Forgiveness Through Imputation (03/16/2003)

Park Meadows Church

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We're in Psalm 103 this morning, if you would turn there with me, to verse 10, we're working our way through verses 10 and following, and we'll do a little bit of review each time.

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We're talking about the forgiveness of God, what we can learn about the forgiveness of God.

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For some weeks now, we've been studying the overall scope of the great doctrine of salvation, the different points that God gives us, reveals to us to study, the eternal plan of God, redemption of us by the blood of Jesus Christ, the propitiation of God's justice, in other words, the satisfaction of God's justice, the reconciliation that is brought to man, all of which takes place because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, and that brought us to the topic of forgiveness, which is certainly a key part of our salvation.

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So, read with me, starting with verse 10 in Psalm 103, and we'll go down at least to verse 18.

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He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

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For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

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As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

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Like a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

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For he knoweth our fraying, he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

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For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.

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But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto children's children, as such as keep his covenant unto those that remember his commandments to do them.

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The first portion of this passage we read, starting with verse 10, shows that David understood forgiveness probably better than any

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Old Testament saint understood it. Perhaps that's because his sin was greater than most in the

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Old Testament, and he was forgiven the greatest, so he studied forgiveness. But he starts out in verse 10 with a concept that really most people don't understand until they get into the

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New Testament, it's the concept of imputation. Imputation is an accounting term, and it means that God has taken the sins from our account and placed them in Jesus' account, as if he did them.

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And he then took the righteousness and perfection and holiness and beauty of Jesus and placed that into our account, to those who believe on him.

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And this is the doctrine of imputation. So we see he hath not dealt with us after our sins, he dealt with us according to Jesus' righteousness, not according to our sins, that's the doctrine of imputation.

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And then, for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him, this deals with God's mercy, but we have already taken care of God's justice through imputation, and now his mercy is brought to bear.

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In fact, his mercy is able to cohabit with his justice because of the doctrine of imputation.

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And then it moves on and shows the fact that the true definition for forgiveness, in David's heart and mind, was not the covering of sin, but the removal of sin from the sinner.

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For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

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As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed, that's a key word, our transgressions from us.

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So we've studied those aspects of imputation, the ability of God's mercy to cohabit with his justice, and the fact that the forgiveness of God is the removal of sin from the sinner.

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We talked about the psychology of a forgiven heart and mind, why it's healthy psychology for the

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Christian to understand that doctrinally the Bible teaches your sins have been removed. And then we talked about the consecrating effect of this knowledge.

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Just knowing that God has removed your sin will cause you to live as you ought to live, will cause you to live more for the

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Lord. Alright, now, we're going to move into new territory, look at verse 13 this morning.

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Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. This word pity in the

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English is different than it is in the Hebrew. You guys find a seat and light somewhere, boys, up in, quit talking, sit still, or go to the back where no one can see you.

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Because if I lose my concentration, we're all in trouble, so pay attention, be quiet.

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Alright, verse 13, like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

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This word pity is not like the modern meaning of it in the English. It is the Hebrew word rakam, which means literally to fondle or have compassion.

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It's a very compassionate term of the relationship between a parent and a child.

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And this is what it means when it says the father has this compassionate relationship upon his children.

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Doesn't mean he feels sorry for them, at least that's not the primary meaning of it as it currently means in modern

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English. It has the older meaning of the fact that the father loves his children and fondles his children.

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The children sat on the lap of Jesus Christ is a beautiful picture of this, but this is how

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God's relationship is to those who are forgiven, to his children. And then the next point that I would see is this, forgiveness is necessary because of the weakness and temporal nature of man.

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Look at verses 14 through 16, for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust.

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As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

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For the wind passeth over it, and it's gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. And the next point is this, his forgiveness and mercy are eternal.

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Look at verse 17, but the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto children's children.

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Notice that the phrase from everlasting to everlasting encompasses all that we know about time, and then goes to infinity on both sides of it, both ends of it.

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It goes out to a place where time began, and you can go before that as far as you can think, and God's mercy is there for his own.

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And it goes to the end of time, and goes out into eternity, what we would call eternity future.

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God's mercy is still going, from everlasting to everlasting upon all them that fear him.

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And then notice it defines next who these are, who these people are. This is not a teaching of salvation by works.

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This is not teaching that God looks at you and tries to see if you do good works, or see if you have faith, or see if you fear him, and if you do, he then gives you his mercy.

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His mercy is not a if -then situation, it is the beginning. It comes from everlasting.

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His mercy came from long before you ever did a good work, long before you ever knew to fear God, long before you had faith in your heart and mind.

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His mercy was already there. So who is it for? Look at verse 18, to such as keep his covenant.

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Now those who keep his covenant have God's love according to Deuteronomy 7 verses 6 through 8, simply because they have

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God's love. Now you can go read that when you get home, but I'm not preaching on that this morning.

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If I got on this rabbit trail, we'd be here a long time. But verses 6 through 8, God says the only reason that I love you is because I've always loved you.

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It has nothing to do with your good works, your faith, your fear of God, any of the things that you in this earthly timeline have done.

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The things you do are not the cause of his love. They are not the cause of his mercy.

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In fact, it's the other way around. His mercy is from everlasting, and it is in fact what causes us to want to live for him once the light is turned on, as it was with Paul on the

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Damascus Road. To those who keep his covenant, well let's think about that phrase just a moment.

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Go to Romans, stay right here where we are, but take another hand and go into Romans chapter 4 verse 12.

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Let's talk about this covenant just a moment. It is so important, and Gentile Christians today understand it so little.

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You almost have to study through Jewish eyes and Jewish mindset to really get to the bottom of salvation, because it goes back to the

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Abrahamic covenant. It's important that we understand this. The modern theology today of salvation by works comes under many guises, and it's found even in Baptist churches galore.

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The Baptist will say with his mouth, I believe in salvation by faith, but with his actions he acts as if he believes in salvation by works, or as if what he does has a part to play in his salvation, or God's love for him, or God's mercy.

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And so much is focused today on the actions of man, and this is because humanism has crept into the church.

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We focus on how the Bible can make man successful. Many of the sermons across this country this morning will be on how man can be successful by living from the

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Bible. You go back 100 years ago, it wouldn't matter if you were in a Methodist church, Baptist church,

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Presbyterian, Lutheran, you would hear a sermon on God on Sunday morning.

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Today you hear a sermon on how to rub the bottle and get God to come out of it so you can tell him what you need and what you want him to do.

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James says that when we pray for selfish motives, that's not the way it works.

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And yet the theology of today is based upon that. Actually, that theology carries itself over into the realm of salvation and presents itself by and large as a works salvation, a salvation that's based so much on what man does that it places man at the center of it.

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Have you accepted Jesus? Did you find Jesus? Pray this prayer, dear Jesus, come to my heart and save me, amen, now you're saved.

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Formulas, not all that different than the Roman Catholic Church has derived for so many years. We find ourselves living in a day where God is forgotten and man is lifted up.

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But let me show you where your salvation comes from. We've already seen that it comes from everlasting.

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God's mercy was already there to those that fear him. Who are those that fear him? Romans chapter 4,

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I'm going to skip down to verse 12, but I do want to catch verse 3 before we get there. Verse 3 says, for what saith the scripture,

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Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

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There is a great definition of the doctrine of imputation. You see, it simply says

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Abraham believed and then God counted it as if he were a righteous man.

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In other words, God put his own righteousness upon the life of Abraham.

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Abraham didn't do that. He was not a perfect man. We're all familiar with the story of this man who from time to time had a problem with lying and other things.

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He was not saved because of his works. He was saved because he had

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God's righteousness upon him and it was counted to him. Accounted to him would be a good modern

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English word. It's an accounting term. This is imputation. Now drop down to verse 12.

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And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father

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Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised. It points out that the Abrahamic covenant was given to Abraham before he was circumcised.

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He was actually a Gentile, believe it or not, when the covenant was given to him before he was circumcised.

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And then it goes on and says for the promise. Now this promise is the same word in the

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Hebrew as the word covenant. And it's what we're talking about in our passage today, that God's mercy is from everlasting to everlasting to those who take part in the covenant.

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See verse 18 in Psalm 103, to such as keep the covenant. It's the same word as this word promise in Romans 4, 13.

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For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

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Look at verse 16. Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed.

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Do you understand what that says? If any part of your salvation had to do with your works, the promise would not be sure because you could fail.

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You could lose your salvation in that case, but God has made it so that no part of what you do has any part in the keeping of yourself.

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Isn't that wonderful? You are held in the hand of a sovereign God who says that your name is inscribed in his palm.

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And Jesus himself said in John chapter 10 that you are in the father's hand and then my hand is on top.

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No man, in fact in the Greek it literally says nothing. It doesn't say no man. It says nothing is able to pluck you from my hand.

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I and my father are one. So you see God has worked out this covenant in such a way that the promise is sure to all the seed because it's based on the promise of God and his faithfulness rather than our own.

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Our faithfulness is wishy -washy. It's not even really faithfulness if you took the true definition because you're either faithful or you're not.

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So God is truly the only one who is faithful. Jesus Christ is the only faithful one and isn't it wonderful that our salvation is based upon him because the law worketh wrath but where no law is there is no transgression.

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Verse 16, therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of all.

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That brings in the Gentile. Verse 18, who against hope believed in hope, this is Abraham again, against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations.

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This means the Gentile nations as well as the Jewish nation. According to that which was spoken so shall thy seed be.

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Verse 20, he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God.

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Verse 21, the greatest definition of faith in the Bible being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able to perform.

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Do you believe that about your God this morning? Do you believe that what he promises you he is able, completely, absolutely able to perform?

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If you do, you have faith. Faith is believing that God will do what he said he will do and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.

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Abraham is used again as the model. He believed that God would do what God said he would do even when it seemed impossible.

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He had promised him a son in his old age but he just believed God could do what

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God said God would do. He did not focus on humanism. Abraham didn't focus on his wife and himself and try to figure out well how can we make this come true?

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How can we make it seem as if God's doing something? You know there's another problem in modern day religion.

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There are so many groups out there trying to make it seem like God's doing something that they bring forth counterfeits in my opinion.

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But you don't have to do that, just believe God. Believe that God be fully persuaded that God will do what he has promised and then it shall be imputed to you as if you are righteous.

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In other words because of your faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, God has taken the righteousness of Jesus and placed it in your account and counted it for righteousness for you.

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Now it was not written for Abraham's sake alone that it was imputed to him, isn't that wonderful news?

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But for us also to whom it shall be imputed. If we believe on him that raised up Jesus our

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Lord from the dead. If we believe the father was telling the truth when he raised

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Jesus from the dead. What truth was he telling when he raised him from the dead? The gospel truth that this truly is my son in whom

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I am well pleased. Who was delivered for our transgressions and was raised again for our justification.

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Do you see how it's the finished work of Jesus? It's not the work of man. Forgiveness comes from God to man and it is not based on man's actions, it's based on God's agape, agape love.

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It stems from the source of the love, not from the object of the love.

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5 .1 says therefore being justified by faith we have peace. You can't have peace without forgiveness.

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Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

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The Bible teaches two kinds of forgiveness actually. It teaches an abiding judicial forgiveness and sometimes we call this positional forgiveness because it has to do with our position from God's viewpoint as the children of God.

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And secondly, God teaches a forgiveness in the Bible that is an often repeated forgiveness within the family of God.

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We call this our state. The judicial abiding forever eternal forgiveness could be called our standing.

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The often repeated forgiveness like 1 John 1 9 deals with could be our state. It has to do with our experience in time as a child of God dealing with the family of God.

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The positional forgiveness that we've read so much about has nothing to do with time and has nothing to do with our walk.

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It has everything to do with our relationship. In other words, no matter what we do today or tomorrow or the next day, we're still

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God's children if we're born again. And yet there is a type of forgiveness where God says when we do an act of sin, we should come and confess that and be forgiven.

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I want you to turn to Leviticus chapter 16 and verse 1. We're moving gradually,

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I'll admit, but we are moving towards a discussion of that experiential type forgiveness.

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But the greatest mistake that's been made among Christians and some theologians is if they start with the experiential type first and they don't have a good grounding in the position.

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That's why we're looking at every verse we can put our hands on to talk about the positional forgiveness first.

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That aspect of our forgiveness that has to do with the finished work of Jesus, the complete work of Jesus.

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That is so important to understand our position before we move into the part about experience. But I want us to stop for a moment in the middle of this, look back at Leviticus chapter 16 verse 1 and begin to look at the types in the pictures again.

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What you're going to find is very interesting is you're going to see both types of forgiveness pictured in the sacrifices and the clothing that the priest wore and so forth.

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So read, follow along with me, Leviticus 16 verse 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they offered before the

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Lord and died. It begins with a warning not to perform religious acts that God did not tell us to perform.

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It teaches so sternly not to try to worship God man's way, but to look into the revealed word of God and worship

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God as God wishes to be worshipped. There's a great danger there in modern theology,

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I believe. I think many groups strive to find any of the next newest thing they can do to act like that's something we do in worship.

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Very, very dangerous. These two young sons of Aaron burned strange fire before the Lord and God killed them, thus showing his mind to us forever.

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His heart and mind on the issue is, worship me my way. And he moves on and begins to speak of his way a bit in verse 2.

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And the Lord said unto Moses, speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the veil before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark, that he die not, for I appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.

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Why is it so important that they do it exactly like God says? So and if they don't, God will kill them.

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Why is it that stern? Because what they are doing, as the book of Romans and the book of Corinthians says, are for types and signs for us who live in the last days that we may understand spiritual truths.

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So as we look at these physical sacrifices, they teach the spiritual underlying truth that is for us today.

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So they had to do it right, lest we would see a picture that was wrong. He warns him, lest he die not, for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.

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This mercy seat was a human model of the real place in the heavenlies. And these things were done, were human models to teach spiritual truths of what really happens in the realm of the heavenlies by Jesus Christ with his finished work having been done, and then he going and presenting, his going and presenting the blood at the throne of God in the heavenlies.

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And all that that accomplished, even the clothes that the priest wears, pictures the robe of righteousness that we have because of Jesus Christ.

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And it also pictures the body that we will have after we leave this body. God does not leave our soul and spirit naked, so to speak, as without a body.

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He places us within a glorified body, perhaps a temporary one if you die before the rapture, and then at the rapture your very body will be put together right.

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It will be put back together, put together right as a glorified body, and you will live in that tabernacle again some day.

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But it pictures this heavenly body, and we're moving towards what God says about it here.

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Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place with a young bullock for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.

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He shall put on the holy linen coat. Now we're starting to picture these garments that the priest wears that picture positional things.

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And I want you to follow with me and understand what I mean by positional things. Even the concept of the priest in many ways had to do with things the priest had no control of whatsoever.

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It takes it completely to the sovereignty of God. For instance, these priests had to be near perfect specimens of human men.

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They could not have blemishes. There were other things that if they had wrong with their physical body, they were disqualified to be a priest, and yet they had no control over those things.

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They were born the way they were. So it takes it back to the sovereignty of God is what makes a priest be a priest.

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That's position. This priest had a position before God that he had nothing to do with other than learning from God that it was his position.

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And then once he learned, he was to walk accordingly, and that was his part. But by then, the salvation that's pictured has taken place.

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Now we understand we're all believer priests, and so this relates, everything here relates to each individual that's in Christ.

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He puts on the holy garment, the holy linen coat. He shall have the linen britches upon his flesh.

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He shall be girded with a linen girdle, and with the linen miter shall he be attired.

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These are holy garments, therefore, now look at this. Everything we talked about up to this point was positional.

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Things that God does to us, and then in the last part, it shows experience.

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Therefore, shall he wash his flesh in water, and so put them on.

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Do you know that God is a God? He's written the Bible in such a way that if you study and you allow the

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Holy Spirit to teach you with an open mind where you just want to know the truth, you don't care the garbled up things that were brought to you by the past.

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You don't know whether some of it's hearsay. You don't know whether some of the things you've even heard preachers say came out of the

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Bible, and they heard another cool preacher say it, so they repeated it. Who heard another cool preacher say it, so he repeated it, and it goes back, and you go, look, it's not even in there.

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We talk about many days at coffee, we talk about things we've even said and taught and preached that are not even in here because we heard some other cool pastors say it.

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We need to go back to the word of God as mature adults, as mature believers in Christ, and get

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God out of the box that your forefathers put you in, whether it be a Baptist box, a

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Methodist box, a Pentecostal box, and just go to the word and say, God, what are you saying?

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What are you saying? And if we will, we will be a people of balance.

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You can go to the Ark tomorrow downtown and buy books that'll teach you almost anything you would ever want to know.

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And it's not all true, but because it's in print, we tend to believe it. And the people who write are very convincing people.

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And so the pendulum of theology swings back and forth. There's a group that really is strong in the positional truths, the sovereignty of God, and the fact that our salvation is all of God, and that our forgiveness is all of God, and that we have been totally forgiven, and our sins have been removed from us as far as the east is from the west.

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It is gone. And those are certainly truths, are they not? We could find scriptures. We've already read many scriptures proving that very case.

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But sometimes when we get so far off over on one side, then we think that 1

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John 1, 9 is not important. Or we say, well, I don't understand how that can be true if the other is true, so I'm just going to leave that off.

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The part about when we do sin, confessing, a part we're supposed to do, to confess that sin to the father and be made back into a right relation with him as a child and a father relation.

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You say, well, how can both be true? Well, they're both found right here in verse 4 in this Levitical picture that's given to us.

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Great detail is given to talk about this linen, holy linen coat.

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I started to say lemon. This holy linen coat pictures the very righteousness of God that is placed upon us by imputation onto the believer.

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But in the very midst of this study, we see that it says, so shall he put them on.

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It tells us how to put on the positional things in our hearts and minds.

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How do we go about taking advantage of our position? How do we go about living as if we are forgiven?

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We first wash our flesh in water. That is the experience part.

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That is the asking of forgiveness for the sin we did yesterday or today or a moment ago.

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And the washing of the water pictures 1 John 1, 9. If we confess our sins, not only 1

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John 1, 9, but other Old Testament passages where David writes about both kinds of forgiveness.

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Always included with the position is the experience of coming to the father and confessing the sins.

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Do you know that that's very important for us? When you have a child that's done something wrong and he has to be disciplined by the father, it's very helpful for him to confess what he did and agree with the father that he's right to get the spanking.

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And that way, when the spanking's done, it's over and we move on and we're forgiven and the fellowship is restored.

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We're all part of the family and we can go play games together. So that part is so important.

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Some theologians minimize the importance, but God does not. He puts it right in the midst of all the positional, wonderful things that God has provided, pictured by this holy linen coat, the very righteousness of Christ that we have, total forgiveness, the total removement of our sins.

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And yet, he says, when we do sin again, wash our flesh with water. The water pictures the water of the word and it pictures confession.

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The priest, it's interesting, had no inheritance in Canaan. The Lord himself was their total part and inheritance.

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And you know that's really how we are. We really own nothing in this world. We're just passing through.

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We're pilgrims. We're very much like this priest. And then the priests had some qualifications that dealt with the concept of holiness.

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They had to be free from bodily defect or infirmity. They had to also be free from defilement in home life and conjugal relations.

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All of this pictured and symbolized the spiritual blamelessness and the sanctification that was on the inside of the heart.

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These outward things pictured what was on the inside. But isn't it interesting that he had to be free of bodily defects and infirmities?

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He was born that way, had nothing to do with it. It's the sovereignty of God that provides the positional righteousness and the positional forgiveness.

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And yet, the priest had the idea of consecration involved as well, which was the outward sign of sanctification.

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The washing of the body symbolized the purifying of the soul from the pollution of the world and of sin.

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And these beautiful garments, which picture so much, the color of the predominant robe was white, which is symbolic of glory and holiness.

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The britches were that part which concealed the flesh and nakedness. The coat covered the whole body.

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It's interesting to note that it was woven of one piece, which pictures spiritual integrity, blamelessness, righteousness, blessedness of life.

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And it was a four -cornered form of cloth symbolizing that the one wearing it belonged to the kingdom of God.

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The cap which he wore resembled the shape of the inner part of a flower, which points to the blooming character and fresh vigor of life that the priest was supposed to have.

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And it's interesting to note that they tied the bonnet on their head. They tied it with a chin strap because if it blew off or fell off, it would create a type or a symbol that would be totally inappropriate.

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And therefore, they tied this cap on so that it would not fall off, lest it fall off and symbolize the falling of a flower, the going away of the vigor of life.

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You see, it would picture that you could lose your salvation if the cap blew off. They were not allowed to picture that.

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The girdle was a sign of service and of battle. Before the warrior would go to battle, he would gird his robe, his long flowing robe.

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He would take it up, tie it around him, and tie it in such a way that he could perform service or battle.

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Jesus did this before he washed the feet of the apostles. So the girdle pictures the service that we have.

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It's also interesting that it was of the same color and same style as the veils of the sanctuary in order to show that the priest was of an, he was an office bearer and an administrator in the kingdom of God.

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The high priest had a little bit more garb than the other regular priest had. He had an upper robe, which was woven of blue yarn in one piece, which pictures spiritual integrity, but it also points to the heavenlies, the color blue, points to the heavenly origin and character of his office.

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The fringe had pomegranates and little bells. The pomegranates pictured the word of God and its sweetness.

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The little bells testified the testimony of God as they made noise forth about God's kingdom.

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The bells also reminded the priest of his calling and that he was a guardian of God's commandments.

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The pomegranate is pointed to the divine law as a sweet, delicious spiritual food, invigorating the soul and refreshing the heart.

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The ephod was a shoulder piece and a breast plate, which pictured the burden of the office of the priest because all of the names of the 12 tribes were upon the priest's shoulder.

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Now, remember this priest not only pictures the Lord Jesus Christ, but it pictures you as a believer priest as well.

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This pictures intercessory prayer and the burden of it for one another. The headdress was as a crown, picturing the kingly role of the believer priest.

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And then lastly, he was anointed with oil, which was symbolic of the empowerment of the

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Holy Spirit. All of these things picture what

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God has caused to take place, the way that he has removed our sins from us.

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And yet before he placed all of these parts of his garments on his body, he washed his flesh, which pictures the fact that in an ongoing life, we as believer priests, before we come into the presence of God, which we have the right to do because of our position and because of the blood of Jesus and the fact that we are in Christ and the fact that we are believer priests and have been named such by God from eternity.

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But before we dare go into his presence to worship, to pray, to praise him, to thank him, or to serve him, in other words, before we take advantage psychologically and mentally, and in fact, we take advantage of all that God has positionally provided for us, before we take advantage of the fact that our sins are really already gone.

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As God, from his viewpoint, looks at the believer, he sees the righteousness of Jesus Christ, period.

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We know that information because God revealed it to us in his words, the only way we would've ever known. That's why the world religions and the cults of Christianity believe in salvation by works because they don't get the revelation from God's word, that is, by the finished work of Jesus.

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But before we take advantage of what God has revealed to us, the fact that we are clean, the fact that he has totally removed our sins, the fact that when

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Jesus was on the cross, God raised his hands above us and took our sins and placed his hand upon the head of his son,

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Jesus, and Jesus became both the scapegoat and the goat that would be slain. And then that blood was taken and scattered upon the mercy seat in the true heavenlies.

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And Jesus also went as the scapegoat into the wilderness, away, separated from God with our sins in his body.

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All of that has happened and you can't change it. That's positional. But before we go out today, before we worship the

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Lord together here today, the Bible says we're to wash our flesh with water lest we have sinned yesterday or the day before or this morning in coming here or today during the service.

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We are to go before the Lord and the best time to confess is at the moment of sin.

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And confess the sin, name the sin, agree with God that it is exceedingly sinful.

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And he says he is faithful and just. Why is he just? Because of the positional things he's already done.

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Everything Jesus has finished on the cross. He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us.

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And the cleansing of the heart and mind of the believer is pictured by this water where the priest cleanses his flesh as he puts on the robes of righteousness.

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It does not teach that the robes of righteousness come on and off as it had to do physically.

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There's no other way to accomplish this in the physical realm. But spiritually, they don't come on and off.

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They are upon us because they're our position. We stand forgiven in the heavenlies.

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We are seated in Christ. But God says, nevertheless, you are here walking in time.

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And when you do sin for your heart's sake and because God says this is how you will serve me, we are to stay confessed.

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We are to stay humble before God. We are to humbly name the sin no matter how grotesque it was that we performed in our hearts.

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Perhaps our bodies acted it out. We name that sin. We don't just say, God, forgive me of my many sins.

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That's not it. We say, God, forgive me of what I just did and name it.

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And it is a cleansing. And this is how we take use of the robes of righteousness that God has given us.

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Well, next Sunday morning, the Lord willing, we're going to go and look at another psalm of David in Psalm 32 and show how

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David talks about the positional forgiveness but also talks about the experience, the act of confessing, asking the

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Lord to forgive us of the sin we just did. And we see more how the two fit together. Let's stand and have prayer together.

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Dear Father, we come to you with inadequate words to thank you for this forgiveness that we have in Christ, this forgiveness that encompasses all eternity and also comes down into time and is an ongoing experience.

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May our position in Christ and our understanding of the total removal of our sins from us cause us to perform before you as we ought through confessing sin as we commit sins.

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Lord, may we not want to spend a second in sin because we'd rather spend that second in fellowship with you.

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But when we do fail and we do go into the flesh, may we immediately confess that to you and restore that relationship between our hearts and yours.

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It's important, Father, that we do this, that we might worship you properly, that we might serve you properly, and that we might fight the battle that you have for us against the enemy.

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Lord, help us remember that the enemy rejoices when we have unconfessed sins in our lives because he works with our psyche.

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He begins to condemn our minds. So, Father, help us to be very obedient to you in this area and to wash our flesh as we put on the robes of righteousness and the armor of God and stand against the enemy.

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Lord, may you be with us during our time of fellowship. Bless our meal, we ask, and we thank you for it.