What if God Kept a List?

Psalm 130:3-4

“If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness.” 

There is a scene in one of Chevy Chase’s movies in which he’s looking through his mail.  All he got that day were various bills.  He takes them all and throws them away.  The fellow with him is dumbfounded. “You can’t just throw them away.  You have to pay those bills.”  “Don’t worry,” is Chevy’s answer.  “They’ll write back.”  You know he’s right.  They will write back.  The companies you owe money to keep very careful track of all you owe them.  They even have records of all the bills you have paid.  They never forget!  I remember the first time Linda and I bought a house.  I remember going through our house with the inspector, making a list of everything he found.  There was nothing serious but by the end of the day the list was so long I thought, “Why would we want to buy this house?”

What if God kept that kind of list about you and me?  What if God kept a list of all your sins? Can you imagine how long that list would be?  You can can’t you.  You are aware of your failings…of the wrongs that you have committed.  There are things buried in the cellar of your life… the messes you have made recently… and long ago… Some, perhaps still burden your conscience and weigh you down with guilt.  There are so many items on that list that you can’t even remember them all.  Imagine God taking that list and making it public… taking a nail and posting it to the wall like a wanted poster in the post office.  That would be horrible… so embarrassing and shameful.  David was right in the Psalms, “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord who could stand?”  None of us could stand!  We are all guilty.  We would never want that list made public. 

Yet God has done just that.  He has taken the list of your sins and made them public.  He has taken them and nailed them up high. But you’ve never seen it.  Neither have I. No one except God has seen it.  Now He sees it no longer.  Why? Because of where He nailed the list.  Listen to Paul’s words to the Colossians.  He forgave all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, which was against us that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.’  The nail that posted the list of our sins is the nail that was hammered through our Lord’s hands into the cross.  They laid Jesus down on that cross.  Between his hand and the wood there was a list – your list and mine… the list of all the sins ever committed.   As the nails were driven through his hands into the cross… they were also driven through that list.

That’s why that list of your sins and mine cannot be seen.  They are covered.  At the top they are covered by his hands. Those down the list are covered by his blood shed there for you and me.  God forgives you everything that is on your list… even the one’s you have not yet committed.  To finish the Psalm, “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness.”  That’s the promise God makes to us.  Nailing our sins to the cross with Jesus, He says so clearly, “I forgive you!”  That’s the promise at the heart of all of God’s promises.  They all hang on this one  – that “as far as the east is from the west so far has He removed our transgressions from us…. You might ask , “How can you rely on the promises of a dying man?” Quite simply because He who made those promises… Jesus who died on that cross is not longer dead.  He is risen again.  That’s how we can be sure.  The promise is true.  The list has been nailed down but He has been raised up. We are forgiven. He remembers our sins no more.  Have a blessed Holy Week.  Amen.