Good evening, everyone. Glad to have you this evening. Are you all glad to be had? That's what people usually say. Good to see you this evening. Well, it's good to be seen. All right. This evening, we're going to continue on in the book of Psalms. Last time we got together, we began Psalm 50, but our really have just felt pressed to go ahead and get into Psalm 51 tonight, and then we will go back and redo Psalm 50 and try to include the whole thing at another time. But this evening, we're going to look at Psalm number 51. And I want to ask you to open your Bible there, if you have a Bible. And if you didn't bring one, there's one in the pew there. And also, they'll be putting some of the verses up here. But we may be going so fast, they won't be able to keep up with us. And we'll be going back and forth. So anyway, I know I see Derek up there. He's pretty fast on the draw on those verses. Let's go to Psalm number 51. Psalm number 51. And let's ask the Lord's presence and instruction, speaking to our hearts as we look at this Psalm tonight. Psalm number 51. Dear Father, we come before you tonight and thank you for the scriptures, Father. We thank you for this psalm that we're going to look at this evening, and we pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit would come and teach each one of us and help us to make a personal application to it. This is really, Lord, a psalm of a man whose heart is being revived and who is experiencing a spiritual renewal. And Father, I pray that through our examination of this psalm tonight and by the application to our hearts by your Holy Spirit, that you would do a great work in each one of us that are here this evening. We thank you now for the time and we ask your blessing on it. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen. This psalm is Well, it's a little bit difficult to break down into its component parts. It seems to go back and forth and all of that. As we're looking at something like this, we're not looking at the logical, sequential, rational arguments of the Apostle Paul. What we're looking at here is the fragmented, broken cries. of a man who has a broken heart before God. So we may be doing some back and forth in it, but may the Lord bless us in understanding it. First of all, we have sort of an introduction, and we do see this as a pattern in David's Psalms. The first The first verse or two, he'll introduce us to the issue that's on his heart, and then he'll delve into that issue. And that's what we have here in Psalm number 51. Before we get into verse one, though, I'd like for us to go ahead and read the title that's in here. And these titles are actually in the Hebrew Bible. This says, to the chief musician, a Psalm of David. when Nathan the prophet came unto him after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Notice that it's to the chief musician, which means that this psalm, although this is a very personal psalm, and this is a psalm of David's crying out between him and the Lord, David wanted this psalm to be a part of the music of the temple. He wanted it to be put out there in public. And of course, the reason is, that he sets an example for us of a man whose heart is being renewed and a man whose heart is being right with God. So although it's very personal and very, in some respects, embarrassing, humiliating, he wanted it to be put out there. This is a psalm of David when Nathan the prophet came unto him after he had gone in to Bathsheba. And we're going to read about that in just a few minutes. But are you familiar with that account? Are you familiar with what happened there? It was the time of the year that that kings go forth to war and David sent his army out to go to war. He sent Joab and his troops and they went out to go fight against the, well today we would call them the Jordanians, and they went and David David remained in Jerusalem. A lot of people make a big issue of that. I don't know if David was really tremendously guilty because he was there at that moment, but he was there. And he went out on the rooftop to enjoy the night air, and as he was out there, one of the Nearby there was this woman that was taking a bath there and the Bible says she was very beautiful To look at and and David was overcome with his own lust For her and he committed adultery with her and then there's there are many things that happened as a result of that and Nathan the prophet came to David and rebuked David and gave David God's message of rebuke and the consequences of David's sin. And David's heart was broken. And with that heart that was broken because of his sin, David wrote down this prayer to the Lord. And so this is a prayer of a man who has been guilty of extreme sin. whom God has revealed to him how horrible his sin was, and his heart is broken over his sin. Verses 1 and 2, the introduction. Have mercy upon me, O God. According to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. That's what David wants. That's why he's coming to the Lord. He's coming, he's coming to the Lord wanting to be forgiven. He doesn't say that word here, but, but he's asking the Lord to blot out his transgressions and to wash him throughly or wash him completely from his sin. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness. I want you to notice that David here does not say, have mercy upon me, O God, because I didn't really mean to do it. That's not his appeal, is it? Have mercy upon me, O God, because I'm generally a pretty good guy, and I just slipped up this once. So please have mercy on me because of this one mistake that I made. Do you see, David is not coming to the Lord, calling on him, for forgiveness based on the fact that David deserves forgiveness. But he's coming to the Lord and he's asking for forgiveness based on God's merciful heart, based on God's loving kindness. David's asking for forgiveness and restoration because of who God is and because of the loving, merciful, forgiving qualities of God, not because of any worthiness on David's part. That's so significant for us, isn't it? Isn't it, I mean, we as human beings will commit some sort of an offense against the Lord and maybe continue in some sort of an offense against the Lord, but we won't go to the Lord asking forgiveness because we don't feel like it's that bad of a deal. And that we somehow are earning fellowship with God because, well, yeah, we've got this sin, but you know, no biggie. You know, God doesn't really care about it. Or we might think that God won't forgive us. of our sin because we haven't earned it. You know, we've had too many mistakes and God won't forgive us for our sins. So we just sort of spiritually limp along here doing the best we can with this impression that God won't forgive me because of what I did. But David here, as he goes to the Lord, David's mind and heart is set on the Lord blotting out his sin and the Lord renewing his heart because of the mercy and the love of the Lord. So we need to get our hearts set on the Lord and on God's love for us and God's mercy toward us. And of course we know, we know and David knew that that mercy has been purchased Purchased through the blood of Christ. Purchased by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross in our place. I taught right here at that podium just a few hours ago. We had chapel today with the first through third graders. And I was teaching them about the fact that God must punish sin. And we looked at several verses about God's punishment of sin. And then I explained to them that Jesus went to the cross in our place to pay for our sins. And a little boy came up to me afterward. He said, Brother Kenny, I don't understand. I don't understand how Jesus paid for my sins. when he was on the cross. How did that work? Boy, you can get some pretty deep questions if you'll just let children talk to you. So I just asked him, had he ever gone out to eat at a restaurant? Oh yes, yes. Did he pay for it? No. His dad paid for it. And I said, well, how did your dad pay for it? And he said, he got money from the bank and then he took that money and paid for it. I said, oh, so he just walked into the bank and said, give me money, I'm gonna go out to eat and they just gave him money. He said, well, not really. I said, did he have to work for it? And he said, oh yeah, dad works and he puts his money in the bank. And then he got some out and we went out to eat and then dad took that money and paid for it. I said, that's kind of how it was with Jesus. and how it was with Jesus. He earned the right to die on the cross for our sins. And then he took the responsibility to pay for us. And we simply accept the forgiveness that he's offering to us. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness. Verse three. Beginning in verse three, he actually begins his confession. Let's look at verses three through six. Wash me from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions. And my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part. Thou shalt make me to know wisdom." So as he's confessing his sin here, he's covering a lot of territory, but I want you to notice in verse three he says, For I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me. First John chapter one, verse nine tells us that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we confess our sins, the word confession there of course means to, it means to admit, to own up to the fact that we have sinned rather than hiding it Instead to just lay it out before God, but not just to say, well, Lord, you know, I did this. I know it wasn't too bad, but I felt like I needed to come tell you. No, no, it's confessing to the Lord that it is a sin, that it is a violation and a transgression against the person of God. that this is a horrible and a wicked thing. And Lord, I agree with you that it is horrible and wicked and there's no excuse for it. And I'm acknowledging that to you. That's what the idea, if we confess our sins, if we own up to what they really are and truly acknowledge and agree with God, what it is. I acknowledge my transgression and my sin as ever before me. In 1 John 1, 9, we have a promise from the Lord. We have a promise from the Lord. You know, that's such an important idea because every one of us has a problem with sin. Even though we've, if we've come to know Jesus as our personal savior and Lord, we've been born again. And our soul has been regenerated and is in the likeness of Christ and cannot sin because it has been born of God. But in this flesh, we still have a problem with sin. It's still a part of our sin makeup. That's why at the day of the resurrection, we're going to receive a body like Christ's body. We're going to have a body that's not capable of sin anymore. But presently, we still have that. every one of us. What do we do about that? You know, do we just sit on it and just, you know, just keep going on in our attitudes and whatever it is, you know, we could go through the Ten Commandments and some other list of things that each one of us might struggle with, but you know what the issues are in your heart that you struggle with. What do we do with those things? What do we do with those things? Do we just tolerate them? Have you ever thought about whenever God looks down upon you and looks down on your heart, what does he see? What does the Lord see? And He is seeing, isn't He? He does know what's going on in our mind. He knows what's going on in our heart. And so we just need to acknowledge it with Him. How we should deal with the sinfulness of our flesh and our human sinfulness that we still carry, even as a saved person is, to deal with it honestly between us and the Lord, to own up to it and to set it aside. The apostle Paul says in Hebrews chapter 12, he tells us to lay aside every weight and the sin which doth, what does the rest of that verse say? Lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us. We've got to deal with it. We can't just leave it and just have an attitude of, well, that's just how I feel. We can't do that. And we can't say, well, that's just who I am. Because what we're doing is we're not setting aside our sin. when we do that. What we're doing is we're allowing that sin to become the dominant force in our life. And that sin becomes what defines us as a person. And that's why it's so important to come to verse three here and say, I acknowledge my transgressions. My sin is ever before me. So David acknowledged that. Then we have one of the most remarkable statements in the Bible. Psalm 51 verse four, against thee, The only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest. See David here, he had gone in unto Bathsheba. And I want you to know that in the process of everything that David did, he violated a lot of people. He violated the consciences of many people and he implicated and drew into his sin several people. Think with me. Whenever he was there on the rooftop and he saw Bathsheba, he sent one of his servants to go get her. Now that servant was a servant of the king. That servant knew the kind of reputation that David had had as a man after God's own heart. And yet now he's being sent to go get a woman for David. And what about those servants in Bathsheba's house? Her husband, Uriah the Hittite, was one of David's mighty men. This is no low-class person here. This is a person of significance in the community, is one of David's main military leaders. And yet her servants got her and brought her over. So these servants are implicated in all of this. And they know what's going on. And they've got to be experiencing confusion and disappointment overseeing what's happening here. And then of course there's the violation of Bathsheba. And of course, you know, she could have taken the position of Joseph. Remember whenever Joseph was tempted by Potiphar's wife, Joseph's response was, how can I commit this sin against God? But she wasn't a Joseph. And she yielded to the desire and the influence and the command of the king. And so they committed adultery there. But then David's plan was to cover up what was done by having her husband come and spend time with her. And he refused to do that because he said his fellow soldiers were out on the battlefield, so he couldn't come home and enjoy the comforts of home and comforts of his wife. So he didn't go in to be with her after it was found out that she was pregnant. And so David calls Joab, his cousin, the main leader of his military, Joab. And let's go there, let's go to second, First Samuel. Let's see, I did write this down. First Samuel chapter 11, verse 15. First Samuel 11, 15. This is unmistakable what's happening here. First Samuel chapter 11. I'm sorry, it is 2 Samuel. I wrote first, but it should have been second. 2 Samuel chapter 11. So there's Uriah. He would not cooperate with David's plan, and he was headed back out to the battlefield. And in verse 14, it says, it came to pass in the morning that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. And he wrote the letter saying, set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle and retire ye from him that he may be smitten and die. So now David has conspired with Joab. So now Joab is brought in. to this conspiracy. Joab is brought in and a part of this sin. Now here's a group of soldiers, right? And I know that one of the mottos of the United States military is that we don't leave anybody, you know? And so they went out to battle and the men went up to charge against the city of Rabah and they went up to charge against it. And then the word is passed along to everybody retreat, retreat, draw back. And there's Uriah over there. We need to tell Uriah, no, don't tell Uriah, leave him there, everybody else retreat. What was in the heart of those soldiers? What confusion, what a sense of betrayal that they experienced. And years later, Years later, when Absalom rose up in rebellion against David as the king, the scripture tells us specifically that Ahithophel, one of the people that lined up with Joab, lined up with Joab because of his hatred of David because of what David did to Bathsheba. So, it's all tremendous consequences in the lives of many people. over this. Many people were violated. Then how could David say in verse 4, against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest. See God had spoken to David about this. And I'd like for us to go and see what the Lord told David. But isn't that remarkable that here David is, and when he's confessing his sin, his confession is, Lord, I have sinned against you. All these other folks who experienced the result or the consequences of David's sin, David did not sin against them. That was not in the final analysis, the problem, the final analysis in the problem, the focus of the problem here was what went on between David and God that night on the rooftop. Let's go here to 2 Samuel again. And we're going to 2 Samuel chapter 12. In 2 Samuel 12, after these things had happened and Bathsheba was big pregnant with the baby. The Lord sent Nathan the prophet to confront David. And I want us to work. We're going to read a few verse where we're going to read about 10 verses here to see what was on David's mind, what was on his heart when he was getting right with God about this issue. Chapter 12, 2 Samuel, chapter 12, verse one. And the Lord sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him and said unto him, There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up. And it grew up together with him and with his children. And it did eat of his own meat and drank of his own cup and lay in his bosom and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveler unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd to dress for the wayfaring man that was coming to him, but took the poor man's lamb and dressed it for the man that was come to him. And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. And he said to Nathan, as the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die. And he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity." Wow, what is David so angry about, about a man stealing somebody's lamb? David is disproportionately angry about this situation. David is disproportionately focused on giving out punishment in this situation. Why is David disproportionately angry about something that is, it's not insignificant, but stealing a lamb is not a death penalty offense in the law. You're supposed to restore the lamb and then you're done with it. You're not gonna be stoned to death for it. Why is David so angry? It's because of his own guilt, isn't it? David's sense of his own guilt and that can happen with us, can't it? We can be disproportionately angry with situations because we have unresolved guilt and unresolved sin in our own heart that causes us to be unnecessarily harsh and angry with other people. And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul. I gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives into thy bosom and gave thee the house of Israel and of Jacob, Judah. And if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things, or I would have given you even more things. Verse nine, wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword and has taken his wife to be thy wife and has slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. So this is one in the same as if David himself had taken the sword and slain Uriah because he just used the sword of the children of Ammon to kill him. But do you notice the first thing that Nathan points out? You have despised the commandment of the Lord. You have taken God's instruction in your life, God's command, God's righteous standard, and you have despised it. And despised it simply means you just set it aside and counted it as an insignificant thing. What was important to David? God's commandment was insignificant. Well, what was it that was important to him that night on the rooftop? Yeah, his lust, his desire, his passion. I hear, you know, as a person that's involved in education and seeking to influence kids, you know, I'm interested in what other people are saying to children. And one of the most dangerous things that you can tell any person is just pursue your own passion. Our passions can lead us down the wrong road. So many times, we should not pursue our passion. We should pursue the Lord. And we should pursue the will of the Lord. Our passions can be nothing more than selfishness and pride. Watch out. David was a passionate man. David was a passionate man. David was a man that had passion to do the right thing, but David also had a passion to do the wrong thing. He was a man who had strong emotions and strong feelings, and those are great if they're under the direction of the Holy Spirit. But if they're not, they're extremely dangerous. David despised the command of the Lord. Let's continue on here. Result. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house. And then it gets even worse. Look at verse 10 in the middle of the verse there. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house because thou hast despised me. and has taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife." In the final analysis, why did David go after Bathsheba and involve all of those people in his sin? And why did he desire to cover it up by killing Uriah and all of those things? Why? Because he was at a point in his life that he despised the Lord. At that point, At that point, his personal lust and desire meant more to him than yielding to the Spirit of God in his life. And what we see, everything else, as they would say in the military, the rest of it is collateral damage. It's collateral damage. Let's continue. And he says, against thee, thee only have I sinned, verse four, and done this evil in thy sight that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest. David is confessing that he sinned against God. He is confessing that he despised the Lord. He's confessing that he despised the commandment of the Lord because that's what God said he had done. And what David is telling us here in verse four is, Lord, you are justified in saying that. You are clear when you judge me. You are clear in the sense that you are clear of any guilt. Whenever you say that, you are telling the truth. You are absolutely right. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Do you see, David here is telling us that his problem was not just a momentary lapse. David is recognizing he has a predisposition that is a part of him personally that has been a part of him since his birth. And we need to come to the recognition of that too. We are not in ourselves righteous people that always walk around having righteous thoughts and once in a while we might slip. We were born in sin, shapen in iniquity. It has been a part of our makeup from the time that we were born, and it still has pressure on us because we're in this body of flesh. And we will continue to have that until the resurrection, whenever the Lord gives us a new body. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts. The Lord's not just interested in external conformance to ceremonies and commandments. He wants it to be the real deal. in our heart, in the hidden part thou shalt make me in no wisdom. So that's David's confession, but now look at his requests. David makes several requests and I'd like for us to just take a quick look at each one of these here in verses 7 through 12. Let's just read this first. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit. This is the request of David. David wants things to be set back right. with the Lord. So he says, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. You know, there's a couple of places where there's purging with hyssop going on. One of those is in the book of Exodus, chapter 12, verses 12 and 13. For the sake of time, we won't actually turn there, but I would like to ask you to make note of that. Because in Exodus chapter 12, I'm sorry, yeah, Exodus chapter, chapter 22 verses 12 and 13 tell us that when the Lord went through Egypt that night killing the firstborn that he was judging the Egyptians. He was judging the Egyptians and in chapter 12 verses 21 through 23 he prescribed for the people of Israel what they needed to do so they could escape the judgment of God when the judgment of God came through Egypt. Do you remember what it was that he told them to do? kill a lamb and take its blood. And with hyssop, which is just a common weed, with hyssop, dip that hyssop in the bowl of blood there and splash the blood on the lentil and on the side posts of the door. And then he tells us there in verses 21 through 23, when I pass through the land of Egypt, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. So using hyssop to apply the blood made the people of Israel that night exempt from God's judgment in the land of Egypt. Cleanse me with hyssop and I shall be clean judicially. But then in the book of Numbers chapter 19 verse 18, there's the use of hyssop to take people that are ceremonially unclean. If a man has touched a dead body, he can't go into the temple. He is ceremonially unclean. And Numbers chapter 19 is the chapter that talks to us about the red heifer. Brother Ron knows what we're talking about back there, the red heifer and how they had to get a heifer that was completely red. And boy, that's amazing that a little flock or a little herd of red heifers has been transferred from Texas to Israel today. And they've got a red heifer there today so that they can go through the process of taking people that are ceremonially unclean and making them ceremonially clean for the reconstruction of the temple. But they're to take the ashes of the red heifer and put it in water and then take hyssop and cleanse the unclean person with the application using hyssop. So that's why David calls on the Lord, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me, I shall be whiter than snow. Lord, I will be acceptable. in your sight. But you notice he's saying, purge me. He knows that his purging and his cleansing, whether it's judicial or whether it's ceremonial or in his person, the purging and the cleansing comes from the Lord. Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Psalm 38, again, for the sake of time, we'll have to pass over, but Psalm 38 verses three through six gives us a detailed description of the misery of a person that is under conviction for their sin. And so David is asking, he's saying, Lord, Make me hear joy. Hide thy face from my sin. Blot out all my iniquities. You know, 1 John 1, verse 7 says, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. And then verse 10, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. You know, David wrote earlier about the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want, he makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters and he, what's the next part, everybody? He restoreth my soul. David's asking for a renewed spirit within him. David wants things to be refreshed and renewed. If the Lord is your shepherd, he will do that. But what's the basis of being spiritually renewed? Is it just saying, well, You know, if I could just hear the kind of music I like, that would just really whip me up spiritually and I'd be all right with God. Or could it be, yeah, if I could just hear sermons that were just better organized and were only 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes, man, I could get so spiritually renewed, that would just be fabulous. And sometimes we come up with some of the most carnal ideas as to what we need to do to be renewed spiritually. But do you see what David did to be renewed spiritually? face to face with his sin and confessing it and asking the Lord to cleanse him and renew the right spirit. That's where spiritual renewal comes in. The thing that keeps us from being spiritually renewed is our own carnality and our own sin. When we get rid of that, when we take it to the Lord and the Lord cleanses us, then renewal is going to come and not until. Cast me not away from thy presence. And so he doesn't want to be rejected. And take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Of course, we know that God's salvation has never changed. It's always been the same. And the Lord did not take his Holy Spirit from people then any more than he does now, except David had been anointed by the Holy Spirit to fulfill the function of the king. First Samuel chapter 16 verses 13 and 14 tell us that when Samuel went to the house of Jesse that day, and he looked through the sons of Jesse trying to find out, okay, which one of these is the Lord's anointed, and he finally found young David, and the Lord told him, this is the one. Then the scripture tells us that that Samuel took his horn of oil and he poured the oil on David's head. He anointed him and the scripture says, and the Holy Spirit came upon him from that day forward. And the next verse says that the Lord removed the Holy Spirit from Saul. What's that about? That's about losing the enabling of the Lord to fulfill the ministry that God has given him to do. David knew that he needed the Spirit of God to enable him to be the king, and he knew that he could lose that enabling. Not that he would lose his salvation, but that he would lose that aspect of the Lord's work in his life. if he disrespected and dishonored the Lord. And he's asking the Lord, Lord, don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Lord, I need your Holy Spirit to do the work that you've given me to do as the King. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit. This is when the joy begins to come. And it says, uphold me with thy free spirit. Lord, I don't want to just say, oh good, the joy of the Lord is here. And then go right back into it. Lord, restore the joy and uphold me, maintain me, keep me right with you, Lord, and keep me in a place of joy. Then we see the result. Now, I'm sorry, I'm going to go just over just a couple of minutes here. But notice what he says, then will I teach transgressors thy way. See, teaching others is The way it's supposed to be teaching others is the overflow of the right heart that we have with God. And it's the overflow of the joy that we have with the Lord. It's not our witness and our testimony and our influencing others is not to be something that we do out of a dead, dreaded sense of duty, but it's from the joy of what we have and wanting to share that. Sinners shall be converted. unto thee. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation. O God, thou God of my salvation. See David's focus on the Lord himself. And my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. Maybe that's why sometimes the singing is so quiet. I wonder if King David had walked into the typical Baptist congregation, he may have been the only guy you could have heard singing. You know, I've been to different churches and it's like people are just sort of whispering, you know, the song. Boy, whenever David was worshiping the Lord, he was singing out loud because he realized that the Lord had forgiven him and renewed him. And his singing was for the Lord. And maybe it was a joyful noise, but the Lord was pleased with that. O Lord, open thou my lips and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou will not despise. See, what the Lord wants from us is that broken heart. That's what the Lord's looking for when we come before him is that right heart, that tender heart, that honest heart that realizes our fault and our failure and trusting him for his forgiveness and for him to renew us. And based on that, worshipping Him and based on that heart, teaching others to come to Him, that's what the Lord wants in our life. And this sort of echoes what we read there in Psalm 50 last time in verses 8 through 15. But then in verses 18 and 19 here, in closing, David says something here, and I've read this, and I've thought, boy, this really seems out of place, sort of. He's personally confessing his sin, and then suddenly he's talking about God building the walls of Jerusalem. What's that all about? Well, what that is all about is this. After we reach a place that we do have a broken and contrite heart, Then we begin to have a heart like God has. David was a man after God's own heart. David was a man that wanted to see the blessings of God, not only on himself personally, but on his people, on the city of Jerusalem. He wanted the Lord to bless Jerusalem and build the walls of Jerusalem and make Jerusalem to be a great place because it's the city of the great King. But the Lord can't do that. The Lord can't do that if the Lord's people are walking around with sinfulness guiding their life. Sinfulness, the main quality of their life. We've got to come before God with that broken and contrite heart, and then the Lord can build up the walls of Jerusalem. And then the Lord will be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness that are off. Then the Lord will be pleased with the ceremonies. And boy, what a clear parallel there is there, right? As we come into the house of the Lord and we come and we do, we have ceremonies, you know, you can count Sunday morning, we're gonna have three songs, you know, we're gonna have the choir might sing too. And there's nothing wrong with having a definite number of songs that you're gonna sing and things, that's perfectly fine. What matters is what's the heart. What is the heart in those things? Well, if the heart is right, then the Lord is pleased with those sacrifices. But if the heart isn't right, it doesn't matter whether we're singing the most up-to-date song, you know, with the most up-to-date instruments and music, you know, and all that. It doesn't matter. What God's looking at is what is the heart of those that are offering the sacrifice? I want to ask you to sing a song with me. Some of you all know it. It's a short song, don't worry, it's only got one verse. But would you stand with me? I want to sing a song that's called Creating Me a Clean Heart, Oh God. Renew a right spirit within me. And it goes like this. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, O Lord. Thank you so much, Brother Brian. We're glad you joined us for our services here at Mission Boulevard Baptist Church. We look forward to having you join us again online, but you are always welcome to personally attend any of our services at the Mission Boulevard Baptist Church here in Fayetteville, Arkansas.