Don't Wash Your Dirty Linen in Public-June 22, 2025

the Apostle Paul in Romans 3:23 calls us all out and says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, what God has planned for each of us." There was a story told by Ron Davis. He was recalling a story, a true story of a priest who was serving in the Philippines. He was a very much loved priest. He was very caring of his people. But earlier in his life, he had committed a serious sin. And even though he had confessed it before God and knew that he was forgiven, he just couldn't get peace in his life.

And so he was tormented by this constant nagging of being such an awful sinner. Well, there was a a woman in his new parish who had the reputation of someone who was very holy. In her prayers, she could talk directly to God and would receive messages from God as well. And the priest was somewhat skeptical about this claim that she made. So he decided to test it and he said to her, "Earlier in my life, I committed a horrible sin. Will you asked God in one of your conversations what that sin was?"

Well, a few days later, he saw her and he said, "Did you have a chance to talk to God about my request?" And she said, "Yes, I did." And he said, "And what did God say?" And she said, "God said, I can't remember. When God forgives us, God chooses to forget." That forgive and forget is something that we throw around as sort of a slogan. I've I've had people come to me for counseling who have had a difficult time. In particular, I I had a married couple. Um he had committed adultery. They were trying to sort out what they

were going to do. And it turns out that I was the second opinion because they came from a Catholic tradition and had gone to their priest first. And the priest said, "Well, you just have to forgive and forget." And so they came to me second opinion this Presbyterian and he said you know I can't do that I can't forgive and forget and I said of course you can't you are human we have memory memory is a gift from God but it can also be a struggle that we deal with in that we can remember our history we can

remember what we have done. But God can choose to forget. If you give your sin over to the Lord and you ask the Lord for forgiveness, you can be assured that God will say, "It's all done. I took care of that. You know, on this thing called the cross, I gave my life for you for that very forgiveness. God chose to forget even though we sometimes hold on to it. And why do we hold on to our sin? Sometimes it's just to beat ourselves up because we know that what we did was wrong. We know that what we did hurt

somebody else. We know that what we did can destroy our life. So we continue to punish ourselves when we don't have to. God has already forgiven you. There is a friend of mine um who knew a gentleman who went to the local bar with his friends and they had just a little bit too much to drink. And so after he had had way too much to drink, he got into an argument with someone at the bar and that guy let him have it by slugging him. Well, when he came to work the next day, everybody knew that something had

happened because he had a great big shiner on his eye and cheek. Some people would say, "When you play with fire, you're going to get burnt. When you sin, you're going to have to reap the results of your sin. There was a a old old preacher named Billy Sunday. Maybe you have heard of him. He would say that I know the devil is real for two reasons. One, the Bible says the devil is real. The second is I've done business with him. Anytime you do business with the devil, you're going to get burned. you're going to suffer. Of course, you

don't have to do business with the devil for him to cause you to suffer. Satan is real. Evil is real. Making bad decisions is real. And it can cause suffering for us and oftentimes for those that we love. And that's when we realize what we did was wrong and not in God's plan for us. We may experience this in broken marriages, broken friendships. We may experience this with problem children, prodigal children. We may experience this or have experienced it with abusive parents, less than kind family relationships, bad

working conditions, financial hardships can create these kinds of problems and the way we deal with them can reflect whether Satan has a hold of us or not. Poor or failing health can cause us sometimes to respond to life in ways that are not Christlike and the way we interact with those who are trying to help us. Sometimes just plain boredom can cause us to make bad decisions for our life. Sometimes loneliness can do that as well. You know, the list I I'm sure you could add to it could go on and on and on. How

we handle these times in our life really shows us how much we need each other. It is a a wonderful thing that God has chosen to put us on this earth into communities. first with families. As many of you know, just a few a month or so ago, Mother's Day, Michael and I went to meet our newest granddaughter. She was at that time seven days old, seven days alive on this earth. At that moment, as we held her, as precious as she was, she was not able to do anything but hold, beheld, and occasionally show expressions on her face as she was

practicing what was to come. Of course, she's changing. She's growing. We look forward to meeting her when we can. But when we are put on this earth, we are as helpless as they say as that baby. We can do nothing. We have to depend upon our parents, our family. God puts us into a family to care for us. And as we grow up and become rebellious teenagers and become then adults, we continue in families and then communities of friendship. communities of work relationships, communities of church relationships. You

see, you can't get away from it. You're always going to need a community around you. And God has put us in a family of faith here at this church. We are here to help each other because there are plenty of times when you and I, we are going to sin. Now, you may be thinking, "What? Are you calling me out, pastor?" No. I I sin. You sin. We all sin and don't respond or make decisions according to what God would have us do. That's why we are here together that we may care for one another. There are three things you need to think

about based on our scripture even today. Three ways we can cope with this sin in our life. One is our own self that we have a responsibility. In Galatians 5 he says for each one should carry his own load. It's not absolving you from personal responsibility. Generally, most of us, if we sin, we had a hand in that. We took part in making that decision to go that direction. There was a an illustration of a man who was in a grocery store, say Publix, okay? He was pushing the shopping cart around and the

shopping cart had many groceries in it as well as it had his screaming baby boy sitting in the seat. And as the man proceeded up and down the aisles with his child screaming at the top of his voice, he kept saying, "Keep calm, George. Don't get excited, George. Don't yell, George." And a woman came over to him and she said, 'You know, I just need for you to know how much I admire how calmly you're you are dealing with your child. And he said, "Oh, well, I wasn't talking to my child. My name is George."

How often we need to talk to oursel and tell oursel I got myself into this. Lord, help me. Help me get out of my sin. Help me make better decisions. Help me to go to that person that I hurt and and ask for forgiveness. So you see, you begin here and you immediately go there because we can't do it by ourselves. We need God's help to be able to do this. And then there is that we have to look to one another. We need help sometimes. Hopefully, hopefully you have a friend in the community of faith or in your

family who is also a believer who also sins and understands that devastating feeling when you realize that you have been caught in sin, who will pray with you, who will help you, who will listen to you, as I hope you will for them as well. Many years ago, preacher Henry Ward Beecher went to his pulpit and was ready to preach a sermon. And there was a letter on his pulpit with the big letters fool on it. And he calmly and quietly announced the contents of the letter. And he said, "I have known of people

writing a letter and forgetting to sign their name to it, but this is the first time I have ever seen someone sign their name and forget to leave the letter. Could you tell me who this was? Who then is the fool?" Christians should really be in the business, don't you think, of helping one another. Certainly, we read throughout scripture that we are to help even the least of these. And yes, of course, that can mean the poor and the downtrodden. But I won't ask you to look around. But as you leave today, realize

that every single person that you see at times can be the least of these. can be in a position where they are in pain. Can be in a position like that priest where they're holding on to some sin from their path that is dragging them down and impeding their ability to do what God would have them do in this life. If someone is caught in sin, our scripture said, you who are spiritual should restore that person gently, which means we should pray with them. We should listen to them. We should be there for them. And that is how God

intends for us as a community of faith to truly heal the world by healing first from within and then within and then within that God's good news and grace might be felt all over this world. My friends, let us be kind. Let us be gentle with one another. Let us listen to what the Lord has for each of our lives.