PROMISE: Your Past is Wiped Clean

Music.

Church Podcast, a place where meaningful conversations around living by faith, being known by love, and becoming a voice of hope are shared with the world every week. We hope that you enjoy this podcast and will join us live on Sundays at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, online or at the Historic Fox Theater in beautiful downtown Pomona. We also host humanity groups that meet all throughout the city and online to continue the conversation and support you in your ongoing spiritual journey.

Find one near you by visiting humanitychurch.com. If you would like to financially support this podcast or the ongoing work at Humanity Church, you can text any donation amount to 84321. Give directly from your phone. Now, here's this week's podcast. I'm going to read from Isaiah 44, starting in verse 22. And it says this, I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. For me, for I have redeemed you.

Sing for joy, you heavens, for the Lord has done this. Shout aloud, you earth beneath. Burst into song, you mountains, you four seas and all the trees, for Lord has redeemed Jacob, and he displays his glory in Israel. real.

How much of your current energy do you imagine is spent in the past? I think actually when I asked this question to most people, ironically, their first response is, you know, not a lot. I don't think about the past a lot. I don't really dwell on the past. They might even reference things like, oh, my past is forgiven.

It's over. I don't have regrets. but then there's evidence that that might prove otherwise based on how we live our lives and what's taking place in us so you might not consciously be thinking about the past you might not spend a lot of your energy consciously they're replaying things that have happened allowing them to to take you over but it shows up in ways that we aren't aware of see i think there are some telltale signs for me and for us when we find ourselves

stuck in the past one of those things might be that you're unwilling to risk, like you're, you're risk averse because I learned in the past that if I risk, I fail. So I'm not going to do that again. And so your past is informing how you give yourself in faith here in the moment. For, for some of you that there might be like a over sense of anxiousness or caution in conflict situations.

Like, oh, here comes conflict. Ah, right? And it's because in the past, when conflict has risen, it means that things blow up or you get in trouble or you get hurt or something to that effect. There may be areas where you feel the need to over-control certain emotions. Or maybe there are emotions that you're not allowed to express because if you express them, something might happen that might get out of your control. role.

Maybe you have passions or hopes that you've just given up on, that you've decided these aren't possible for me. That was a pipe dream that I used to have, but this is no longer available for me. Or maybe you're just noticing that you at times find yourself driven more by scarcity than abundance. Like there's just not going to be enough. And so you look to the past to all this evidence that proves that there won't be enough or there isn't enough, whatever there is.

And all of these are past references because we look backwards to inform us of what's possible here and now or in the future. Now, on the other hand, some of you may be like what I would call professional time travelers, which means you're like, no, I actually spent a lot of time in the past. A lot of my energy is spent there. In fact, I think a lot about all the places that I've screwed up, all the opportunities that I missed, all the times people hurt me or left me or didn't do this.

And you may actually spend a lot of your time there, but some of you have become experts at beating yourself up over things that you did or didn't do, over things that were done to you or weren't done to you. And you spend a lot of time making sure that you are punished for what has taken place in the past. And let's be honest, we go there at times because it's comfortable, actually.

It's just more comfortable to live in the past and to know exactly what's taking place and to know who I am with all of the shame and all of the guilt. It may not feel good, but at least it's predictable. It's somewhere we can go that's easy, that's comfortable. I can replay it over and over and over again, and it never changes, strangely enough. And so I get to be who I am, and they get to be who they are, and we call that good.

Now, there are some promises in the Scripture that are just unilateral, which means God gives them to everyone, one and they're yours to take away. And that these are promises like, I will love you. God loves you, period. I don't care who you are, where you're at on your faith journey. You are loved and there's nothing you could ever do to make you more loved. So you are loved as much love today as you have been from the beginning.

And you will be equally loved by it when you die. It's just given to you. But there are other promises that are given to us when we respond to following Jesus. So it's kind of like you're birthed into the family and now you have certain rights, right? Like my kids can go into our kitchen and grab whatever they want out of the fridge or out of the cupboards. You come to my house. You don't have those rights. Sorry.

We're very hospitable, not that hospitable, all right? But there are certain promises that are given to us when we connect to Jesus. And this is actually one of them that I think is so beautiful. See, in 1 John 1, 9 through 10, it says, if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be the liar and his word is not in us.

See what the cross does for us is it's this big entry point into relationship with Jesus. That when we step into relationship with Jesus through the cross, he says, now you're adopted into this family. And because of that, we confess our sins. We confess our brokenness without shame, without guilt. And he then cleanses us from that and he makes us brand new. But at times, this seems to be too good to be true. Like, have you ever, have you ever found a deal that you're like,

is this, this is real? You know, like, is this actually real? When I think about this at times, I have that thought because I have this thought that, yeah, the cross was enough. It cleansed me of my sins. Jesus did what he says he did. He's welcomed me into my family. But I wonder if there's still like a file somewhere in heaven with small prints, you know, like watch out for this guy, he has some weird tendencies in this area, right?

And at times it's almost easy to believe that God's like, yeah, he's good to go, except for, you know, those few things that you might want to watch out for. But that's actually not what the scriptures tell us. It says that we are purified from all unrighteousness the moment that we confess our sins, that he is faithful and just to release us from everything. And it's not as if God is saying, I will wipe out most of your offenses, or he's not even saying I will wipe away the big sins.

He's saying all of it gets wiped away. Everything becomes new. You become completely pure in the midst of this. And I think we're skeptical of that at times because that's what we do at times with other people. We don't just time travel back to our mistakes and blowups. We time travel back to other people's mistakes and blowups.

And then we hold those things against them. And so when we are with other people, we're not just with them, we're with them and all of the history of the ways they let us down, the way they hurt us, the way they betrayed us. And so now I don't get to be present with you. I'm present with you and all this other stuff from the past that I drag along. And so we assume that God probably does the same with us, that it's too good to be true when he says, nope, everything's been purified.

All the offenses have been wiped away. All the sins, they're gone like the morning dew. They are completely erased from us. And so we assume that God holds onto certain things, but that's why this promise that he makes us in Isaiah is so powerful because he says, I have swept away every offense that you have made against me like a cloud.

Your sins are gone like the morning mist. It was there and now it's not there anymore. more. They are no longer there. Now my wife has some amazing qualities, lots of amazing qualities. I can go on and all day about them. And there's one thing that Marla struggles with and it is her memory. I didn't get her permission to share this. So I'm just going to share this, but Marla will come home. Like usually on a Sunday, I'd be like, Oh, I had this great conversation with

show. And so they got a new job. What's the job? Oh, I forgot. Where is it? Oh, I don't know. When is it? I don't know. Or man, I had this really important conversation with someone. Man, there was something really big going on in their life. What is it? I don't know. Do we need to follow up? I think so. I can't remember. And then I'm like, honey, what? You can't remember this, right? And she remembers all kinds, but I'm telling you, details get lost all the time.

And I am amazed at her ability to release details, right? But I actually imagine that that's how God interacts with our sin, that when we go back to him and we remind him about all the things that we've done in our past, all the ways that we've screwed up, all the ways that we've blown it, all the ways that we've offended him, all the spaces in life that we can look back at and go, man, I am such a failure. God's like, yeah, what? I don't, what are you talking about?

I don't actually remember that. And so we go to God and we're like, God, you know, remember that time that I blew it and I screwed up my life and it's still a big mess over there. And I imagine that God's just weird. I don't know what you're talking about. And we're like, no, no, no, remember the thing? And he's like, no, don't remember the thing.

I imagine there are times when, when we go to him and he, and we think we go to him, we're like, God, all those years that I wasted, I just wasted so many years in that pattern. I wasted so many years in that relationship. I wasted so many years in that habitual activity. And, and, and I can't believe I wasted those years. And, and he, he just responds, really? Huh? I don't, that wasn't even on my time. I can't even remember that timeline.

I don't even, I don't even know what you're talking about. I imagine that there are times when we go to God and we come to him in prayer or there's times to connect with him and we imagine, God, you must be so offended by me. You must be so offended by the things I've done, by the things I'm currently doing. And he responds with, I am so, I'm so sorry. I have no idea what you're talking about. Could you remind me one more time? Because he forgets, he wipes it away. It's gone. It's clean.

Now that doesn't mean that there are consequences in our lives for the choices that we've made. But when it comes to our relationship with Jesus, he's like, it's been washed away like a cloud. It's been released like the morning dew. I don't know what you're talking about.

I don't understand. See, we are the ones that hold ourselves to this high standard from the past, not him. He has actually released them from us. Now, modern pop psychology would say that when things come up from the past, you just need to love yourself more and you need to forgive yourself more. But as Scott said earlier, you got yourself into this. You're probably not going to get yourself out of this, right? If you're the one who found yourself there, there's no amount of self-love.

There's no amount of self-forgiveness that's going to be available for you to get you out of this mess. See, what Jesus invites us into is accepting the love and the grace and the forgiveness that he has already given us. And he's saying, look, just come to me. that I've actually provided everything you need to have your slate wiped clean so that nothing is remembered. And if you would just accept that, then everything would be good.

And let me tell you, anything else, every time we go back to the past, anytime we hold ourselves for things in the past that we should have done or shouldn't have done, and we go back and we beat ourselves up, that is the epitome of arrogance. Every time you go back to the past, I want you to remind yourself, this is the heart of arrogance when I dredge up the past.

It is so self-flattering and self-centered to go back to the places where I blew it and the places that I screwed up and the years I wasted. It is the epitome of arrogance because it is the equivalent of saying, God, I know you sent your son on a cross to die and wipe me clean, but it it is not enough. You are insufficient, God. Let me beat myself up a little more. Let me throw it on a little heavier. Let me keep on some more consequences because the cross clearly was insufficient

for my life over here. So I need to punish myself. I need to hold on. I need to heap on a little more weight. And we find ourselves just fanning the flames of the arrogance that keeps us stuck in the past. And I love... That Jesus invites us to this space of just, hey, it's clean, it's done, it's forgotten.

Why do you keep going back there? See, the fact is that most of us struggle with this idea because we are actually more comfortable with the title of irreparably damaged than we are forgiven, healed, and clean.

We're just more comfortable with that, right? Because it's more predictable. We know who we are in the story of irreparably damaged. And look, we can give ourselves all kinds of passes for things that we don't have to do because I'm irreparably damaged. I don't have to go take that risk. I don't have to go give myself. I don't have to go engage that calling on my life. I'm irreparably damaged. And it's comfortable and it's easy. And we go that back because it's predictable

because we know who we are. We know other people are, we know what happened. We love predictability. And even in the predictability of of how horrible of a person I am. We love it because we know who we are. And then it's the perfect excuse to not have to do anything else besides sit there and think about how awful we are, right? When the whole time Jesus was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And God's invitation to us is to return to him.

I love that invitation in this promise. He's like, look, your offenses have been wiped away like a cloud, your sin like the morning dew. Return to me and rejoice. See, this is the new story that Jesus invites us into is the story of joy with our life, not the story of irreparably damaged.

He invites us into this story defined by joy so much so that he says like the trees are clapping and the forests are bowing down and the mountains are rejoicing because your offenses and your sin and your brokenness are no more. And so there's this new story that is available to you other than irreparably damaged. But here's the thing. If you're going to step into a life of joy, joy is unpredictable. Joy is very unpredictable. Life can get crazy when you get too joyful. Watch out, right?

See, because when I live in joy, now I'm like, oh, I don't know. I don't know who I am now. I don't know who I am when I'm free. I don't know who I am when my life is actually defined by beauty and hope and freedom because of what Jesus did on the cross for me. And in that, the possibilities are endless.

And so I get to go give myself. And this is why at times we would much rather stick in the irreparably damaged than filled with joy category, because we don't like the unpredictability that comes with joy. We at times are just afraid of the freedom that comes with that. See, I wonder what it would look like for most of us to just step out of our past and just accept the fact that if you are following Jesus, it's gone.

It's done. That when Jesus looks at it, there's like nothing there but redemption. There's nothing there but hope. There's nothing there but freedom. And what if we stopped punishing ourselves for what we did or didn't do, and we just humbled ourselves and said, Jesus, the cross is enough. It's sufficient.

You are sufficient. And in that, allow joy to be our defining characteristic, characteristic, that we might rejoice and return to him because we have been redeemed. See, joy gets to be your new narrative, but you have to accept this promise that it's all been released. So what I'd like for you to do is find that same person that you talked with before. And I'd like for you just to share, where do you struggle with this concept that God has wiped away your sin.

Maybe there's an area that you keep going back to that you're like, yeah, but God can never forgive me for this, whatever it may be. Maybe you just struggle in general, like, man, I don't really know if that could be true. And what would your life look like if you fully own this promise? If you're like, the past is done and today is new and I get to step into this future that he's called me into filled with joy. Music.