Do you remember the house you were brought up in? Do you remember it looking this run-down? When I lived in my home in Weleetka, Oklahoma, it was not this run-down. When I saw what it looked like about three decades after I lived in it, I brooded over it for awhile. There were good memories, and there were bad memories, but they were a part of my family … my past … my being. It was sad.

Have you brooded over the past–what was, what could have been, your sins, your failures? It’s like the house that continues to fall down. You prop up the porch, and the roof caves in. You apologize for gossiping about your neighbor, and you then you find yourself yelling at your grandson.The Old Covenant, the Mosaic Law, shows us what holy living is all about, and it shows us how far we are from keeping the requirements of holy living. It shows us how much we sin. It shows us that we can’t keep the Law.

“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them …” Leviticus 26:3 then God would bless the Israelites. But the Israelites couldn’t walk, observe, and do. We can’t either.

We’re like the broken down house in Weleetka.

4 Reasons for Hope

There’s a New Covenant–a Covenant that is unconditional. We are its beneficiaries. God will do it all!

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:

“I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”
Hebrews 8:10-12

1. Passion. We experience a passion for His holiness as He writes His law in our hearts and minds.
2. Possession. We are His possession: He is our God, and we are His people.
3. Perception. Our perception of God is absolute, intimate knowledge that requires no teaching.
4. Pardon. We are pardoned: He has forgiven us and remembers our sins no more.

Jesus is the reason for our passion, our possession, our perception, and our pardon!

“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:11-12

You know when you reach the North and South Poles. When you step onto the North Pole and you take one step past that point, you begin to go south. But you start walking east, and you can keep going east and never know when you reach the West Pole because there is no West Pole.

Although God knows all things, He has chosen not to recall, not to remind us or Himself, not to remember our sins. Why?

Jesus did it all!

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” John 1:1-4

John 1 goes on to tell us that Jesus entered the world as a man and dwelt among men and women. He walked and talked, ate and slept as a man. He is God, and He is man, the Son of Man. He kept the Mosaic Law and never sinned. Because He was the only man who ever kept the Law or ever would keep the Law, He could pay the price for sin, the world’s sin, the wrath of God, death.

Jesus took the sins of the world upon Himself as He stretched His arms as far as the east is from the west on the cross. He experienced the wrath of God and died. Jesus lay in a tomb and rose on the third day, just as prophesied.

He took His blood into the Holy of Holies in heaven as our High Priest, and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens (God). In the earthly tabernacle, the High Priest never sat down. He was always making sacrifices for the Israelites. Jesus now speaks on your behalf and my behalf if you have placed your belief and trust in Him.

Our sins are cast as far as the east is from the west. God remembers them no more.

Just as we have sinned and asked God for forgiveness, just as God chooses not to remember our sins, how should we respond to our sisters and brothers in Christ?

Just as if we had flung their offenses as far as the east is from the west, and we remember them no more.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17

We have a new house! We are a new creation in Christ!

Forgiven! It is finished! Once and for all!

Related Links

68 Reasons Why Jesus Is Superior

Spurgeon’s Sermon: God’s Non-Remembrance of Sin

A Story of Forgiveness (Corrie Ten Boom)

John Piper: Does God Remember Our Sins or Forget Them?