Are you familiar with who "Squeegie Kids" are? In downtown Toronto, there are kids who wash car windshields right in the middle of traffic and then try soliciting payment from the owner of the car while they are at stoplights. This practice has been banned, but it still goes on. Day after day, these kids, many of them homeless, dunk their squeegies into buckets of brown, muddy water, and perform their unwanted services again and again, which would never be able to get the windshields of your cars clean. The problem is, the water they start with is dirty.

Well, a long time ago, day after day, every priest would stand and perform their religious duties in the Temple at Jerusalem. Again and again they would offer the same sacrifices for sins, but those sacrifices could never take away peoples' sins. The problem is, these priests were sinful, and their sacrifices were imperfect. Every morning and every evening, the priest on duty would sacrifice an "unblemished" lamb, a grain offering, some flour, olive oil, and a drink offering. Twice a day! It didn't matter how many times they made these sacrifices, we were still dirty with sin. It doesn't matter how many times you go over a windshield with a dirty squeegie: in the end, it will still be dirty.

But yet, We are Perfect! Perfect? How is that possible? Is that the first word you would think of to describe yourself? Perfect means that there is no dirt in your life at all. But take a look at the inner closet you don't want any one to see. Any dirt in there? Any skeletons that you hope no one ever has to see? What about your blunders that people have seen? Have there been moments in your life that you wish you could take back? Do over? Erase completely? Ever wish you could go back in time? Just one day and do it over? Just one hour? Even just a minute? A speeding ticket? A bad word that blurted out? Something you said that you wish you could put right back in your mouth? A fight with someone? A missed opportunity to help someone? There are minutes, hours, days, and even years of my life that I wish God wasn't watching, or that I could do over and make different decisions. But God was watching, and I can't do them over.

So how can we possibly be perfect? Look at verse 12. "…this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins…" There is a sacrifice that made us clean! That made us perfect! This one "priest" is Jesus Christ, God's own Son! The sacrifice He made was his own life! And that sacrifice made us perfect. Perfect because we no longer make any mistakes? Not at all! Perfect, because we are Perfectly Forgiven! "Because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." You have already been made perfect because God has perfectly forgiven you! Perfection has the idea of completeness. You have been brought back to the completeness that God had in mind for you - your relationship with God has been made whole, made complete, again!

Verse 17 adds: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." Does God suffer from amnesia? No, He doesn't. He sees every sin you have ever committed. And He demands punishments for it. God can look into your deepest, darkest closets filled with skeletons. He knows your thoughts. He knows the thoughts you are having right now that could condemn you, and He demands punishment for them! But the difference here is that He took that punishment out on Jesus! And He forgets that those sins were yours!

Imagine you are driving downtown with your car that has been completely cleaned and polished. Not a speck of dust on it! Would you want it slopped up with a dirty squeegie? I wouldn't. Now, since God has made you perfectly clean through his Son, do you want to try offering your services to make you cleaner? Don't try it! It will only make a mess of the perfection He has made of you! Verse 18 says, "And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin." You are perfect in God's eyes because of what He has done for you. Nothing you could do could improve on that. Your works are imperfect sacrifices. You are starting with a dirty bucket of water, and it wouldn't matter how many times you tried washing your life or improving your standing before God. It would still be dirty to Him.

But thanks be to God, He has made you perfect already through Jesus! Look at verse 14 again: "Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." You are already perfect because of his sacrifice. But what does it mean that you are "being made holy"? It means that you are Perfectly Improving! It means that with God's help, you are learning how to thank Him for what He has done for you by living lives that please Him more and more as you grow in his Word. Unlike the job He has completed in you, this process of being made holy, that we sometimes call "Sanctification," is a gradual process that continues your whole life on this earth. Once you come to faith in Jesus as your Savior, God says, "I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds." You will now want to thank Him by obeying his laws and grow as you study his Word!

Have you ever noticed, whatever a sponge picks up is exactly what you get when you squeeze it out later? If you wipe up clear water, you squeeze out clear water. If you wipe up red stuff, you squeeze out red stuff. Our hearts, minds, and souls are like sponges. All of the events of life are soaked up. If our life is filled with sin; if it's filled with gossip, pornography, drunkenness, drug abuse, child abuse, anger, pettiness, and all of those things that tear down the spirit, and we are squeezed by the pressures of life, all that will come out will be all the garbage we have absorbed.

But if our lives are filled with the study of Scripture and with prayer, with worship and songs of praise, with the love, mercy, and grace of God, with the love and forgiveness of Christ, and the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives through the gospel in Word and sacraments, then when the pressures of life squeeze us, what comes out is the goodness and grace and love which we have absorbed. It is then, with the Holy Spirit's help, that our lives will be more pleasing to God, and will be telling Him in all earnestness, "Thank You for what You have done for me!"

We are perfect because we have been Perfectly Taken Care Of. Remember grade 4 & 5? Boys and girls were just beginning to discover each other and LIKE the differences. There was an electric thrill of suddenly liking that little red-haired girl. Or that little blonde boy. Silly notes were passed. Sometimes they included a multiple-choice question: "Do you like me? Yes, No, Maybe. Circle the right one." If you sent one of these notes, the palms of your hands got all sweaty until you got the note back. Then there was a fluttering of the heart as you slowly unfolded the page. It took all the courage you could muster to look at the answer. If it was a "Yes," you nearly swooned with joy. If it was a "No," your heart was broken and you felt crushed. That was just puppy love, but what we were really seeking wasn't love, but acceptance, and the assurance of our acceptance. Some of us have never grown beyond that kind of thinking in our relationship with God. We still need a note.

Let me tell you, this book, the Bible, is that note. This text is the summation of that note. It was written once and for all to all of humanity. Circled in bright red, and in hand-written letters is the greatest love note of all. It can be summed up in one word, "JESUS," the greatest and largest "YES" you have ever seen. Yes, you are loved. Yes, you are forgiven. Yes, you are a child of God. Yes, you are a friend of Christ. Yes, God is your heavenly parent. Yes, you have been perfectly taken care of. Yes, you are perfect in God's eyes. YES in the place of all your doubts! Jesus is the "Yes" written on our hearts and in our minds and in our very souls. Every breath we take is a reminder of the "Yes" of God in Christ. The "Yes" which says: "I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds and I will remember their sins no more."

You can draw near to God because of that "Yes." With great anticipation and joy, you can approach the throne of God with confidence. Why? Because you have been cleansed perfectly. Your hearts are cleansed from guilt and your souls are cleansed from sin. It's not anything you have done. It is what has been done for you. The one time, once and for all, sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, made you perfect. And through the power of God's Holy Spirit, you and I can know the "Yes" of God in our hearts and have the assurance that our sins have been forgiven. Amen.

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