Inside Out

Good morning and welcome in. Today we’re going to take a look at a passage of scripture but before we do that I wanted to tell you a little story.

Have you ever noticed how children tend to gravitate towards a sandbox or the dirt? Kids find all kinds of things to do, like make sandcastles or wonderful mud pies. A bunch of our children would crawl up into our treehouse with a bunch of miscellaneous items like leaves and sticks and dirt and stir it up until they had a big pot full of goop. They said they were making food for the chickens, but most of it ended up all over their clothes.

Have you ever watched children after a good rain go and jump into a huge dirty puddle? You can even watch them run their bicycles at high speed through it until eventually they are covered from head to toe. At the end of the day, how many of you parents have told your children that we’ve got to go and get you cleaned up!

God wants to clean us up too, from the inside out.

Psalms 51:7 – Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

When we wash up the children for supper, it’s an exterior cleansing but God wants to clean each of our hearts and minds on the inside. He wants to wash away all of our sin and cleanse our consciences. Sin can cause us to become enemies in our minds with God, but He wants to freely forgive us so that we can be reconciled and in a restored relationship with Himself.

Col 1:21-22

²¹ And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled

²² In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

The only way that we can become unblameable and unreproveable in God’s sight is through his incredible grace.

All of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We are sinners who need forgiveness which is provided through the blood of Jesus Christ the Lord. Listen to how He is calling us to His grace.

Isaiah 1:18 – Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

The Old Testament was for a season until God would send His only begotten son Jesus Christ as a lamb and sacrifice for the sins of the entire world. The Old Testament was exterior cleansing but what Jesus does is He cleans our conscience and completely forgives and forgets our sins.

Heb 10:1-10

For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

² For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.

³ But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.

⁴ For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

⁵ Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

⁶ In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

⁷ Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.

⁸ Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;

⁹ Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

¹⁰ By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

What Jesus Christ did for us at the cross is the door to forgiveness with God. God offers a free gift to us, one that we cannot possibly earn because we’re all sinners who have each fallen far short of his plan for us.

God cares for us greatly and wants each of us to be forgiven and reconciled unto Himself. The blood that Jesus Christ shed for us at the cross is the greatest treasure that any of us could ever know because through it we can find redemption with the heavenly father.

Eph 1:3-7

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

⁴ According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

⁵ Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

⁶ To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

⁷ In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

God wants to give us grace, and He has an abundance of it.

Ps 51:1-2

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

When we partake of Jesus, the lamb of God in faith through Holy Communion, we can wash our sins away. Praise God for his great love because He truly cleanses us…from the inside out.

So let’s think about those things for today and Lord willing I’ll talk to you some more tomorrow. Till then, bye bye everybody.❤

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