I'd like you to turn in your Bibles this morning to the Old Testament and to the prophet Micah. And we're reading the seventh chapter, one of those smaller prophets, harder to find towards the back of the Old Testament. Thankfully, your liturgy sheet tells you and me it's on page 780 in our Pew Bibles, or maybe page 928, depending on the variation of Pew Bible you have. Micah chapter seven. Woe is me, for I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned. There is no cluster to eat, no first ripe fig that my soul desires. The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind. They all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net. Their hands are on what is evil to do it well. The prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul. Thus they weave it together. The best of them is like a briar. The most upright of them, a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, of your punishment has come. Now their confusion is at hand. Put no trust in a neighbor, have no confidence in a friend. Guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms. For the son treats the father with contempt, The daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me, I will look to the Lord. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Rejoice not over me, O my enemy. When I fall, I shall rise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him. until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light, I shall look upon his vindication. Then my enemy will see and shame will cover her who said to me, where is the Lord your God? My eyes will look upon her, now she will be trampled down like the mire of the streets. A day for the building of your walls. In that day, the boundaries shall be far extended. In that day, they will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, and from Egypt to the river, from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain. But the earth will be desolate because of its inhabitants for the fruit of their deeds. Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, who dwell alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land. Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old. As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, I will show them marvelous things. The nation shall see and be ashamed of all their might. They shall lay their hands on their mouths, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth. They shall come trembling out of their strongholds. They shall turn in dread to the Lord our God and they shall be in fear of you. Who is a God like you? pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance. He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham. as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old. This is the word of our God. May he bless it in our hearing this morning. We also have a confessional reading this morning. It's from Lord's Day 21 and question and answer 56. Meditating, expressing our faith on a single line from the Apostles Creed, the line, I believe the forgiveness of sins. So Lord's Day 21 question answer 56 page 535 in the book of phrase. What do you believe concerning the forgiveness of sins? And you are taught to answer as follows. I believe that God because of Christ's satisfaction, will no more remember my sins, nor my sinful nature, against which I have to struggle all my life, but will graciously grant me the righteousness of Christ, that I may never come into condemnation. Beloved in the Lord Jesus, I believe the forgiveness of sins. Each Lord's Day, again, you make this good confession together with the church universal. You usually do that in your afternoon worship service. And this morning we're gonna do it in our morning worship service because when we gather at the table as a local church, we also gather Mindful that we belong to the church universal, that's why we also have guests at the table. The Church of Christ is one church, it is a universal church, that's what we mean when we speak about a Catholic church. Although I'm noticing the liturgy sheet, and I think someone should tell Pastor Dong that you can't sing hymn one twice on the same Lord's Day, it's against the rules, so. It's not, you can do it twice. It's a wonderful thing to confess the Christian faith. I believe the forgiveness of sins. Notice then, brothers and sisters, that you confess it as an individual, first person singular, as we say in grammar language. I believe the forgiveness of sins. In the catechism lesson, we just looked at underlines this reality with no less than seven first-person words. I, number one, believe that God, because of Christ's satisfaction, will no more remember my sins, nor my sinful nature, against which I have to struggle all the days of my life, but will graciously grant me the righteousness of Christ that I may never come into condemnation. It's like a Hebrew wrote these words and they found the number seven and said, let's get the number of perfection into this confession. I believe the forgiveness of sins. If you would come to the Lord's Supper this morning, this must be your confession. The Supper's not automatically for everyone who happens to be in church on a given Sunday morning. It is for everyone who personally believes the forgiveness of sins, who has confessed those sins, repented of those sins, received Christian baptism, and made that good confession before the church of Christ. For each person who believes the Lord in his supper offers greater assurance of what it is that is believed. And I say the Lord offers greater assurance because the Word of God already offers you the assurance that for the sake of Christ, God forgives your sins. But before we turn to the greater assurance, that comes through this table this morning and the working of the Holy Spirit, let's first listen to God's word concerning the forgiveness of sins, summarized in our lesson and as communicated to us in the closing verses of Micah chapter seven. It is in the supper that we remember why God does not remember our sins. That's the message this morning. In the supper, we remember why God does not remember our sins. It's what you say in our lesson. You say that you believe that God will no more remember my sins. I believe it's helpful to remember What it is the Bible is talking about when it talks about God remembering and not remembering. And we begin with God remembering. When the Bible talks about remembering, it does not merely refer to an activity of the mind, whether God's mind or your mind. I'll illustrate that for just a moment. In Genesis chapter eight, the opening verse, Genesis seven closes with the big flood. Everything on the earth dies and everything in the ark is saved alive. And then Genesis eight one, but God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark and God made a wind blow over the earth and the waters subsided. You can't separate the two phrases from each other in Genesis chapter eight, verse one. When Genesis 8, one says, but God remembered Noah and all the beasts, it means God made a wind blow over the earth and the water subsided. The remembering and the wind blowing are of one piece. The wind blowing is God remembering. For God to remember is for God to act in accordance either with his promise or with his character or often with both. So what am I saying? What's the lesson saying? When we say, I believe that God does not remember my sins. Well, we need to ask and answer one other question very briefly first. What does it mean for God to remember my sin? What does it mean for God to remember anyone's sins? The answer is found in the last word of our lesson, and the answer is condemnation. That's what it means for God to remember sin. When God remembers sin, he condemns the sinner. For God to remember my sin is for God to punish me for my sin. And therefore, on the flip side, for God to no more remember my sin is for God not to punish me for my sin. Earlier this year with my grade 12 catechism students, we were reflecting on the possibility of an all-knowing God forgetting something. Maybe you've pondered that one before in this context. How can an all-knowing God forget anything? And least of all, how can an all-knowing God forget my sins? When I opened the scriptures with my students and we saw what our lesson teaches, it's not about an all-knowing God forgetting something. It's about an all-knowing God choosing not to act on what he knows. Not remembering my sin is about God making a choice not to punish me for my sin. It is about God making a choice not to punish you for your sin. His refusal to act against you personally is what it means for him not to remember your sin nor your sinful nature against which you have to struggle all the days of your life. And that you might take this truth to heart this morning. I read with you from Micah chapter seven, and in the closing verses, you get two pictures of God not remembering your sins. If you have your Bible, feel free to turn back to Micah chapter seven. And I'll start reading with you in verse 18, and as I find my way there, and as you maybe find your way there, A little note on the name Micah. It's the name of the prophet, it's the name of the book, and it's a Hebrew word, and actually it's three Hebrew words put together. The M-I is a question word, it's the word who. And the C is translated like, And the ah is the poetic short form for the Lord's personal name, God's personal name, Yahweh. You may have heard that before. So Micah is a question actually. And the question is, who is like Yahweh? Who is like the Lord? Micah 7, verse 18, who is a God like you? Referring to Yahweh. Who is a God like you? There is no God like the God of Israel. That's the confession here. What is it that sets the God of Israel apart from all other gods of the nations? It's what he does with the sins of his people. For as this book ends, there is this note of hope that rings out to a sinful nation. Much of the book is taken up with the sin of God's people, Israel. And so all the more dramatic is the question, who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? And to confirm to the hearts of God's people that God acts to forgive their sins, the prophet pictures the Lord doing two different things. And one picture he paints while speaking about the Lord and the other picture he paints while speaking to the Lord. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. Yesterday we had a family brunch for for Mother's Day and so my two-year-old granddaughter was visiting and her and I went outside for a little while and we're just playing on the patio and she loves picking up rocks and putting them in a in a little baby stroller and while she's busy picking up rocks she notices some ants and she's watching this one ant on the patio and I can't remember if I encouraged it or not, but she took her little foot with her little shoe and she stomped on that ant. And she treaded it underfoot. And when she lifted up her foot, there was no ant. My favorite moment is when she pointed at it and said, ant, because it just told me she'd added another word to her vocabulary since I saw her last. So there she was, my little granddaughter, and she's treading underfoot, this ant, and it is disappearing. And I'm preparing to preach this morning and reflecting on Micah 7, and I realize that that ant represents all my sins. And that ant represents all your sins. And that little girl's foot represents the Lord, who causes all our sins to disappear. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. That's the first image Micah gives about forgiveness as he's speaking about the Lord. And then he speaks to the Lord, and you will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. And I always think of just standing on a beach, I think of standing on Crescent Beach and I'm 52 years old and I can't remember the last time when I didn't throw a stone into the ocean when I was at Crescent, partly because I get bored just sitting. And so you pick up rocks and you throw them, you hurl them into the depths of the sea and the minute that rock hits the water, it disappears. I should probably think more about God when I'm doing that, because that's what God does with my sins, and that's what God does with your sins. He sits there, and there's as many sins as there are stones on a beach, and yet God very happily is just tossing them all into the depths of the sea. I believe the forgiveness of sins. I believe that God no more remembers my sins. And I ask you this morning, who is like the Lord our God? There is none like him. And as we gather at the Lord's table this morning, we remember why God does not remember our sins. And just like for God, remembering involves an action, so for you and me, remembering involves an action. Jesus teaches us this when he says, do this in remembrance of me. In other words, we don't remember him properly without doing this. Eat, said Jesus. the bread, which is my body, and drink from this cup, which is the new covenant in my blood. And as we eat from the bread and as we drink from the cup, we are remembering why God does not remember our sins. It is because of Christ's crucified body and because of Christ's shed blood. Our lesson says it just with one single word, and the word is satisfaction. I believe that God, because of Christ's satisfaction, will no more remember my sins, nor my sinful nature. On the cross, Christ satisfied the justice of God. I said earlier that God not remembering my sin means God not acting on what he knows about my sin. But to be precise, he's not acting against me based on what he knows about my sin, but he does act based upon what he knows about my sin. He does not act against me. But the only reason he doesn't act against me and the only reason he doesn't act against you is because he acted against his own beloved son. Paul says in Romans 8.3, by sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh. He condemned sin in the flesh. There's the word condemned from the end of our lesson. I will never come into condemnation for my sin because my sin has already been condemned in the flesh of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Christ with his flesh satisfied the justice of God and therefore God will no more remember my sins. And why does God send his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin in order that he might condemn sin in him? And the answer is in Micah chapter seven verse 18. It is because he delights in steadfast love. I want you to think about that this morning. I want you to maybe picture it. I want you to think about something that you delight in. Something that you, too, that just brings a smile to your heart and a smile to your face. And now I want you to think about your God. You go ahead and, as it were, Picture him, he's your father. I know it's Mother's Day. I'm gonna picture your father in heaven for a moment. He delights in steadfast love. It makes God happy to act in accordance with his character, and his character is love. I'm not gonna read the longer, Lord, so I'll perform with you this morning but there's something in it that isn't in the shorter form. One of the things that gets dropped is Romans 5, 8, at the conclusion of our celebration. So I'll share it with you now. But God shows his love for us in this, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God did not show his love for us after we had done something that brought a smile to his face. God showed his love for us while we were still sinners. Why? Because he just simply delights in steadfast love. My question for you is do you believe this about God, your God? Who is like our God? That he would delight in steadfast love. That it would just make him happy. to look upon sinners like you and me and say, I'm gonna forgive them. I'm gonna remember their sins no more. Even though the only way I can do that is by sending my own beloved son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin in order that it might condemn sin in him. Do you believe this God? And I'm not asking you as a group, I'm asking you as an individual this morning. We'll sing a little later in this service, the Apostles' Creed. We'll sing it as a group, but we're still gonna keep using first person singulars as we sing. I believe the forgiveness of sins. Do you personally believe this? Maybe some of you, the answer is no. I would encourage you to reflect on what you've heard about God this morning, the love that he has for you. Confess your sins, repent of your sins, trust in him. Some of you may not be sure how to answer the question. You're kind of like that man at the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration, the man with the son who needed healing, the man who said to Jesus, I believe, help my unbelief. Maybe you're not quite there with this reality that God actually no more remembers my sins nor my sinful nature against which I have to struggle all the days of my life. I can't stop forgetting about my sins, how can he? And to assure you that he most certainly does not remember your sins, he has given you these pictures of an ant that disappears underfoot. and of a stone that disappears into the depths of the ocean. But he also gives you one more picture this morning. He gives you the Lord's Supper. He gives you that greater assurance for your faith. You do not need to have perfect faith to come forward to the table this morning. You just have to have faith. And as you come, believe then also this, that the Holy Spirit will strengthen your faith as we remember together the bread which we break and the cup which we bless. It is the body of Christ broken. It is the blood of Christ poured out. And these things truly, beloved, for the complete forgiveness of all our sins. Amen. If you're able, please stand. We're going to respond to God in song with Psalm 130, the stanzas two and four.