The Sinner's Guide [Psalm 51]

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In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all
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Israel. They ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained at Jerusalem.
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It happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, and he saw from the roof a woman bathing.
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The woman was very beautiful. David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said,
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Is not this Bathsheba the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Now David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her.
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Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she returned to her house, and the woman conceived.
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She sent and told David, I am pregnant. So David sent word to Joab, Send me
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Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him,
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David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet.
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And Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go to his house.
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When they told David, Uriah did not go to his house, David said to Uriah, Have you not come from a journey?
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Why did you not go down to your house? Uriah said to David, The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord
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Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife?
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As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing. Then David said to Uriah, Remain here today also, and tomorrow, and I will send you back.
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So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk.
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And in the evening he went out to lie in his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
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In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down and die.
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And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men.
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And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell.
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Uriah the Hittite also died. Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting, and he instructed the messenger,
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When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king, then if the king's anger arises, and if he says to you,
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Why did you go near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?
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Who killed Abimelech, the son of Jashrubareth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died?
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Why did you go near the wall? Then you shall say, Your servant Uriah the
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Hittite is dead also. So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell.
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The messenger said to David, The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us on the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate.
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Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant
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Uriah the Hittite is dead also. David said to the messenger, This year you say to Joab, Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another.
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Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it and encourage him. When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband.
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And when the morning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.
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But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. The Lord sent
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Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.
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The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought.
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And he brought it up, and it grew with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms.
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It was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guests who had come to him.
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But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, As the
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Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die. And he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.
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Nathan said to David, You are the man. Thus says the
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Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul, and I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah.
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And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the
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Lord to do what is evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the
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Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the
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Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house, and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this son.
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For you did it secretly, but I do this thing before all Israel and before the
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Son. David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, The Lord also has put away your sin.
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You shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the
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Lord, the child who was born to you shall die. Then David went to his house.
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Let's turn our Bibles to Psalm 51 and see the response of people who are caught in sin, who do sin, and who need forgiveness.
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I have 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verses 13 and 14 prepared for this morning. I was ready to go, and then with all the snow and the blizzard, and I knew we would be sparsely attended today with a skeleton crew,
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I thought, you know what, let's wait for 1 Corinthians chapter 16 till next week so the entire church can hear it.
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And today let's go to a very familiar Psalm, but one that I think is going to encourage you, that the God of the universe can forgive sinners like David, like you, like me.
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We are sinful people. And even as Christians, we still sin, so then what do we do?
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After we sin, how do we respond to God? What does God require from us? If you do something against your father, how do you approach your father so you can be reconciled?
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Isn't forgiveness a good thing? Isn't reconciliation a good thing? Don't you like restoration?
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I like it, I can't say it. That's the problem. When Christians sin, we see in Psalm 51, probably one of your favorite
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Psalms, this Psalm, this song that has so many personal pronouns, yes, all
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Davids, but easy for you to just place yourself in the Psalm. You could read this Psalm with your name in it, because we regularly, and we often sin against the very
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God who has saved us. The best that God the Father had,
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He sent us, the Lord Jesus Christ. And He lived a perfect life, and He died at Calvary, was raised from the dead, we are redeemed, we're regenerated, we've been reconciled to God, we don't have to pay for our sins anymore, we have an advocate who assuaged the wrath of God in our place.
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Jesus never sinned, although He was the sin bearer. And because of all this, we have been adopted into the family of God, yet still, and don't we hate it when we do it?
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We still sin. How can we sin against such a great God, such a great King? The good news this morning is we'll look at, when
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God redeems a person, He doesn't just stop there. He continually cleanses them from their sins, and He has allowed us, through Christ, to approach the throne.
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And Psalm 51 is one of these psalms to remind us that Christians love forgiveness.
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Christians need forgiveness. We still sin, even though we're Christians, right? I don't know if anybody would like to give a personal testimony with one of these microphones.
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I no longer sin. But even by saying that, we would realize you are still a sinful person.
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I could even come up with an alphabetical list of sin. Alienated from God, blind, corrupt, darkened, evil, foolish, going astray, hateful, impenitent, and the list goes on.
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That's what we used to be, but we still fall back into some of these things. And so, last night when we were outside, and I saw all the snow,
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I just thought, you've got to preach on forgiveness when we've got a foot of snow coming down. Can you imagine?
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What's that called when you put a big pile of nasty stuff by the garden, and you put leaves in there, and you put old fruit in there, you put old coffee grinds in there, and it's just this big, huge thing, and you just start dumping stuff in there.
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Pretty soon you don't even have to know where it is by sight, because you start smelling the compost pile, don't you?
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But you know what? How many people here have compost piles? Some admit it. Your compost pile this morning looks pretty.
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It's beautiful. Wide as snow. And see, that's a good picture of the
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Christian. Even though we have sin dwelling in us, this residual sin hangover, because of Christ's perfect life cloaked over us, when
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God looks at you if you're a Christian, He doesn't see compost spiritually.
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He sees Christ's perfect righteousness. He sees you in Christ. That's why the
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Bible says that God the Father loves you as much as He loves the Son. And so it's a good day to talk about forgiveness, don't you think?
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And so Christians need forgiveness. So here's what we're going to do this morning. We're going to go through Psalm 51, about half of it, and then
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I'll read the second half, and then we'll look at some practical implications about forgiveness. And since you've been forgiven, if you're a
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Christian, you should be forgiving other people much. So let's take a look at Psalm 51.
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If you notice in your Bibles, if you've got any kind of study Bible at all, it'll say right there in the heading, maybe it's tucked in verse 1, it says,
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And so this is the response, that David writes a song about what happened.
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I know you know the psalm, but it's just good to be reminded that we are forgiven people who still need forgiveness.
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There's two kinds of forgiveness in this world. Judicial forgiveness, when God declares you, based on Christ's work, not guilty.
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Forever you stand before God justified, acquitted, not condemned. And then there's parental forgiveness.
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Judicial forgiveness, you stand before the bar of God and you've broken His laws, and yet based on the law keeping of Jesus, and the merit of Jesus, and the substitutionary death of Jesus, confirmed by the resurrection, we stand not guilty before God.
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We're cloaked with the righteousness of Christ. Then there's parental forgiveness. That we don't lose our salvation, we don't lose our relationship with God the
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Father, but there's strain and there's stress. David was a redeemed man, he was a regenerated man, yet he still sinned.
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And so Psalm 51 today will help us, not with judicial forgiveness, but with parental forgiveness.
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And it's good to be restored to your father after there's a break, isn't it? It's good to be restored.
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In 1976, I believe, I borrowed my father's car, and we lived in a small house, therefore it was a small garage, therefore it was a small opening.
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And in those days we didn't drive smart cars, we drove big, huge... It wasn't a town car, but it could have been.
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And it was this huge, extra -wide car, and so I asked my father if I could borrow his car.
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I had a car, so I don't know why I borrowed his. He said yes, and I drove it into the driveway, and I thought
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I was measuring things properly, and I scraped the side of it along the garage door. Panic!
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Well, just forget about it, maybe it'll go away. So I went inside, hey, how'd your day go?
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Fine, here's your keys, thanks for letting me borrow your car. But the next day...
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Son, I need to talk to you. We had a little problem, and the problem really wasn't was I had an accident, but the problem was
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I covered it up, and that he was the one who had to come to me. And there was a problem with not our judicial relationship, because I still had his last name, and he couldn't take that away by law, but with our parental relationship.
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And now David, he's a redeemed man, he's regenerated. We don't call him a Christian man, because this is pre -Christ, but he was a believer, and as a believer sins.
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Can you imagine David, a man after God's own heart? Adultery, murder, coveting.
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No sin is past the Christian, and if you think it is, don't forget the mind matters. Look upon a person with lust, adultery.
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Look at someone with hatred in your heart, murder. So for the Christian that sins, and who probably feels estranged from God, this is good balm for you today.
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The more you deal with sin, the closer you are with the Lord. Since God is your Father, if you feel distant from God, it's not because He's moved, it's because you've sinned, and then haven't been reconciled biblically.
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So, good psalm for us today. So good that, did you know, Lady Jane Grey recited this psalm on the way up to the scaffold before she was hung for her faith.
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Henry V wanted this psalm read to him on his deathbed, and William Carey, the missionary to India, asked that Psalm 51 be preached at his funeral.
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I love all the psalms, and so do you. I know that, but this one has particular influence on many
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Christians. Now, this is a private lament, an individual lament, but it's good for public preaching.
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Athanasius said if he stayed up at night and couldn't sleep, he didn't count sheep. He repeated
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Psalm 51. What do you do when you sin?
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Let me give you three responses in light of the cross. When you sin, you can deal with it biblically.
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Number one, call out to the merciful Lord for forgiveness.
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That's found in verses 1 and 2. If you're new to the church here, we just let the text come up with the outline.
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We just go verse by verse just to let the text lead. And so, what do you do when you sin? You go to a gracious God for forgiveness.
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Look at verses 1 and 2. Have mercy on me, O God, or as the
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NAS says, be gracious to me. According to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
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Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. He just knows how generous
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God is. He knows how gracious God is. So, instead of hiding, instead of trying to run, he goes straight to the
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Lord. Can you find some different words for sin in those first two verses?
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How about transgressions? Here's the line, I deliberately cross over it.
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That's one word in here. Iniquity, do you see the word iniquity? That means God's got life, a straight path laid out in the
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Bible, and you just twist it. You torque it. It's like when my brother was little and we'd swing him around by the arms, and if you did it too fast, centripetal force would cause one of his arms to just do what?
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Dislocate. That's that word right here. Iniquity. Spiritual perversity, dislocation.
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And you see the other one in there, sin. Missing the mark. David knew he sinned.
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And do you see what the text says? Have mercy on me. Oh God, only found in him forgiveness and restoration and communion.
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God is the one who's going to have to grant it. One of my favorite quotes of all time goes like this, when
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David is rebuked for the crime, he yields the point without argument. He is told that he has done wrong and he receives the profit.
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When has this been done before or since? Mary, Queen of Scots, would declare that she was above the law.
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Charles I would have thrown over Bathsheba. James II would have hired witnesses to swear away her character.
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Muhammad would have produced a revelation authorizing both crimes. Charles II would have publicly abrogated the
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Seventh Commandment. Queen Elizabeth would have suspended Nathan. Who has ever acknowledged an error of any magnitude if it has been in his power to maintain that he is right?
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Cain's plan? Silence the accuser. Adam's plan? Shift the responsibility.
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These seem to exhaust the range of human expedience when an error is brought home. No wonder
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David was a man after God's own heart. And even in our society,
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I did not have relations with that woman. We hear from the very highest officers. Do you see the text again?
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Be merciful, be gracious. It means, God, I'd like to be favored by you. Show me favor. You're a
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God who has utter generosity. Would you please give me some grace? I don't deserve it. I don't merit it.
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I've earned judgment. I've earned chastisement. But would you give me grace? See what he does? He appeals to God's tender, compassionate mercy.
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If I ask you, describe to me the Old Testament God. Give me eight descriptions. Well, if you're not careful, you'd come up with things like wrath, terror, judgment, justice, righteousness, wouldn't you?
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And yet, Exodus chapter 34, in the Old Testament, God reveals himself to Moses as in order, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity.
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That's the God who created us. That's the God we sinned against. And that's the God we're to go to when we sin.
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When Christians sin, go straight to God, desperately needing God's forgiveness.
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You throw yourself on the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 103 says the
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Lord is compassionate and gracious. Didn't even Jonah know this? Jonah wasn't afraid of the
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Ninevites mainly. He probably was because they were ruthless people. But he knew if he was sent to the
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Ninevites, that what would God do? God, you'd save rascals like that.
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God, you're gracious and compassionate. God's slow to anger. God is by nature a
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Savior who delights in mercy. And so, Micah 7 says, who is a God like you who pardons iniquity?
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What God pardons iniquity? And you know, the mercy is commensurate with all the sin.
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Remember three kinds of sins? Take a look at the text. Blot out my transgressions. David crossed the line.
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We cross the line when we sin. And now David said, God, would you just out of your mercy obliterate from your memory.
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One of the ways you could translate this Hebrew word is exterminate. If you have a chalkboard, some kids don't know what those are, a whiteboard, and you just take an eraser and just erase it.
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Just erase this, God, would you? According to your mercy, blot it out. What else does the text say right there in verses 1 and 2?
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Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. I'm dirty on the inside, I'm gross on the inside, and so you're going to have to wash me.
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Literally, the text says, multiply your washings to me. Now, I'm old enough to remember my grandmother, my
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German grandmother, not owning a dishwasher nor a clothes washer.
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She was the lady who had darned socks. Does anybody here even own a pair of darned socks anymore? I said things very particular.
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Darned socks. And I can remember her scrubbing, just think, jeans, 12 -year -old boys' jeans.
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You didn't have a lot of jeans back then. You had that one pair, and then if you burned a hole in your knees from the tough skins, they had these other things that you could iron on that go back over them.
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Just scrubbing and rubbing to try to get that grass stain out. And David is basically saying this in this poem, my sins go down so deep,
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God, you're just going to have to scrub them out. I can't do that. I can't wash myself. I can't take care of this myself.
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Lord, you're going to have to do this. And the word is used often of laundering clothes. And God, multiply it.
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Do it over and over and over until it's gone. What else does he say?
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Cleanse me from my sin. That word is used if you've got a corpse in the land and the land is defiled.
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Let's take care of the corpse the right way so we're no longer defiled. And David's like, I'm a gross, rotting, stinking corpse because of my sin against you.
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God, clean me. For us, we have things that David never had like the ministry of the incarnate
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Christ Jesus and the apostles who would tell us in Ephesians 4, God is rich in mercy because of His great love with which
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He loved us. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive together with Christ.
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And if God forgave us all our sins judicially, won't He forgive us parentally? Yes. Micah 7 says,
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He will tread our iniquities underfoot. Thou will cast all the sins into the depths of the sea.
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Jeremiah 31, I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. Psalm 103,
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As far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our transgressions from us.
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No wonder David also wrote in light of this adultery and murder, Psalm 32.
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How blessed is the man whose transgression is what? Forgiven. That's a blessed man.
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For us, we know that's all based on the work of Christ Jesus who purged our sins and put away our sins.
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So what do you do when you sin? You go straight to the Lord. If you feel like you want to run, go straight to the
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Lord. He's generous and gracious. Number 2, Confess your sins. Simple.
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Let's read verses 3 through 5. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.
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Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
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Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
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So let's talk about confession just for a little bit because that's what our response to the Lord should be when we inevitably sin.
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Let me give you some components. I think I have five components of confession. The first one is confession includes personal ownership.
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By the way, this is anti -cultural. Personal ownership, if you go back to the text, verse 3,
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I know my transgressions. I acknowledge it.
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And what does the text say? And my sin is ever before me. Once Nathan came to David, he couldn't get it out of his mind.
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Look this way, before him mentally, those sins. Look this way, sin.
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Wake up in the middle of the night thinking about those sins. It was haunting him. And so you say to yourself, I'm a
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Christian, I have sins and I have skeletons and things that I've done that have been so bad against God. Even as a
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Christian, I have done this. I can't get them out of my mind. The rewinding, the slow motion, the hauntingly permanent, seemingly permanent, etched in, engraved sin.
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There's hope for you. David just said, I'm just going to own these things. I'm not going to blame anybody.
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No excuses. He could have done all kinds of things. You know,
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God, I have natural desires that You gave me as a man. You know, that Bathsheba, she shouldn't have taken a bath over there or laid out with that kind of scantily clad like she was.
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You know, being a king is stressful. He could have come up with all kinds of things.
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I'm only human. I'm not glorified yet.
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James 1 says, each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. David said, okay,
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I did it. It's far from David to say, you know, what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home doesn't hurt anyone.
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David didn't say, you know, I need a do -over. America's pastor I heard on television say that sometimes
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God gives you do -overs. David didn't want a do -over. He said,
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I sinned. It's no blunder. It's no accident. It's no mistake. Nothing came over me. It sounds almost like the thief on the cross.
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Luke 23. We are receiving what we deserve for our deeds. No wonder
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Moody Monthly said, man calls it an accident. God calls it abomination. Man calls it error.
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God calls it enmity. Man calls it a trifle. God calls it a tragedy.
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I just agree that I did it. I'm not going to blame syndromes, and I'm not going to blame anything else.
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I'm just going to say I did it. Well, the second component of confession is agreeing with God. Personally owning it, and then now agreeing with God.
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By the way, that is the definition of confession. To agree with. God, I agree with You. I align my mind with You.
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I look at it from Your perspective. My perspective is, well, I need to have my needs met. Your perspective is, that was no trespassing.
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That was someone else's wife. 1 John 1 says if we confess our sins,
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He's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins. Proverbs 28 is a good proverb regarding this.
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He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find what?
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Compassion. Don't you want compassion from God, and mercy from God? You say, okay, I did it.
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The third component of confession is, remember you've mainly sinned against God. Take a look at verse 4.
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Of course David sinned against Bathsheba. Of course he sinned against Joab, Uriah, the nation.
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But mainly it was against God. Against, as the New American Standard says, or probably
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King James as well, against Thee and Thee only have I sinned and done what is evil in whose sight? God's sight.
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Plummer said we never see sin or right until we see it as against God. Pharaoh and Balaam, Saul and Judas, each said,
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I have sinned. But the returning prodigal said, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee. The fourth component of confession is, you're willing to accept
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God's chastening hand. He's not judging you eternally, but He's going to chasten you.
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Take a look at verse 4, the last part of verse 4 in Psalm 51. So you sinned against God, and you go to Him, and you say,
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I'm just going to pour out my heart, God, I know You're generous, and please forgive me, and I own it, and we're confessing, and however
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You want to judge me with chastisement as a child, I'll take.
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So you are justified when you speak, and blameless when you do judge. God, You're not the wrong one,
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I'm the wrong one. Any sentence You give me, I know that it's from a loving Father, and a good
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Father, it's from my own good. And then the last component of confession, understanding the true depth of your sin.
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See it in verse 5, brought forth in iniquity and in sin, my mother conceived me.
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It wasn't a slip -up, it just didn't come over someone. The problem's deep, the problem's ingrained, the problem goes back to Adam.
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So when you sin, what do you do? You call out to God, who's merciful and gracious for forgiveness, you confess your sin, and then found in verses 6 -12, number 3, you rely on God for restoration.
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You take God at His word, you believe His promises, that if He forgives, He forgives. You're confident that He restores the penitent sinner.
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Let's take a look at these verses. You're going to see David do something here. David's going to say, you know God, You said if I ask for forgiveness, and I come to You, You'll forgive me, and I don't even have to feel forgiven,
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I'll just take Your word for it. When you sin against God, you're going to trust that God will forgive, and that's what
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David does here. He says in verse 6, Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
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You're going to restore me, I believe in God and truth, and I know it's all of You. And then he starts praying a lot of prayers for restoration.
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Matter of fact, there's 12 of them. 12 steps. The biblical 12 steps.
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Right? There's 12 of these, and every one of these is, God, do something, and I know it's going to be true.
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And so you say, I've sinned against God, and God forgive me, and I agree with You that I've done the wrong thing, and now
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God, I'm going to take You at Your word, because if You say I'm cleansed, I'm cleansed. Oh, I don't really feel forgiven.
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Well, no, this is going to show you that David knew that when God does a work of forgiveness,
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He really does a work of forgiveness. You could probably divide these up into 12, just like I could, but we'll just go through these quickly.
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First one is, Purify me with hyssop. This is language of a song, language of poems, language of a psalm, songs, and he just says this figure,
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Purge me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Because if God, if You cleanse me, I will be clean.
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What do they use hyssop for, by the way? All kinds of things, like cleansing lepers, ceremonially in Leviticus 14.
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A great Puritan said, God, if You shout, You will unsin me.
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God, unsin me. There's no half measure with God here. Number two, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
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Because God, if You do that, I know on the inside, yeah, positionally I'm whiter than snow, because I have Christ's righteousness, but now
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You're going to clean me on the inside, from this awful, dirty sin. I'll be whiter than snow.
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I was walking in the orchard yesterday, with my dog, and my dog, she's mainly white.
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She has some black spots, and then her head is black and brown. But if you looked at her, and you had to pick one color, you'd say white.
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Well, do you know what? Yesterday, I figured out about my dog, compared to the snow, she's yellow.
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She has some kind of polar bear look, you know, when the polar bear's hairs are hollow, and they have the stuff in there.
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She's white, compared to brown. But compared to the snow, she's yellow.
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She's not pure as I thought. Look at this, though.
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Wash me, and I'll be not as white as snow, but I'll be whiter than snow.
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I know I sin. I know you sin. And God knows you sin, and we realize, do you know what?
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When we sin, we go straight to God. Number three, make me hear joy and gladness.
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Do you see that in chapter 51, verse 8? The built -in consequences of bad feelings, and horrible conscience, and the dour, suppressed, melancholic attitudes of we're caught in sin, and we haven't been restored to our
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Father yet in heaven. David said, I want to hear that joy and gladness again.
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Number four, mend me, or as the ESV says in verse 8, let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
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He didn't break his bones for real, but certainly shepherds back in those days, if there was a wayward sheep, and the sheep would always run off, what would the shepherd do?
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Break the sheep's leg? Carry the sheep over his head for a long time? Get to know that sheep?
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The sheep's leg would mend, and then that sheep would be so close to the shepherd, it would never run away. Number five, hide my sins for good.
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Look at verse 9. Hide your face from my sins. God, when you look at me, don't see that sin.
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If you think about your worst sins, God, when you see me, is that what you think about? When my name...
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Of course, this is all language, it's not true, because God doesn't have to think in terms like this, but if we were somehow thinking,
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God, when my name comes up in a Trinitarian conversation, is that what you think of?
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You think of that sin? David said, don't think of that sin. Hide your face from my sins.
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For us as Christians, God the Father hid His face from the Son, so He'd never have to hide
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His face. Number six, blot out my iniquities. Blot them all out.
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Get rid of them. Blood everywhere, now make it pure white.
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He keeps going. He just... So many of these. This one might be my favorite.
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Number seven, renew me, create in me a clean heart.
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Oh God. Now there's a word for create that means out of nothing, and there's a word that means, in the
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Hebrew for create, that means out of something that already existed. So in Genesis chapter one, God makes things by divine fiat, out of nothing.
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That's the word here. God, do a miracle of creation in my heart, create in me a clean heart.
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God alone is the subject for this verb. God, You're going to have to do it. Forgiveness in a sense is a divine miracle.
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You can assuage yourself with alcohol, too much alcohol, too much whatever, and fill your mind with all kinds of hedonistic explorations, but if you want your conscience cleansed, it has to be created by God and God alone.
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Number eight, renew a steadfast spirit within me, NAS says, and ESV says, renew a right spirit within me.
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I just want to be new. Sin is part of my nature, just make me new. He goes on, number nine, do not cast me away from your presence.
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Don't leave me in my sin. I want to be close. Number ten, I'd still like to serve you.
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Now this is a controversial one for no reason at all. Verse eleven, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.
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You say, well, see there it is. You had your salvation, and now David thinks he's going to lose his salvation.
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You can lose your salvation by murder, and by lying, and by coveting, and by adultery. First of all, you can't lose what
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God gains. And second of all, think like you're a Jew from the Old Testament. What do you mean, take not your
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Holy Spirit from me? What kind of language is that in the Old Testament? It's very simple. David does not want to be like Saul.
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First Samuel 16, now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit of the
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Lord terrorized him. Think about the Old Testament. Samson had a special job to do, and the
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Spirit of God came on him to do the job. Saul had a special job to do. The Spirit of God came on him for the job.
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David had a special job to do. The Spirit of God came upon him, and now David's saying, I still want to serve you.
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Don't take off that special enabling work that your Spirit of God does through me.
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I still want to serve you. Number 11, give me joy.
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Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Remember when you first got saved? Remember when you first realized that God chose you and eternity passed, the
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Son died for you? You can't lose your salvation, that you get to go to heaven? Yes, you. And remember how happy you were?
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You couldn't think to yourself even, how could other people not believe this? God granted you repentance,
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He granted you faith, and remember those days when you first were saved? David said, I want those days back.
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I want them back. I want that joy. And then he says lastly, give me a heart of obedience.
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Sustain me or uphold me with a willing spirit. I want to obey you,
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God. I'm weak, but I want to obey. And then the rest of the psalm is
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David's worship. After you've been forgiven and after you've rehearsed the promises of God, then it's time to worship again and look at David.
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Listen to David through verses 13 through 19. Then I'll teach transgressors your way and sinners will return to you.
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I want to teach people about you. I'll teach the Bible. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud your righteousness.
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I want to sing and praise and worship you. That's what I want to do. I'm forgiven. I'm cleansed.
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Dad forgave me after I knocked the car into the side of the garage and he said, you ever do it again, you get the knuckle sandwich, but now
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I still love you, son. I'm not saying knuckle sandwich is used of God. You might find it in the message perversion, but not here.
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But you get my point. Verse 15, O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.
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A great God who forgives. For you will not delight in sacrifice, for I would give it.
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Think how many things David could sacrifice. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart,
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O God, you will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure.
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Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then will you delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.
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Then bowls will be offered on your altar. Christian friends, we're realists, aren't we?
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We sin. So to say, you know, we don't really want to talk about sin because everybody knows you're a sinner and it turns people off.
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They vote with their feet. They don't want to think about themselves that way. We, on the other hand, are realists and we know we do sin.
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And we have been granted by God the One who forgives sins both judicially and parentally.
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And so we go to God and say, please forgive me. Yes, God, I agree with you. Two comments in closing.
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One, if you're not a Christian today, there's hope for you.
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You say, well, I've sinned so much, I don't think God could ever forgive me. If you knew what
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I have done in my life, you'd agree with me that God never let me in heaven. God's too holy for that.
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I could never go. But remember, God is generous and gracious.
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And if you come to the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, trusting only in the risen Savior who died for sinners like you, you shall have eternal life.
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You can be forgiven. God's grace is greater than your sin, in other words. There's hope for heinous people.
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Because if Jesus dies for your sins, you don't have to pay for any of your sins. Point number two, and this is my final exhortation.
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Since Christian, you have been forgiven much. How ought you to treat other people?
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Are you a good forgiver? Do you like to forgive? James Coulter said, the unforgiving spirit is the number one killer of spiritual life.
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Because to be most like God, you forgive. If God is known for forgiveness, if the cross epitomizes forgiveness, then we ought to be, you ought to be a forgiving person.
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Leon Morris said, we can always think of some good reason why in any particular case we need not to forgive.
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But that is always an error. So I wonder about you. I wonder if you have somebody in your life, maybe a few people in your life, or many, that you haven't forgiven.
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Lloyd -Jones says, I say to the glory of God in an utter humility, that whenever I see myself before God, I realize even something of what my blessed
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Lord has done for me, then I am ready to forgive anybody, anything. C .S.
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Lewis said, everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive. I never could figure out why
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Grandma Evie, I've told this story before, Kim's grandmother, seemed to have a thousand and one friends, ever increasing.
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And my grandparents, both sets, basically had none. Now I figured it out, that Grandma Evie, by the grace of God, was a
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Christian, and she forgave, and so she kept friendships. Because certainly, those people sinned against her, and she sinned against those people, but they were forgiven sins, and they kept friendships.
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And my grandparents, on both sides, were not Christians, and so when I was 12, and I had 50 friends,
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I couldn't really figure out why Grandma and Grandpa had no friends. And they had no friends, as I look back now, is because they were bitter people who couldn't forgive.
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And you know, for us as a church, if you're around here long enough, you will be sinned against, and you will sin against other people.
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And then how do you respond? If God so graced you, ought you not to grace other people?
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You say, well you don't really know what that person did. I don't need to know, because I know what
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Jesus did. This is a big deal, beloved. Listen to words you've all memorized.
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Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
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Next word. For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your
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Heavenly Father will also forgive you. If you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
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In other words, Christian people forgive. Ephesians 4,
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Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
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And you know what? This is a tough thing. You have to really watch it. Listen to Jesus.
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Be on your guard. What would you be on your guard about? Listen. If Jesus says you be on your guard, that means if you're not careful, you're like lulled into some lethargic stupor or something.
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Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.
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If he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times saying, I repent, forgive him.
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And the Apostle said to the Lord what you're probably thinking right now. Increase our faith.
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Because it's hard. That's why it's a supernatural thing. I read a long passage of Scripture at the beginning of the sermon.
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This isn't such a long passage of Scripture, but it's words from our Lord that will resonate for people who have even memorized it.
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Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I still forgive as many as seven times? Jesus said,
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I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.
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When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents, an unpayable debt.
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He said he could not pay. His master ordered him to be sold with his wife, his children, all he had, and payment to be made.
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So the servant fell on his knees, employing him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
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But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who had owed him a hundred denarii, three months' pay, seizing him, began to choke him saying, pay what you owe.
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So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.
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When his fellow servant saw that this had taken place, they were greatly distressed and they went and reported it to their master.
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The master summoned him and said, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?
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In his anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also my
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Heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from the heart.
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Let's pray. Our gracious and merciful
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Heavenly Father, we extol Your generosity and grace magnified at Calvary by Jesus Christ, the
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Son of God, the Son of Man, who came and cloaked Himself with flesh to live a life that we couldn't live.
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To die a death we should have died. It was raised from the dead. Father, thank You for forgiveness.
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And we would ask that You would help us by Your spiritual means through the
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Holy Spirit, through the Word, that we might be cleansed people. Not just judicially, but parentally.
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We want to be close with You. And so would You do work in us through Your Spirit of God today and this week.
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Father, thank You for forgiveness. I pray that Bethlehem Bible Church would be known for certainly we're not perfect, certainly there's sin.
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May we be known as a forgiving church. Father, increase our faith.