I have no official statistics on what I'm about to say - only personal impressions - but I believe the State of Pennsylvania is the roadkill capital of the Northeast - especially for dead deer. I've just seen many more deer by the side of the road there than in any state in our region - of course, there's a lot more of Pennsylvania too. But I read an article about the outraged mayor of a small town in Pennsylvania - the interstate runs through his community. The reason for his outrage? A paving crew was working on that road one day last summer - and they came upon a dead deer with much of its carcass lying on the road. Do you want to try to guess what they did next? Yes! They went right ahead and paved right over the deer!
Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Paving Over It."
It's hard to believe that you could have this major obstacle, major bump in the road - and your solution would be to just pave over it. That seems obvious. But a lot of us have opted for the "pave over it" approach - when it comes to the biggest problem in our way.
The diaries of King David is where we find our word for today from the Word of God. This is an intensely passionate, intensely honest man and it shows up in the part of his diary we call Psalm 32. He starts by announcing something he has learned from personal experience - "Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven...whose sin the Lord does not count against him." That sounds like a liberating possibility, doesn't it? All the mistakes of your life, all the things you're not proud of, all the sins, all the hurts you may have inflicted - forgiven and forgotten by God.
But first David tried paving over the carcass. Here's what happened - "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer." David's life story is the life story of many of us. We don't deal with the sins of our life - we "keep silent." We are experts at ignoring the biggest problem we have, the sin that breaks our relationship with our Creator. We rationalize, blame others, compare ourselves with others who are worse off - and we do our best to cover up our wrongdoing. It feels as if we're getting away with living outside the laws of God. We're not.
We keep hitting the bumps of what we paved over. And God's hand is heavy on us - we often feel drained or dirty or incomplete - and the thought of God's inevitable judgment haunts us. David finally found peace - in the only way he could - that you can. He said, "Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity." No more paving over or running from God. What happens when you do that? "And You forgave the guilt of my sin."
Finally, guilt-free, clean, ready to meet God. If you don't face your sin now, you will face it on Judgment Day - and you will receive its eternal death sentence. But there is a way to have every sin you've ever done removed from God's book. You face the facts of a life you have run instead of God running it - and you bring all that sin to the cross of Jesus Christ - where He took the death penalty for your sin - so you don't have to! You can walk up that crucifixion hill in your heart today - you'll come with a lifetime of sin and the death penalty of hell - but you'll leave with every sin forgiven and a guaranteed eternity in heaven.
Are you ready for that? Tell God that right where you are, right now.
The biggest problem of all - the sin that haunts our past, poisons our present, and threatens our future. Covering it will not work - removing it will. Only Jesus can do that. He's waiting for you to ask Him to.