and be praying and asking God to really work. in that time. All right, Psalm 32 in your Bible. Have you ever boo-booed something and you thought, boy, I wish that hadn't happened this past week or sometime recently when we got snow? I think it was this week. I was cleaning off the vehicles and I know better. I grew up, you know, in Wisconsin. We got a lot of snow. I know better than to use a shovel to clean off a vehicle. Probably not the brightest thing to do, but I thought, you know, I'll just be real gentle and I'll shove and I'm pushing it away from me and behind the shovel I see this scratch and on the windscreen and I put like a two foot long scratch and I thought to myself you know I was much happier with how the windscreen was before the scratch, you know? And now that there's a scratch there, I can't say that I'm experiencing the same joy and delight with the windscreen as I had done before. I wish I hadn't done that. Hopefully now Halfords can help me out. My wife tells me they do work on scratches. And so I'm hopeful that they can make it as good as new. It's sad when we damage something that was perfect. I mean, you know, it was just perfect. And sometimes, you know, Life being what it is, maybe we feel a bit of relief, oh I'm glad that's over with, no it doesn't matter, I'm not as careful about something. But if it's a relationship, If it's something that is really serious, then there is a great sorrow in our heart thinking, man, I messed that up. I wish I could go back and fix it. You know, one of the great sad realities of life is that man has damaged his perfect relationship with God. And we know the story, Garden of Eden. But in the creation story, remember, every time God made something, God said, and it was good. Genesis 1-4, God saw the light, that it was good. Genesis 1 10 and it's about the earth and the gathering together of the waters called he sees and God saw that it was good and verse 12 the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind in the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind and God saw that it was good And verse 18, God saw that it was good. Verse 21, after the fowl were created, God saw that it was good. Verse 25, the beast of the earth and the cattle, God saw that it was good. And then in verse 31, as God looks at everything, And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And in your evangelism, you're talking to somebody about life and why is life like this, you can take them back to Genesis chapter one and say, you know what? When God created, it was good, but then man boo-booed it, right? Man sinned against God, and because of man's sin, sorrow, sickness, death, heartache, broken relationships between people, broken relationships with God took place. And so, In Genesis chapter 3 verse 8 after man has sinned, they no longer have that perfect open relationship with the Creator, that honest perfect relationship where they can walk unashamed, unafraid, they don't have that anymore. And as the Bible says, they heard the voice of the Lord God walking the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou? He said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. He said, who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, what is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And you think about, again, that perfect relationship destroyed the bitter cup, Sadly, that bitter cup has passed around to all of God's creation. that burden and guilt of our sin. But I wanna say tonight what we're gonna focus on is this, praise God, God didn't leave man hopeless and helpless in his sin, but God immediately made a way to restore man to a right relationship with God and to bring back the happiness that man had before man sinned. God did that in the garden by taking an animal and killing an animal, taking the clothing of that animal and providing a covering immediately for man's shame and man's sin. You know, the animal we understand was a picture of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, what we've been studying. On Thursday nights, we're looking at the great high priest and the great sacrifice. All this has to do with this idea of what we're looking at tonight, and that is God restoring man to a right relationship with himself. And so Hebrews 10, 19, having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood 1 Peter 1.12 elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, God applying the blood to our lives, cleansing us, grace unto you, and peace unto you. be multiplied. Praise God. God is a restorative God. He desires to take us from that position of unhappiness and sorrow to a right relationship with him. And my message tonight is the happiness of holiness, okay? The happiness of holiness. It's God restoring us to a right relationship with himself. So Psalm 32 and In Psalm 32, there's the word blessed, twice, beginning of verse one, beginning of verse two. That word is the word esher in Hebrew, and it means how happy, all right? So you read that word blessed in the Old Testament, that is the word how happy. So put that idea of how happy in to verse one. How happy is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How happy is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no doubt. Now David had experienced it. His heart and sin had been sorrowful. His heart and sin had been heavy, but God had forgiven him, and he goes, wow, praise God. God took the burden, the guilt, the shame of my sin away, and he expresses it in a way that applies to all of us. How happy is that person? that is in that condition. Now, in your Bible, it says there, up above, it'll say a psalm of David, and then it says mashel, okay? That means didactic. It's a didactic poem, and that just means it's designed or intended to teach, okay? So when he wrote this, it is for kind of an example, something to teach. What is he trying to teach in this psalm at the beginning? And that's this. you will find true happiness in true holiness. And so tonight, are you happy today, in this sense, because you are rightly related to God? Now, you know, there's gonna be other things going on in our life, but do you have joy today knowing that your life is rightly related to God? Do you know the joy of keeping right with God? Okay, so I'm gonna preach tonight, find happiness by finding holiness, is what we're gonna look at. So let's pray, ask the Spirit of God to help us. Father, we thank you for making a way to get right with you. And Father, for the Son of God and the great sacrifice that he has given of himself, his shed blood, his life, his taking our sin upon himself on Calvary, his taking the mocking and the cursing and the despising men and all the things that he went through as he lived his life and as he went to the cross as the sinless Lamb of God dying on the cross for our sins. And Father, thank you tonight that we can say, by the grace of God, I know for sure that I'm going to go to heaven when I die. And it's not because I'm a good person. It's because Jesus Christ is my Savior. And Savior, because you have opened up that door to go into the presence of God, you've also made a way through the cross for us to be completely right with God. Have all our sin taken away. to have our feet washed when we get into sin and when we fail of your grace and things that we think, say, look at, do, our spirit, our attitude, that there is a cleansing that is available. And I just pray, magnify that to us tonight. May we be reminded that the happy Christian life is found in the place of holiness. And Father, I pray that you give us ears to hear tonight. I pray that the spirit of God What guide me as I speak, Father, I have no ability to speak without the enablement of God. I pray, Father, that my speech and my preaching would not be with enticing words of men's wisdom, but by the grace of God and demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Father, we pray that the word of God would have free course tonight, that it would not be hindered in any way by Satan and his desire to snatch away truth, but God, that we get the full blessing of what the word of God has here for us in Psalm 32 and verses 1-5. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. Alright, find happiness by finding holiness. And I have three points tonight, I do have sub points under those points, but three points. So find happiness by finding holiness and the first point is identify sin. Identify Sin Before Halfords can fix the scratch on my car, they first have to identify it. across his glasses, maybe he'll have a hard time seeing. But barring that, he's not going to have any difficulty. He's going to look at that windscreen and go, scratch two foot long. I see it. He's going to identify it so that hopefully we can get it fixed. You know, unless our spiritual eyesight is messed up by something. It's not a difficult thing for us tonight to identify sin and say, that is something that is sin that is in my life. So we're gonna look at five aspects in this psalm about identifying sin. So first of all, identify sin by looking for transgressions. If I'm gonna look at my life and I wanna identify sin in my life, I gotta look for transgressions. It says in verse one, blessed is he, happy is he, who's transgression is forgiven. Transgression is a trespass. Now I'm thankful in Scotland, as we've talked about, there is no such thing as trespassing. As I understand it, you're allowed to kind of go walking wherever. The closest thing you get here to a no trespassing sign is the sign that's on the fence that says warning. a bull in field, you know, or something like that. And you kind of wonder sometimes, you know, is there actually a bull out there? Is it just a farmer trying to find, you know, make a no trespassing point? In the States, it's not that way. A lot of private property and you'll have signs up all the time that say no trespassing, right? Violators will be prosecuted. You know, if you go where it's not lawful, for you to go, that is a transgression. That is a trespass. And so as we stop and apply that to our lives and we think, have I trespassed against God? Have I violated and gone somewhere where I shouldn't go? In what areas could I do that? Well, I could trespass in my spirit or my attitude, right? And so that's examining my life and saying areas of anger, areas of bitterness, areas of lust, areas of covetousness is my spirit right. We can trespass in our speech. This could be gossip. saying things that we wouldn't say to their face. It could be slander, saying again things that we wouldn't say directly to that person. It could be cursing. It is possible for a believer to pull up some of that old man and to use language that a believer ought not to use. Lying, taking God's name in vain. It could be our eyes and and looking at things that we ought not look at entertainment-wise. It could be lusting after things with our eyes that we're coveting, whether material or other things that are things that are off-limit. It could be our walk, going to forbidden places, being with forbidden people. It could be our appetites, addictions, dependencies, things that are, you know, we're depending in instead of depending upon So if I want to be holy, then I have to be honest about my life. I have to be able to examine it and say, is this a trespass against God? So identify sin, look for transgression. Secondly, look for stains. It says in verse 1, whose sin is covered. In our office, I mentioned that recently we pulled up the floor and it is a cement subfloor that is there and it was oddly painted not completely, but it was red and then it was black on top of that. I mean, it didn't look nice at all, but if you came into my office right now, you would have no idea that that ugly stain is under that. It looks beautiful now because it is covered. Why would sin need to be covered? Because sin is a a stain that is upon our life. When they were we, we had a house in Michigan that God allowed us to buy. We owned it for two and a half years, and then we sold it so that we could raise support to come to Scotland. And as we got it ready to sell, we put in new carpet. And so we completely put in new carpet. It was beautiful, kind of a light colored carpet. and thankfully with Steingard I think. Because I came home from work and my wife is there and she's got Kaylee and Benson. Kaylee is about three, Benson is about two. And Benson has always liked to take things apart, always. and he had reached into the printer and taken out the inkjet print, which is the liquid print stuff, and as I came into the house, Benson and Kaylee are sitting up on the island counter, we kinda had a living room kitchen type thing, and they're sitting there and they've got blue on their faces, they got blue on their hands, and my wife is scrubbing the carpet and she looks at me with a look, and she might have even said it, and it was this, don't say anything. Alright, I mean is that kind of this is not a good type situation But you know, it was really an instruct a great instructive opportunity for us with our kids To say to them those stains that are on your hands those stains that are on your face that took several days Thankfully they go away, but took several days to depart. That's what sin does and Sin leaves a stain, it stains our heart, it stains our life, it's there, it's present, and it has to be dealt with. Praise God, God is willing to deal with the stain of sin. Isaiah 118 says, come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, like a red stain. they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Tonight, I drove with a couple of my boys just back this way a little bit towards the Morefoot Hills. And you look out at the Pentland Hills, you look at the Morefoot Hills, and they're blanketed in white. And it's beautiful. I mean, it could be a pile of mud, but if it's covered with that beautiful coating, it looks gorgeous. Praise God. That's what God desires to do with those sin stains. But if we want to identify sin, then we identify that stain in our life. 3. Identify sin, look at God's ledger. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Happy is the person that on God's record book, God doesn't have anything in his ledger that says about this person's sin. To impute is to regard. Iniquity is wickedness. And so when God sees the forgiven man, he does not regard him as iniquity. Now, that's incredible because God has a record of every transgression that man has ever done against God. And listen, if the volume of that was visible, and just think about it tonight, it's a very sad thing, but we would have a multi-volume set of transgressions that we have committed against God if that record isn't dealt with. Now, sadly, There's going to be some people that die in their sin, having never dealt with their sin, that are going to stand before God and are going to give an account for every transgression they've ever committed against God. The Bible speaks about it in Revelation 20 verse 12. It says, I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things, which were written in the books according to their works. They're gonna be cast into hell because they're not written in the last book of life, but because their sin has never been dealt with, God is gonna deal with every single transgression that they've ever committed. Now, after I get saved, I'm forgiven. Praise God, my heart is clean. But I want to, by God's grace, keep that list of transgressions against God very short. It's what Jesus said to Peter when he said, I don't need to wash all of you, but I need to wash your feet, right? Because if you don't let me wash your feet, you have nothing to do with me. You're out of fellowship with me. There's a sin that's crept in, but the desire in our heart ought to be by the grace of God. I want to minimize that. I want to deal with that daily so that I am consistently right with God. My wife and I, It's a cash back credit card. our food purchases, petrol purchases, things that we're going to get anyway. And then it's paid off several times a month, because if it's not paid off, it's going to come back and it's going to haunt me. And I have to pay interest on it instead of getting back from it. What I typically get every year is significant cash return because I'm using a cash back credit card. But, you know, again, that danger is this. If we don't keep a short account, then we'll go into debt. and it'll hurt us. So I've got to be constantly aware and deal with it frequently, right? That's really how my life should be as a believer. I ought to say, you know what, I don't want to let things pile up. Certainly, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So I don't want to harbor sin. So I want to be consistently going to God, not just saying, God, forgive me of my sins. But God, I'm sorry for that bad attitude. I'm sorry for that lust. I'm sorry for that covetousness. I'm sorry for that transgression of your law. God, please forgive me and help me to have a right heart with you, right? But we've got to look at God's ledger. It's easy for us to say, well, that's not that big a deal, but God has a record of that transgression against him. So identify sin. And then fourth, identify sin by looking for deceit. Identify sin by looking for deceit. In whose spirit there is no guile. Guile is treachery or deceit. the disciple in John 147, Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and saith of him, behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile. What a statement from Jesus to look at this man and say, this man is a man of integrity. He's a man of honesty and transparency. Why is it rare to find somebody who is guileless? Jeremiah 17 verse nine, That's the condition of our heart. God is able to cleanse my heart. God's gonna give me a new nature, right? I've got the Spirit of God indwelling me. I can trust the Spirit of God to guide me, but I can't trust my heart to guide me because my heart is deceitful. So when somebody sins, guile comes into their life. When I was a child I transgressed and lit a rubber band on fire, not knowing or thinking about the fact that a rubber band really stinks when it burns. Rubber, right? That's what it is. And so I did that. I was I was a little kid and I thought, oh, that's bad. But mom's coming up to say goodnight. So I climbed up my doorframe. You know, I'm standing there in the doorframe looking down the steps. There was a kind of a stairwell there. And I said, goodnight, mama. You know, and why? Cause I was, I had guile in my heart. I knew if mom came upstairs, mom's going to walk into that room. She's going to smell it. So what am I going to do? I'm going to try to trick mom so that she doesn't come up there. Listen, When that happens in our life and there's a desire to cover something or to hide something or to deceive somebody, we need to stop and understand that there is a sin that is in our hearts, that is in our life, that is trying to hide a transgression. Think about it in the Bible. Achan stole God's property and what did he do? He hid it. Cain killed Abel, what did he do? He hid him, right? And so sin brings that guile into that person's life. David said, hey, praise God for a person that is guileless. So identify sin, look for any attempt to cover up a transgression. And then identify sin, look for rebellion. Identify sin, look for rebellion. Verse three, When I kept silence, he transgressed against God, but then he rebelled against God. He said, I'm not gonna get right about this thing. I'm gonna keep it silent, and so I'm gonna hold onto this. And that's what happens. If short accounts aren't kept with God, time passes, and then rebellion creeps into the heart because that person is refusing to get right with God. As parents, we'll say to our kids, we'll say, you know what? You got an argument there or something? You gotta get right. You need to go to that person. You need to apologize. and get right with them. As you instruct them in that way, that you gotta go, you gotta get right with them, they have a choice. They can rebel, right, and say, no, I'm not gonna do that, or they can go and get right. As a pastor, it's sad sometimes, and as a congregation, we might understand that person needs to get saved, that person needs to get baptized, that person needs to make that decision for God, and we're praying about that, and we're interested in that, and a message is preached, and truth is presented, and we think surely this is the time that they'll get right with God, but what is scary about having somebody unsafe sit in church again and again and again and not respond to the gospel is that they have responded to the gospel. But their response has been, rather than to obey God, I'm going to disobey God and I'm going to continue against God. So when God deals with my heart about sin and identifies sin in my life, if I am silent, then I'm in a position of rebellion against God. So what can I do? Identify sin. Look for areas in my life where the spirit of God has spoken to my heart about something and I have said to God, no. Now listen, we are talking about the happiness of holiness. Am I going to be a happy person if I am in sin? No. because I have broken fellowship with God. I'm not rightly related to God and probably I'm not rightly related to others because that sin is in my life. So in identifying sin, we're identifying the problem. The second thing, okay, so identify sin, look for transgressions, look for stains, look at God's ledger, look for deceit and look for rebellion. And then secondly, recognize conviction. Recognize conviction. See, if I'm not right with God and if I haven't dealt with my sin, then there will be in my life the conviction of that. And that's the Holy Spirit making us aware of our transgressions. Now, as we get into this idea of the conviction, I want to point this out at the beginning. If I have confessed and forsaken my sin, has God forgiven me? Absolutely, right? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1 7, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. Now, we looked at this morning, the proverb that spoke about not bringing up transgressions again, right? covering a transgression, not repeating a matter because that separates very friends. And we understood from scripture this morning that God doesn't do that. God isn't going to bring up past transgressions. So if something comes into my mind of guilt for something that's under the blood, it's been taken care of, who's doing that? It's not God, it's Satan. All right, so I want to help us with that because we look at conviction in these ideas of conviction. Let's understand the spirit of God isn't going to remind us of something that's under the blood. He'll remind us of things that we're refusing to deal with and that we haven't been honest with before God. OK, so as we come into that, understand it's a biblical conviction has to do with transgressions that I refuse to deal with and get right with God. And so recognize conviction. And first of all, hear your conscience. Hear your conscience. Verse three says, when I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. Okay, David's talking about something internal, isn't he? Something that we can relate to. And that says when we violate God's law, that God has put within us something that goes, rah, this isn't right. It's something that gives us a feedback about our sin. It's called our conscience. You know, when I speak with atheists about evolution, I say to them, listen, evolution cannot explain morality. It can't explain the fact that we have something internal that says this is not right, or this is right. Romans 2.15 which showed the work of the law written in their hearts. their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another. God is built into man as creator. He has built in something that says this is wrong, this is right. Now let me say this, man can skew that. Men can mess that up. Men can dull that and make it so it's not sensitive as God intends it to be. 1 Timothy 4.2. says, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. Just like an iron that kills the nerves of the flesh, in the same way, somebody can have a heart that gets harder and harder against God. Now praise God, God can deal with that. And in David's case, God dealt with it very specifically. Remember, David, before he became king, he was a shepherd. And so the prophet Nathan comes to David with a story that's gonna touch the heart of this shepherd king, it's a story about sheep. 2 Samuel 12 verse one, the Lord sent Nathan unto David, and I expressed this earlier, this has to do with David's sin with Bathsheba, committing adultery, and then killing her husband Uriah the Hittite, and he hid it for a year, and he didn't deal with it for a year. And the Lord sent Nathan unto David, And it 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 brought and nourished up, bought and nourished up. And it grew up together with him and with his children. 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 come unto 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. And Nathan said to David, thou art the man. And David was incensed. How could somebody be so cruel? They had so much and they looked at what that person had and they took it and they defiled it. They destroyed it. And obviously it's a great illustration. David was blessed. I mean, we'd have to study the Bible out in God's allowance, but David had multiplied wives. David had a huge family, but Uriah the Hittite had his wife, Beth Sheba and David committed adultery with her, she became pregnant, he killed Uriah the Hittite, and then Nathan says, Thou art the man. Praise God. God has given us a conscience that at times is going to say those same things. Thou art the man. You're guilty against God. We need to hear that conscience and that conviction from our conscience. Paul said this, Acts 24, 16, Herein do I exercise myself, he said, I diligently search this out, to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men. And as a godly man, the apostle Paul would listen to that internal spirit of God voice in our hearts saying, look, you have transgressed against that person or you've transgressed against God. And Paul would search that out, make sure his conscience was clear with God, make sure his conscience was clear with men. And so hear your conscience, recognize conviction, hear your conscience. And then secondly, heed God's chastening, heed God's chastening. It says in verse four, for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. David didn't just have a noisy conscience. David had a loving heavenly father that cared too much about David to let David stay in sin. And so God the father was gonna do some discipline in David's life. You know, if I'm not a saved person, I'm not going to experience this. Somebody that's unsaved, they can sin, they can do what they want to do, they can say what they want to say, and it doesn't, in a sense, it may not even really bother them. It might trouble their conscience, but certainly there's not going to be any circumstances necessarily brought into their life to make their life difficult because of their transgression. But as we looked at 1 Corinthians 11 this morning in a believer's life, When we transgress against God, God is going to deal with us because he loves us. Hebrews 12 verse 5 says, He hath forgotten the exhortation, which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye illegitimate, you're not really children of God, and not sons. Now, you know, on the one hand, Chastening isn't fun. The Bible says, now, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nobody gets excited about discipline, but you know what? As believers, we ought to appreciate discipline in our life and say, praise God, I'm so glad that God loves me enough not to let me go down that path of sin, but is always going to correct me. Now, briefly, how did David characterized God's chastening. How did he describe it? Well, it was relentless. It says day and night. It was personal. It says, thy hand. Now, David didn't look at whatever that circumstance was and go, well, that's a coincidence. I'm disobeying God and that circumstance is in my life. David looked at it and thought, that circumstance is in my life. That's God's hand of discipline against me. It was personal. And it was persuasive. It says, was heavy upon me. It was heavy. You know, God's chastening isn't light. My sister is two and a half years younger than I am. She's the one, her husband is the dean of men, ambassador. And when we were back there, we were talking about stories of growing up together, and she reminded me of one time that we got in trouble. I can't remember. It was probably her fault. But we got in trouble for something. And we're sitting there, and I remember distinctly, we're sitting in the living room, and I had a blue wallet that was Velcro. It had red trim on it. It was big. It was I mean, it was like this big. And I smiled at my sister, waved my wallet at her and tucked it down in my back pocket because we were waiting for some physical discipline that was going to be coming somewhere where that wallet would help. And so I smile at her. And somehow my dad perceived what had taken place. And she reminded me that we got it good on that day because we had transgressed. You know, no wonder this person isn't happy. We're talking about somebody that has sin in their life. They're under the conviction of their conscience. God is chastening. That is not something that is something that we delight in. And so we need to heed God's chastening. And then third, be aware of the curse. Okay, be aware of the curse. Recognize conviction. Hear your conscience. Heed God's chastening. and then be aware of the curse. It says in verse four, my moisture is turned into the draught of summer. Okay? David's looking at his life, and this is what David's thinking. I don't have the blessing of God anymore. Remember Psalm 1, written by David. David said, blessed, how happy is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." And then he says, the ungodly are not so. Somebody that's godly, life is maybe not perfect, but life is good. They know their relationship with God is good. They're being faithful in the word of God. They can say, I know this. It might be tough. I might be going through tough things, but the blessing of God is upon my life. But David looks at his life right here and he goes, you know what? I've lost God's blessing. The ungodly are not so. Why? Because the chastening is taking place. We heard this past week, my family, the testimony of an old pastor that's been saved 50 years, but he said this, he said, I had two choices on New Year's Eve. I could go drink in the new year or I could pray in the new year. He ended up at church and he got saved. And God dramatically changed his life, so much so that God was calling him to preach, but he ran from the call of God and he said this, God put me in the hospital. He recognized in his life, you know what? God took the blessing away. God took, you know, the goodness away because God was chastening me and he became aware of that lack of God's blessing. So I say to us tonight, if we're dried up inside and we've lost the blessing, we ought to stop and look and say, you know what? Maybe there's sin in my life that God is dealing with to try to get me to that place of obedience. And so, first of all, again, identify sin, look for transgressions or stains, look at God's ledger, look for deceit, look for rebellion. Why? Because you're not gonna be happy in sin. And then secondly, you're not gonna be happy under conviction. We need to hear our conscience, heed God's chastening, and be aware of the curse. And right now, in my mind, I'm just thinking, Do I want to fast forward through this or do I want to stop and come back next week and finish this? What I hesitate to do is end here because all we've done is looked at the bad and we haven't gotten to the good of what God is able to do. I think I can get through this in 15 minutes. All right, so I think I'm gonna push on. I know Tommy's eyes kind of bugged out right there, but I wanna continue on because this is the good bit now. Okay, because now we're gonna look at finally choose repentance. Okay, choose repentance. And so we're at the point of turning back to the path of happiness, which is the holiness. So identify the sin, recognize the conviction, and now turn back to God. And so five necessary ingredients to repentance. So five things that are important to our getting right with God. First of all, you need contrition, all right? You need contrition. It says in verse five, I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord. and I'm still debating. And so I'm going to do this. I'm going to, I'm going to come back to this. All right. Um, I want to, I want to make sure that we give the time to this, that we need to give to it. And I don't want to rush through it. Um, but tonight is, as you look at your life, it is a very strong statement. David makes when he says, how happy is he? whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. All right? There is happiness in holiness. There's happiness in a right relationship with God. So I ought to be earnest in my life to say, you know what? I want to identify sin. And I want to see that. And I want to recognize conviction. I want to recognize when it's tough because there are things that God is dealing with in my life. And then I need to repent. I need to get right with God and praise God. We have looked at it tonight. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. and turning back to God so that our heart is right with God, as David's was. Now, by the way, David is speaking about how happy is the man that's right with God, but remember that man was in transgression, that man was in guile, that man was in sin, but now that man is rightly related to God. So praise God. I mean, that's where it's at for us, is getting restored to God. So let's pray, ask the spirit of God to bless his word. Father, I thank you for the grace that you give. And Father, I just pray that the Spirit of God help us to look at our lives and to identify sin. And then Father, to recognize conviction, to understand the conscience speaking and saying, you know, this is not right, and helping us, especially with the Holy Spirit inside of us with our conscience, clearly identifying sin and then seeing the chastening of God that's taking place, understanding, well, it seems I've lost the blessing of God. There's a dryness in my heart. There's an emptiness in my heart where there isn't that fullness of that tree planted by the rivers of living water. And Father, I just pray that you give us grace to repent and help us next week as we look at those facts about what David did to get right with God and how the Spirit of God brought him back to a right relationship with God. Well, Father, may that truth be life-changing. I pray this tonight. Lord, it might be somebody that's lost, that listens to this message and understands that they're a sinner, that their sin has separated them from God, that the unhappiness that is in their life is because of their sin. And Father, I pray that they'd understand the love of God for them and the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. And that by faith in Him and asking your forgiveness and asking for your gift of everlasting life, they can have it. And they can be rightly related to God, that they could have the blessing of Adam and Eve before transgression. Because God, you're willing to take those sins away. And so Father, encourage our hearts. I thank you for our church. Thank you for their faithfulness. God, thank you for all you've worked in our hearts and lives today. God be glorified. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.