunk out of it. And then you take a pair of tweezers and you reach in and you get the foreign object out. And then you clean up that and what begins to happen? Your body begins to heal. I would suggest the same thing's true of forgiveness, that so long as we refuse to forgive, there's something in us infecting our souls that's gonna become all-consuming if we're not careful. And the way out, the remedy out is to be merciful and to forgive freely, to be quick to forgive. You know, so often it seems to me, unforgiveness is like a cancer, and sometimes in your soul it goes into remission and you think you've dealt with it, but then the slightest provocation or something reminds you of the sin, and suddenly there it is again. Oh, it wasn't gone, it was just in remission. I want those cancers in my soul to be put to death. I want the Holy Spirit to help me, and sometimes I need him to make me want to want to forgive. but I want the Lord to eradicate these cancers in my heart before they consume me. How about you? May God grant us grace that we may do so. Third and finally, all of us as God's children have done horribly wicked things of which we are deeply ashamed. All of us have many, many things that we grieve over, that we'd be embarrassed to admit in front of our brothers and sisters. And yet the fourth and final blessing of the new covenant is that God promises to forgive your sins, to cover them, to remember them no more. The Lord's Supper is an ordinance of the New Covenant, which is meant to serve as a reminder of all the blessings that are yours in the New Covenant. Every time you take, it's like, all right, I've been regenerated by His grace. I'm one of His people. I've been identified with Him. I've been reconciled to God. He remembers not my sins. Every time you take the supper, it should be a reminder of that. One of the most moving accounts I have ever read about what it means to examine yourself before you partake of the Lord's Supper came from the pen of Christian songwriter, Michael Card. I've had this in my head for decades, looking for the opportunity to use it, the days of the day. And I want to read to you his account of what happened while he was a student in Bible college. Here it is, quote. It was a Sunday morning like any other during those college days. I had been up studying late the night before, so I was late getting to church. I can remember the exact spot where I sat that particular morning. None of the congregation was prepared for what the Lord was about to do to us. How do you prepare yourself for an encounter with God? I noticed that the simple communion service was set up on the table in front. So, today is communion, I muttered to myself. I need it. Our pastor began to preach. He was very much the classical orator, marvelous to listen to, wonderfully articulate, and always challenging. He began talking about sin. The theological wheels of my head began to turn, responding, interacting, even challenging his various points. Then, quite unexpectedly, he began to list particular sins. that was hitting below the belt. To discuss theologically the ramifications of sin and the sacrifice of Jesus is permissible, but to actually concretely talk about sin? The pastor began by saying, there are young couples in this congregation this morning who are not married, but have nonetheless spent the night together. I looked around and realized he was right. Many of them were my friends. His list went on and on, from the more blatant to the more subtle. With his wonderful skill with language, he made the subtler sins sound just as sinful as the more blatant ones, which of course they were. The feeling of guilt and conviction was heavy in the air, but the pastor continued. When he finally came to the end, he repeated the list again in a condensed form, just to drive the nail all the way into our hearts. The congregation was visibly shaken. Mostly young college students, we were not yet calloused grownups who might have weathered his attack better. Quite frankly, we were, most of us, numb. After his second volley, it seemed as if he were going to go through the list a third time. If you are guilty of such and such, or this sin, or that, he said, as we all braced ourselves. If you are guilty, he paused. If you are guilty, then this table is for you. With that, the pastor pointed to the communion table in front of the pulpit. The service setting seemed to be bathed in light. Its simplicity almost painful to look at. At the very moment when we all thought that he was going to push us into the pit we had dug for ourselves, he threw us a rope. The table of the Lord. It was for us. for the couples who had shacked up, for the student who had cheated and lied to pass the test, for the young men who had given up the battle with lust and given themselves to pornographic desires, for the druggies, for the thieves, for all of us, there it was. The bread and the cup, his body. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it, Jesus said. His words really are true. I felt the desire to rush to the table and seize the elements like someone who had been lost in the wilderness, who was ravenously hungry and desperately thirsty. And so I was. We all were starving for Him. For the first time in my life, communion became holy communion. It meant life, not just a symbolic gesture to sit and be serious about. Communion now meant life and peace and joy. The rough hands of one of the elderly deacons now placed a treasure worth selling everything for before me in those simple communion pieces. It was all mine for free. Paul instructs us to sit in judgment on ourselves, and that is what our pastor helped each one of us to do that morning. For the first time, I realized that the call to examine our sins before we take communion was not placed there so we can somehow make a full accounting of our sins and therefore be worthy to come to the table. That call to judge ourselves helps us to realize that we have no right whatsoever to be there. You and I, we are the prostitutes and the tax collectors Jesus welcomed to fellowship with him. The lunatic joy I felt only comes from seeing clearly that we have no right coming to the table at all. Jesus, nonetheless, welcomes you and me as his special guests to be astounded at his generosity. That is the Lord's Supper. It's a reminder of how unworthy we are, but that Jesus has made a full atonement for us. And therefore our sins are covered and hidden from you because our God remembers them not. Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin. That's the God we serve. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your truth and we thank you for your gospel, which reconciles us to you. Thank you for the kindness you have shown us in giving us the gospel in our own language. And we thank you for this table that we're about to partake of. Do pray for your spirit to own it with power and help us as we examine ourselves then to examine Christ and to rejoice in him. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.