Sunday Morning Sermon Series - Pastor Jeff Shipley (Date:10/17/2021)

Now, I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel, wasn't their military styles, wasn't the type of people they were down to.

The guy who prays with God. This is not a very popular topic or I should say saying, but it takes a man to raise a man and I am so happy and so pleased here at this church that we have so many men, especially young men in their twenties and thirties that take an active role in raising young boys to become men.

So y 'all pray for them. They're headed on their way home today and I know that they have been successful in serving the

Lord. Secondly, I apologize for not being in here earlier. Apparently the power went out and Pastor Jeff's sermon notes went bye bye.

So Pastor Jeff has spent the last 25 minutes rewriting his sermon and I hope and pray that it is correct.

But this Wednesday, we're going to take a hiatus on our systematic verse by verse commentary through the entire

Word of God. We're going to take this, starting this Wednesday, we're going to do seven doctrines and I implore you, please.

If you don't understand biblical doctrine, you're going to have a struggle understanding the

Word of God. What doctrines are, are simply the essence and basic fundamental truths that God is trying to communicate through His Word.

And a doctrine will be found in Genesis as much as it is found in Revelation. It is found throughout the whole

Word of God. Simply knowing Bible stories is not God's understanding of knowing scripture, okay?

There's no stories in the Bible, sorry guys. It is fact historical, it is the sovereign

Word of God. Please, if you're not understanding biblical doctrine very well, please come starting this

Wednesday and we're just going to take a seven week hiatus to discuss seven major doctrines of the

Word of God. Last thing before we begin is this, I'm calling as the pastor for a special called business meeting next

Sunday morning. Now this will be, Bill, you're in the wrong place, security, okay, okay.

We're going to be discussing, actually brother Bill, an opportunity that we have as a church to minister to Bill, for Bill to minister to us.

And before I move forward with this, this is one of those things that I think and I believe the people here at Witten need to hear.

So next Sunday, right after the invitation time, it won't take too long,

I just need to have a pastor church moment about some opportunities that we have coming up.

Alright, this is part two of Pictures in Grace.

Now I know a lot of you, especially those of you that have been sat under my teaching for the last 17 years, you have heard me discuss the issue of David and his ultimate failure.

You have heard me talk about how David did bad things and all that other stuff in God.

But I can't find a better illustration in God's Word for how powerful

God's grace is. A beautiful picture cannot be found of God's restorative grace.

And so we're going to be in Psalms 51 this morning talking about this.

Now for those of you that don't know, I'm going to give you a brief synopsis of where we are.

The year is about maybe 1010 BC. Literally, we are reading something that was written a thousand years before Jesus Christ was even born.

Let that ferment in your little head. God has been at work since he said let there be light and he has not stopped working since that time.

And one of the things that God is trying to communicate to a lost and dying world is that his grace is the only hope we have in the restoration of our sinful selves back to God.

It is not your works. It is not your righteousness. It is not your efforts that will restore you back to God.

Some of us in this room are still looking for a religious adherence to feel the peace of God and it yet continues to escape you.

Guys, I'm here to tell you, not in a level of condemnation, but in an extension of an invitation of God's Word to leave your filthy works on the floor and simply run to the grace of God.

David here is the king of Israel. Now, historically, I could sit and speak for the next six hours about the military, economic and political history of Israel during this time.

Unfortunately, we don't have that time. But I'm here to tell you it's a pretty awesome, awesome thing.

David was of the tribe of Benjamin and he was the least of all the tribes.

And basically, it'd be like this. Think of, who's like a really white trash redneck in here?

Ben! Is that Ben? No, there's Ben. Who's that? Matt Dillon.

Oh my God, that's perfect. All right. White trash redneck, HVAC guy, just, yeah, it's

Matt, okay? Think of Matt becoming the president of the

United Nations tomorrow. Actually, I kind of, it'd be kind of cool.

But that's what's happened. David was a shepherd boy. God said, that's going to be the next king of Israel.

Everybody went, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, and yet he became the king of Israel. And David was a walking stud.

He was SEAL Team 6 stud. I mean him and about 40 other guys literally ran away from people trying to kill him, would attack him and then move back away and melt into the hills of Judah and no one could find him.

He was that kind of a stud. He was finally anointed king and Israel took over all of the

Middle East. It was the most powerful military and would become the most wealthy country in that region.

David was a man of God. Most of the Psalms you read in your little

Bible were written by David. His son Solomon wrote most of Proverbs.

David is talked about time and time again in Scripture of being this awesome man of God.

In Hebrews, God actually says, David was a man after my own heart.

In other words, if you want to measure super Christian or whatever, here's

God, God said David was closer to him than anybody else. David, when he was younger, loved the

Lord. But as things kept moving, he got kind of burned out.

You know what I mean? In your spiritual life, he got kind of burned out. And David started believing his own press.

Well, there was one last remaining enemy of Israel, the Ammonites. And you can still,

Ammon, Jordan, Ammonites, get it? So, once again, go to your little

Google, it's right there. But anyways, this was about 40 miles away from Jerusalem, the capital.

And David simply said, hey man, let's take these guys out. Our supply lines from the east are going to be secure.

Let's do this. And so, for the first time as the king of Israel, David did something different.

He had won so many battles. He was at the top of his game. And for the first time, he did this.

All of you guys, go fight. I'm going to hang here in the capital. First failure in leadership, guys.

First failure. As a pastor, as a president, as whatever. If you send people to do what you're not willing to do, if fathers to your children, if you have a standard for them that you do not mediate on yourself, you're a failure as a leader.

And your kids are going to grow up, and you won't believe that they're going to say this, but let me tell you what they're going to say. They're going to say this.

Their church is full of? And you know where they learn that? Not in church, but from you.

From you. When's the last time your kids saw you open up the Word of God at home? Hmm? Right?

Husbands, it's great that you have an AR -15 to defeat the Russians parachuting out of the sky.

Great. Awesome. The number one enemy you have to defend your family against is your selfishness.

Your apathy. Mark my words. And grandparents, who you've already matriculated through that, and your kids are now grown and jacked up, and you're like, going, well, we did the best we could.

Guess what, grandparents? You still have a responsibility to first repent and confess of your failures to your children, and then become the example to your grandchildren that you were supposed to be to your children.

Okay? So David's at home. His troops are off fighting. Now, Judean, well, actually,

Palestinian homes had a unique characteristic. Matt, Mike, is that Mike?

Dude, I'm so happy you're here. For real, man. So Matt, Mike, Parker, all you got.

We have more HVAC guys you can swing a stick at now. I don't understand. But anyways, back then, they had an

HVAC, they had an air conditioning system. And it was this.

They used airflow in their houses to pull air in. They would create basically a vortex in their house.

But in the summer times, that still was not enough. So most people back then, even the poor people, their roofs were flat.

They had a slight grade to them, but they were really flat. There's a roof man right there.

They were really flat. And in the summer time, they would actually go and sleep on their roofs.

That's where they slept to keep cool. Well, one night, David's out on his roof, and you have to understand

Jerusalem. And once again, you can look at a topographical map right now. Jerusalem is on a hill.

It's called Mount Zion, Mount Moriah. Yeah, those two, David's palace was up on a hill.

And so as he's out, he's kind of looking down on the rest of Jerusalem. And he looks over there off of Main Street, and there's a chick on a roof taking a bath.

www .hotbathsheba .com. So he's sitting there on his roof, and he's looking over.

And David should have done this. David should have gone, whoa, walk away. But here's what

David did. www .hotbathsheba

.com You young men know what I'm talking about? Forget that. You men know what I'm talking about? Huh? Walking with your wife somewhere, some chick walks by, and your neck suddenly goes, right?

Am I the only guy in here that's a heterosexual, right? Okay, come on.

David fails to be a leader. Then he fails morally. And then he does this.

Here's the thing. Here's where that temptation became sin.

David started making a plan. He called one of his servants over and said, hey man, who is that chick?

He goes, oh, that's Bathsheba. That's one of your soldier's wives. David said, bring her on up to see me.

So Bathsheba comes up there. And of course, everyone makes Bathsheba this little innocent chick.

No, man, she wasn't. She walks up in David's bedroom. It's like, what's up, big boy?

Right? Right? She's doing maybe some of this, you know, right?

David and Bathsheba have sex. This goes on for a little while. And then one day

David's at the palace and he gets a message from Bathsheba. And it says,

I'm pregnant. David goes, oh, no. Because you got to remember,

David is the head of the nation. David's the head of the army. David is also kind of like a shepherd pastor in the temple area.

They didn't have a temple yet, but the worship area. So here's what

David does. Instead of confessing, instead of repenting, instead of doing all that,

David says, hey, send a letter to the army to have Uriah come home to give me a report about the war.

So Uriah comes home and David says, hey, man, thanks for the report. I'm glad everybody's doing good. Hey, man, go on home and sit with your wife for a little bit.

You know what I mean? You know what I mean? You know what I mean? And his idea was Uriah and Bathsheba would watch

Netflix and chill out. And then the baby would just be Uriah's and everything would be cool, right?

David gets up the next morning and Uriah is sitting and has slept at the door of the palace.

And David's like, what are you doing, Uriah? You're a lazy boy and your woman's over there.

And this is what he says. Now, you're talking about a man of honor. He says, if my brothers who are in the field can't be with their wives,

I'm not going to be with mine. That's a stud right there. David says, okay, man, you're going back to the army and I want you to take this note with me, with you.

And the note basically said this. Hey, general, I want you to attack the main gate.

Quit doing the whole siege thing. Send Uriah and about 30 of your men to attack the gate.

Crazy, crazy. Suicide mission. But he did it on purpose.

And he said, once they start attacking, tell your men to pull back and leave Uriah there.

Uriah dies to death. Dies to death. Here's what Bathsheba did.

Bathsheba went, oh, that's so terrible. David, yeah, all right, let's get married.

She marries him. The baby dies. Baby dies.

Psalms 51 was written by David after a pastor, a prophet, comes to David and says, boy, you're a liar.

You need to repent. How bad have you all jacked up in your lives? Let me ask you this this morning.

What sin, right now, if I said the number one sin in your life keeping you from God's grace right now is what?

Okay, anger. Apathy. Pride. Anybody else?

Laziness. Fear. Bitterness. Who said what over here?

Selfishness. Overeating. I don't know nothing about that. Yes, all that stuff.

David did all that, plus he murdered, plus he committed adultery, plus he failed as God's leader.

And he writes this. After he's busted, he writes

Psalms 51. Read with me. Psalms 51 verse 1. It says this.

Be gracious to me, God, according to your faithful love.

According to your abundant compassion, blot out my rebellion. Wash away my guilt and cleanse me from my sin.

For I am conscious of my rebellion and my sin is always before me. Against you and you alone have

I sinned and done this evil in your sight. You are right when you pass sentence. You are blameless when you judge.

Indeed, I was guilty when I was born. I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

Guys, I'm going to give you four things very quickly. Four things about grace.

The first one is this. Grace is conviction. The Holy Spirit convicts one of two ways.

He convicts one of two ways. Number one, in this room this morning, the Holy Spirit could be convicting some of you that you are not a

Christian and you need to be saved. That's the first thing the Holy Spirit does.

The Holy Spirit works in our lives to bring about a realization that I am hopelessly lost in my sin.

That's the first thing the Holy Spirit does. But He does a second thing. If you are a Christian and a child of God, and you are living in sin or rebellion, let me tell you the fun thing the

Holy Spirit does. He sits there and goes, Hey Shipley, Jeff, what you doing boy?

Well, what happened was, and man, I'm telling you, and some of you may not have this experience, but I'll tell you about mine.

It's this. When I'm in rebellion against God and I'm sinful, man,

God does not, you think your wife nagged you? My wife ain't got nothing on the

Holy Spirit. My gosh, you think Vicki has a loud mouth?

It ain't nothing compared, Scott, huh? He ain't saying a word.

That is a smart young man. Guys, the

Holy Spirit is like a two -year -old asking why, except the power of God saying, why are you?

What are you doing? Oh, and you'll try to suppress it. You'll justify it. Well, I acted that way because He did this, blah, blah, blah, and you'll do all that garbage.

That don't help, does it? And the loneliness of the night as you're laying in that bed, and the

Holy Spirit is convicting you of your sin, you will mutter out some sort of half -hearted prayer,

Lord, please forgive me. But you have no intention of repenting. Guys, I tell you, conviction is grace.

And here's why. I have never whipped another kid in my life that did not belong to me.

Now, I kick my kids' rear ends all up and down the road sometimes. It seemed like, especially with...

Now, my daughter did nothing wrong. But them four boys, man, I had to beat them from an inch of their lives.

I know. And by the way, some of you people, I've seen your kids, you need some help, okay?

Seriously, because when your three -year -old boy is running the house, when your three -year -old daughter is looking at your wife or your woman going, no, and you sit there and go, one, two, you need to get out of the liberal mindset of how it is to raise a kid and go back to what the

Word of God says. Because if not, you're signing those kids up for destruction.

But we'll get to that some other time. Conviction, conviction is grace.

You may feel like God goes, I hate your guts. Or some of you may see

God as maybe your father or your mother. You're pathetic. You're worthless.

I can't stand you. Get out of my sight. If you were really sorry, you wouldn't have done it again.

None of those are words from God. Absolutely none of them. God's Word, His conviction is grace.

If God is convicting you, that means you belong to Him. How long will you wait in the misery of a broken relationship with God without being restored by His grace?

How much longer are you going to let that pride, cash checks, your butt doesn't have the money to cover?

How long are you going to sit in rebellion because you are afraid of losing the filth of the world and not seeing the riches of God's grace?

Guys, grace is conviction. Number two, it's this.

Grace is confession. Look here at verse 1. Look what it says. It says, my sin is always before me.

I'm sorry, verse 1. It says, be gracious to me according to your faithful love, according to your abundant compassion.

Blot out my rebellion. Private sin can be repented of privately.

Public sin needs to be repented of publicly. That's the way it works, okay?

You don't have to be like some of these... I see these side shows on TV where you come down here and go, well,

I'm looking at pornography, 20... You know, there's an old joke where the guy's preaching a revival and it's called, tell it all.

The guy comes in and says, they're in the church service, he goes, well, I was a gambler. And the preacher's like, that's right, tell it all.

Next guy comes up and says, I cheated on my wife. And the preacher goes, that's right, tell it all.

Third guy comes up and said, I had relations with my farm animals. Preacher says, I wasn't told that one, boy.

Confession to each other is one thing. But confessing your faults to God.

Now, if some of you are struggling with a sin, alcoholism, pornography, unfaithfulness, whatever, and you by yourself and the

Lord can't overcome that, that's why God invented this thing called the church. You see, the church's responsibility, and I know this is not taught in our culture anymore, that our lives with God are private and ain't nobody's business and stop judging me and all that other liberal horse garbage that has nothing to do with the reality of God's Word.

It says, confess your faults one to another that you may be healed, right?

See, that's that humility and that humbleness that comes along with confession and all of that is grace.

Guys, understand that grace is conviction. Grace is also confession.

Third thing is this. If you keep reading verse 5, it's this. It's cleansing.

Watch this, verse 2. Wash away my guilt and cleanse me from my sin.

I'm gonna make a confession today. I don't know if I've ever even told my wife this.

Huh? No, I have no farm animals. No, no, no. Gwen was somewhere, and I want to say she was shopping in Millington with her mother.

I cannot remember, but that sounds familiar. But Josiah was about a year, year and a half.

He was at the age where he's doing this, you know, when he's pulling himself up, that age, whatever that age is.

Well, he had a diaper issue. Now, I don't change girls' diapers.

I just think that's weird. I've always been that way. If Ashley's diaper was dirty, Gwen, you know,

I didn't mind changing my, let me rephrase, I changed my boys' diapers, all right? And it was not a great experience ever.

But Josiah was a nasty little boy. That boy would eat, and he would eat off his knuckles.

What I mean by that is he had his own food processor in his left and right. He would, whatever

I put on the tray, he would grab it and squeeze it to death and then eat it off of his knuckles.

Makes me want to sick to my stomach just talking about it. Well, his diapers were nine kinds of nasty, all right?

And that's all I'm going to say because I don't want to gross y 'all out. Well, one day,

Gwen's off running around and Josiah had a diaper issue.

He had a wardrobe malfunction where the little elastic around the legs said,

I quit and give up, and they gave loose. And I'm trying to be a little bit smooth about this, but all you mamas in here know what

I'm talking about. The bed, his legs, in his hair, everywhere.

Blow out. Who said that? Mike, you got it. Blow out.

Amanda, just wait, baby. It's coming. Is she here? She's not here. Wait, son. It's coming.

So I'm sitting there, and I know this happened not because I saw it first, but because I was walking down the hall while he was in his crib.

I went, oh my gosh. And I opened up the door, and he was there in his nap, and I was like, do what?

Oh, he was no. He was awake at this point going. Just don't.

I'm telling you, I will hurl my McNuggets all over this floor. And I didn't.

I was just like, oh my gosh. This is, oh, and he's like, he doesn't realize how nasty he is.

And I want to say that as a intelligent, logical adult,

I grabbed the wet wipes, and I wish I would have said I put him in the shower, but here's the thought process in my head.

If I put him in the shower to clean him up, then what do you got to do? Clean the shower. So I stripped him of everything that was on him, took him outside in our front yard at James and Warford, sat him on the concrete sidewalk, grabbed the garden hose,

I'm not kidding you, and started spraying this naked white baby.

And I mean, I was even doing the lift and leg, and you know, pulling stuff apart and getting the nooks and crannies.

Now that ridiculously long metaphor and analogy, and the failure of me as a parent, is to illustrate the reality of where I am today.

Some of you in this room actually believe that Josiah could have got up, pulled off the filthy clothes, climbed out of the crib, went into the shower, turned on the water to a tepid temperature so it wouldn't burn his little sensitive baby skin, washed himself off, put a diaper back on him, and put clean clothes on.

Has anybody ever seen an infant do that? You know why?

They're incapable of doing it. Here's the reality. They don't actually understand how revolting they are.

Some of you people are sitting in this church, and you're a good moral person, but you don't understand what you look and smell like to God.