As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.As far as the east is from the west, So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
12 sermons cite this verse
… so great is his love for those who fear him. the east is from the west. So far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust. You might be thinking, Louis, I've made so many bad choices in my life. I've messed up so many times. There have been so many potholes in the journey. And I'm thinking, if I'm, you know, thinking rightly, what I'm going to get from God is I'm going to get wrath, rejection, condemnation, and a massive guilt trip. That's what I'm getting. But I want to tell you today, God is the one who's serving today. And what he's serving you, are you ready for this, is not what you deserve. there's so many people are not thinking man i know there's just a major guilt trips coming i'm ready for it i'm bracing for it and he goes no i have a heart of love for you and because of my great love i am not giving you what you deserve i am giving you grace because i love you And I want a relationship with you. …
… sins, nor has he rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is God's loving kindness toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far God has removed our transgressions from us. How do you deal with reproofs in life. First of all, expect them. They're going to come because we make mistakes. Secondly, evaluate reproofs. Evaluate the criticisms, the negative events that come into your life. Now get this, not every negative event, not every criticism is because we're doing something wrong. But some of those negative events are the result of our doing. And that's why we need God's wisdom to evaluate the reproofs, the corrections that come into our life to see if there's some sin in our life that needs to change. In James 1.5, James said, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. Now, many of us have memorized that verse, but we've memorized it completely out of context. The context of that verse is found in verses two and three about going through trials in life. And James says, when you're going through trials in your life, ask for God's wisdom to know if these trials are the result of your doing, your mistakes, or whether they're coming as a sign of God's testing and strengthening of your faith. …
… so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. Psalm 103. I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my sake, and I will not, I will not remember your sentence. Isaiah 43. if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1. Oh, to every woman in this room who has had an abortion, hear this. Christ has paid the price for your abortion. He's endured the penalty for your abortion. He forgives you entirely. and he does not desire for you to live your life in pain and regret, but in peace and in joy. Yes, to hate the sin of your past. That's a good thing in any area of sin. The pain of sin from the past is oftentimes a powerful deterrent to sin in the future, but it cannot rob you. …
… Entirely. Psalm 103, verse 11 and 12. As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him. as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Isaiah 43, 25, God says, I, even I am he who blots out your transgressions for my sake. I will not remember your sins. I will not remember your sins. If we confess our sins, 1 John 1, 9, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. to every woman in this room who has had an abortion hear this Christ has paid the price for your abortion Christ has endured the penalty for your abortion to anyone who has been involved in abortion any of these other ways or not been involved this is the whole beauty of the gospel God on high has sent his son who has lived a sinless perfect life the life that we could not live and he has stood in our place he has taken all of the wrath and judgment do your sin and my sin upon himself. He has taken it all. All the guilt, all the condemnation of sin, he has taken upon himself. So that when you are in Christ, you are free from sin and forgiven of all your sin. I remember your sins no more, God says. Now we've talked about this before. We know this doesn't mean God has amnesia, that he has forgotten that you had an abortion, …
… And the list goes on down through verse 12, verse 13. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. He's reflecting on his past blessing. That's why I've always loved Thanksgiving. First of all, I love it that it's not called Thanksgiving. I like it that it's Thanksgiving. I love it that we can think back, and invariably we do that at Thanksgiving, and we just call to mind the blessings from our God over the past. And we all have them. It's just easy to let the present misery eclipse the past memory. So I suggest we start with a memory and think back. Don't let yourself get caught in the trap of mentioning the things that did not work out well or have not been solved or resolved. Go to the blessings. There will be many. that makes us rejoice. It lifts our spirits. It keeps us from becoming negative as we reflect on the good of the past. …
… so great is his love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. He wiped them out. You know, it's interesting, when Luke was recounting Jesus saying, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do, Jesus said a couple of other things in Luke's account. And one of the things he said was, I thirst. And so they took this pole and they put a sponge with sour wine on it and they held it up to Jesus' mouth. The pole, it says specifically in Luke, was a hyssop branch. You're like, who cares about the hyssop branch? What does it matter? It was a branch. It was a piece of wood. It came from a tree. The hyssop branch was first introduced to us in the Passover when the Jews were instructed by God to put the blood of an innocent lamb over the doorpost of their house so the angel of death would pass over. …
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. How can the psalmist say this? Because the prophets are coming and the prophets are speaking about what God is going to do. I love how we see it in Isaiah 53. And you should read the whole chapter of Isaiah 53. But let's zoom in on any point that you want to. Let's just look at verse 6. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him. God did it. God laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him. And by his wounds, we are healed. Who laid our iniquity on him? We didn't even lay our own iniquity on the Savior. …
… and abounding in loving kindness. And I read earlier Psalm 103, as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. How far is the east from the west? That's an infinite line. In Isaiah 38, 17, it says of God, You have cast all my sins behind Your back. Isaiah 43, 25, I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. What an amazing message. That is the message of the true and living God. That is the essence of the Christian gospel. It's not a form of morality. It's not a form of philanthropy, human goodness. The gospel is the only way that you can have your sins forgiven, and that's the only way you'll escape hell. In the book of Micah, the prophet in verses 18 and 19 of chapter 7, Micah 7, 18 and 19, Who is a God like you who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? …
… who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. You're never more like God than when you forgive. In Isaiah 43, 25 we read, I, even I, speaking God speaking, I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Amazing. You see an illustration of that on the cross where Jesus says to His crucifiers, essentially, I want to bless you, and the greatest blessing He could possibly render to them would be to ask the Father to forgive them. Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. We don't curse. We pronounce blessing on our worst enemies. So we forgive because it's the most God-like thing you can do. Secondly, we forgive because it avoids guilt, because not forgiving is a sin. Listen to the words of our Lord again in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, verse 21. Listen to this. …
… Who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as the Father has compassion on His children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him, for He Himself knows our frame. He's mindful that we are but dust." This is the most incredible news. God is angry with the wicked every day. No sin will go unpunished. Every sin will be accounted for and adjudicated by God in a just fashion. But God has compassion that is infinite. So how is it possible that we can tap into that compassion and that grace and that loving kindness and that forgiveness? How do we tap into that? By fearing Him, which is just another way to say believing in Him, trusting Him, committing our lives to Him. And that's the message of the gospel, isn't it? But the anger will still be punished. The difference is it won't be punished in the person who was angry. …
… For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field. The wind blows over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. but from everlasting to everlasting. The Lord's love is with those who fear him and his righteousness with their children's children, with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. This is God's word. Back in March, we looked at this passage, we looked at the whole psalm, but we looked at the beginning of it and it just killed me not to be able to go to the meat of it. …
… sin being sent to the outer darkness. The Lord says, as far as the east is from the west, so far have I removed your transgressions from you. Propitiation has a vertical dimension to it, and it has to do with standing before or in front of God. And we get the word propitious from it, and here a propitiation is a sacrifice offered to God to satisfy the demands of His holiness and to satisfy the demands of His justice. And so, the sacrifices in the Old Testament symbolized this idea of satisfying the demands of God's holiness and justice so that His wrath would be set apart, so that there is the vertical and the horizontal. On the one hand, God's justice is satisfied. From the other, our sins are removed from us, all of which finds their culmination in the work of Christ on the cross. Now, key to this whole system of sacrifice in the Old Testament is the idea of substitution. we speak of the substitutionary atonement in the New Testament with respect to the death of Christ. …