Proclaim The Ways Of Christ and Watch Him Build His Church

Well the Old Testament we're reading this morning is in the book of Zephaniah.

I'll be reading chapter 3, verses 9 through 20.

If you'd like to read along, that'll be page 790 in your pew Bibles.

For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that

all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.

From beyond the rivers of Cush, my worshipers, the daughters of my dispersed ones, shall bring my

offering.

On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me.

For then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer

be haughty in my holy mountain.

But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly.

They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord, those who are left in Israel.

They shall do no injustice and speak no lies, nor shall there be found in their mouth a

deceitful tongue.

For they shall graze and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion, shout, O Israel.

Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.

The Lord has taken away the judgments against you.

He has cleared away your enemies.

The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst.

You shall never again fear evil.

On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not, O Zion.

Let not your hands grow weak.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save.

He will rejoice over you with gladness, and he will quiet you by his love.

He will exult over you with loud singing.

I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival, so that you will no longer suffer reproach.

Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors, and I will save the lame and gather the

outcasts, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all.

The earth.

At that time I will bring you in.

At the time when I gather you together, for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when

I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the Lord.

New Testament reading is Luke 19, 28 through 48.

And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going to Jerusalem.

When he drew near to Bethphagia and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet,

he sent two of his disciples, saying, Go to the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a

cold tide on which no one has ever yet sat.

Untie it and bring it here.

If anyone asks you, Why are you untying it?

You shall say this, The Lord has need of it, for those who were sent away and found is

just as he had told them.

And as they were untying the colt, its owner said to them, Why are you untying the colt?

And they said, The Lord has need of it.

And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on.

It.

And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.

As he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his

disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the

mighty works that they had seen, saying, Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

And some of the prophets and the Pharisees and the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

He answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, Would that you, even you,

had known on this day the things that make for peace.

But now they are hidden from your eyes.

For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you

and hem you on every side and tear you down to the ground.

You and your children within you.

And they will not leave one stone upon another on you, because you did not know the time

of your visitation.

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, It is written, My house shall be a

house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.

And he was teaching daily in the temple, and the chief priests and the scribes and the principal men

of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were

hanging on his words.

You may be seated.

Well, I'd ask you to open your Bibles to Psalm 51, please.

Psalm 51.

We are finishing up our study in Psalm 51 with this kind of a three -parter, and

I'm going to try to finish it pointing to Palm Sunday, that today is a day of celebrating that more

specifically.

So let us go to the text.

Psalm 51, to the choir master, a Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he

had gone into Bathsheba.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant.

Mercy.

Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

It is against you, and you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be

justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being, and you teach me wisdom and the secret heart.

So purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.

You will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not

despise.

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure.

Build up the walls of Jerusalem, then will you delight in right sacrifices.

And burnt offerings, and whole burnt offerings, then bowls will be offered on your altar.

O God in heaven, we are here before you with your wonderful word opened up.

O God in heaven, we are so dull.

Our hearts are often wandering away, and even though your wonderful word and

all that it is can be declared to us, we can take it, and it can be not effective at all for salvation

because of our sin.

So God, I ask you that you would be kind to us, not because we deserve it, but because of your grace,

that Jesus Christ and his great work of sacrificial love and his resurrection would be

applied to your covenant people here, that we'd be forgiven of our sins, and we'd receive ears to hear

and a heart to listen, and to know the salvation that's found in Jesus, and to proclaim it to all who are

around, so that your church, so that the walls of Jerusalem will be built up.

O Lord, help us not to have fake or false worship that you despise, but

renew us, Lord, and cause us to have the worship that you love, that transforms ourselves as

we proclaim your majesty, and as it transforms others who are around.

O God in heaven, be with us, for we are needy people, and we're in need of your son right.

Now.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, last night you probably set your alarm, and you set it to a certain time this morning, and you got up because of

your alarm this morning.

You probably put bread into a toaster, and it up came toast after a certain

amount of time.

You started your car by putting the key into ignition, you turned it, and it started, and off you were

going to church.

We live this life that God has ordained us to live in a way that's cause and effect.

We do certain things expecting something to happen as a result.

This is the way God has ordered his creation.

We take this for granted.

But sadly, and often, we can take that kind of mentality into worship with us.

We sing a hymn, I sing a hymn, you sing a hymn, and you think that since I sang this hymn, I

have then worshiped God and received benefits from it just by simply singing that.

Hymn.

You pray to God, you hear the prayers, and you say the amen, but yet you think that just simply doing that will

be effectual for anything or pleasing to God in true worship.

You hear the preaching of the word, and you are very passive in that.

You just listen, and you think going through the motions of that will produce a certain worshipful act or a certain benefit you will

receive.

Or you take the bread and the fruit of the vine here in a few moments, and you think that simply doing that, going through the motions, will

produce a certain act or a certain result of worship.

It would be true worship to our God.

You see, we live in this life of cause and effect, and it is how we order our lives as we rightly

should, and we think that we can simply, a lot of times, go through the motions even in our worship.

This is not anything new.

The Psalms are filled with what is proper worship to our God, and here we see that proper worship of our God

is a result of the first two parts of this Psalm.

That we would know our sin, know God's righteousness, and now do something with it that then produces

proper worship, and that is a proper glorifying of God from the heart, which then builds up the walls

of Jerusalem or the church.

We've been talking about here in Psalm 51, David's great sin against the Lord with Bathsheba

against Uriah as he murdered him, and we see that he needed, and we have

highlighted the fact that we need in our sin, we're caught in it, to know our sin, to know

our transgressions, to know how much we deserve God's eternal wrath

because of our injustice, because of our rebellion against our

God.

We saw that the first part of when you're caught in sin is to know your sin, and we saw the second part is to know God's

righteousness.

As we saw in verses 7 through 12, that God makes sinners righteous, and we talked about how

that's Jesus Christ in the gospel.

The power of God is in the gospel to make sinners righteous through the Lord.

His righteousness is on display, and also he makes the sinner righteous by his work of the cross and

resurrection.

When we're caught in sin, we have been taught in Psalm 51 is to know our sin, do not try to hide it, do not

try to get rid of it your own way, but do it in the way that God has ordained through Jesus Christ, knowing his righteousness

and the righteousness he provides by his work.

But we're not done though, it's not finished now, is it, in Psalm 51?

But we see that the story continues, that we are to do other things when we're caught in sin, not only know sin,

know God's righteousness, see how it applies to our own heart as we repent and believe upon Jesus, but then we are to

be actors, or we are to proclaim this to everyone around us, and it's in this

way that God builds his church.

You notice in Psalm 51, 13, then, then I

will.

And if you notice 13, 14, 15, it's three I wills, right?

And it's connected with that then.

After I know my sin, after I realize my depravity, after I realize my need for Jesus, and then I know the

righteousness is found in Christ, after that comes to bear upon my heart, then I

will.

When you're caught in sin, if you do not have a proper response after the gospel has affected your heart, you're not done.

After you realize your salvation is found in Jesus, it produces action in us

that God uses to build his church.

Then I will, then connected with knowing sin, knowing righteousness, then I will.

It's the same thing with verse 14, deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God,

O God of my salvation.

Same thing, right?

He was guilty of murder, he's guilty of sin, we are guilty of sin.

And he says, deliver me from that by your grace.

And he says, and then I will.

In verse 15, the same kind of thing is done.

O Lord, open my lips.

His lips were not open, he was ashamed, guilt plagued him.

And so what happens in our guilt?

We naturally are silent.

But now the opposite has happened.

Since I have been made right through Jesus Christ, my sin is done away, now I am going to speak.

Now I am going to proclaim.

Now I am going to show the excellencies of Jesus in forgiving my sins and therefore the church is built up.

You see, O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will.

I will.

Now what will we do?

Notice what will be done are things of the mouth, of the tongue, of our speech.

You notice that in verse 13?

I will teach transgressors your ways, sinners will return to you.

If you look at 14, deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God of my salvation, my tongue will sing

aloud of your righteousness.

And notice the third I will in verse 15, O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your

praise.

Notice the tongue, the mouth, the lips.

Why is that significant, the theme there?

It's because you ever notice in Romans 3, what's the summary or part of the summary are people

in their depravity or in their sin.

You ever notice in Romans 3 how Paul is summarizing the wickedness of the sinner and

he uses the same kind of themes to underline their wickedness.

In Romans 3, 13 and 14, their throat is an open grave.

They use their tongues to deceive.

The venom of asps is under their lips.

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

You see, in our depraved state without Jesus Christ, all we do is destroy with

our words.

Whether you do it in a very big degree or you do it in what you would call a minor degree, what comes forth from

our heart when it's not rejuvenated by the gospel of Jesus Christ is death.

But you see, this is the opposite here.

Since we know our sin, we know our righteousness, we know the gospel of Jesus Christ, how it cleanses our heart, now

what comes forth from our souls, our hearts, is life.

It's building up the walls of Jerusalem.

It's building the church.

It is life indeed.

This is what Jesus does when he forgives sinners and creates a covenant community as we

go from death coming out of our hearts to life coming out of our hearts.

It's remarkable to see how Jesus changes the direction of our depravity and makes us

fruitful creatures.

And this is what we see here.

David, knowing his sin, knowing the righteousness that's found in Jesus, and now he wants to do the opposite

of what sin does.

He wants life to come forth from his heart.

And you see, I think though the direct context of where we're at here is not only

speech and everything, but it's in the context of the covenant community gathered for worship.

It's in the context of the walls of Jerusalem being built up.

That is the church being built up.

It's in the walls of proper worship, which is a common theme in Psalms.

And so we see that proper worship is one in which we know our sin, we know our righteousness, and so now

we proclaim it to those around.

And so going back to the beginning of my sermon, when we just go through the motions and we go through the acts of

worship without this in our hearts and in our minds, we know that we are doing worship wrong.

Our worship needs to be fueled with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and now he changes us and it causes us to want to

proclaim this loud.

Because look at what he says.

Again, I think it's in the context of the worship of God's people in an

organized way.

Look at verse 13.

In light of the gospel, in light of being made righteous, even though I'm a sinner because of Jesus,

I will teach transgressors your ways.

This is teaching.

What should teaching insist of?

What should it look like?

What should our teaching on the Lord's Day look like?

If it's not rooted and grounded in being made righteous through Jesus Christ, and that's the theme of our

teaching, it is worthless worship to our God.

And I can guarantee you when a church has fallen into a uselessness, we see it

today in a liberal mess that we see today, it started somewhere very particular because the

preaching of God's word has went away from the simplicity of you are a sinner and made

right in Jesus if you repent and believe upon him, and it has went different ways.

In other words, it starts with bad teaching, preaching that does not consist of

you're a sinner but you can be made righteous in Jesus, but it goes into other silly things that are a waste

of time.

That's why it's so important for the congregation.

We talk about this often, especially in the Psalms.

When you're here, what do you want to hear?

What do you want to listen to?

You do not want a silver tongue.

You do not want someone that will make you laugh.

You will not want someone who makes you feel good about yourself other than when it's outside, when it's inside Jesus Christ and

his righteousness.

You want one who will go up and proclaim that we are sinners and proclaim we need Jesus because he makes us righteous.

This is what you need to want to hear.

This is what proper worship is in light of the gospel.

Then in light of this, David says, in light of being forgiven for this great sin, I will teach

transgressors your ways.

What is the response we want from that in proper worship?

Sinners will return to you.

It's not just sinners will come to you, although that's part of it, but will return to you.

We are in a constant process of needing to return to the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are not those who are saved and then we become perfect in all that we do, but we are

those who have been saved by the grace of Jesus Christ and now we are on a pathway of constantly repenting of

our sins and returning to our overseer, our shepherd who cares for

us.

This is proper worship because we come in, right, I've been saved by grace through faith alone and now the teaching of

that reflects that and then through hearing that we constantly return to the Lord.

I want to go to verse 14.

It's the same thing going on in proper worship.

Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation.

Again there's that then, again there's that what already has came before, the forgiveness that's found in Jesus Christ.

Know in sin, know in righteousness, do this and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

We just sang aloud of the righteousness of God, didn't we?

We just sang several hymns, didn't we?

And that was all about the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel, wasn't it?

But you notice that as we are singing that, it needs to come from a heart that I have experienced that,

that I have experienced the gospel that has saved my soul, that is saving my soul, that is revealing to me

Jesus.

I have experienced being in sin and found Jesus to be the only one who's brought me out and now here, gathered

together, I get to sing of the excellencies of Jesus and what he's done.

But how often do we come in and we are not reminding ourselves of this particular

truth that is overall.

How often do we sing God's hymns, the hymns that reflect the gospel of Jesus Christ,

but it is not with the experience that we've had with our own selves coming forth.

This is why I think it's so important, it's good that we do this here at this church.

What do we spend a few minutes doing before we get started as a corporate body worshiping.

God?

We have a moment of meditation.

What are we supposed to be doing in this moment of meditation?

We're supposed to be reminding ourselves of the gospel, reminding ourselves of the sinner that we are, but being made

righteous in Jesus so that as we sing this hymn, it's not in a worthless kind of a mindless kind

of a, this is just what we do kind of thing, but we do it in light of the experience that we've had in Jesus

as a covenant community.

It's very important, again, that the beginning of Psalm 51, knowing sin,

knowing righteousness, comes forth in our teaching, in our listening, in our singing of

the hymns.

And I think in verse 15, it's kind of a summary of both of these things going on.

Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.

I think that is both preaching, that is teaching David Stockwell, and also singing, declaring the

praise of God.

And so we see that all that we do here as a covenant community as we are proclaiming the word is being brought

forth from a heart that's been transformed by David.

Although he was found to be a sinner, he was made righteous, and now he's teaching, and now he's singing, now he's proclaiming the

praises of God.

Again, this is dominant in our heart and mind as we gather together to worship God, that Jesus has

done this for me, and now I will proclaim it.

Now again, why this always needs to be highlighted, why we always need to be talking about this

is because, look at verse 16, and this plagues false worship.

4, David says, you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.

You will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

What David, I think, is talking about there, what he's referring to there, is the

worship of the Old Testament community.

The law of Moses had a particular way that you were to worship God.

The way God operates is he doesn't say, you can worship me in any way that your heart sees fit, just make sure

you're saying my name.

No, God tells us how to worship him, in the Old Covenant and also the New Covenant.

And we see here that David says that if I just simply do what you have commanded me to do in the Mosaic Covenant by

offering certain sacrifices like I'm supposed to do, that's not what you're looking for here.

So David's saying that just simply following your law, and that's it, as if it's going to do

anything, is not what you're looking for in worship.

And it's the same thing that, again, pointed to what we do here.

Why do we sing hymns?

Why do we pray?

Why do we take of the Lord's Supper?

Why do we proclaim the word of God?

Because God has said this is the way you are to worship me in the New Covenant community.

And so as David said, just simply doing what God has commanded here is not enough.

Just simply doing the things that God has commanded us to do as the Christian church is not enough.

Because what he goes on to say in verse 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken

and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

So what is he saying there?

That if we simply just go through the motions without having a contrite heart, without having a heart that hates our sin,

loathes it, cries out, is saddened over it, and finds rest in Jesus, if we're not doing

that and we just go through the motions, it is not proper worship.

David's saying that you don't simply just call me to provide a worship, to provide a sacrifice like the

Mosaic Covenant tells me to do, without having a heart behind it that's broken over my sin.

So as we gather here together and we go about what God has told us, this is how you are to worship me in light of the New

Covenant, we do not just go through the motions, but instead there needs to be something behind it, a heart behind it that is

one dead or broken over our sin and saying Jesus is the only solution to this and so

it's him I worship.

And as individuals do this together, what kind of effect does that have

on each other?

As we gather together in true worship to God, singing out to him, listening to proper

teaching, as we respond to that, what kind of effect does that have on the church?

It builds up the church.

It builds up Jerusalem.

And this is really the ending of this psalm, what this is pointing to.

He says in verse 18, do good to Zion in your good pleasure.

Build up the walls of Jerusalem.

I think this is what's so amazing about the grace that's found in Jesus Christ.

I mean, think about how we started this psalm as we were looking at the nasty sin

that David fell into.

It wasn't just a little bit of a sprinkling of sin.

It was absolutely horrendous what he did.

If you remember, he murders Uriah.

He commits adultery with Bathsheba, murders her husband, and has everyone lie

about it as much as he can.

He bears false witness as we talked about.

These sins are of a sort that is absolutely horrendous.

And as we consider our own sin, we might say to ourselves, well, I haven't murdered anyone.

I haven't committed adultery.

But we know what Jesus says about the law.

It is much harder to do.

You are found to be a murderer by simply hating your brother, right?

So we aren't to find comfort by saying, well, I didn't quite do what David did.

No, we're all found in that sinning camp of being a sinner, absolutely deplorable to God.

And what's amazing is look how God uses that sin for the covenant community, for the true believer.

Verse 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

So God says, I am going to use that sin so that you will have proper worship to me.

You see how wonderful of a God that we have.

All the false religion says that you need to clean yourself up and then you can have proper worship to God.

And God says, I am so powerful and I am so mighty and Jesus is so wonderful that I am going to use

that sin, that nasty sin, and through repentance, that is going to be your true

worship to me.

Do you understand how awesome of a God we serve that he would be so kind to us?

That it is in our sin that we say this is what God is going to use for me to give proper worship

to him.

Now, that can be abused, can't it?

When your heart is not changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, you can say, well, why not sin so good may come?

But for those who are being changed by Christ, those who have a renewed heart in which they hate

their sin, they love righteousness, what a blessing it is to know that even in our

worst days and our worst sins, we know that through repentance and giving it to Jesus,

we know that he's going to use that for proper worship to him.

What a graceful and wonderful and merciful and kind God we serve that

our proper worship would come through our disobedience because Jesus has taken on our

disobedience.

And in through this way, as we sin against our Lord and we give it to Jesus and we respond in so

joyful attitude that he has saved me from my sin so we proclaim it to each other, he

builds up the church.

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure.

Build up the walls of Jerusalem.

Then will you delight in right sacrifices.

Then you will delight in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.

Then bowls will be offered on your altar.

God loves true and good religion.

God loves right religion.

God loves a sacrifice that he has commanded us to do in light of his son,

Jesus Christ.

So the answer here is not to say boo to religion and don't do the things that God has commanded, but the answer is do it in a

way that glorifies him and that is in light of Jesus Christ.

He says we will only provide right sacrifices, we'll only provide right worship when we do it in a

way that is built up, that our walls are built up, that Zion is built up.

Now the question is, what does he mean by the walls being built up?

If that is what's needed in order to provide proper worship to God, proper sacrifices to God, what does

it mean for the walls to be built up?

A lot of people, I've read a couple of commentators, they say the history of

interpreting this text is a lot of people think that verses 18 and 19 was added later because it just randomly,

it just seems to be random to be talking about the walls of Jerusalem now.

But I don't think David has in mind literally, physically he wants the walls of Jerusalem to be built up so proper

worship could be happening in Jerusalem.

I think this is in keeping with this whole psalm and what she's saying, let there be a proper sacrifice, a

proper heart change, let there be a proper something happening to cause your

people to worship you truly.

So the question is, what have we been talking about this whole psalm?

What needs to be done?

What's the cornerstone here?

In order for us to truly worship God, in order for us to go from false worship to true worship,

in order for us to go from being a sinner to being made righteous, Jesus Christ is that cornerstone.

He is the one that provides the building up of the church or of the walls.

And this kind of goes in our mind, right?

As Jesus is approaching Jerusalem and that triumphant entry, right?

Jesus is approaching Jerusalem.

And what is the mission of Jesus?

What is Jesus wanting to do?

He's wanting to build up the walls of Jerusalem, isn't he?

Not in a physical sense, not in a literal sense, right?

Because what did we just read earlier in Luke with the triumphal entry?

He goes and he weeps over Jerusalem and he says, your wall's about to get knocked down.

But we can still say that Jesus is looking to build up the walls of Jerusalem.

Why?

He's looking to provide proper worship to his father through his own sacrificial work.

Jesus builds up the church by his sacrificing of his own body and by giving that

sacrifice to his people so that his people receive that sacrifice.

And in light of that power of his death and resurrection, we then provide proper worship to him.

You see, Jesus, on his road to Jerusalem, as people were crying out, Hosanna, Hosanna, he was

coming to build up the walls of Jerusalem.

He was coming to die so that his sacrificial death would change us.

David says, build up the walls.

Then you will delight in right sacrifices.

Build up the walls of Jerusalem.

Then you will delight in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.

Build up the walls of Jerusalem.

Then you will delight in bowls being offered on your altar.

And the same thing goes to be said to us, right?

For us to have proper worship, proper sacrifices, a living sacrifice, our walls must be built up.

That is, Jesus Christ must establish it by his death and resurrection.

Paul says the same thing in Romans.

Remember Romans chapter 12?

What Paul says about living as a proper sacrifice to our Lord.

Romans 12, I appeal to you therefore.

I appeal to you therefore.

Therefore is a big therefore.

Therefore is in light of everything I just said about the mercies found in Jesus, the same thing we've been

talking about in Psalm 51, that although we are sinners, we can be made right through Jesus.

He says, in light of that gospel reality, brothers, by the mercies of God, you need to present your bodies

as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual

worship.

So in other words, if you're trying to worship God in any other way of the cornerstone of Jesus Christ

being the gospel of Jesus Christ that forgives you of your sins and gives you a new heart and gives you new

attitudes, if you're trying to do anything outside of that, it will not be a proper sacrifice.

But Paul says that in light of Jesus Christ and his coming, because of his work, you repent upon him, you can be a

proper living sacrifice to God.

When we say that's done, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern

what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

So again, with that in mind, with our minds centered on that, as we read 18, we can see that coming

forth.

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure.

Build up the walls of Jerusalem, because then you will delight in right sacrifices.

Then you'll delight in burnt offerings.

It is only when Jesus Christ provides that for our souls that we're able to,

we're able to provide proper sacrifice.

So again, it is easy.

It is easy for us to come into worship and go through the motions.

It is easy for us to go through the things that God has commanded us to do.

And we see that the whole answer to doing it in a way that honors God in a rightful way is for us to

do it in a way that's in light of our sin and the righteousness found in Jesus.

You see, what are we to do when we're caught in sin?

Remind yourself of the gospel.

Tell yourself what the gospel is.

That in light of this sin that I've committed against the Lord, I can be made right through Jesus.

And we see that through that it produces right worship in our heart, in which we proclaim the excellencies of Jesus to everyone around.

And this has a way of building up the walls of Jerusalem.

Praise be to our God that he would use our sin in such a way.

Praise be to our God that he would use your disobedience in such a way that through the power of Jesus, he can make you

build up the walls of Jerusalem because of what he has done.

This is something that we need to hold on to that gives us comfort.

In our darkest of times, in our darkest of moments, right, when we have fallen into sin, it is so

easy to look at that sin and only look at that sin and fall into a guilt and shame and be quiet.

So in that moment, what are we to do when we're caught in sin?

Remind ourselves of Jesus and to say that Jesus is actually going to own this.

He's going to actually forgive you through repentance and he's going to then show others of the mercies

and grace that's found in him.

This is what we are to do when we're caught in sin.

We are not to be quiet.

We are to rather go to Jesus and to be loud about what he has done in his gospel.

And what a blessed thing that he would use that as a tool to then build up his church.

Let us pray.

God in heaven, we thank you for Jesus Christ.

To think that we would have no hope without him.

To think that, Lord, there would be no purpose at all

to the things that we fall into.

In fact, the only purpose that would be found in it is that we would receive your wrath.

We see, Lord, that you have a greater purpose for that for your people.

That we would go from living in sin and living in righteousness because of Jesus.

That we would go from being quiet in our shame and guilt and trying to hide from your presence as we learned about earlier.

To rather, because of Jesus Christ making us right again, to being bold to approach the throne of grace.

And with this boldness that Jesus provides, we would declare your word to others.

We would sing your word boldly to others.

That your word of grace would be declared.

People would hear this and respond in repentance.

And your walls of Jerusalem would be built up through that.

We're so thankful that this is what Jesus Christ came to do 2 ,000 years ago.

Determined to provide that sacrifice that would build the walls.

Oh, Lord in heaven, when we are caught in sin, help us to go about it in a way that you have called us to go about it.

To look to Jesus and to be used by him to bring salvation

to others around us.

We praise you for this purpose that's found in him.

May he be glorified and honored today and all through eternity.

In Jesus' name, amen.