How Far is the East from the West?

Psalm 103: 8-12

 

Last year my last sermon of the year was entitled, “You Crown the Year.” It was a sermon based on Psalm 65. If you remember, I congratulated you as CACC congregation for being chosen by the Time magazine. The person of the year was YOU. They placed a mirror on the cover of the magazine. Every person was chosen to be the person of the year. Why? Well, it was the year of YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, ipods, and so on.  People were making history. People, ordinary people were making a difference in our daily life. My challenge for you was, “Look out for the year 2007. God is crowning your year.” I want to repeat what David is said in Psalm 65:11.

“You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance.”

Now that the year almost over, ask yourself, “Did I enjoy God’s presence in my life? Did I experience that God crowned my year?”

 

This year Time magazine chose President Vladimir Putin as the person of the year, giving him the title “Tsar of the New Russia”. I don’t want to reflect on Time magazine’s choice. However, the last essay in the magazine had an interesting title: the Year of THEM. James Poniewozik, the author of this essay thinks this year is the year of THEM (not You). Who? Them-the professionals, the media people, the moneymen, the ones who are running to be the president of this country, the big shots. We are somewhere between “Them” and “You”. And I agree, We, the consumer society are

between rich and poor,

the oppressed and the oppressor,

the active and nonactive,

the complainer and the satisfied,

the healthy and the sick.

 

So, I look back at my year and I thank God that I was living in this world between them and us. I thank God that the year was crowned by HIM. I give all the credit to our Lord Jesus Christ. I stand here because of his grace and compassion.

 

These are the last days of 2007. You and Them. We are somewhere in between finishing the year 2007 with joys and concerns.  We thank God for the joys. But what are we going to do with the pains that we are carrying with us into the now year.

As I look back, I see that I have a lot of “garbage” which I am carrying along.  

What kind of garbage am I talking about?

Perhaps I hurt someone of someone hurt me.

I kept the grudge inside me, and did not solve it.

Perhaps I have some kind of grief and pain that made me bitter.

 

Here is a psalm of Hope. Today’s psalm is for us, Psalm 103. Our God is a God of hope and future. We need to discipline ourselves not to stay in the past. Unfortunately, many of us, instead of looking to the future with God’s hope, are bogged down with the past.

 

One of my favorite verses is in 2 Corinthians 5:17.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation the old has gone, the new has come.”

My title for today is, How far is the East for the West?

Here is our hope (11-12):

      11For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
       so great is his love for those who fear him;

    12 as far as the east is from the west,
       so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

We all can work on this.

We have pains of the past. They are moving with us into 2008.  We carry with us many disappointments, guilt about relationships, hurting experiences and anger. We all have experienced things that drag us away from God, alienate us from our Creator and from each other. These situations have caused us sin against God.

I will call these ‘garbage”. I love the day the garbage collector comes. I am serious; they take my weekly family garbage away. I have known what does it mean when garbage is not collected. During the civil war in Beirut, there were weeks even months when the garbage was not collected. This year in East Bay there was a strike; the garbage stayed in the streets. The city was facing all kinds of hygiene problems. The city was facing crises.              How about our lives? Our lives need spiritual cleansing. The East is very far from the West. God can take our “garbage” far away. God can take care of our burdens.

Listen now carefully. God is a God of relationships. That is what Christmas is all about. Because of sin, we are alienated from God and each other. God through Jesus heals and restores relationships.                                        Our God does not look to the past to condemn us. God is in redemption business not in condemnation business. He tells us to learn from past but not to stay there. He teaches us how to repent, confess and turn from sin (metanoia). That will free us from our “garbage” which was making us feel so heavy.

Let me give you three practical things we need to be aware of:

1- You cannot undo the past. You cannot go back to the past and change it. There are some failures, we sinned and failed. You cannot change them.

2- You cannot repress your “garbage”. I remember how in Aleppo some of our neighbors had a strange way to clean their home. They used to clean their home, but throw out the garbage into the street. That garbage was there in front of their home. It came back to their home. You cannot repress the garbage; it comes back to you.

3- Stop blaming others for your garbage. That will not help you to solve any problem; in fact, it will escalate it.

INSTEAD, two advices by looking at Psalm 103:

1- Allow God to enter into you life to deal with the sin. Allow God to heal you. Allow God “to recycle the garbage” and make something new in your life. Remember my sermon on Romans 8:26-27. Good and bad things will happen in our lives. Allow God to change things into the good.

2- Allow God to help you to learn from the past.  This procedure helps us to discipline our lives. It helps us not to collect garbage or repress it, but to deal with it.                                                                                             

In this last week, the news was that we produce so much excess garbage in this season. Wrapping papers go quickly into the garbage; some try to burn them in the fireplace. The environmentalists say it is dangerous to burn these papers, because some of these papers contain heavy metals. We are becoming more aware of recycling. Last year the US recycled one third of the garbage. I think it is time we learn to deal with our life’s garbage too. Remember, God can teach us. God is more interested in the future rather than the past.                                                                                                    In fact, the East is the past and the West is the future. The East is very close to the West for those who don’t want to deal with their “garbage”, those who want to live in the past. God cuts us from the past problems, so we can be free to move on. There is a tomorrow waiting with a new hope. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our transgressions from us.”

Paul always advised the church to look forward. He gave the example of the racer. The runner never looks back, he/she looks forward. God has prepared for us a new year in 2008. We will face all kinds of good and bad days. Let us enter the year with hope in Jesus Christ.