During my college years I worked as a night auditor for the local Holiday Inn. You need to understand, this was a long time ago, back in the early 70’s, long before computers were used in accounting. In fact, I’m fairly sure that by now night auditors are just as obsolete as the noisy adding machines we relied on to do our jobs. But back in those “dark ages” a human like myself was required to tally room revenue and food sales, make sure every account balanced in the motel and the restaurant, and then close the books on each day’s business. It was called night auditing because that’s when it was done, between 11 pm and 7 am, which was, of course, the quietest time at the motel.
The audit itself usually took about 4 hours, depending on how many mistakes the desk clerks or the restaurant hostess had made that day. During the other four hours of my lonely shift I fought to stay awake as I answered the occasional phone call and manned the desk, which, by the way, at that time of night involved meeting some very interesting people. Toward the end of my shift I made wake-up calls, and then, if the audit was done, I clocked out at
7 am when the morning crew came on duty.
This was a very difficult job for me to do personally because I am a morning person. That’s the way my “biological clock ticks.” I have no problem getting up early to study or visit in the hospitals or for breakfast meetings. But the flip side of this AM advantage is that I’m not an evening person. You can ask Sue. By about 10pm my body and mind starts shutting down. So it was a real struggle to force myself to stay awake and think rationally as I sought to close the books at Holiday Inn each night. Frequently this was an especially difficult job to complete, because to get things to balance I had to find small mathematical errors hidden in piles of receipts from the busy day’s transactions. And I had to do this with a mind that was trying to shut itself down and go to sleep. It was definitely not a job I enjoyed, but I did it because I could still go to school in the daytime. I was exhausted most of the time but in my younger years it was doable.
Now, after all those long nights I would say that, in my opinion, there is only one thing good about the job of a night auditor, or any graveyard shift job for that matter, and that’s the way that it ends! Every day when I walked out the front door of the motel, and headed for home, the sunrise would greet me as it began to come up, the birds were singing, and the air smelled clean and new. There was something special about that early morning moment, because after 8 hours of darkness, the light in the east signaled a new day, a new beginning, a chance to put the dark struggle of the prior eight hours behind me and make a fresh start. Can you see why I liked that part of my shift? Do you understand why that moment when a new day began would be appealing, why it would be so encouraging?
I share all this because in my mind it reminds me why Jesus’ coming is so important. The Gospel is good news because this is why Jesus came. Listen as I read the familiar words of our text for this morning from 1st John and 2nd Corinthians.
1st John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
2nd Co 5:17 – Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
18 – All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
19- that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.
21 – God made Him Who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Did you feel the “sun rise” in those words? Do you feel the new hope that dawns as you hear this familiar text read? I do, because through faith in Christ, we are new, the old has gone! In Christ, our slates are washed clean, so that we stand righteous and pure and clean in God’s eyes! The message of this text is precious to billions of humans like you and me because, in a very real sense, without Jesus we were all working an endless graveyard shift. Without Jesus we wandered in the darkness with no hope. As Romans 3:23 puts it, “All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death.” But then Jesus came! And as 2nd Peter 1:19 puts it, because He came, “we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts.” Because of Jesus, the Morning Star, our sins can be forgiven, washed away. The darkness of death no longer causes us despair, because through faith in Jesus we can be justified in God’s eyes. And, as we tell our children, “justified” means it’s just as if I’d never sinned! Our slate is clean.
You know, when I had a day off from Holiday Inn I would frequently get a few of my college buddies from BSU together and we’d go and play golf. There was a community golf course not far from campus on the banks of the Tennessee river where you could play all day for $2.50 and club rental was only a buck! Now, ask Hugh, I’m a lousy golfer. In fact, I did a great deal to raise the water level of the Tennessee whenever I played that course, but entertainment that cheap was too good to pass up! So we played all the time. And as we did, I came to cherish what is known among golfers as “the mulligan rule.” Here’s an example from one of my typical games on that course that will show you how it works. The 15th hole on this nearly free golf course was situated such that you teed off right at the edge of a deep ravine, a sort of valley with steep sides. With their first drive, good golfers were able to hit their ball over the ravine fairly close to the green that was on the other edge, but not me. In spite of my best efforts I would hit it right into the ravine. When I hiked down there, on my second stroke I would try to hit up out of the ravine, and I would watch as the ball arced up higher and higher hoping it would clear the far edge. But every time, the ball would land just short of the top and then roll right back down to where I was. When this happened my friends would say, “Don’t worry about it Mark. You don’t even have to count that stroke. It won’t appear on your scorecard. We’ll pretend it never happened. That will be your mulligan. Just get another ball and try again. And I did.” So, I was given a clean slate, a fresh beginning. I could start over. That’s the mulligan rule of golf.
In his book Love Beyond Reason, John Ortberg refers to it as a “grace note in an otherwise unforgiving game.” And, I agree with that statement. I loved this rule because thanks to it, I was able to keep my golf score on 9 holes just under 100!
Now, think about it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to take mulligans in other areas of life? Teens, as I’m sure you know, finals began this past Friday. Well, wouldn’t it be great if your pre-calculus teacher called tomorrow to let you know that you had flunked your exam and you could say, “I’ll take a mulligan on that one.” And she said, “No problem!” Or adults, think how wonderful it would be if you got stopped for speeding on I-270 as you were hurrying home from work, and when the officer came up to your window to hand you the ticket you said, “Hey Officer, I’ll take a mulligan on that on please,” and the officer replied, “No problem, have a nice day and drive safely!” Wouldn’t it be great if we could simply begin again when we forgot to send in our taxes, or blew up at our kids, or said something unloving to our wives or made a huge mistake at work? This would be great wouldn’t it!
But the problem is, mulligans don’t work in real life do they? Of course they don’t, because life keeps score! Life is not a game. As the announcer on that Geico ad puts it, “this time it’s for real!” The reason my college buddies were so liberal with mulligans was we all knew the game didn’t really matter. But mulligans don’t apply when the game really counts, because in the real world there has to be justice. There has to be an accurate accounting.
For example, the other day in the first round of the play-offs, Tony Romo, quarterback for the Cowboys, couldn’t stand up after fumbling that hike for the field goal kicker and say, “Uh, ref, I’ll take a mulligan here.” No, there are no mulligans in the NFL. The integrity of the game counts. The rules matter. And this is the way it is in real life. You reap what you sow. Your score is a brutally honest reflection of what you did. And our sins are a perfect example of this, because whenever we disobey God there is a price to be paid.
In chapter 8, verse 3 Job asks a rhetorical question, “Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert what is right?” And the answer is, of course not! As Isaiah 6:3 exclaims, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts!” God is completely holy. God is perfectly just! So He won’t say to murders or liars or gossipers or thieves or adulterers or prideful people or selfish people, “Take a mulligan. Let’s pretend it never happened.” No! Someone must pay for all the wrong on the scorecards of our lives. And we can’t. There’s nothing we can do on our own to pay for our sins. Even our best efforts at goodness fall short of God’s perfect, holy standard. And as I said earlier, that’s why the Gospel is wonderful news because it proclaims the wonderful fact that the only One qualified to do so has paid our sin debt! Jesus, God’s only Son, came to earth and lived a sinless life and then on the cross of Calvary He took the consequence of our sins upon Himself. To put it another way, when the Morningstar dawned over the dark night of mankind’s sin, when Jesus came, He made it possible for us to start over, to be forgiven.
On this first Communion of the new year, we symbolize and celebrate His sacrifice on our behalf with the ordinance of communion. As we come now to partake in this memorial meal, let me invite all Christians present to partake with us, because, even if you are not a member of this church, if you are a Christian, if you are His, this is yours.
Communion
As our deacons distribute the bread let us all meditate on the words of Psalm 103 and Isaiah 53 where it says,
“The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” (Vs 8-12)
“Surely He, JESUS, took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.” (Vs 4-5)
Eat this and remember, Jesus’ body was broken for you and for me, broken to pay for our sins.
As our deacons distribute the cup let’s all meditate on Romans 5:6-11 where Paul writes,
“At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for us, the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Drink this and remember Christ allowed His blood to be shed so that our sins could be washed away, and we could have a new start.
You know, I love J.B. Phillips’ translation of John 3:17. He words it like this: “God has not sent His Son into the world to pass sentence upon it, but to save it, Any man [or woman boy or girl] who believes in Jesus is not judged at all.” I love this wording because it reminds us that our God believes in second chances. Through Jesus Christ He has made it possible for us to not be judged for our past mistakes.
This morning if you’ve never done so, why not take Him up on His offer! Come, just as you are and ask God to forgive you of your sin and help you start over in life. He longs to come into your heart so that you can experience the newness of life!
Or if you are already a Christian as we begin a new year you may want to make this a time to rely on Jesus’ power to make a new start as a parent, or spouse, or in some other area of your life. Maybe you’ve made a huge mistake, a sin that has caused you to go through a “dark time in life” and more than anything you long for a chance to wipe the slate clean and begin again? Well, Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection makes that new beginning available. If you confess, He will forgive and cleanse. He will make it possible for you to start over. All you need to is ask! So do, pray right where you are or come forward and I’ll pray with you.
If God is telling you to begin 2007 right by becoming making Redland your church home, then come.
Come forward to make any decision public as we stand and sing.