The Pattern of Confession

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Don Filcek; Psalm 51 The Pattern of Confession

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak is preaching from his series,
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The Warrior Poet King, Study of Second Samuel. Let's listen in. Welcome to Recast Church.
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As Dave said, I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. And when you walked in, you should have received one of these welcome folders here.
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It's got some information in there. It's got a couple QR codes that you can take advantage of to get connected to our app and things like that.
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There's a connection card. If you're newer with us and you haven't filled one of these out yet, you fill it out, turn it in at the welcome table to the person standing behind there.
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They'll give you a free t -shirt or a free coffee mug. And then we have an offering envelope in there. We don't pass around an offering plate.
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We want your giving to be between you and the Lord. And so I encourage you to take advantage of that if the Lord leads.
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Otherwise, you can recycle that. There's a basket out there for recyclable stuff, and we can reuse those if you're not going to use that this morning.
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So with all that said, I want to start off by identifying what is beneficial and valuable for all of us to take in and think about, and that is that God is here in this place.
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How many of you already knew that? God is here. God is in this place. And I love to remind us of that, but I also love to remind us all that God was with us during our drive here.
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He was with us last week when we lost it with our kids or when we disobeyed our parents or when we got angry at a co -worker.
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He was with us when we were sweaty and exercising this past week or loafing on the couch, watching
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Netflix. He's always present. You know that, right? We know that. We don't always live that, but we know that.
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And so what is distinct or different about gathering together as God's people this morning? Why does this gathering matter?
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And I would suggest to you that it shifts because we are gathered together with others to experience God corporately.
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He has placed us together, church. There's something glorious and beautiful about that word, together, because we are designed fundamentally to need one another.
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Now, the reason I'm saying that is I'm going to introduce the message here, and we're going to read the passage, and then we're going to sing some songs, and this morning we're taking in a text that we want to privatize very quickly.
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We want to make it personal. We want to make it isolated. We want to make it about ourselves because what we are talking about this morning is confession and repentance.
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Confession and repentance. Public confession, if it's going to be genuine, is not something any of us are wanting to sign up for, right?
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How many of you would even be here if you knew that what was going to be expected of you was to get up and confess something to others?
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We wouldn't be here, would we? Raise your hand if you think you probably would not be sitting here today if you knew that that was an expectation on you.
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I wouldn't. I mean, none of us want to be exposed for all of the darkest thoughts that we've had. None of us want that movie to play of our darkest moments, right?
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And so we wouldn't be signing up for that. So it's good that God has given us some psalms that help us all get on the same page regarding confession and repentance because all of us know to a person here that we need confession in our relationships with a holy
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God. Some prayer groups get together, and even some of the community groups maybe use it. How many of you are familiar with ACTS as an acronym for prayer time?
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Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. If any of you have ever been in a group that prays through that model, that example of kind of going through a rhythm or a routine, which one is always the shortest?
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Confession. And the most awkward. And the most uncomfortable. And the one in which we want to share something that feels authentic but isn't quite true or quite real or quite really getting down to the deepest heart of what our struggles and problems are.
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Anybody know what I'm talking about on this? A lot of blank stares, but we'll move along, and hopefully it'll make sense as we study this passage together.
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What we have in our text is in 2 Samuel. We're going through 2 Samuel. Today we're going to be looking at a psalm which is a little bit of whiplash.
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You'll even notice on the front of the worship folder is 2 Samuel. Why in the world are we in psalms this morning?
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Well, it's about context. In 2 Samuel chapter 11, where we're going through that book,
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David took Bathsheba from Uriah, her husband. What he did was at least adultery, likely more than that, as I said when
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I preached on that a couple of weeks ago. David then proceeded to cover it up by murdering her husband
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Uriah. And he thought he had covered it up well, and by human standards he had. But God pursued
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David through the prophet Nathan back in 2 Samuel chapter 12 where we left off.
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God is faithful to pursue and draw back his covenant people, to draw them back to himself.
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And he is following David. God is following David down into the pit to pursue him to the point of confession and repentance.
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And so we turn our attention this week to take a little break from 2 Samuel and instead turn to a psalm that David wrote.
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Pen in hand, he wrote this during that context when he had sinned regarding Bathsheba and Uriah.
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Psalm 51, I want to point out, by introduction is more than a pattern. More than merely a pattern for us to follow.
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This song is a God -sanctioned prayer of confession. God -ordained,
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God -written, God -infused, the Spirit revealing it and inspiring it. It is an inspired prayer of confession.
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In this sense it is definitely worth our attention to draw principles from this
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God -ordained confession of David. But it is also appropriate for us in seasons and times of our lives to borrow the very words themselves.
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They come from the Holy One. And they make us aware of our sin before a holy God. And so I would suggest to you that there's a time and a place where in our lives, where for the 400th time we're coming to God with the same exact sin and we just don't know how to address it.
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We don't know what to say and we're at the end of ourselves and we're frustrated. We don't even have the words to convey to God our sorrow.
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Anybody been there? It's like I don't even know where to go with this anymore. It's like been a habit, it's been an addiction, it's been a problem my entire life and here
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I am. And I'm 40 years old or I'm 30 years old or I'm 20 years old and I'm still at this.
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And I'm still battling it, Father. There are times and seasons where the only thing you could rightly do is open up Psalm 51 and read it and say,
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God, make this my prayer. You know what I'm talking about? Make this true of me, make this the call of my heart.
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Take these words of David and the words of your spirit revealed to your servant David and let this be my prayer today to you.
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So certainly a pattern, we're going to pick apart the text and draw some principles from it. And I encourage you to buckle up rather than outline the text, which would dissect,
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I think, what is a beautiful, desperate, pleading, self -effacing, fearful confession of David.
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I'm going to follow the flow of the text verse by verse. Each verse contains either something that David admits or something that he requests.
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He either is admitting something by his confession or he is requesting something from God.
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And sometimes there's overlap between those two. And I'll explain that because sometimes we don't request something before we admit that we need it.
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So to say, God, be merciful to me, requires first that we admit that we're wrong in God's eyes, that we need mercy.
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So there's admission, but there's also requests kind of going back and forth here in the text. So this morning we're going to be looking at the most points
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I have ever included in a sermon. This is going to be an 18 -point sermon.
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Woo! All right, here we go. So it's 18 points. They will come at you fast. It isn't going to be a longer -than -average sermon, but it's going to be a bit like drinking from a fire hose.
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But I think it does more justice to the text to see the things that David is saying novelly in each verse versus trying to bunch them all together.
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Now there is a little bit of bunching. We're going to see 12 things that David admits in his confession and 6 things that David requests in his confession.
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But I want to start off, before we read and pray, I want to put down a myth about repentance that this entire story of David, I think, dispels that's a really common myth in our culture today.
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The common myth goes like this. It says that if you are caught and you confess, you cannot be truly sorry.
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Do you guys know what I'm talking about? It is better if you come clean without being caught, without anybody addressing it, with nobody finding out, but instead you just go to your boss and say,
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I did this thing, and then you can be truly sorry. You go to your wife and say, I did this thing, and then you can be truly sorry.
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But if you get caught in it, well, you can never be truly repentant, right? Do you know what
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I'm talking about? Raise your hand if you understand what I'm saying from our cultural perspective, that that's the way our culture views it.
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But that's a myth. This account of David dispels that myth offhand. David covered up his sin.
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He didn't come clean without confrontation. God had to send Nathan to him to convict him, to draw him out, to say,
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I caught you. And he still, we're going to see in Psalm 51, has a heart of genuine confession and repentance.
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So let's open up our Bibles to Psalm 51 if you're not already there. Use your device. You don't have it in your scripture journal, obviously, but Psalm 51 there.
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And I encourage you to follow along in God's word here as we read this together.
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Psalm 51. To the choir master. A Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba.
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Have mercy on me, God. O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
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Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.
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Against you, you only, have I sinned. And done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
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Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth, in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
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Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
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Let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all of my iniquities.
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Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your
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Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.
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Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness,
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O God. O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.
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For you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.
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A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure.
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Build up the walls of Jerusalem and then, then will you delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.
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Then bulls will be offered on your altar. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your grace.
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I thank you for your mercy. That even extends to this level of being able to identify a confession in your word.
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The things that you desire of us to keep a short account with you. When we sin, we are grateful that we have an advocate.
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We have a savior. We have Jesus Christ who paid the price for us. And we obviously have a different vantage point from David.
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But Father, even as this is Senior Sunday and we're going to celebrate our graduates. And you have in the flow of 1
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Samuel and laid on my heart this passage. I pray that maybe even just as these seniors have an opportunity to listen into this message.
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And have an opportunity to take on this reality. That life is a life, if anything, a relationship with you.
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And a life lived with you is a life lived in confession. A life lived in humility. A life lived in a constant state of coming back to you.
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With short accounts, confessing, repenting, turning from sin. And seeking to love you more day by day.
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A running to you with our sin and not a running from you or hiding from you. I pray that nobody here would be satisfied with being cast off from your presence.
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That nobody here would be delighted to be away from you. But everybody to a person. Every heart here would desire to be brought near to you.
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I pray that that would be a reality for all of us. And that those of us who have been brought near. Those of us who live in the light of your face.
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In conviction and in seeking to repent. Father, that we would unite our voices together and praise and worship to you in this gathering.
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That right now as we have an opportunity to sing songs to you. That it would be a delight to your ears from people who love you and want you close.
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Father, I pray that would be a reality for every senior that's graduating. As they're launching out into new life. Some staying at home but doing new things.
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Some going away to university. Some going to trade. Some doing various things. Some unsure.
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And launching out even to that uncertainty. Father, I pray that you would be with everybody in this gathering.
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And help us to keep short accounts of confession and repentance to you in Jesus name. Now go ahead and be seated and make yourself comfortable.
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If at any time during the message you need to get up and use the restrooms. Out the double doors down the hallway on the left hand side.
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Otherwise if you want more donut holes or coffee. If there's any left back there. Take advantage of that as well.
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And then maybe more so than any other time. Alright. Maybe more so than any other time.
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You need to have your Bibles open to Psalm 51. Because as we go through this it's going to be kind of like drinking from a fire hose.
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I'm going to be verse, verse, verse. Point, point, point. And we're going to run through it. And I just want to kind of a little bit of a service announcement.
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I don't know if you noticed that I've got a little bit of a raspy voice. It seems like annually I have an allergy issue.
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And it ends up settling in my vocal cords. And so if I at any point crack like puberty is happening.
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Well I'm going to call it allergies. So we'll see how that works. But I just like to dispel that at the beginning.
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So that if it happens we all can chuckle and move along. But I don't. My number one prayer. And I'm being serious about this.
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My number one prayer every week. Is that nothing distracts from what God wants to do in your heart and life.
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And so I hope that none of that does. And that we're just able to carry forward and see what God has for us.
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Our outline this morning is going to be six admissions. Six requests. And then six more admissions.
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And each point corresponds to a verse. And this makes the request kind of in the middle and the highlight of the text.
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Because when we have sinned against God. Hear me carefully church. When we have sinned against God.
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Our only hope is for him to act to bring about restoration. Do you hear me?
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We have a tendency to think that the next step is for us to do, to do, to do. We've got to make up for it.
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We've got some kind of penance we need to do. We need to pay for it. We need to make. And certainly there is time for restitution.
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Don't get me wrong on that. Sometimes on the horizontal plane with others we need to make restitution.
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We need to clarify things in relationship with others. But we can't do anything to fix this.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? There's nothing that you are going to do. There's no offering. There's no sacrifice. There's nothing that you're going to do to fix your relationship with God.
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So we need him to act and that's why the center of confession is a request for God to act on our behalf.
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If he doesn't act we're stuck in our sin and we are in desperate trouble. So verse 1 we're going to buckle up and here we go.
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Verse 1 we see the first admission. Admit your sin requires God's mercy. Now it looks like a request and it kind of is.
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David is requesting God's mercy. But the very fundamental thing to each one of these things in this prayer of confession is that he is knowing something first.
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He's acknowledging, admitting something first and then reaching out to God. So David begins with a heartfelt plea.
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All of this psalm is dripping with pleading sorrow over his sin. One commentary
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I read this week reminded me that this running to God for his mercy.
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This running to God for his abundant grace and kindness. Is the fear of the
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Lord that is often spoken of in scripture. When we talk about fear of the Lord what are we talking about? We're talking about not running away from God and hiding from him.
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We're talking about running to him because we know we desperately need to be okay with him. He's the only one that has our destiny, our eternity in his hands.
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Only the person who understands God's position in the universe is concerned to be okay with him.
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Only the person who understands who God is, how holy he is, how righteous he is, how in control he is.
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Only that person is the one who wants to primarily be okay with him.
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It's ironic then that the one who runs to God to be restored is the one who fears him.
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And it is the one who is satisfied to hide in the shadows doing their own thing. It is the one who could care less what he thinks that is not living in the fear of him.
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In other words if you care what God thinks about you, that's a good sign. That's a good sign church.
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If you have ever cried out like David, have mercy on me, that is a sign of life. And David here appeals to God's steadfast love, his covenantal faithfulness to keep his promises.
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And he appeals also to God's abundant mercy. You see David experienced God as merciful all throughout his life.
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And now he leans on that truth in a moment of confession. And in a general sense David is couching all of his confession in terms of what he needs from God to be made right.
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Not what he has to offer to God to seek restitution. Admit your sin requires
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God's mercy is the first one. Second, admit your sin makes you filthy. In verses one and two, David uses all three common
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Hebrew words for sin. Transgression is the first one that we have in the English Standard Version.
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It is active rebellion against God. The word iniquity is a warping or twisting of the way
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God wants his people to live. A warping of the law. The word sin is a very generic word in our minds but it's a very specific word in the
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Hebrew language as well as in the Greek. It's ironic that both of those cultures borrow the word sin from the same exact area of life.
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They're both archery terms. They are both a term of constantly coming short when you pull the bow back and release the arrow.
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It never reaches the mark. Never hits the target. You can pull that thing back with all of your strength until the string breaks.
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You are not going to get that target. That's what sin, the picture of sin is falling short.
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Falling short, falling short like a chasm that's too far to jump. Like a target that's too far off and as far as you pull that bow, it's not getting there.
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That's the image that we have of sin. And so what's
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David saying in this? Second one, admit that you're filthy. David is clarifying that he has in his heart, he has in his life all the problems.
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All the problems. Transgression, iniquity, sin, I miss the mark, I shoot and I don't hit your holiness
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God. I have warped your truth. I have warped the way, twisted the way that you want me to live.
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And I have actively, you drew a line in the sand and said don't go across this line. And I just brashly stepped across and said what are you going to do about it?
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It's transgression. An active, willing knowledge of what God desires of us and a stepping across the line anyways.
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David is saying I'm filthy through and through. He needs to be washed. He's filthy. He is stained by his own rebellion against his maker.
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Admit in your sin, in your confession, that your rebellion, your twisting of his ways, your missing the mark has made you filthy in God's eyes.
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The third thing is admit that sin takes up your bandwidth. Sin takes up your bandwidth.
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I think many of us have lived in this place like David. A literal translation of verse 3 is this. For my transgressions,
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I, I know. The word I appears in the Hebrew language twice there.
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For my transgressions, I, I myself know it. David is emphasizing that he is super acquainted with his rebellion against God.
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Why? Because he's been rehearsing it in his mind. He has been rolling over them. They have been rolling over him.
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He is under the weight of them. And his mind has been consumed, his energy taken in considering his sin.
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Any of you ever been there? Where sin was such a weight on your shoulders that it was, it was before you during the day.
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It was with you when you laid down to bed at night and it was a struggle. And it was an ongoing presence in your mind.
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Unconfessed sin acts this way to us. Unconfessed sins have a way of just creeping into our everyday thoughts.
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Always on his mind. He lays down in a moment of quiet and there they are before his eyes again.
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Uriah, Bathsheba, sin. Unconfessed sin saps our power, church.
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Unconfessed sin saps our thoughts and even our will. I just, a genuine question, how much ministry is missed?
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How many men are unqualified to lead due to compromise of sin? How many women lack the bandwidth to realize their calling to glorify
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God due to unconfessed sin? How much energy and time is being taken up?
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Not in confessing it, but in hiding it. In pushing it down.
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In trying to keep it at bay. Admit to God that you have failed to be what he wants you to be due to your unconfessed sin against him.
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Fourth, admit who your sin offends. Who is your sin against? Now verse 4 is really easily misunderstood and I think it's worth looking at again.
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Verse 4 of 51, against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.
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And I think it's easily misunderstood primarily because we have very man -centered hearts. I confess that at the start of my study this week, to my mind and heart, it often goes to Bathsheba and Uriah and their families, right?
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How many of you know that other people were impacted by David's sins? Go ahead and raise your hand if you know that there were other people impacted.
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So how in the world can David say against you and you only have I sinned? But over the course of the study this week and really thinking about what
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David is doing here and who God is, God has convicted me that there is a much higher standard that I've been ignoring.
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A much higher standard that often gets sucked out of the back of our minds and we just don't pay much attention to it. David's statement that he has only sinned against God is a higher standard, not a lower standard.
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A higher standard. We should be embarrassed that our deeper concerns are for Bathsheba and Uriah.
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We betray our man -centeredness regarding sin when our hearts, the more that our hearts pull in that direction, the more that we can identify how we have moved away from our understanding of the awe and wonder of a holy and almighty
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God. That we would be concerned for David and Bathsheba and not concerned for God's holiness, not concerned for him.
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He says, it's you. You are the one that I have betrayed. You are the one that I have sinned against.
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Our sin, church, my sin, your sin, is always against God.
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And if that doesn't set a chill up your spine, if that doesn't make your knees knock, if that doesn't make a little sweat come out on your forehead, then we are not getting it, church.
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Every sin we've ever committed is against our creator, the mighty one, the sovereign king of the universe.
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Even when humans bear the harm, let me ask this question.
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Is it a bigger deal that you offend God or harm a person? Is it a bigger deal that you offend
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God or that you harm a person? But every time you have sinfully harmed a person, it has been a sin against God.
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Do you hear what I'm saying in that? The very God who defines what sin is,
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He is David's judge. Bathsheba and Uriah could certainly and may well stand as witnesses against David.
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But there is only one law giver, and it is according to his law that David will stand and give an account.
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And that is an accountability that I suggest to you, in our hearts and minds, should eclipse all other accountabilities.
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Why not sin? Because somebody might get hurt, because you might get caught. How many of you can think of all kinds of motivations to not sin?
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What should be our highest? Because of our mighty God. Because it is an affront, and it is against our creator.
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That accountability should eclipse all others, and in this, David gets it right. Admit that your sin has offended the just and blameless, holy law giver.
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Your sin is an affront to the one. Fifth, admit the scope of your sin goes beyond your behavior.
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This is often overlooked in our confessions. And again, we often can beat ourselves up over our foolishness and sin.
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Some of our confessions, if we're honest, might look like, Boy, that was dumb. I'm so stupid.
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I should have known better, and I'll do better next time, God. Man, how could
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I have done that again? I know better, and my heart is better than that. And I'm actually a better person than that.
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And God, you know that I'm better than that, and so I'll do it better next time.
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But that sentiment is completely absent from David's confession here. As a matter of fact, in verse 5, David goes the opposite direction.
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He doesn't go, I'm better than that, and I shouldn't have done it. He goes, I'm worse than that. You should be surprised
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I don't do it more. I've been a sinner from birth, is what he's getting at. It's not just a, it's not like,
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I've plunged into sin, and the first thing that I ever did wrong was having an affair with Bathsheba. The first thing
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I ever did wrong was that whole cover -up thing. No. He says,
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I've been a sinner from birth. No, no, no, not just from birth, from conception. This verse has been discussed for centuries, and most scholars land on this being a reflection of original sin.
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We never had to be taught to sin, right? Do you teach your kids how to sin? They're all perfect little cherubs, and you teach them.
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You say, you see that little kid with that toy over there? Clunk him on the head with this one and take that.
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We never have to teach them that, do we? Somewhere around 2, we all learn that we can take something by force, and we've been trying to do it ever since.
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And that's our nature. That's in us, from birth. It's a fundamental part of our very being.
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David here is admitting that his problem goes deeper than mere actions and behaviors. He's a sinner by nature, and he needs an ongoing work of God to empower him and help him.
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In confession, then, in this fifth one, admit your problems run deeper than one -off actions. It's a heart problem that only
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God can resolve. The sixth thing is admit that God is the very source of your conviction.
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In context, I believe that verse 6 exists to convey that David knows that the only source of his knowledge of right and wrong comes from God.
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In other words, he is not merely leaning on God for mercy and forgiveness, but he is also dependent upon God for wisdom and truth in his heart.
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How will we come to conviction and be brought to the reality of our need for repentance?
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It will be in God teaching us wisdom in our heart through the truth that he delights in. And where do we find the truth that God delights in, church?
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Where is that truth? It is in his very word. This is the place that we turn to know what
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God delights in and doesn't delight in. So, in confession, admit that your only hope for conviction of sin is found in God teaching you through his word.
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Without you, God, I won't even know what's right and wrong. Without you breaking in and teaching me in my heart the truth,
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I won't even know what to confess. We are so helpless that we will be ignorant of the depth of our offense against him if he doesn't open our eyes to truth and wisdom.
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And now we're done with our first six admissions, and we move into the heart of the requests. And how's everybody doing? Everybody doing okay?
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A little bit like a fire hose this morning? We're going to keep going? All right. A couple of you hanging in there. The first request is that David request cleansing.
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See it in verse 7. He alludes to major themes in the Old Testament. Hyssop was used in ritualistic cleansing of the tabernacle and later the temple.
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The altar, the priestly garments, the priestly implements were all cleansed by a bundle of hyssop branches dipped in water and splashed on them.
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David here doesn't only ask, but also conveys confidence in the result. So he's not only saying, please cleanse me.
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He's saying, if you cleanse me, I will be clean. If God cleanses him, he knows that that cleansing will indeed be effective.
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What God washes will be cleansed. In that sense, you could call God the greatest of cleaners. What he cleans will be as white as snow.
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Throughout scripture, that idea of scarlet sins being washed whiter than snow is a theme.
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And in confession, request that God cleanse you from the filthiness that you already admitted and then trust in him for his genuine cleansing.
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The second request in this beautiful psalm is restoration to joy. Unconfessed sin robs us of joy and gladness.
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And David here acknowledges that God has had a hand in making him miserable in his sins. The bones that God has broken are not literal.
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David isn't in a wheelchair and casts on his arms and legs. But instead, he is likening the pain of his sin and the misery of living with it, living with that pressure and that weight on his shoulders like having broken bones.
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He cannot be moved to joy as long as his sin is unconfessed.
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And note that he has been unable to hear joy and gladness.
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Unable to hear it. It's impacted his relationship with others around him. Even when others around him are rejoicing and glad, he cannot process it well.
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He can't take it in because of his unconfessed sin. There is something that conflicts with our ability to rejoice with others when we are hiding out in our sin, not bringing it forward to God.
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Request that God restore you to joy and gladness. And request that he enables you to hear it once again.
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I think some of us have been in that state, and I think all of us to some degree have been in that state, where you've been in a place with unconfessed sin and it's eating you up inside.
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Third request, the removal of your sin from his eyes. Ask for that. In verse 9,
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David asks for God to hide his sin and to blot them out, to remove them. He is now concerned for the right eyes.
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Back in 2 Samuel, he wasn't. He was concerned for Joab's eyes, and he said to Joab, let this not be evil in your sight.
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But at the end of chapter 11 of 2 Samuel, it says that this thing that David did was evil in God's sight.
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He is requesting that God use his divine eraser to blot out, to remove his sin.
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And have you guys ever used... We don't write that much anymore, right? Go ahead and raise your hand if you've used an eraser.
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You've used an eraser. Now, those of you that are my generation, do you remember those really weak ones, the kind of hard ones that weren't pliable?
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And you would erase and erase and erase, and no matter what, you could still read what was written. You guys with me on that? Maybe you have some of those.
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And it was like, that was the cheap pencil. Mom, buy me the good ones, right? But it was... You know what I'm talking about. So, you have those super weak erasers that barely remove the pencil marks, and it's still readable, but then you end up with all those scraps anyways.
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And it's like, you're still trying to get them off of there, but it didn't erase the mark. There's only one eraser that permanently removes any residual mark of our sin.
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Do you know what it is, church? It is the blood of Jesus Christ. The only eraser that removes all remnants, all markings of our sin.
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And we're left with pure, white, fresh dirt. I'm obviously jumping way up into the
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New Testament, but for good reason. Because our confessions, when we confess to God, it is based on more clarity than David's.
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We can certainly take David's prayer here and make it our own, but when we ask for God to blot out our sins, it would be silly for us to not lean into the thing that we know that David didn't fully grasp yet, wasn't fully revealed yet.
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We should go straight to the basis of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross for us when we confess.
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Blot out my sins. Remove my sins from before your eyes because of the work of Christ on the cross.
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The fourth request is a clean heart and a right spirit. A willing spirit. David is here asking for a new act of creation.
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Not merely a renovation of his heart, he's asking for a new heart. Because that is what we need most fundamentally.
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A heart that loves God and desires to do things his way. We don't need a new air filter and an oil change.
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Or a tune -up. We need a new engine, church. David wants here, he's expressing a desire to be done with sin.
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He's disgusted with his own heart. He wants a new heart and wants to be restored to that willing and upright spirit that wanted what
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God wants. In confession, ask God to give you a new heart that loves him.
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And if you've already asked him to save you and he's given you that new heart, then take on the second half of that.
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I would encourage you to ask him to restore you to a right spirit as you confess your sins.
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The fifth request, request that God keeps you close to him. David genuinely feared that God would depart from him.
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He saw this happen first hand with King Saul. And he saw what happened to his kingdom as the
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Lord departed from him. And there could be some controversy over whether or not we ought to confess this way. Should we pray,
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God, please don't cast me away? Please don't remove your spirit from me? Well, David feared being cast away from God.
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And I suggest to you, so should we. We are told in the New Testament to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
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Because it is only in our continued repentance, only really in him keeping us, that we have hope for salvation.
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You see, God provided the answer to our sin problem at the cross. The application of it is at the point of faith in Jesus Christ.
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You need to ask yourself, where was that? That was in a little classroom in the basement of the
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First Baptist Church in Middleville, Michigan for me. As an eight -year -old in an Awana program when a person stayed after late, when they probably could have been going home to their own wife and kids, and sat there and prayed with me to receive
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Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. He took the time to answer my questions, listened to me, listened to the heart of a little eight -year -old, prayed with me, and I received
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Christ there in that place. And the application of that truth, the application of that hope, the application of a new heart was given to me there in that place.
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But where is my confidence then? Is my confidence in that basement? Is my confidence back there?
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Is your confidence at a campfire where you went forward or raised a hand or went down and put your stick in the fire and said,
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I'm done with sin or whatever it is? Is it at your baptism? Where is your place of confidence?
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Your place of confidence is now. Are you repenting? Are you confessing?
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When you sin, do you want to stay close to God? Do you want a relationship with Him? That's where the confidence comes from.
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Are you hearing what I'm saying, church? Certainly you need a line in the sand. Certainly there had to be a time when you changed allegiance from the enemy to the
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Lord. But is that proven in your life? Is that an ongoing thing in your life?
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The confidence is found in that your heart desires obedience. Do you sin?
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Yes. I know that about you. Do you want to be done with it? Do you want, like Dave said at the introduction of the song, the thing that I'm looking forward to most in heaven is being okay with God.
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Anybody with me? That's the thing. I want to be done with sin and I want a pure and right relationship with Him.
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Not this ongoing cycle of I blew it again, God, and I'm back at Psalm 51 again.
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But it's a life of that. Settle in, church. Settle in, graduates.
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It is a life. If your life is going to be lived Godward, it is going to be very familiar with Psalm 51.
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Very familiar with it. Because these principles and these things and these admissions and these requests are going to have to be ongoing in your life.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? How many of you that are older would just raise your hand and testify, yes, graduates, that is true.
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Ongoing life of repentance. Ongoing life of keeping short account with God. See, David here is showing us his heart.
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We see the behavior and how many of you get a jaw drop when you read 2 Samuel 11 and go how in the world could
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David, I can't pay attention to David anymore. Adulterer.
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Murderer. Our jaws drop and we go, but here we see his heart. He wants to be with God.
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He wants the Holy Spirit with him. Guiding him. Convicting him. Drawing him along to better pasture.
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If you want God's presence with you, again, I would encourage you to see that as a sign of life.
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A sign that David is kept by God is found here in verse 11. He doesn't desire to be free from God.
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To cast him off like so many shackles around his ankles and his arms.
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He wants instead to be encumbered by God. Encumbered by his rules.
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Brought in and hugged and embraced by the Almighty. Surrounded by the
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Almighty. So that when I step out and begin to cross that line, how many of you know that it's better that God doesn't just let me throw myself headlong across the line of his law and his rules, but that when
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I go like this, he goes, ah, ah, because he's right here. You get what I'm saying? I'm walking with him and he's close to me.
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Instead of just letting me go range far afield from him. David wants that kind of closeness.
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And he's basically saying here, cleanse me, purify me. Keep me, hold me, stay close to me.
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Don't let your spirit go far enough away from me that when I step across the line, I can't hear his voice.
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Stay with me, God. That's a beautiful thing. Request that God keeps you close.
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The sixth request, that God helps in sanctification. And again, we already mentioned that joy goes out the window when our hearts are focused on unconfessed sin.
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But the second part of verse 12 is a new concept in this confession. David asks for God to uphold him with a willing spirit.
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Lowercase s, spirit, willing spirit. That he would give him a willing spirit. And the question is, what role do you see
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God taking in your desire for self -improvement? How many of you want to walk closer with Jesus?
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Raise your hand. You want to walk closer with Jesus. Good, I assume that that's true just by the nature of you being in church this morning. You took your time to come in and hopefully draw closer to God today.
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So do you pray in confession that you need God's help to be willing to obey? God, give me a willing spirit.
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Give me a heart that desires to follow you, that desires to honor you. Like David did. Request in confession that God help you to have the will to obey him.
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And this is not a one -off prayer. Keep asking him. God, give me a willing spirit.
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And now we get to the last six admissions. We're on the back stretch now. Let's go. The seventh admission.
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Admit that your sin gets in the way of ministry. Our unconfessed sin will interfere with our ability to teach, to lead, and to serve others.
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When a person is hiding from God in their sin, they're not able to confront one another. And despite the way our culture is all love and no teeth, true ministry, true community, true accountability, true fellowship is a ministry that goes deep with others, even to the point of loving rebuke.
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But the person who is hiding unconfessed sin will not be able to rebuke another.
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How will a compromised person who is hiding sin from God teach transgressors? They will kid -glove transgressors.
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They will not be able to encourage others to turn to God when they themselves won't turn to God. I don't think this verse denies, by the way, that a genuine unbeliever can be present in a church, a genuine wolf in sheep's clothing who has ill intent and rises up to leadership and feels comfortable telling others what to do but in themselves is full of hypocrisy.
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How many of you know that there's real hypocrisy in real people? There's real leaders who are not confessing their sins to God but are actually telling others to.
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That's a real possibility. There is real abuse that happens in the church. But a genuine believer like David who is hiding infested sin will be plagued in their conscience enough to struggle to minister to the needs of other sinners in a genuine way.
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If you're a genuine believer and you're hiding unconfessed sin, you are going to be torn up inside.
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If you're hiding sin and you're not torn up inside, I think you need to come to the cross.
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You've got to come to the cross. Eighth, admit what your sin deserves. Admit what it deserves.
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Acknowledge the reality of the pit that you've dug for yourself and where the end of that pit is.
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It's an endless pit. It's a bottomless pit. It is hell itself. Unconfessed sin deserves a verdict of guilty.
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In this specific case, David is guilty of blood guilt, a very significant word in the
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Hebrew language. It's very narrow in its focus. He has murdered a man. And he deserves to be condemned to death and he knows it.
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Admit that your sin deserves eternal death as the scriptures declare over all of us. And notice that the result of the pardon is that when
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God delivers from such a severe punishment, it results in loud praises to his righteousness.
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All of our worship recast should be fueled by this glorious change of destiny. It should all teeter on the reality that we are contemplating and considering what we deserve over and opposed to what we're promised.
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All of us deserved hell. And through Christ, we have been delivered to a promise of endless joy.
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And so we sing with that kind of fervor and gladness. We worship him all week long.
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That multiplies into months, that multiplies into years, that multiplies into a lifetime of gladness for a change of destiny for us.
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Admit what your sins deserved. Ninth, admit your unconfessed sin inhibits worship.
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It inhibits that worship. We can certainly sing to God while we have unconfessed sin. We can open our mouth and actually make the words come out.
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But when we're hiding from God, we are not really declaring his praise in any meaningful way. Unconfessed sin gets in the way of our praise.
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And so he asks for God to unzip his mouth. David is here technically both requesting and admitting something.
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He needs God's forgiveness in order to open his lips again to the genuine heartfelt praise of God.
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Admit that your sin gets in the way of worship. And then number 10, admit what won't solve the problem.
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David here says, hey, there's something that I thought of, and this isn't going to fix it. And all of us go there.
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There are churches on this globe that specialize in this idea that I can give a little something, and God will let me off the hook.
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I think many of us have gone through seasons of our life with that idea. I was raised in a church that taught me that accidentally.
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Because you have to emphasize grace so strongly to get away from the human notion that I can pay for my sins.
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That I can say so many Hail Marys. That I can give enough. That I can punish myself enough to overcome my own sin.
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How many of you have been through seasons like that? You've been in places? Three of us.
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Okay. So I can move on from this point. You're like, yeah, go on, man.
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Sacrifice will not solve David's problem, and he says so. Technically, of course, in David's particular situation, in his historical context, it is because there is no sacrifice prescribed in the
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Old Testament for adultery and murder. They were both capital offenses. There was no, like, amount of sheep that you could bring to cover your murder.
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This gets to the heart of the Old Testament sacrificial system. Hear me carefully, church. This is fundamental to your understanding of how the
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Old Testament interfaces with the New. It isn't the lamb sacrificed, but the lamb sacrificed by a person with a heart of sorrow and contrition over their sins that's acceptable to God.
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It's not the lamb. It's not the goat. In all that Old Testament system, they weren't just, like, I'll just bring that and then you're okay.
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Then you can sin again the next day and bring another lamb and, you know, that wasn't it. And you see that throughout the prophets.
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I despise your sacrifice. How can God despise the sacrifice that they told him to give? It's because their hearts weren't right with him.
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The heart always matters to God more, church. It matters more to him than outward acts.
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A heart that loves God but falls into sin, that's going to be restored. But a heart who sacrifices sheep to get
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God off his back so he can go about his life of sin is not okay with God. Admit that no offering you can bring will restore you in your sin.
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And again, this is a place to remind us that under the new covenant, a final once and for all sacrifice has been made for us.
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And his name is Jesus Christ. And the place of that sacrifice was his cross.
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Number 11, admit what he does desire. Admit what God does desire.
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God desires a heart that loves him. And a heart that loves him will be sorry and crushed by sin against him.
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When scripture says that God loves a broken and contrite heart, he's not some masochist who just likes to see us hurt.
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It isn't merely saying he likes it when your heart is broken. He likes it when your heart is crushed.
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No, he likes a heart that loves him in a way that desires to please him so much that when it's not pleasing him, it's downtrodden.
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It's sorrowful. It's broken. Do you get what I'm saying in that? Admit that God desires your heart.
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And this is a good place to assess your own heart, church. And consider whether or not you are honestly sorrowful over your sin, or are you more embarrassed that you got caught.
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And then the 12th and final thing, lastly, admit your sin affects your community.
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It's an interesting place for David to end in verses 18 and 19, all the way to the degree that some scholars don't even like these last two verses.
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And they say, these must have been added later. Must have been added later. Because they don't flow very well.
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And I think they flow amazing. Because, you see, what does sin entice us to?
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We are enticed to sin in isolation, but here David is concerned for Jerusalem. Here David is concerned for Zion.
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He's concerned for his people. He's concerned for the right heart of sacrifice to be restored again among the people.
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Why? Because he's put it in jeopardy. He's put the spiritual life of all of those under him, all of his people, in jeopardy.
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By living in this unconfessed sin. We're enticed to sin in isolation more often than not, right?
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It's usually in the privacy of our own hearts that we're enticed to sin and that temptation comes to us. And this is one of the greatest lies of the evil one.
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It's only going to affect you. Nobody else is going to know. It's just you. But David's concern for his sin in the final two verses shows that he's now concerned for Israel and Jerusalem as well.
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He wants God to do good to Jerusalem so that heartfelt offerings may continue in that place in the future.
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He knows his sin has jeopardized all of that. David is here admitting that his unconfessed sin has jeopardized those under him.
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For us, it may not be a nation who is looking to us. Probably not.
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Any of you over a secret nation I don't know about? An online posse? Online nation?
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I don't know. But I'm guessing that most of us have a family that we love.
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Whether that's a family of our spouse and kids or whether that's a family you're a part of as a child or whatever that might look like.
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How many of you have some friends? Be honest. Okay, some people put their hands back down. No, I'm just kidding.
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Gotcha. I think all of us have some friends. How many of you have some neighbors? How many of you work for a company?
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You have co -workers? You have people around you, right? People that are watching you? People that are looking to you?
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I went to a retreat. I think it was up at Camp Baruch El. A men's retreat probably 10 years ago, 15 years ago now.
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The speaker there gave a challenge to everybody, all the men that were there, to write out 40 reasons to not have an affair.
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40 reasons to not commit adultery. And so I took on that challenge the next week and I sat down with a pen and paper in hand and I still have that list in one of my journals.
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40 reasons to not have an affair. Do you know what makes up 90 % of that list? Any ideas?
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Names of people. Relationships. That I can't imagine sitting across a coffee shop table and saying,
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I blew it and it's over. Write out your list of whatever it is that tempts you and say, why not?
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Here's the reasons not. Because David here in verses 18 and 19 is bringing it home to the reality that we are not isolated church.
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We're not alone in this confession. We are together in these confessions.
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And our strength as a church and our unity together in the church in America which is looking weaker and weaker by the day.
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Anybody with me on that? Why are we so weak? Because we've forgot to major on the things that matter most.
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Christ likeness. The gospel. Making him exalted. In our unity together.
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God forbid that we're united around the second amendment. God forbid that our primary unities are centered online.
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Or with some political party or some faction or Ukraine flags or whatever it might be church.
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But that it is the gospel. It is the gospel. That unifies us.
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The one call from the church right now that the world needs, that America needs. Is the gospel.
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Are they hearing it from us church? They need to hear it from us.
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Not from some spokesman. Not from Don. Not from the elders. From us. And that will lead them to confession and repentance.
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Not our beating them up over their sin. You gonna argue someone?
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You gonna argue someone into the kingdom? Are you gonna argue them to turn from their sin before they understand the glorious good news of Jesus Christ?
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Before they're redeemed by him? Are you gonna give them a new heart? No, you gotta lead them to Jesus who is the only one who has those in stock.
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There's no supply chain problem with new hearts for Jesus. He's got them. He will give them freely to anybody that you will share.
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I can't fix you. And it's not my job to fix you. How many of you know that the church has embarked in the last 50 years on a project to try to fix people?
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We don't fix people. We lead them to the one who can. But everybody in our culture right now thinks that the church is the fixer.
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Because that's what we've spoken. Instead of being arrows pointing to God. That's what we're designed to be.
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There was a lot in there that wasn't in my notes and this was an 18 point message. So we're gonna wrap this thing up here.
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My voice held out. That's pretty cool. I just want to point this out in this last point.
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The sin that we think is private can become corporate in a hurry. And God forbid that we find ourselves in a place where we are pleading with Him for all who know us.
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To be restored to Him because of our terrible public failing. Now I hope that this text is not a downer.
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It isn't supposed to be. I hope you haven't received it that way. And if you have, I encourage you to go back and read it again from the lens of understanding.
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That God is calling us with a gracious plan. He's loving David. He's gracious to David.
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And He's providing him an opportunity to confess and to turn from his sin. His gracious plan for us is to be restored from our deepest darkness, church.
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So take this passage on as a model, as good principles, as good admissions, as good requests. When we find ourselves on the right side of conviction.
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On the right side. It is to God's glory and to our benefit that when we cross the line we hear from the
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Spirit, cut it out. Come back. Stay close. And I will forgive.
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And I will wash. Let's close our time reflecting on the only source of hope in this state of sinfulness that we find ourselves.
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Perpetually find ourselves. We need to keep confessing.
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Keep coming to Him in our transgressions and in our iniquities and in our sins. But the only basis on which we can reasonably think that He will accept our genuine sorrowful confession is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.
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And so we come to communion at the end of every service to make sure that that is the point. It is not our self -improvement project that's the point.
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It's not me giving you five things to go out from this place and do this week. It is a place to rest this week.
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A place of hope this week. Come to the tables with a heart of confession.
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Remembering that He bled for us, so we take a cup of juice to remember. His body was broken for us, so we take the cracker to remember.
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And let's go out from here with a commitment to run to God in this form of confession when we sin.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for this gift of confession, this gift of repentance.
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Without it, we would be left in a terrible place of broken relationship with you without knowing what to do about it.
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So I thank you that you give us this gift, and I pray that you would continue to hold us all on short account, that you would draw near to us, that you would hold us.
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Father, if there's anybody here that's living in unconfessed sin, they know it. Your spirit is on them to guide them and direct them into this confession.
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Father, I pray that this week, this afternoon, maybe even now during this time prior to communion during this next song, that some would pray and lift up a similar confession to David's to you.
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Father, I pray that you would help us to keep a short accounting, draw us close, keep us, and help us to recognize that the only hope that we have is the same hope for the world, and it is the new heart that you give us and the new destiny that you give us through your cross.
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I pray that you would protect us from thinking that there are other solutions and other answers, but that we would recognize in unity as a church that the only hope for the world is the good news that we can be set free from the consequences of our sins, and our sins can be washed.
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Though they be like scarlet, they can be made white as snow through the blood of Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that I pray.