Loading summary
Transcript8 lines
- [00:00]
A
Obeying Psalm 51. Father in heaven. Lord, we praise you and thank you for a time to come together to hear your word, Lord, and to what you want to say through just a mere man. And Lord, we pray that we would glorify and honor you in our time together, Lord, would you open our hearts and mind by your spirit, Lord, and teach us, Lord, let the words that come out today be from you and not from me. And Lord, I pray for anyone in here who is going through something, who has got a lot on their mind, who's maybe anxious or, you know, struggling in some way, Lord, that you would bring life into that situation or that you bring healing. So, Lord, we just want to praise you and we want to glorify you in our time together. So, Lord, may this all be for you, Lord, and let your will be done in Jesus name. Amen. All right, so how many of you have read Psalm 51? Yeah, I was going to say pretty much every one of you. You could probably all read teach on this in some shape or form.
- [01:01]
B
Okay.
- [01:02]
A
But it's just a really good passage and I like it. So I was like. I was like, that sounds like a good one to go through. This is David's prayer to God after being confronted by the prophet Nathan. Okay. Nathan's the one who calls him out for his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. So this is. This is David's response to that. And this is. This is where most of us don't find ourselves very often, right? This is not the thought process that we often have, you know, So I think it's really good for us to look through this and to think about it and to then apply it into our own lives and think about that. We should have this type of response when we're confronted with sin, right? When we're confronted in our own lives and in our own hearts, when God comes to us and says, do you see what you just did? Right? Do you see. Do you see this area of your life? Do you see this thing? This is what happened. Now you have a choice. What are you going to do? Are you going to stand there, sit and go wallow in it? Or are you going to actually submit before me and confess and repent of your sin? So it's a great example that King David gives us here. So starting at verse one, be gracious to me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the abundance of your compassion, Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you. You only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified when you speak and pure when you judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, you delight in the truth, in the innermost being and in the hidden parts. You will make me know wisdom. Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness. Let the bones which you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquities or transgressions. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew my a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation. Then my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise for you. Do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise by your favor. Do good to Zion, build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then young bulls will be offered on your altar. Right? It's pretty profound, even just reading through it. Like, I'm sure we could spend months just breaking this down right into each little individual part, going down to the original languages and seeing what each thing is, you know? But God clearly gave it to us in this format so that we can just see right off the bat what David is doing and how David is responding. Right? Right there on your paper, it says that sin is ultimately against God. Right? David acknowledges this. He's like, ultimately, my sin is against you and you alone. God. Right? Other people got hurt. Somebody ended up dead, you know, but others got hurt in this, right? It's the same thing for us, right? Our sin ultimately is against God and him alone. But other people ended up getting hurt, right? Other people were in the wake of that sinful behavior, okay? And God is working in us even now to bring about forgiveness, to bring about the newness of heart, to Bring about a love that we've never truly probably experienced before. Right. Where we are coming before him in a confession and in a repentance so that we can one be right with God. Right. And this is what Jesus does for us. He makes it possible for us to be right with him, but he also makes it possible for us to confess. Right. Why do we confess? Because we're already forgiven. We confess because we've been forgiven. We're not receiving forgiveness because we confessed. It's because we're already forgiven. Right. Does that make sense? Right. Jesus paid the price, and now because the price has been paid, we can be set free and now confess and have actual true repentance. Yes, sir.
- [06:55]
B
Yeah. It's acknowledged what we've done wrong towards God so that we can fix that too. Yeah. I mean, then he helps us through it because we're acknowledging we're humbling ourselves in that moment, knowing we're doing wrong against him.
- [07:06]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why I love that David goes here, you know, because he brings sin to that ultimate place that it is actually supposed to be. You know, it really brings that gravity and that weight of what sin is and just how horrible it really is. I mean, most of us know that we've done wrong things, but at the. But when we were doing those wrong things, did we actually care about it? No, we didn't care because when we were walking in our flesh and in our sin, we didn't even care. We didn't realize necessarily we were doing anything wrong. Right. That's why when we share the gospel with people, they need to know how bad it really is. Right. That's why you got guys like Ray Comfort who go around and they actually show people that, yes, you have broken the law, you've sinned, and you've. You've come against an almighty holy God. And when they realize the gravity of their sin and. And the weight that it is putting on them, he. He then brings them before God and shows them Christ and how he has graciously set them free and taken on their punishment. Right. And David here is showing us. Yeah. That gravity, the weight of my sin is really pressing down upon me. And there are other passages that. That can really give you that too. Like, you know, you have passages. I think it's like Psalm 73, where the writer is just in this deep, dark place of knowing that he. He has sinned and he is looking to sin more, and he knows how dark that can be because he has this longing towards this. Okay. But then he remembers that God is better, that God is greater. So if we find ourselves at some point struggling and thinking to ourselves, it's okay if I do this little thing here and there, right? It's okay if I go sneak this thing or sneak that thing. It's okay if I have these little sins that I keep in my pocket that nobody really needs to know about, right? That's okay, right? We can hold on to these little things because it's not really hurting anybody. But what's the true reality? We're sinning against God every time we sin, it's an offense to God, you know. But, like, first John tells us we have an advocate with the Father who is ever before him, ever present with God, showing him that, I have forgiven this person. I'm not giving them license to sin, but I have forgiven them. And they are learning and they are growing, right? We're all learning and growing. David had to do the same thing. And he was a teenager when he was anointed king. Somewhere between 11 and 14 was about the ages that he was when he was anointed king. He was about 12 to 13 when he defeated Goliath. He was about 13 when he came against Goliath. And that's why he's. That's why Goliath mocks him like he's a kid, because he is. He's a kid. Now, in that time, 13 was when you came into being a man. You know, you were celebrated as a man and you were brought into manhood, okay? But he was still a kid. But I mean, for those of us that, you know, we have little kids or we're looking to have more kids at some point. You know, that's an area for us that we can learn, right? Is that we should be raising men that can be sent out at that young age of 13 and could be commissioned as a man. That's how you raise David's. David was looked down on in his own family, right? That's why he was out in the fields shepherding the shepherd king, right? And then he waited and waited and waited to actually become king, right? He's anointed king. The Holy Spirit comes upon him, and then he waits. Are all our favorite word, wait, right? Could you imagine? You're age 12, you get anointed as the next king of Israel, and then you have to wait for like, what, what was it, like 10 to 15 years, something like that, you know? But he had to wait all long time. And in that time, he had to be on the run because King Saul is hunting him down. Oh, and he's known as the man after God's own heart. And it's because of a repentance like this that he can be known that way because God wanted him to know him and that's why he brought him to this type of a repentance. And that's why we have it as a song in the Bible, so that we can be reminded of that, right? So he. He is saying that confession here is God centered, right? Our confession is centered upon God. We confess because of God, because of what he did, not because of what we do. We confess not so we can get, but because we've been given. God has done absolutely amazing things for us, right? David doesn't plead for forgiveness because he feels bad for what he did, right? He. He went for months without being confronted about it. He went for months just living in it, going, that's what kings do. They find pretty girls, they sleep with them and kill their husbands. That's what kings do. At the time, didn't seem like he actually cared other than when the baby was gonna die. It's the only time he was really, like, pleading with God until Nathan shows up. Now, Nathan showed up before the baby was born, but it seems as though David at the time was like, I don't see anything wrong with this, right? Isn't that most of us before we're confronted by God, how many of us actually, like, let's just be honest, be honest. How many of you realized that you were sinning, right? You knew you were making bad choices, but did you know you were sinning, right? Because sinning has that. That weight to it, right? So we don't like to call it sinning. Well, I made a mistake, right? How many of you have said, well, I made a mistake, but God forgives me. We've all said it. I made a mistake. And then I made the same mistake at least 50 times in a row, right? I kept making the same mistakes over and over and over again because we were minimizing what it really was instead of going, I've sinned. I've sinned. And I chose it. I chose to sin. A weird place to be, to finally come before your sin and go, this is horrible. But the wonderful thing, and that's the next point, the wonderful thing is that God's mercy in all of it brings forgiveness, brings a true understanding of love, brings a true understanding of grace, brings a deep and longing for a relationship with a holy, mighty and awesome God, right? This is where you see David's relationship with God just exponentially become greater. And then the really only big failures you see from David anymore are that he was kind of a horrible dad. He still had a lot to learn. And if you were in his family and treated as the runt and sent out to the fields, you probably didn't learn how to be a good dad from your dad. So he has to cling to God as his father and God begins to teach him, you know, but some of it does doesn't translate, unfortunately. But God brings this mercy and that becomes the hope, right? All that thing that we all long for a hope and that many of us seem to just never find until we come to the foot of the cross. Hope. We didn't have hope until we came to Jesus. And why is that? Because hope outside of Jesus doesn't exist. Because hope is a person. And that person is Jesus, right? He is known as hope, right? The glorious appearing of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, the hope of glory. He is that hope. He is our hope of glory. And we see stuff like what David's saying created me a clean heart. Renew a right spirit or steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, God, I messed up. I sinned before you. Please don't cast me away. Have any of you repented in that way, especially in the last few months? I have. It's hard, but it's also just so freeing. It's just this. This like thing is weighing upon you. And then when you realize that God has forgiven you fully and completely of that thing is so freeing to go, why am I still carrying this, God? There you go. Take that. I'm giving this burden to you. And he says, all right, son. And just like Jesus, now go. Sin no more,
- [17:07]
B
right?
- [17:08]
A
That's what Jesus always challenged people with when he was forgiving them right then and there, right? What does he tell to the. To the woman that was caught in adultery, go. And sin no more tells us the same thing goes, sin no more. Walk in your freedom, Walk in your newness of life because you've been delivered of blood guiltiness, because God is your salvation. God is my salvation. He's your salvation. He's your salvation. Salvation comes from the Lord. We all know that. We all love that. But do we walk in that, right? Or do we want to continue to walk in shame and in guilt, feeling filthy and dirty? I mean, I would argue that none of us want to do that, but how many of us still do that? We got all this shame and all this guilt instead of realizing that renewal comes from God alone. Right? The create in me, the clean heart. Cleanse me with hyssop. Although the interesting part right there is like, hyssop actually has a fair amount of meaning. Okay? It's like, why hyssop? Why hyssop? God. Well, what else was hyssop used for? Hyssop was what they used to put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts. So cleanse me with the same type of cleansing that was used for you to pass over in a way. He's saying, lord, cover me in the blood of the lamb and pass over me. It's pretty interesting, huh? Right? Because you can even go to the crucifixion of Christ and there's a hyssop branch used there to put the sour wine vinegar on a sponge. They put it on a hyssop branch and raised it to his mouth. The lamb who was being sacrificed. That's just so cool, huh? I think that this little thing, this little. This plant, this branch has such an amazing meaning within scripture. So if you think about it from a Israel kind of thought process or Eastern thought process, you think of the branch and the blood put on the doorpost being covered by it. And that's what David's doing here, saying, cover me, pass over me, because he knows in his repentance that he is set free, and that is why he's repenting. Verse 13. I like this one because I think when I see this verse, I think of us, right then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will be converted to you if you have been saved and set free through something so epically amazing and by a God who is holy, don't you think he'd want to use you to then teach transgressors and convert sinners to him? The answer is, yes, he will, and he wants to. And many of us might be thinking, yeah, I'm not that guy. But we all in Christ have a story to share, right? They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. And their testimony. It's how one overcomes the Antichrist by the blood of the Lamb in the word of their testimony. God wants us to share our stories, the stories of his mercy and his grace, of his incredible love. He wants us to be vessels for honorable use. As Romans would put it, God wants to do amazing things. And how many of you know that? You're like, yeah, yeah, let's do this. Let's be used by the Lord. So that means that God right now is calling some of you to reign in on that testimony and really hone it into what, you know, God wants it to be. Whether that's to share it for three minutes or to share it for the next hour. God will give you the words, right? When you stand before governors and the Sanhedrins and this and that, I will give you the words by my Holy Spirit. Too often we think way too hard about what we're going to say. But a lot of times we do this. We think too much, and then it becomes just a jumbled mess. God will give us the words because he is the One who is sustaining. He is the One who is doing the work. He is the one working in us, through us, and he will bring others to Himself. It's in the Bible. God tells us this. So let's look at the practical application here. So examine your heart. Do you see sin as merely hurting others or as a mistake or as dishonoring God? I mean, obviously right now, we all know the answer is dishonoring God. But within your own heart right now, if you were to sin right here, right now, sitting in front of all of us, would you see it as, oops, I made a mistake, or would you see it as, I just dishonored God with that thought and then confessed? Honestly, honestly, confess your sin struggles. Get before the Lord. Take this and use it as an outline or even read through it as your own prayer. Insert yourself here. I mean, obviously I'm not saying change the words and change the Bible. I'm saying that insert yourself into this type of thought and order your own prayer of repentance by looking at this and going, how? How can I use this to help? Teach me, okay? Depend on God's grace, right? This is. This is what we should all be depending on. Day, night, every day, every moment, depending upon the grace, mercy, and ultimately the love of God. Because that is the sustaining power in which we have in us. It's God's love. And then seek renewal. Seek God's renewal, but also, right, this goes into those other steps that we've all talked about before. It leads into forgiveness, leads into forgiving others who have hurt you, who have, who have, who have done wrong things to you. It leads into you seeking the forgiveness of those that you have hurt, right? As long as it's safe to do so. Okay? And it also leads into you walking into. In the new life that God has brought you to, God wants to renew you. He has regenerated you. He has come in and he has washed you and made you new. Right? Your Sin is now separated as far as the east is from the west. God remembers it no longer. Right? That's, that's why you see how David says here, where is it? Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Because God will, if you sincerely and faithfully and truthfully come to him, he will take those and just get rid of them. So let's, let's look at the questions here. Why is it important to recognize that all sin is ultimately against God? Right? It's important that we understand that. That we are sinning against a holy, amazing and awesome God. Okay, so how does understanding God's mercy change the way you confess? Or how many of you still struggle with confessing? Because God doesn't call us to make penance, right? We might have to make things right, but he's not making us. He's not having us hurt ourselves because we sinned, because we are already saved and set free. What areas of your life need a clean heart and a renewed spirit today? Are any of you feeling that there's. That God is pointing to something right now? Okay, well, then take that to the next step. Will you go and do that? If you feel that's something you need to do, go do it. Take some time. Take some time to get before the Lord and it might not feel good for a minute, it may not feel good in the moment, but then the renewal will begin to take place and you'll start to feel this peace about it. True repentance is not about self improvement. Right? It's not about you. Okay? It's about surrender. Many of us still struggle with that whole surrender thing, me included. Because it's not our natural proclivity to surrender to anything. But God calls us to surrender everything. When we confess our sins, we glorify God's holiness and rest in his mercy. And let Psalm 51 lead you to deeper awareness of your need for grace and a renewed passion for God's presence. Amen.
- [27:25]
B
Amen. Dearly followed, Jesus. I thank you for gathering us here today, Lord, to hear your word and to hear your truth about your acceptance of us, Lord, when we come to you to repent wholeheartedly and we're sincere about it, Lord. And thank you for guiding us down that path to repentance, Lord, so we can acknowledge the things that we've done against you, Lord. Lord, we thank you for the process about it, Lord, and helping us recognize that so that we can move forward and actually turn away from that sin, Lord, and not come back to it. So thank you for putting that in us And Lord Jesus name I bring my there.