If you have your Bibles, we're in Psalm 51. Psalm 51, next week I'll begin our study of the book of Colossians. This is the last typical weekend or holiday of the summer. You never know who's here, and so I'll begin the study in Colossians next week. So I want to do a psalm today. Psalm 51 is, the context of it begins in the beginning, because in the beginning God created all things. And everything was good, made man and female, male and female in His image, and He said they're very good. And then man and female died or sinned unto death. They did what God told them not to do and sin entered the human race. And we see this in Genesis 1 through 3 and then in chapter 4 we see the first murder with Cain killing his brother Abel. In chapter 5 it's just the death chapter. It's everyone who died with the exception of one man named Enoch. And then the flood in Noah's day where wickedness got so bad. that God flooded the entire earth, Genesis 6, 7, 8, 9. In Genesis 10, you have the dispersion of the nations and the Tower of Babel. In Genesis 11, where man once again tried to make his own gods. In Genesis 12, God called a man named Abraham and gave him his covenant. He said, I will make my covenant with you. You, Abraham, and your offspring will possess the land that I show you, I will bless you, and you will be a blessing. I will give you the land, I will give you a seed, and I will give you a blessing. And Abraham became a large nation. He birthed Isaac. Isaac birthed Jacob. Jacob birthed 12 sons who became the tribes of Israel, the 12 tribes of Israel. Those 12 tribes were taken down to Egypt, the latter part of Genesis. And in the opening chapters of Exodus, that's where they're found. The children of Israel are numerous in the millions, except they're not in the land that God told them to be in. and God gave them, or that God gave Abraham, they're in Egypt, and they're in bondage. And God led them out, after hundreds of years in bondage, led them out through a man named Moses. Moses led them out, but the people didn't want to go into the land, back into the land of promise, they were too sinful. So God let them walk around in the wilderness, called the wilderness wanderings, for 40 years, until that generation completely died, and He took the next generation into that land, under a man named Joshua. Yahweh saves is what his name means. Yahweh delivers and he delivered God's people into their land and they dispersed or I should say they spread out into their territories. It became the land of Israel no longer the land of Canaan but the land of Israel. God's land with God's people fulfilling God's promise. As long as Joshua was alive the people were good. Joshua died and then rulers sprang up behind him. We call them judges. We read about them in the book of Judges. One judge after another. When the judge was there, the people obeyed. When the judge died, they didn't. And those judges went all the way up to the time, you hear the last one you read in the book of Judges is named Samson. But there were other judges beyond him. There was a man named Eli, who was also a judge in Israel. We meet Eli in the book of 1 Samuel, chapters 1 and 2. And Eli was accompanied, or given later, this young boy, a very young boy, maybe as young as two, between two and five years of age. His mom brought him and dedicated him to the Lord. His name was Samuel, and he was the last judge in Israel, and he was a good man, one of the best men the Bible ever features, is Samuel. Samuel led Israel, but Israel decided they wanted a king. And they chose a king after their flesh, the tall, dark, and handsome guy. You know, that's the guy that always gets chosen. And they chose a man named Saul. Saul, son of Kish. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. The people wanted him. Samuel said, you don't want a king. And the people said, no, we want a king. God said, Samuel, that's what they want. Give them what they want. Give them the king. See how that goes for them. Well, it didn't go too well. Saul begins to reign. The man who is tall, dark and handsome and has everything going for him is nothing but a sinner and wants his own way, wants to do things his way. That's kind of the way all of us are wired, isn't it? At a certain point, God said, I'm through with Saul. He is not going to obey me. He's going to do his thing. I conceive of a man after my own heart. About eight years before this man David was born, God is calling him a man after his own heart. Before he's even born, God knew him. He tells Samuel, he said, go to the house of Jesse. an anoint, one of the sons that I tell you to anoint. So Samuel goes to this man's house named Jesse, and Jesse has seven sons, at least seven that are in the house that day. The one comes up to Samuel, and Samuel thinks in his heart, this is the guy. He's what? He's tall, dark, and handsome. Sorry, if you're tall, dark, and handsome today, I'm really sorry. Today is about the short, ruddy, good-looking guy. Samuel thinks in his heart, this is the guy. And God says, no, I don't look at men's appearance as you do, Samuel. I look at the heart. And so Jesse's first son passes Samuel and God rejects him. The second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh son passes by Samuel and God tells Samuel, I reject all of them. So Samuel asks Jesse, is there another son? He said, yeah, I got another son, but he's out in the field. Samuel said, go get him. And so they bring in this man, this young boy, a shepherd boy named David. From the humblest of origins, the runt of the family, out in the fields while the others are in the house, the others will serve in Saul's army, David is a shepherd boy watching sheep bring him in. David had an interesting day that day because Samuel anointed him king over Israel while Saul remained on the throne. His humble origins are beautiful. His attitude is beautiful. He is a man after God's own heart. 1 Samuel 13, 14 says he is a man after God's own heart. Think about that for a minute. A man who wants only what God wants. Then we see David go through the difficulties of life as an anointed king while the other anointed king remains on the throne. And then we see David take the throne. Saul dies and David is on the throne. And this man that God loves and who loves God, who writes music and poetry and goes out to battle, defeating his enemies, the man's man, the godly man, God's man, one day He notices a woman who is not his wife and he wants her. So he sins for her. They have an adulterous affair. She has a husband who is out fighting in a battle where David probably should have been. He sleeps with her. She becomes pregnant. She tells him, I'm pregnant. This is in the Bible. Sounds like an episode of Desperate Housewives. Lots of the Bible sounds like that. It's a soap opera of sorts. It gets a lot worse than that, not just in David's life, but in David's family. I'm pregnant. What does David do? He sends a message to Joab, his military general, and says, tell her husband, whose name is Uriah, he's a Hittite. He's not even an Israeli. He's of Hittite origin. Tell Uriah to come see me. I want to talk to him. So he comes back and he tells Uriah, how's the battle going? Oh, it's fierce, David. Uriah, I want you to go home tonight. I want you to sleep with your wife. Enjoy it, just for being a great warrior. Uriah says, oh no, my lord. I could never sleep with my wife and enjoy the comforts of home while my brothers are in the battlefield. So David gets him drunk. in hopes that in his drunken stupor he'll go sleep with his wife because he needs him to sleep with his wife so that Uriah will think that the baby that is David's inside Bathsheba's womb is actually Uriah's. But Uriah won't do it. Uriah's not, he's not alert to what's happened. He's just too good a guy to sleep with his wife at this point while his brother's in the battlefield. Okay, Uriah, you just signed your death warrant. So David signs a release, makes a letter, rolls it up, gives it to Uriah, go back to the battlefield, give this to Joab. Joab rolls it open, essentially says put Uriah on the front lines. When the fighting gets fierce, pull back from him, leave him all alone and let him die. And that's exactly what happened. And so when David gets word that Uriah the Hittite, which by the way, he's listed in the Old Testament as one of David's 30 mightiest warriors, now he's dead. When David gets word that he's dead, he says, fine, now I'll take Bathsheba to be my wife. And he does. A man after God's own heart. Is that possible? Well, it happened. In Psalm 51, the book of Psalms, chapter 51, what appears to be a sub-caption in your Bible where it says, for the choir director, a Psalm of David. when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone into Bathsheba is actually verses 1 and 2 in the Hebrew text. So don't think that that little sub-caption is just written by a human author. It is written by David, but it is verses 1 and 2 in the Hebrew text. David wrote a song about what happened. That's why it's called a psalm or a song of David. When did he write it? Well, he wrote it after a man named Nathan, who was a prophet, came to him and he explained to David. God had sent Nathan, he said, I know what David's done, go tell him his sin. And so Nathan, very creatively, goes to David and gives him a parable. He says, if this happened in this parable, what do you think of it, David? And David was furious at the parable. But the parable was an illustration of David and Nathan was able to say, you're mad at that guy in the parable, David? You are that man. That's you. That's what you did. And David immediately repents. He knows what he's done. And once his sin has been exposed and it's out in the open, David writes a song. Now I don't know, I know the lyrics to the song quite well. They're written there in front of us, but I don't know how the music goes, so be happy today. I'm not going to sing this. I'm going to preach it. David now with his sin exposed, known by God, and he knows it's known, and Nathan knows it. What do you do? You see, in the Old Testament sacrificial system, there was no sacrifice for adultery. It was a capital crime, punishable by death. Yes, adultery. It's a common thing today. People even encourage it today. It's a capital offense in the Old Testament. Murder was a capital offense. There was no burnt offering that God provided in the Old Testament. If you commit murder, go offer this offering and I'll atone for your sins. Not there. The only offering is your life. So with your sin exposed, you are the man after God's own heart in Israel. What do you do? Well, let me bring it home. If you are a person who has made a profession of faith in Jesus, you are a believer in Christ. You love Christ. You have served Him. You have worshipped Him. But you have not been always faithful. You're not the Semper Fi in your faith. Maybe you went out and committed adultery. Maybe there's a secret murder you committed. Maybe you've been ripping the IRS off for years. Maybe you owe somebody money. Maybe you're a college student and you went hog wild knowing full well what you were doing was wrong, wicked, and evil. Maybe you're a college student who hasn't done that and you're about to do it because you've seen other people had a really good time doing it. You've sinned so badly and knowing your past, you know that you know Christ. You know that others know that you know Christ. Maybe you led music up here, and you stood up here with your arms in the air singing the praises of God. Maybe you shared a Bible study. Maybe you were a preacher. Maybe you were a missionary out in the field telling everybody about Jesus, but you fell just like everyone else seems to. What do you do? We expect that from people that don't know Christ. And unfortunately, we don't tolerate it often enough from people who do know Christ who make those mistakes. We sin that way. What do you do? Well, let's just look and see what David did. With no offering to make, I mean, when you're guilty, you're guilty. What can you do? I'm guilty. He says, be gracious to me, O God, according to your loving kindness. According to the greatness of your compassion, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin." By the way, in the Hebrew text, these are imperatives. They are commands. The gall of David. I command you to do this. That's really not his attitude. But you do, you make such a bold request when you are banking on God's mercy. You see, when you're guilty, what do you have but mercy? You go before the one that you've sinned against and you say, look, I'm guilty. There is nothing I can say or do to get out of this. I throw myself at your mercy. That's what David has done. Now a human being might give you that and they might not. Let me tell you this, my friends, without any caveats, God will always do it. God has a never-ending supply of mercy. And when we get to the end of that rope, that proverbial rope, when we have sinned so bad, we can't even tolerate ourselves. And what we think has been hidden has now been exposed. We say, be gracious to me, God. Why? According to your, and my New American Standard Bible translates the word as loving kindness, according to your loving kindness. This would be the Hebrew equivalent word, it's called hesed, H-E-S-E-D, and you have to put a chlem on your hesed if you wanna pronounce it properly. It's akin to agape love in the Greek text. In other words, God, according to your volitional love, that love that you decided to give me, not based on anything that I've done to cause you to love me. Lord, according to your loyal love that you would never withdraw from me, according to that promise of love that you gave me, be gracious to me. Have mercy on me. according to your loving kindness." Notice that he doesn't go to God and say, Lord, according to your justice, deal with me. Who does that? How many of you have ever gone before God and said, Lord, I'm a sinner. Show me your justice. You're a fool. You can't do that. Lord, I'm guilty. Go ahead and strike me down right now. Send me straight to hell. Now you might know that that's where you belong, but nobody prays that way. Why don't we pray that way? There's only one reason, because God offers another way. Why pray for justice when you can go to God and pray for mercy? If you have sinned in such a way, Let me tell you, let me give you the best news you'll hear. You can go before God and ask for mercy. I don't care what you've done, and I don't care how many times you've done it. I have prefaced this message over the past two weeks talking about God's love, reminding about God's love. You see, when you love someone, you want to be merciful to them. God's love goes beyond our love, so far beyond it. God wants you in your absolute, satanic, erotic world that you've drifted into, He wants you to come before Him and demand His mercy. That's all you got. You have no other leg to stand on. You cannot go before him and say, Lord, you know how good I used to be. You cannot go before him and say, Lord, you know how much money I once gave. You cannot go before him and say, Lord, that building that the church meets in, you know it's because I gave most of the money for that. God's going, that was my money. Everything you have is mine. Don't claim it for yourself. You go before God for mercy because you can. And you cannot, none of you, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin with their sins combined could come before the Lord God Almighty and place their lives before His mercy and He would grant it. Bad news on your bulletin is that all have sinned and fall short of God's glory. The really bad news is that the price you pay for such is death, eternal death. The good news in light of that is that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. When I got good, when I did some good deeds, while you were still a wretched fool, Christ died for you. Can I have that? Yes. Real good news. If we confess with our tongue and believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you shall be saved. It is by grace that you have been saved. It is not a work. It is nothing you've done. It is a gift of God. It is had through faith in Jesus Christ. So I'm saved. You're saying, Lance, I'm saved. I'm washed clean. That's what I'm saying. But I've sinned since I came to know Christ, since I was baptized. Lance, I've sinned in ways I couldn't even tell you. How many times have I heard that in a counseling session? And my answer is always the same. It doesn't matter how many times you've sinned, once you become a Christian, you're not going to stop sinning. The old man inside of you, the old sinful person will constantly do battle with the renewed person by which Christ's dwelling, God's Holy Spirit indwells us. There will be that constant battle between what you want to do and what God says to do. Depending upon how closely you walk with God will depend on how often you conquer your sin, but you will sin. And when you do, you have a continual Savior who continues to stand at the altar and offer the sacrifice of His blood to continually cleanse us. Even adultery? Yes. Even murder? Yes. Even Holocaust? Yes. You cannot out-sin God. So what do you do? You do what David did. You throw yourself at His mercy. He says in verse two, wash me thoroughly. He speaks, I should say, at the end of verse one, blot out my transgressions. To blot something out is to erase it, just erase it, just get rid of it. Wouldn't you like to do that? A lot of things you've done in life, if you could just see a ledger of what you've done, if someone was going to look at that ledger, wouldn't you love it if you had an eraser 10 minutes before they looked at it? Just erase that, I don't want them to see this, I don't want them to see that. Or just do what they did at the Watergate, just take a black market, everything you don't want to see. That's what David's asking him to do. Blot it out. He speaks of his transgressions. In verse 2 he speaks of his iniquities. At the end of verse 2 he speaks of his sin. He's using synonymous language, but a transgression in the Bible is blatant rebellion. That's what it is. Here's what you do and don't do. I'm going to do this and not do this. Blatant rebellion. I know what I should do, but I'm not going to do it. That's a transgression in the Bible. Iniquity, when he says, wash me thoroughly, he's talking about soap. Wash me of my iniquity. He's speaking of this original sin, what we're born with. How do I know that? Look over at verse 5. He says, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and sin my mother conceived me. It's that sin that's inborn to us. It's why we sin at all. Lord, blot out the first one, wash me thoroughly of the other, and cleanse me of my sin. Sin is that missing the mark. Think of it as a target. God's mark is the center. A sin is to miss it anywhere around the center. Blot it out, wash me thoroughly, and cleanse me. Give me a good bath, Lord, and let me come out stainless. You think God would go, you've got some nerve. Having done what you did after I did so much for you, David, and brought you to this place, you've got some nerve. We might expect God to do that, but He doesn't. Isn't that beautiful news? Does it matter what you've done to recognize God for who He is and ask Him for mercy? God doesn't do this. Well, we'll see. It's kind of what we do with each other. We'll see. For God, it's done. Done. You come to me for the forgiveness of sins? That's what I do. That's what it is to be divine. It's to offer forgiveness. There's only one being on the planet that can do this, and he's beyond the planet, the creator of the planets, and his name is God. We call him Jesus Christ our Lord. Verse 3, on your bulletin there you can see under Christians continue to sin, yet God continues to forgive them. 1 John 1.9 says, confess your sins and God is faithful and just to what? To forgive us of all ongoing sin, all wrongdoing. Confess them. That's what David is going to do, he is confessing. Cry out to God in mercy. Verses 1 and 2. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. He doesn't say it's ever before you, Lord. It's ever before me. Have you sinned in such a way that you can't get it off your mind? What you did, you've tried everything you know to do to get it off your mind. You may have done it 20 minutes ago. You may have done it 20 years ago. I've counseled people that have dealt with sin for over 60 and even 70 years. It remains on their conscience. It breaks us down. David also wrote Psalm 32 under the same circumstances. Turn over there if you would. I want to show you what his sin did to him physically. That's what sin does to us physically. Psalm 32. Written under the same, it's the same writer, David. He's writing about the same sin. I think Psalm 32 was probably written very soon after his sin was, after he confessed and repented of his sin. I think Psalm 51 is probably written in a little more hindsight. But look at what he says. First of all, Psalm 32 1, how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Amen. How blessed? Blessings in a plurality of ways, over and over. How blessed is the person whose sins are not going to be held against us? Where are you ameners? That is the gospel. Thank you, Jimmy. Some people don't know when to say amen, do they? It's okay to say it when something right is said. You know, it's one of the things that confuses me about the charismatic church. Their hands are all there, and you're in the music. Songs that aren't even glorifying to God oftentimes. But when the Word of God is preached, the inerrant, infallible Word of God, everybody sits there. Go away singing these crazy songs and you forget the sermon 30 seconds after you leave. That's sin. That's part of our sin. The inerrant word of God says, how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. We're getting closer. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Notice what David says, when I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away. How many of you worked in the yard yesterday? Worked in your garage a little bit? Mowed the lawn? I love that kind of work. I love it, and I love Texas summers. You'll never hear me gripe about the heat. I love the heat. I will gripe about a 50-degree day. But I love the heat, I love the sweat, I love to write guard. I love it. And my wife loves it, by the way. But it'll sap your strength. An August day in the yard will sap your strength. I know what he's talking about. David is saying when you're under that kind of drain, he was under that kind of drain because of his sin, as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledge my sin to you and my iniquity I did not hide. I said I will confess my transgression to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin." Look at Psalm 51 again. When he says there in verse 3, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. I will say this, that if you are a child of God, if you are a child of God. The sins that you have not confessed, you have not come clean on, will never leave you. They will constantly be in your mind. They will weigh you down. They will hurt you. They will stress you out. I thought God forgave me. He does. Christ forgives all our sins. You don't have to go back and find every single thing you've ever done and confess it to be forgiven. Christ wipes the slate clean. But we still deal with that guilt of our sin. You committed adultery, and only you and the person you committed it with know. Remember, God knows, and your sin is ever before you as it is before Him. Your little quote-unquote mistakes on your tax returns, what you might owe the government, God knows. What you owe your neighbor, God knows. There are people, as a counselor, I have found that really one of the biggest problems with people that come for counseling is that they are dealing with a guilty conscience. They cannot get the things they've done off their mind. Abortion is a big one. Women who have had abortions, who've been told that, ah, it's just fetal tissue, don't worry about it, it's your right to choose, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can tell people that all they want, but anyone with a conscience knows that's a living soul. And when you take it, you remember it. You'll always think about what that baby would have been. I got good news for you, ladies. God forgives that. He forgives that. Confess it to Him. Lord, I did that. Forgive me, Lord. He does. You don't have to jump the hoops. You don't have to give a bunch of money. You don't have to come to confession. You don't have to tell me. You can. You can tell anyone, but God forgives you. You want to carry it the rest of your life? You want to carry the murder of that child? You'll know exactly what David's saying. David killed a man. He slept with another woman, impregnated her, and then killed the man to try to live on his terms. That doesn't go away. And David carried it with him. It is ever before me. So on your outline there, Navigate through there, verses 3 to 6. Confess your sins, admitting what God already knows. He continues in verse 4, against you, you only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Well, that's interesting because David sinned against Bathsheba. She had a part in it. She may have been a willing participant. But David was king over Israel, a man after God's own heart. He should have protected that woman. He should have gone down, sent a servant, a female servant, and said, hey, here's a bath towel. You need to wear it. You need to take your baths in private. Men are looking. But he didn't. He brought her up. Was she willing? It doesn't matter. He sinned against her. He killed her husband, sinned against him. He dishonored his parents. He dishonored his God. He coveted another man's wife. He lied about it. He broke all the commandments. And yet he says, I only sinned against you, Lord. How can he say that? Well, he can say it this way. When you sin against one of God's children, you sin against God. If you hurt my daughter or my son, you hurt me. I am their, well, in a human way, I am their maker. When we hurt another human being, we hurt their maker. We sin against the maker. And that is what David is saying. It's not that David is saying, I've got nothing to say to Uriah and his family. I've got nothing to say to Bathsheba and her family. He's not saying that. He's going to the source. Lord, I have sinned against you. I have done what is evil in your sight. He confesses it. How many people have we met in the course of our lives that cannot bring themselves to admit wrongdoing? I have met too many. I don't understand it. I don't understand how people can't just say, I was wrong, especially when you know it to be true. It ends many arguments. It ends most arguments. Cheryl and I were laughing about it yesterday. We're walking along the sidewalk in the green belt, and there's a child's bike that's sitting right in the middle of the sidewalk. And the people whose bike apparently their child owned, the owners of the bike, they're in the yard, just right next to it. It's a fenced-in yard, and they're out at the pool, and they're having a good time. And Cheryl and I have to walk around the bike. It's no big deal. It wasn't a noise. It's just a small bike. We just had to walk around it. Well, one of the guys said, hey, sorry about that. Hope that's no problem. But knowing me, I probably would have walked by and gone, these people think they can put their bike anywhere they want. But if they call out and say, hey, sorry about that, I'll come get it, I'll say, no problem, I don't care. There was a woman years ago, I came to a stop sign, same time she, actually, she got there first. You ever been to that, you know that little awkward pause, silence, and everybody, you wave, and they wave, no, no, no, you decide to go, they decide to go, waves again, anyway. We both get there, and she was there first. And that was fair, no problem, but I was adjusting something in the car, probably a radio or something, and I let off the gas, or let off the brake, and the truck went, and that face of hers went, she was ready to rumble. And I felt bad about it, I felt silly, and all I could do through the windows was mouth to her, I'm sorry. And her face went from, I am going to murder you, to, that's okay. like that. Why? Because I said I'm sorry. It changes things like that. Or that man, I've told you the story before, I had this lady's all the roughage from her backyard, pine needles and sticks and leaves, and I did not want to go to the local dump. This will be fine in a vacant lot. I was going to take whatever money she had paid, I was going to have to pay the dump, so I thought, I'll find a vacant lot. Well, there wasn't any real vacant lots available at the time except this wooded area between two homes. I looked left, I looked right. Nobody was looking. I backed my, and it was a brand new truck, I had had it for a week, backed it up onto the curb, into the woods. I hear the thing around my nice paint. No one's out yet. I pop the tailgate down, and I'm pulling it all out, and all of a sudden, I hear this guy. Hey! He's running out to me, and he's ready to rumble, too. Well, I'm guilty of sin. I know it. I know this is wrong. I can't do this. If they'd have done it next to my house, I'd be yelling, too. So what did I do? I said, I'm sorry. I know. I know. He's just giving it to me. He's standing over me. And every time I said, I know, I'm sorry. You are right. Please forgive me. At the end of this yelling match, he shook my hand and told me he was sorry. That's okay. Don't worry about it. It's just roughage. It's not going to be noticed. Folks, a sorry ends disputes. It ends hundreds of years of dispute saying, I did this. Will you forgive me? It's that simple. What are you waiting for? That's what David's doing. He's modeling this man after God's own heart who does the things that we don't approve of, but that we're capable of, also knows what to do at the end of it all. I have sinned. I have done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge. In other words, I'm guilty. Anything you do to me, Lord, I deserve. Verse 5, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity. And in sin my mother conceived me. This is what we call original sin. David is saying, look you're justified in doing what you would do to me in verse 4. In fact, I was born this way. I was conceived. I didn't come out of my mother's womb sinful. I was conceived in sin. When sperm hit the egg, I became a sinner. Because the sperm that hit the egg, both of those two objects were also sinful. And hence, I am a sinner. Conceived in it, born in it, and I live in it. Verse 6, Behold, you desire truth, whereas, what he's saying is, whereas I'm born in iniquity and conceived in iniquity, you desire truth in the innermost being. And in the hidden part, you will make me know wisdom. Lord, I'm this, I was born this way, and you are this way. In my sin, you will take what you have, and in my innermost being, you'll make me wise. And I love that at the brunt of verse six, you will make me know wisdom. You will cause me to know it. Verse six, I'm sorry, verse seven, purify me with His, This word, first of all, purify, it's a strange word because it means to sin. Sin me, in Hebrew, except the stem that it's in is called a P-I-E-L, and it intensifies it, and it means de-sin me, un-sin me. I love that. I'm looking at it going, why does the English text say purify me, and the Hebrew text I'm seeing looks sin me. No, it's de-sin me. Unsend me. How do you do it with hyssop?" Well, hyssop is like one of these plants, one of these top little green things. You use it as a paintbrush. The Jews used it as a paintbrush. In fact, that's what they used on the night of Passover. They used hyssop. It was a branch with little leaves at the end, and they'd paint it in the blood of the lamb, or they'd dip it in the blood of the lamb and paint it on their doorposts. So when the death angel flew over, it would pass over them if the blood was there and spare the firstborn. It was also used in the Old Testament for ceremonial cleansing. Blood would be washed upon you when you would repent of a sin, bring an animal sacrifice. Hyssop was used, this blood, to paint, to show blood atonement for your sin. And so what David is saying is, use blood, purify me with hyssop. And David being a writer, stay with me on this, David writes psalms that we call messianic psalms. where David in 1000 BC, 1000 years before Christ, sees Christ and writes a prophecy about Christ. I think he's doing the same thing here. He foresees the blood of the Lamb, not all the lambs of the Old Testament, but the Lamb of God. It's the only way that you have the gall to command God to forgive you for the sins that he's committed. Purify me. Give blood that does cleanse my sin. Make me unsinned. and I shall be clean. He says, purify me, wash me that I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness. You ever prayed that? You ever wanted that? You've been so taken down by maybe it's your own sin, maybe it's just the circumstances of life. Make me hear joy and gladness. Joy and gladness is all around us. Make me hear it, God. Open my eyes to it. It's everywhere. I mean, we don't have to say, God, I've lost my joy. God is just going to say, look, remember the cross. Remember me. If you've lost your joy, you've lost sight of me, God would tell us. Think of me. Dwell upon me. All things God, all things Jesus Christ, your joy will be restored no matter where you are. I read every day, I read stories of martyrs in various books that I have, modern and ancient. And they all seem to have this same steady way of facing their accusers with calm and peace. They know where they're going. Torture doesn't bother them because they know whatever pain they're going through is not going to last. However long it lasts, they squeak out right out of that into eternity. And they welcome it. Their joy comes from knowing and thinking on heavenly things, on Christ. I think David is thinking that. Purify me, wash me, make me hear joy and gladness. And what has prevented him from hearing joy and gladness? His sin. His unconfessed sin to this point. He says in the middle of verse 8, let the bones which you have broken rejoice. which is just metaphorical for my body. I feel the ache. I feel the pain of what I've done and who I am. Lord, please release me from that. The guilt that people carry with them today is mostly the reason why people are on so many drugs. It's mostly why people try to drink themselves into a stupor. They're trying to forget their pain. They want it gone from their head I've been in situations before where I just want I don't want to think you just you can't get it off your mind What's on there you go to bed and you lay there and and if you're praying about it Well, then you're constantly praying about something that's causing you to continue to think about it You think I need to get out of here turn some music on I need to go do something loud I need to do something where there's lots of people so I won't think about it and that can work but there's gotta come a time where you're gonna be quiet again and The people that cannot be quiet will medicate themselves to try to forget this pain and it will wear on their bodies. And beautiful women who are 25 and 30 years of age you see start having these bags under their eyes and they look 50. Men, young and vibrant, have got gray hair. Now gray hair can be good, mind you. And being bald can be good. So this is not a condemnatory statement about some of you. Daniel Stokes is a great guy with white hair. I didn't hear an amen from his wife or anything, but I'm going to give him the kudos for a good guy. Herman over there has no hair. Both men are good and they're my friends. I'm not condemning anyone, but men who are otherwise youthful will become gray before their time, lose their hair before their time, pulling it out, finding it in the shower. Why? Over stress. Their bodies can't handle it. It is known physically that what stress does to our bodies physically. It's such a burden off to know that your sins are forgiven, to be able to rest easily. How many of you have read Pilgrim's Progress? The main character of the book, it's, by the way, next to the Bible, it's the greatest selling book of all time. There's no excuse for not reading it. You can even listen to it on a, go on a trip and listen to it. The main character's name is Christian. What is Christian carrying the whole way? His burden. It's a, it's a, what do we call it? Allegory, it's an allegory. See, sometimes I just pray and God speaks to me out of the air, allegory. Through you, of course. He's carrying this burden, and when he hears the gospel, and he hears that his sins are forgiven, the burden is gone. That's what David is saying. If you'll do this, my broken bones will rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, verse 9, and blot out my iniquities. Verse 10, create in me a clean heart, O God. That word for create is the same word that we read in Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created, bara, B-A-R-A. Only God can create. And David is saying, my heart is so messed up, Lord, you've got to create it. You've got to recreate, create in me a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit in me. Steadfast spirit is in contrast to I can no longer go on, Lord. A spirit that is steady, steady, always thinking of your love and your mercy. Renew that in me. Create in me. Renew it. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Now here's why I think David says that. Everything in here you and I can repeat. You don't ever have to tell God not to take his Holy Spirit from us. David was, before he became king, he was the right hand man to King Saul. And Saul's insanity, David was hired because he played music. He played the harp. And he was hired that when Saul went into his insanity, David would come play the harp for him. And the music would relieve Saul of his guilt. Saul had committed sin after sin after sin, and Samuel finally told him, God has torn the kingdom from you and given it to David. We know in 1 Samuel that God actually gave His, in fact I'd like you to turn over there with me if you would, if you want to, it's in 1 Samuel, turn to 1 Samuel chapter 10, I just want to show you. 1 Samuel chapter 10, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel. 1 Samuel 10 says, Then Samuel took the flask of oil, poured it on his head. He's talking about Saul. Kissed him. Said, Has not the Lord anointed you ruler over his inheritance? When you go from me today, then you will find two men. And he gives him this prophecy. Look at verse 6. Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man. Look at verse 9. And then it happened when he turned his back to leave Samuel, God changed his heart. Again, we're talking about Saul. And all those signs came about on that day. And the prophets met him, and the Spirit of God came upon him. So you note that God's Spirit is upon Saul. Came upon him mightily, so that he prophesied among them. And it became a byword that people were going, is Saul also among the prophets? You see that the Holy Spirit of God has come upon King Saul. And yet, in chapter 13, verse 14, it says, But now your kingdom shall not endure. This is after Saul has disobeyed God. 1 Samuel 13, 14. But now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart. And the Lord has appointed Him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. Stay in 1 Samuel and look over at chapter 16. 1 Samuel 16 says, Now the Lord said to Samuel, How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? And now look at verse 14. Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord terrorized him. David saw this. David witnessed it. David saw a man whose God's Spirit overpowered, whose God's Spirit was upon. And Saul was a mighty man early on in his reign. And David saw when Saul saw when the Spirit of God departed from Saul. And he saw the madman that Saul became. So what I think, in Psalm 51, is David scared out of his mind going, Lord, I've sinned too. Don't do to me what happened to Saul. I don't want that to happen to me. Saul never repented of his sin, never confessed it, never repented. David is saying, please don't let that happen to me. You and I, folks, when we come to know Christ, in fact, when you receive Christ, the moment before you receive Christ, God's Holy Spirit has entered you. and regenerated you to cause you to be able to receive Christ. You don't receive Christ and then get the Spirit. The Spirit of God opens our eyes to receive Christ. The New Testament speaks of the Spirit of God baptizing us on a one-time occasion. We are baptized by Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit. Then that Spirit indwells us. We talk about demon possession. Christians are possessed by God, by God's spirit. It's there and it's not going anywhere. It's called the seal. A seal like a brand. Ephesians chapter 1 verses 13 and 14. And it is there as a guarantee of our future redemption. In other words, it's not going anywhere. The Holy Spirit of God is not going anywhere. You never have to tell God, please don't take your spirit from me. It's there. It's sealed. Signed, sealed, and delivered, as we said. You will be delivered. God guarantees it. Mattress Mac guarantees his furniture, and we can count on old Mac giving us what we want. By golly, we can trust God with the seal of his guarantee. We may be filled to a greater extent with the Spirit on some days rather than other days. That's why we're told in the New Testament, be filled with the Spirit of God, but we are always indwelt and sealed by the Spirit. Old Testament dispensation versus the New Testament dispensation. The Spirit did different things in the Old Testament than what it does in the New Testament. So we don't pray that. And yet we see David going, don't do to me, I think, what happened to Saul. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, which is a word that means deliverance. Restore it. I've lost it, Lord. Give it back and sustain me with a willing spirit. You see, David knew that even if God forgave him, he knew he was still capable of those sins. Do you? Do you know that once you've been forgiven by Christ, you're still capable of the most heinous of sins? David knew it too. At the very least, he's saying, sustain me with a willing spirit or let me love you more than I love my sin. It's a great prayer to pray. It's very bold, too. And then is what he hopes to accomplish after what God will do for him. He says, then I will teach, in verse 13, I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will be converted to you. It's what he does in Psalm 32. Lord, you do this, I'll go tell everybody about you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness. Blood guiltiness means probably, he's thinking of Uriah the Hittite. Lord, I cannot get that man's face out of my head. I believe Saul, not King Saul, but Saul of Tarsus, whom we know in the New Testament as Paul. I believe that Paul had Stephen's, you know the first Christian martyr, Stephen in Acts chapter 7? Back when Saul hated Christians and Stephen was preaching them good news. Saul took part in the stoning of Stephen. I don't think that picture ever left Saul's mind. As they were hurling stones at this guilty man, and as Stephen looked up and saw the heavens open, he said, I see Christ standing. I don't think Saul ever forgot that, the picture of it, his own blood guiltiness. Saul of Tarsus saw, and David is saying the same thing. Lord, I thank you for your forgiveness, but please get rid of the guilt that I have. I killed Uriah. Deliver me from the blood guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation. You are the God of my deliverance. Now deliver me from that guilt." That's the beautiful thing about God. He doesn't just forgive the sin. He forgives the guilt. He forgives the guilt. You don't have to carry the guilt of what you did ever again. If you committed adultery, you were married, and you had relations with another person, God forgives it. You don't have to carry that guilt. And if you're the spouse that got cheated on, You have the responsibility to forgive as well. God forgave you. And none of us have the right to hold that against anyone who has been forgiven, do we? Oh Lord, open my lips, or at the end of verse 14 is, then my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness. Oh Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise. What do you think about, you get here on Sunday mornings, you walk through the doors, it's 1030, it's time to start singing. Without raising any hands, how many of you are always ready to just belt out your praise to God? You're probably trying to get over some argument you may have had with your spouse, and there's always people around you that distract you, aren't there? That's why some of you like to sit up front, because there's people who like to draw on their loved ones' back, and there's little children that mom will reach in her purse and bring out the little, and the kid puts the thing in his mouth, and he keeps scrabbling, and you're going, I'm gonna get that kid. And there's no worship in you, you're just distracted. How many of you get here at 10.30, you're ready to just belt it out? We sing at the wrong place in church service. Singing is a result of having been reminded of our forgiveness. So it's your responsibility that when you get here, this isn't your first opening moment of saying good morning to the Lord Jesus Christ. You're here, you're ready to worship, and you're ready to sing and declare God's praise because you've reminded yourself you've been forgiven. Verse 16, for you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it. You're not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise. In other words, this, God is not going to clear your conscience out if you say, you know what, I'm gonna give a really hefty check today. and that's gonna make me feel better. It might a little bit, but is that what God's after? Your money? God wants you. God wants us to be broken over our sins. Broken over it, we hate him. Get him right, make him right with him, make him right with others. Give me two minutes, please. Two minutes, take a deep breath. I know, I'm a long-winded preacher, but it's just an hour of your week. 162 hours a week, you get one hour. I've been making fun of our Wednesday night crowd, myself included, is that we call Sunday the Lord's day. It's basically the Lord's hour, isn't it? Because people will leave here and go do what they want to do for the rest of the day. Can you give them an hour? Can we at least call it the Lord's hour in two minutes? Okay, alright. Hang with me. Does that put a little perspective on it? There's no game today. It's not until next week. It's going to rain all day anyway. Number one, we sin because we're sinners. God forgives because He's merciful and loving. Number two, sin hurts us emotionally, physically, and spiritually. It is running roughshod over your life and your spirit. Say no to it. Put an end to it. Confess your sins. Sin should be confronted, but only true sin. Notice that Nathan the prophet came to David and said, you have sinned, and he had. Murder and adultery are sins. When people are trying to hide those, those should be. Someone should lovingly go and tell such a person, be careful about people's quirks that we want to confront. Be careful about calling sin what is actually just a person who's in process of becoming a better man or woman. Be careful about nitpicking people to death. Well, you did this, you said that, you said this right, but you said it the wrong way. That's not a sin. Be careful about getting offended at every little thing everyone says and demanding an apology over things that aren't sinful at all. If you're going to confront sin, make sure it's sin. Don't write a letter about people and throw them under the bus about things you just don't quite like about them or get in their face and tell, those aren't sins. Be very careful. We are to hold each other accountable, but accountability is not nitpicking. It's about sin, unconfessed sin and bringing a brother or sister in Christ to repentance because we love them. We're good at pointing out sins in others. We're not that good about looking in the mirror and seeing it in ourselves. Be sure that we're not judging the sinner. We don't judge. Well, if you're not going to repent of that, that means you've got a wicked heart. You must really maybe not be a sinner, not be a Christian at all. You've overstepped your boundaries when we do that. If confronted with a true sin, own it right then and there. Own it. Confess it. Be done with it. Move on with your lives. The only avenue to cleansing is confession and repentance. Not giving your money, not building a new building, Tell God, here's what I did wrong. I know it and you know it. I want you to know, Lord, that I know it. It was wrong. I hurt you. I hurt others. Please forgive me. Done. Move on with your life. Don't be content with forgiveness. Strive for purity and renewal. Don't just say, okay, I'll be forgiven of that and go on about my day and I might do it again tomorrow. No, move on to purity and renewal and pray that God would give it to you. He will. As long as we live in sin, we will experience no joy in our salvation. We cheat ourselves out of that joy. We cheat ourselves out of the ability to truly worship Christ when we live in our sin. Two more, sin removes every good thing from our lives and we will forever regret it. David has all these requests. I encourage you to go back to it to see. Look at all that David is asking for God, from God, because he lost everything. When you sin and we stay in it, we remain in it. David lived with it for nine months. How do we know it was nine months? Because it was at the birth of the child that he finally, the child died and David had prayed that the child would live. It was at nine months, nine months living with that sin. Some people live with it far longer. And it's no wonder that David prayed for so much. He had lost it all, but here's the beauty. Big requests honor a big God. Bold, audacious requests for forgiveness honor our bold, awesome, powerful, loving, and forgiving God. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you. You are a God who forgives. The song we sang, we thank you. We thank you for saving us. We thank you for granting us salvation in Christ alone. I pray, Lord, for those in this room today, those within the sound of my voice, those all over the planet who do not know Christ as their God and as their Savior. Bring them to their knees on this day. On this day, Lord, at this moment, bring us to a realization of our sins. May we confess them and repent. For those who don't know you, may it be for salvation. For those of us who do, may it be for restoration. And Lord, if we have anything against a brother or sister, the silliness and the division that's caused between our squabbles, forgive us, Lord. May we confess those. May we get those right with each other. Lord God, we love you. We thank you for this day. Be with us in spite of our sins. We love you. We thank you in advance. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. May the Lord God Almighty bless you. May He cover you. May He forgive you.