“My Sins Are Gone!” – FBC Morning Light (4/1/2024)

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good Monday morning to you. I hope you had a wonderful day yesterday. Resurrection Sunday, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb.

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What a great weekend, right? To reflect upon the cross and what Jesus accomplished for us in his death on the cross, the burial, and then yesterday the resurrection from the tomb.

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I hope you had a great day yesterday worshiping the Lord together, worshiping our risen Savior.

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I trust that today gets off to a good start, your week gets off to a good start today, and doing so in the

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Word. Today in our Bible reading plan, we're reading 1 Samuel chapters 12 through 14. There's a passage in chapter 12 that, when

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I read about it, I thought of a couple stories that I heard of recently. One of them was a young man who, in his late teen years, had a girlfriend.

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He wasn't a believer at the time, and he and his girlfriend got hot and heavy, and next thing you know, she's pregnant.

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She then left him, broke up with him, and moved away.

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He said, I have no idea where she is, I have no idea where my child is,

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I haven't heard from him since. He, for years, dealt with the guilt of what he had done in that sin.

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The second is a similar story, but from a woman's perspective. In her youth, she was quite loose and profligate, had multiple partners, and as a result of those relationships, in one of those relationships, she ended up getting pregnant, and she chose to have an abortion.

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She, again, spent years dealing with the guilt of that, and trying to manage that guilt in just various ways, and was never successful in doing so.

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Both of these individuals were not successful in doing so until they came to Christ, and until they dealt with the reality of their sin.

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Where that ties into the passage in 1 Samuel that I want to look at is what happens in chapter 22.

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Just as a little bit of background, you remember the Israelites, they got looking around, and they looked at all the other nations, and all the other nations had kings.

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They didn't have a king, and so they came to Samuel and said, give us a king. We want a king. They were not happy with a theocracy, having

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God as their king. They wanted their own king, like all the other nations, and so they insisted upon it.

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And so Samuel went to God about it. God said, give them what they ask for, and God led

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Samuel to the choice of Saul as a king. Then they're going to suffer some consequences for that behavior, for that rebellion against God.

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But here's the point. In verse 19 of chapter 12, 1

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Samuel 12, I think I mistakenly earlier said 1 Samuel 22. Anyway, 1 Samuel 12, in verse 19, all the people said to Samuel, pray for your servants to the

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Lord your God that we may not die. Why would they say that? Because they have an overwhelming sense of guilt.

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Here's why, they say, for we have added to all our sins the evil of asking a king for ourselves.

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All right? So they acknowledge the sin that they have committed, and they are repentant for that sin.

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They're asking for forgiveness of that sin, and what's the result?

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What's the outcome of that? Samuel says to the people, do not fear. You have done all this wickedness, yet do not turn aside from following the

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Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. What's Samuel saying? Yes, you have committed great wickedness.

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It's right that you acknowledge that. But then he says, from here on out, don't fail to serve the

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Lord. Don't turn aside from following the Lord. Move forward from here.

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He goes on to say, do not turn aside, for then you would go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver.

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They are nothing. But then he says this, for the Lord will not forsake his people for his great namesake, because it has pleased the

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Lord to make you his people. All right, so listen. Has the

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Lord made you one of his people? By his grace, has he saved you, redeemed you from your sin, made you his child?

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All right, then here's the thing. If you have sinned, and you know you have sinned, and you have taken that sin before the

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Lord, and you have confessed it, you have acknowledged it, just as these Israelites did when they say, we have added to all our sins this evil.

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If you have come before the Lord and you said, I have added to my sins this evil, then the

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Lord says, fear not. Fear not. That sin is dealt with.

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That sin is taken care of. Now, get up and move forward. Get up and move forward.

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Move forward with a determination that from here on out, I'm not going to turn aside from following the

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Lord. The Lord has made me one of his people. I, therefore, will follow him.

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Circling back to those two individuals, both of those people came to that understanding and to that freedom from the guilt and the shame of their sin.

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The young man ended up becoming a minister, becoming a pastor, and very effective.

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The young woman, well, she too came to faith in Christ and ended up prospering in her

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Christian life, because both were able to see the thoroughness of God's gracious forgiveness, and that he does not forsake those whom he has called to himself.

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I hope that encourages you today and realize that our God is a God who forgives even great iniquity.

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Father, today we do thank you for forgiveness, and that it is complete, and that once sin is confessed and forsaken, we can indeed move forward walking with you.

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May we do so, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, listen, have a great Monday.