Tear Tracks
Originally scheduled for
May 22
Those of you of a certain age will remember these lyrics:
So take a good look at my face
You know my smile looks out of place
If you look closer it's easy to trace
The tracks of my tears
Is that you? Are you the one that came in today with a smile on
your face, hoping that no one noticed the tear tracks? The pains
that cause this are many and varied; sometimes it's your children,
sometimes it your parents, sometimes it's you. But we can point out
one particular thing: all of the troubles of this world have a root
cause — sin. Ultimately our troubles are traced back to the fact
that we are sinners, and we don't have the power to do anything
about it.
Sin! As one old preacher put it, when he said he was speaking
about sin, "I'm against it." That speaks for most of us. We are
against sin, but we continue to commit sin. We find that in dealing
with the root problem of the world there are many people to tell us
what we can do, lots of self-help books, loads of well-meaning
advice — and nothing really works. So what can we do about it?
If you want the right answers, you must ask the right questions.
The question is not what we can do about it, but what God has done
about it. God's method is fairly simple:
·
Sin comes with the penalty. Christ paid the penalty on the cross,
for us.
·
Christ tells us that he will return someday. When he does, the
penalty having been paid, he will reform heaven and earth.
When he returns, he tells us that he will wipe away every tear
from every eye. No more will our faces have the tracks of our tears.
Until that day comes, he commands us to remember what he has done
about sin, what he has done in our place. So as you take communion
today, remember he has solved the problem of sin and is coming again
to put his new heaven and new Earth in place. Just remember the
price he paid to do this.
