The Lord has taken your sin away!

The other day I wrote about a clean heart and the importance of forgiveness.  I want to add a piece to that for the Sunday Series post.  I will get back to cliché verses next Sunday, as I have a few more to work with.  This morning I am preaching and have been thinking through the life of David.  I think an importance piece of this story hinges on this one verse.

“Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”  Nathan replied, “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.” – 2 Samuel 12:13

Can you see the significance of that statement?  There is death that is deserved as a result of the sin, but God,  in his mercy, has put the sin away.  In other words, the sin was paid for by Jesus Christ.  This Old Testament  passage actually looks to the future.  Sin always has a cost and it needs to be paid by someone.

Sin is costly and on our own we are powerless to free ourselves from it.  We need someone who is stronger than sin to conquer it for us; to take the penalty for our sin so that we can be blameless before God.  That does not happen metaphorically, it happens literally.  David was a man of God who took little steps that led him ultimately far away from God.  It was a place where he deserved eternal punishment away from God.  Sin has a price, but because Jesus Christ died for sin and rose to life, there is forgiveness offered.   He paid for your forgiveness!

It is possible that you see yourself in David.  That you have taken small steps away from God, have justified your sin and are now experiencing a collision with sin’s ugliness in your life.   It makes no difference if you have been a believer in Christ for 40 years or just a few days, the message applies to us all.  It is the same word that Nathan gave to David “ The Lord has taken away your sin, you will not die.”

A.B. Simpson said,  “Human character and destiny are revealed by contact with Jesus Christ.  Men are not saved or lost merely by moral character, but by their attitude toward the Son of God.  As of old He hung on Calvary between two men that represented at once both heaven and hell, so still it is true that the cross of Jesus is the dividing line between lost and saved men.”

You might be under a burden of sin, past mistakes, guilt.  So, confess your sin to the Lord, accept the responsibility for your sin and receive His forgiveness.  You are freely forgiven.  It does not matter what you have done in the past, the Lord has paid the price.   Sin is ugly and yes, it  will kill, but in Christ you are an overcomer.  You can live when you trust in Him!