GARAGE SALES

Our town is having city wide garage sales this weekend and people are just plain nuts. They slam on their brakes, half park their car and jump out without looking. They drive all over town. Up one street and down another. They are ready! They have quarters and ones. They are focused. They just know the exact thing they have been looking for will be on the table. Or maybe the next. They want a bargain!

Of course, all the people having a garage sale just want to get rid of their junk. Stuff they no longer need. Or want. A garage sale is the exact place to pass on that ugly Christmas sweater. Or the skillet that sounded good on the infomercial that did not work. Or all the things you bought at garage sales only to realize they did not match your décor.

Garage sales fit a need. Two really. The seller has the benefit of cleaning their closets, reducing their clutter and making a few bucks. The buyers enjoy the chase of a bargain and the thrill of victory when they find the lid to the replace the one they broke.

Garage sales are an example of --

SCRIPTURE

"Son of man, say to the house of Israel, 'This is what you are saying: "Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?" 'Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?' Ezekiel 33:10-11

AND NOW

Well, will you look at that! God doesn't want us to keep our "junk." God wants us to get rid of the sins that weigh us down. God doesn't want us to waste away. God wants us to have a "sin" sale.

Do you have sins you are trying to get rid of? Are you putting them up for sale hoping someone will take them off your hands?

and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the first-born from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father -- to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen. Revelation 1:5-6

GOOD NEWS! Jesus has already paid for our sins!

LET US PRAY (Please use this as a beginning of your prayer. Finish in your own words, words from your heart.)

Jesus, I am holding onto so many things. Things that do not enrich my life but instead waste it. Things that hold me down. Come and free me. Amen