THEME:  Jesus erases our mistakes and gives us a clean start.

OBJECTS:  A whiteboard, a dry erase marker, and some whiteboard cleaner.

SCRIPTURE:  "Although you wash yourself with soda and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me," declares the Sovereign Lord.  Jeremiah 2:22  Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.  Psalm 51:7

This morning I have brought a whiteboard with me.  I suppose that some day the whiteboard will totally replace the old-fashioned chalkboards that we still see in many of our schools.  One of the nice things about the whiteboards is that you can use different colored markers to make your message stand out and make it more interesting.  If you are writing with a black marker and want to make a word stand out from the others, you can switch to red.  Of course, if you make a mistake, you can just wipe it off and start over again.

One thing I have noticed about the whiteboards is that as you use it day after day, you begin to see stains left on the board.  You can wash it with soap and water, but the stains won't come out.  That is why someone invented this special whiteboard cleaner.  Just spray it on and wipe it with a cloth and the stains of the old marks are gone and your board is as white as new.

We are about to begin new year.  It is time to erase the mistakes of the past year and begin again with a clean slate.  Some of the mistakes we have made are more than simply making a wrong decision.  There are some things that we have done that God has told us in the Bible not to do.  We call that sin.  Some of those sins we have done time and time again and they have left a stain upon our lives which we cannot erase.

In the Bible God said, "Even though you wash yourself with a lot of soap, the stain of your guilt is still there."  We must have God's forgiveness to take away those stains -- and we can have God's forgiveness because of Jesus.  Jesus is like this special whiteboard cleaner.  If we turn to Jesus and ask him to forgive us of our sins, he will wash away our sin and we will be as white as snow.  Then we can truly start the new year with a clean slate!

Dear Lord, we are thankful that as we start this new year, we can truly start with a clean slate as we ask you for forgiveness in Jesus' name.  Amen.