Christian Legacy - It Requires Devotion

God Centered Theology

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The following is a poem written by Linda Ellis called,

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The Dash. I read of a man who stood to speak at a funeral of a friend.

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He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning to the end. He noted that first came the date of birth and spoke of the following date with tears.

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But he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years. For that dash represents all the time they spent alive on earth.

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And now only those who love them know what that little line is worth.

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For it matters not how much we own the cars, the house, the cash. Although cash does make things a little easier.

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What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.

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So think about this long and hard. Are there things you'd like to change? For you never know how much time is left that still can be rearranged.

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To be less quick to anger and show appreciation more. And love the people in our lives like we've never loved before.

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If we treat each other with respect and more often wear a smile. Remembering that this special dash might only last a little while.

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So when your eulogy is read, when your life's actions too rehash.

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Would you be proud of the things they say about how you lived your dash?

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You will no doubt notice that on the tombstone in the picture in front of you. There is a line in the middle but no dates.

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No beginning year, no ending year, just a dash. Everyone has a year in which they were born.

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Unless Jesus Christ returns before we will all have a year in which we will die.

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It's appointed unto man once to die. What we see described in this poem and what

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I want to submit to you today. Is that what is far more important than the year of your birth. Although I would make the argument that the year of my birth is rather important.

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Since that's the last time and probably the only time in my lifetime. That NC State will win a championship in basketball.

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Beginning years, they certainly have importance. And an ending year certainly can raise in significance if someone dies early.

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Or if someone makes it to like with our sister Ethel Galden who was 100. Certainly carries a little bit of significance.

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But what's far more important than that is your dash in the middle. Because what that dash represents is what you're doing with the life

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God has given you. And never make the mistake of forgetting that it is God who gives you life.

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It is God who created you. It is the years that you spend living.

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And remember Jesus came to give us life and to give it to us abundantly. So if you haven't been living for this duration of your life thus far.

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You need to get living. There is so much to live for. But it is that time we spend living that has far more impact.

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And has the greatest potential to gain ground for the Kingdom and bring glory to God.

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So my question to you this morning. And what I hope to give you some resources and some biblical information on how to do this.

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The question is what are you doing with your dash?

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All of you have one. I have a dash. You all have a dash.

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What are you doing with it? If you're like me part of your story has some wasted years.

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Now you know someone could then make the immediate counter argument that you know even in those wasted years

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God is forming us and working on us. And I get all that. But we certainly can look at time periods in our life and say you know

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I wish I had of done more with that time. Now while you may not can go back and change anything.

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While there may be regrets. And while you may not can reverse possibly everything that happened in your dash.

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My submission to you this morning is that if you're here. And I'm guessing that most of you are alive because you're breathing.

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You're going in and out. In and out. I hope.

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If you're breathing there's still time. Your legacy.

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Your Christian legacy. While it will have points of definition from what happens in the dash.

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You can always make effort to change that legacy as long as you have breath.

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But don't wait. I know that. Well I know what the average ages are now. I know for a while it was probably what about 75 for men and probably what 82, 81 for women.

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I don't know what the latest things are. But don't walk around assuming you're going to make it that far.

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There's no guarantees. But what are you doing with your dash?

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It should come as no surprise that just like prayer from last week. If you remember the title it was prayer it requires devotion.

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Notice it says Christian legacy. It requires devotion. To have a

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Christian legacy in your life it will require devotion. A Christian's legacy is rooted in a person's heart.

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A heart pointed towards God and that loves

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God supremely will have a legacy of pursuing and obeying

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God. Even when still fighting with sin and enduring the trials of life. Now we're going to look at David's life this morning.

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We learn a lot of information about King David in the Bible. Specifically in the Psalms he wrote.

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David for a, I mean I guess you could say 100 % but there's probably,

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I mean obviously we don't have everything recorded. But David's life was pretty much an open book. We got all of his success.

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We got all of his failures. And everything in between. Right. Can you imagine if you knew that, if this don't convict you then maybe you really aren't breathing in here this morning.

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I mean check your pulse. Would you live your life any differently if you knew that your name and the events of your life would be recorded in inspired

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Scripture one day after you died? Hmm.

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May not be recorded in inspired Scripture. But God still knows.

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And He still will reward you for the deeds done in the body as a Christian. And we will suffer some form of loss for those times we did things with improper motives or disobeyed, although our salvation is secure.

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So I say this a lot when we talk about Old Testament people, or New Testament people for that matter. You know we love to pick on the

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Israelites. We love to pick on David and all these people. But are we really so different? We learn a lot about our friend

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David. Yet I would submit to you that through all the ups and downs, throughout all the success and the failures,

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David had his heart pointed towards God. David was a man who had a true and deep heart -filled desire to seek

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God's will and to do God's will. As I seem like I feel like I reference this almost every sermon now.

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Matthew chapter 7, the different foundations of the rock and the sand. It says, those that hear my words and do them are building on the rock.

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And those that obviously do not are building on the sand. And what does that mean? It means everything above the foundation, it may look really pretty.

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You can dress it up. If you're doing a house, you can have the best walls, the best carpet, the best paint.

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You can be a $60 billion house. And if it's on the wrong foundation, the winds and the rain and storms come, it's going to fall.

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By the world's vantage point, you may have a house on the surface that well, doesn't look that great.

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But if it's on the rock, it's going to stand. And that's how David stood.

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It's how he stood firm and endured all those things. David had sin. Yes, sure, that is correct.

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But David's life was full of a lot of trial. Look, just survey the

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Psalms. Almost every page is, Lord, thank you for saving me. I was encompassed and surrounded by enemies, and yet you delivered me.

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In the book of Acts chapter 13 and verse 21, it says,

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Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years.

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And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said,

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I have found in David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all by will.

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David is said to be a man after God's own heart. Wouldn't it be great if God could say the same thing about us?

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That we were men and women, even boys and girls, after God's own heart.

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We largely, and this is covered in a lot of funeral sermons, a lot of people will request to have the scripture of, when you stand before God He says, you know, good work you faithful servant of mine.

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Something to that effect. And that's certainly rightfully a very good thing to talk about in such a case, especially when you have a

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Christian that fits the bill. And every time I've preached it, it has fit the bill. But I think also sometimes we don't need to so focus maybe on that, but maybe we need to talk about how some of our

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Christian brothers and sisters are people after God's own heart. How could this be?

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How could someone with such great sin in their life, one that we're going to look at in a minute, how could someone like that be called a man after God's own heart?

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How could someone like David, with sin, ups and downs, success and failure, have such a great

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Christian legacy that we're talking about today? Well you see, to have a

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Christian legacy, one does not have to walk in sinless perfection. You see, just like David, we are all sinners saved by grace.

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Galatians 3 .28 says there's no Jew, no Greek, no male, no female, no free man, no bond man. We're all one in Christ Jesus, equal heirs of all that God has.

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It takes a lifetime of devotion and continual pursuit of God to see true and lasting sanctification come to one's life.

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And it is that sanctification, that devotion, that love for God, the effort in walking in righteousness that sometimes, we know the

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Bible says all things work together for good. But the Bible doesn't say that God is always going to show you how they're working together for good.

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You see, how many times do you do something for God in our flesh, we want and wish that somebody had a saw it so we could get credit, and we feel like nobody's noticing.

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And it's not that you're doing it in a sinful way, but you want to know that you matter. You want to know that all your effort matters, and that somehow it's making a difference in somebody's life.

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And you want to know it's not wasted effort, and that sometimes you even doubt, is there really a God? Because I don't see

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Him in my life. I've done that. I need to take heed to what James says, and don't be like that doubting man tossed to and fro by the waves of the sea.

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I need to have the unwavering faith. We want to know that we matter, we're making a difference.

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All the effort, whether you can see it in this life or not, it is creating a strong and lasting

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Christian legacy for you. And ultimately it has nothing to do with you.

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It has everything to do with God. Soli Deo Gloria, all glory to God alone.

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I know it must boggle the mind of the atheist. Those silly, crazy

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Christians do everything they do, and it's not for them, and it has nothing to do with them.

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Anything they do for Christ has nothing to do with what Andy Cain has to offer. It's the

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Holy Spirit's gifting me. It's the Holy Spirit's power working in me and through me.

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You owe everything to Christ. The very works of righteousness you do for Christ after you've been saved are still

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His righteousness working in you. Wrap your head around that one.

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What a great God we serve. No matter where you find yourself, no matter what you've done, no matter what your past, no matter what you're doing now or what you will do, as long as you have breath in your body, there's still time to turn it all around.

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And start building a Christian legacy for others to learn from. The key to a godly

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Christian legacy is to display and walk in the same characteristics that David had. And we're going to look at four of them quickly this morning.

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Number one, David had a heart of true faith. A heart of true faith.

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David had unquestioned, unwavering faith in God. And it was a faith that helped him conquer many giants in his life, and quite frankly it helped him conquer a very literal big giant at one point.

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First Samuel chapter 17 is recorded for us about his fight with Goliath. And verse 31 says,

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But David said to Saul, Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised

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Philistine shall be like one of them. For he has defied the armies of the living

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God. The Lord has delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, and will deliver me from the hand of this

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Philistine. Talk about some courage.

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Talk about some God -ordained, God as its origin courage.

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Oh, that we would have men and women of biblical Christ honoring courage in our day.

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There's no record of him fighting a Goliath before this instance. There's no understanding of whether or not he'd even know how to fight a

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Goliath. All David knew is that he had rescued him from lions, and from bears, and tigers, oh my.

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And he would rescue him from this uncircumcised Philistine. How many times do we want proof?

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Do we want evidence? Do we want to see and have confirmation that God will work before we ever take the first step of obedience?

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Shame on us! David says, no, because of who

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God is, I will obey. We need no further evidence.

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You've seen how God has worked in your life. How God works in your life, how he has worked in your life, how he is working and will work, is all you need to trust him.

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If all we had was the cross of Calvary, we'd have enough to trust him. And now many of us may never actually face a nine foot tall giant, but you have giants in your life.

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Sermon for another day, but you do have giants in your life. And these giants can be tackled, they can be defeated, you can live victoriously, you can overwhelmingly conquer through Christ.

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David also had a heart of true commitment to God's Word. He had a heart of true faith, and he had a heart of true commitment to God's Word.

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David had a deep love and a commitment to God's Word that I am, if it's possible to be envious without being sinful, that's what

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I'd be of it. I don't know what that would look like, but that's what I am. I'm like, as much time as I'm in the

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Word, I feel like I just don't get it like David did. I want to keep growing and being conformed to God's Word, and studying it, and learning it, and applying it, so I can be like David.

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Such a deep love and commitment. Psalm chapter 119, which is by far the longest psalm, and one that many people spend a lot of time in, it says, "'Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the

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Lord.'" You notice similar terminology here, friends? What have we looked at in Colossians 2 .6,

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"'Therefore as you have Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.'" 1 John we dealt with this, those that claim to know

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Christ, that claim to know Him, should also walk in a manner as He walked. Old Testament, walk in the law of the

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Lord. The Bible has one author, and so God breathed them along, but it comes from the same origin point, the eternal

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God of the universe. It's no coincidence that you see the same terminology in both testaments, because it's one book.

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"'Blessed are those who keep His testimonies.'" Noticing some familiar language here.

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How often have I said you are blessed in obedience, and God will not bless disobedience. "'Blessed are those who walk in the law of the

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Lord.'" Blessed are those who keep His testimonies. "'Who seek Him with their whole heart.'"

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Mark 12, Deuteronomy 6, "'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, with all thy strength.'"

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Notice He says in verse 4, "'You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently.'"

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Remember Hebrews 11, 6 from last week? "'Without faith it is impossible to please

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God.' For those who come to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who," what? "'Diligently seek

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Him.'" My goodness. Sometimes I just want to stop in the middle of a sermon, and just be quiet, and just be amazed at God's Word.

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The consistency. The harmony. I defy anybody to tell me

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God didn't write the Bible. Defy anybody to tell me it's not God's Word. When you see the beauty, and the majesty, and the wonder of it.

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And to think that one day I'll stand face -to -face with Jesus Christ Himself, who is the literal

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Logos, the Word of God. I just can't even imagine what that day will be like. Seek Him with your whole heart.

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Verse 5, "'Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes.'" David knew that it was not only important to read, and to study

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God's Word, but that one must be committed to it, and submitted to it in all their ways, in all areas of their life.

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David had a heart of true faith. He had a heart of true commitment to God's Word. He also had a heart of true thanksgiving.

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David was a man who possessed true thanksgiving towards God. Now you remember last week, Colossians 4 .2,

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devote yourselves to prayer. Or you could translate that, continue steadfastly in prayer. Remember it said, keeping alert in it.

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Or you could translate it as the ESV does, being watchful in it. So we are to devote ourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it, with what?

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Remember? Thanksgiving. No matter where David found himself, he was thankful.

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Now, I certainly am not saying this to say that we all do this. I think we are all guilty of it at one point or another.

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But one of the things you will largely hear at Thanksgiving time is, you know, we don't need to be thankful just at Thanksgiving time.

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I think as Christians we do a good job of being thankful, but David was the example of what that looks like.

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David was so thankful 24 -7 it seems like, that if there was a Thanksgiving at that time, he wouldn't even care if it was on the calendar.

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We certainly shouldn't walk around and not care about Thanksgiving. I think you get the point. Whether he was in a mountaintop or in a valley, he expressed thanksgiving.

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One of my favorite spots to see this in his life is Psalms 34. He says,

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I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall be continually in my mouth.

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My soul makes its boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. O magnify the

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Lord with me. Let us exalt His name together. I sought the

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Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who took to Him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed.

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This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

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And the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them. O taste and see that the

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Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. We could stand up here and read

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Psalms all day long, that would testify to the thanksgiving of David and his heart.

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And if you haven't noticed by now, and we're going to see this specifically in number four when we close in a minute, each one of these things, a heart of true faith, a heart of true commitment to God's Word, a heart of true thanksgiving, and we're going to see a heart of true repentance in a minute.

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Every single one of these points this morning you can pray. So just in case you were wondering, like I thought he said he was going to preach on prayer again.

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I am. You can pray all of these things. You can pray and be thankful. You can pray that the

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Lord would help you be committed to His Word. You can pray that you would have faith and won't doubt Him when hard times come.

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And let me just say in passing, if you're not prayed up, that's an old Christian cliche, prayed up.

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If you're not praying and preparing for the storm, if you're not getting ready for it, you won't be ready when it comes.

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You've got to be getting ready for it, praying up, being ready. Assume that it's coming in your life.

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Don't wait until you wake up one day, and the car's broke down, you've lost your job, and the bank account's run dry, and think, well

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I guess maybe I should pray now. No. My friends, we need to be praying beforehand, during, and after.

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So lastly, David had a heart of true repentance. A heart of true repentance.

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David was also a man, had this heart of true repentance, and was a man that fell hard into sin when he took his focus off God.

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Now, I'm not going to preach this section. I'm not going to elaborate. I'm going to give you summary style. I encourage you to go home and read 2

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Samuel 11 and 12 to get a more full context. But essentially, here's what happened. They went out to battle.

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David stays behind. So, right off the bat you've got disobedience. He's not where he's supposed to be.

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His focus is off God. He sees Bathsheba. Spare you the details, he likes what he sees, so on and so forth.

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Sleeps with Bathsheba. Has Uriah sent out to be murdered? And then takes Bathsheba as his wife.

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Sin, sin, sin, sin. He lies about it. The same guy that is called in Acts chapter 13, a man after God's own heart, and that's the guy that did all those things.

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Something just seems awry, doesn't it? Then in chapter 12, Nathan shows up on the scene and rebukes him.

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He tells him this whole little spill, and David is like, it's something where it's obviously who the villain is of the story.

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And David is like, whoever that man is, he should be put to death. And Nathan says, you are that man. Boy, Nathan, we need some

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Nathans in our world today too, who can lovingly confront, have that courage. I mean can you imagine?

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I mean confronting someone that you know they'll take it kind of well, or if you have kind of a rapport with them.

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You've got to confront David, the guy that killed Goliath. The guy that's a man after God's own heart. The man that's going to be the king.

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And you want me to confront that guy? Somewhere along the line the Holy Spirit said,

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Nathan go. Go tell David this. You confront him. My man has sin in his life, and he needs to get it gone.

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He needs to get it gone. He needs to get it dealt with. And in 2

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Samuel 12, 13, David responds correctly. When he's confronted, he doesn't have excuses.

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He doesn't justify his sin. He doesn't say, well, you know. No, he says,

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I have sinned against the Lord. All sin is against God.

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He's the only one that is eternal, that is perfectly righteous, perfectly just, perfectly holy.

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He's the only being in existence that has the right to demand justice, to demand that sin against Him is dealt with.

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And David knows this because he had a heart of true repentance. Therefore, he says,

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I have sinned against the Lord. And then in Psalms 51, and we're not going to go through this whole psalm.

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I'm just going to touch on a few parts of it, a few couple verses here, and then we're going to draw this to a close.

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Psalm 51, we get David recording what is one of my favorite psalms.

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You know, if you ever want to know what psalms and what things your pastor loves to read, Psalm 51 I probably read once a month at least.

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I love this psalm. A psalm of his prayer of repentance to God because of his sin. And this psalm is in direct response to his sin with Bathsheba.

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And look at what a heart of true repentance looks like. And like I said, we're not going to go through all this for time purposes, but I want you to listen to the highlights

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I bring out, and I encourage you to go home today and read this psalm in its entirety, so you can pick up what I don't cover.

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But in verse 1 he says, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy.

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It's a psalm of prayer. Notice he asks.

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He prays for mercy. Notice that he says, Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

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He's praying. He's asking to be washed thoroughly from his sin. Verse 3,

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For I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me. He knew what his sin was. Now Nathan fits into the story, and he obviously plays a vital role.

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But Nathan did not have to come and tell David what his sin was for David to know what his sin was. Think about that.

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If you've sinned against God, you're a Christian, you know it. You feel the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.

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You know that sin is in your life. You know you need to deal with it. I know. That's why he says,

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My sin is ever before me. There was no movies then, but in 2019 context,

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I kind of picture it like you're sitting there watching a movie screen, and your sin, whatever it is you did, keeps playing on loop, and on loop, and on loop, and on loop.

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And it's just there, it's there, it's there. It's ever before you, and you want to get it out of your mind, but you can't until what?

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You've dealt with it. You've repented. You've submitted and humbled yourself to the

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God of the Universe, and repented. And 1 John 1, 9 says, You confess your sin, He is faithful to forgive you, and to cleanse, present tense verb, ongoing action, continually cleanse you, in sanctification from all unrighteousness.

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Verse 7, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. He's asking

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God to purge him from his sin. Verse 10, Create in me a clean heart, O God. Spirit within me.

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He prays and asks for a clean heart. Verse 12, Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

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I hear a lot of talk about joy. About wanting to see joy. Our joy comes from our salvation, which is found in Christ and the way, and the path to true joy is the path that leads directly to God.

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It's not false harmony you want, it's true unity and true joy, and that's found in the heart of true repentance.

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Getting sin dealt with, getting right with God, walking in righteousness is the path that always leads to joy.

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And David knew that. And then finally, verse 16 and 17, he says, For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.

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You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God, and if you have not been listening up until this point, now is the time to clue in.

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The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, oh

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God, you will not despise. God does not require or desire ritual tradition.

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He wants a broken heart of repentance. A heart that loves Him supremely.

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Any sin that's ever been in my life, any sin that ever needed to be dealt with, it did not come from external conformity, or well,

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I'll just make sure I don't do that no more. Well, you know, I slip back here, maybe

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I should just give it my best effort the next day. Remember Cain and Abel?

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Cain, by all accounts, offered exactly what God, we don't have it recorded for us, we don't know what God told them to offer.

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But Cain, by all accounts, offered exactly what God told him to offer. So why did he reject it?

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Because he didn't have the right heart. My friends, a broken spirit.

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A broken and contrite heart. You've got to get to the place where you love

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God more than your sin. You've got to hate your sin the same way

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God hates it. And yes, God hates things. And we should hate that which

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God hates. We should hate our sin. We should love God supremely.

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So, when I ask you again, what are you doing with your dash?

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You might say, well, Andy, I've had some good years, I've had some bad ones.

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But lately, I don't think I've been living for the Lord. Or maybe I want to, but I keep doing some ritual thing, or something

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I feel like, well if I do this then that will make everything okay. But my heart hasn't been broken.

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My heart hasn't been humbled. And I'm worried, maybe you're in here and you're older.

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See, I'm worried because I want to have a good legacy. I want people when I die, and I want my children and my grandchildren to say, mama, or daddy, or grandpappy, or papa, or whatever you go by,

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I want them to be able to say, you know what? They didn't have a perfect life. They didn't always get it right, but they loved

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God. They had a heart of faith, commitment to God's Word, thanksgiving, and repentance.

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It's not too late. Submit yourselves to God. Love Him supremely.

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take true consideration of how you are living your dash.