We've been seeing in the life of David, it is only in Christ, and as we walk in fellowship with him, that we can enter into that power and that victory. And we would be remiss if we left chapter 12 of 2 Samuel without looking at Psalm 51. So if you'd turn to Psalm 51, we're gonna begin reading from the title, the inspired title. To the chief musician, a psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight, that you may be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part, you will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness that the bones you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous spirit. Then I will teach transgressors. Your ways and sinners shall be converted to you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed. Oh God, the God of my salvation and my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness. Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall show forth your praise for you do not desire sacrifice or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. These, oh God, you will not despise. Do good in your good pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then they shall offer bulls on your altar. Amen. Father, we thank you for this, your word and praise. We dig into it that you would sanctify this, your people and cause us to rejoice in the wonderful redemption and all of the blessings that you have given us to those who are heirs of salvation. We love you and we commit this continued time of worship to you in Jesus name. Amen. There are a number of passages that speak of potential blessings that we could get and of potential blessings that have been lost that we will never get. And it really is kind of hard to wrap your brain around the idea that there are contingencies, very legitimate contingencies that the scripture lays out. And yet God has predestined all things that come to pass. How can both of those be true? But they are presented side by side and we have to believe both sides of that equation. For example, Luke 19 verse 41 illustrates both sides saying, Jesus says, If you had known, so there is the contingency. Anytime you see an if, it's a contingency. If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. So contingency and sovereignty. They had needless losses in one sense even though God's plan was not overturned. So let me give you a couple of examples and then we'll dig into Psalm 51. Haggai 1, 6 through 9 says that the post-exilic church had become so selfish in their pursuits and were not at all interested in building up the temple that their income decreased. Their clothing began to wear out. They did not have adequate food. And God says, look, if your priorities were right, I would establish you in all of these things. And let me read what He says. You have sown much and bring in little. You eat but do not have enough. You drink but you are not filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages earns wages to put into a bag with holes. Thus says the Lord of hosts. Consider your ways. Go to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, but indeed it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? Because of my house that is in ruins. while every one of you runs to his own house. So there was withheld blessing. And God makes clear that those withheld blessings were needlessly lost by God's people and they were very quickly restored when they took corrective action. Hosea 2 speaks of God hedging up a woman's, an adulterous woman's ways so that she will not receive blessings that she could otherwise receive. And it says she had needless loss of corn, wine, oil, silver, and gold. And when I read through Deuteronomy 27 through 29, I cannot help but wonder what kind of blessings God would have bestowed upon the church in America if the church had been faithful. So today we're going to be looking at needless losses, and it's obviously not the only message that's in Psalm 51, but we've been kind of alluding to different messages in Psalm 51 as we've been going through 2 Samuel chapter 12. So that's the only thing I'm going to focus upon, seven needless losses that David had. And each of the Psalms that David wrote during the week of mourning that he was engaged in indicate that this repentance restored not all, but it restored at least some of those blessings and incredible joy for sure. The title to Psalm 38 is A Psalm of David to Bring to Remembrance. And if you remember from, what was it, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, the things he was bringing to remembrance, including the venereal disease that he got, probably would make most people cringe. Why would David bring those things to remembrance to God's people? And yet he realized it was worth it. It was absolutely worth it because of the blessings that were restored into his life. The title to Psalm 6 is similar. The psalm was given to the chief musician, which means the chief musician was going to be leading the whole congregation in singing about David's sins, right? And the title to this psalm is very similar. It's also given to the chief musician. It says to the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba. So David again is being very transparent before the people. He's confessing his sins, not just to God, but he's confessing it to others. And as a result of that, God restored not all, but many of the blessings that were there. So we're going to look at seven needless losses. And the first one was God's daily mercies. Take a look at verse one. have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness, according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions." So David had experienced the multitude of God's mercies previously. He wanted to get those mercies back in his life. And you'll remember from the previous sermon we saw that God's love covers a multitude of mercy, a multitude of sins. Now if there's a multitude of sins being covered, that means there's a need for a multitude of mercies in his life as well. And when our sins are covered over by God, we can get on with life. We're secure in our justification, we're cleansed from our daily sins, and we can get on with life with joy. But when God picks on every little sin that we have, and He allows others to pick on those sins as well, we lose that joy in our life. And Matthew 18 is an incredible, incredible word picture, not only about the fact that we have a multitude of God's mercies in our lives, but how God can take those mercies away from us as well. And it's the parable of the servant who was forgiven of a huge, huge debt. And remember that this parable is talking about a forgiven, justified believer. Now just to give you an idea of the lowest amount of money that that servant was forgiven of, we're going to assume that it's 10,000 talents of silver, not 10,000 talents of gold. And it probably was silver that he was talking about. But each talent of silver was worth 6,000 denarii. One denarius was the average working man's wages, his one day's wages. When you're looking at 6,000 denarii, you've got approximately 20 years' wages for the average working man. That's just one talent, okay? But he's forgiven of 10,000 talents, which means that he had been forgiven of 60 million denarii, or 20,000 years' worth of the average man's wages. That's a lot of A lot of money to be forgiven of, right? And yet it was forgiven. It was overlooked by the Lord. That's speaking of the multitude of mercies that we experience in our lives. Now that servant went and he had a fellow servant whom he refused to forgive of his debt, even though he begged him in the same way. And that servant owed him 100 denarii. It's still a lot of money. It's one third of a year's worth of labor, but he couldn't pay it in the same way that the first servant could not pay it. And so he threw him into prison and Jesus concludes his parable this way. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you? And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. so my heavenly father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses." He's talking about believers here, not talking about hell. He's talking about life here on earth. He is saying if you do not forgive each other and display the same kind of love that God has displayed toward you, a love that covers over a multitude of sins, he's going to say, look, I'm going to show you what it's like when I pick on every little sin that you have engaged in. And I'm going to allow demons to pick on you as well. And the word torturers is a very appropriate word because it is a synonym for demons. And yes, demons can be afflicting believers if they don't guard themselves, 1 John says. And it's also an appropriate term because of the inward torment that many times Christians experience when they lack a forgiving spirit as well. And I've seen Christians absolutely miserable because they're just like that servant. And it's so needless. All it would take is humility to confess our sins and say, Lord, I want to be free from my sins, but I know my sins are ever before me. Please forgive me of them. be open and transparent about them and forgive others in the same way that God forgave you. So it's needless loss. The second loss that David experienced was a loss of feeling clean. Now that may not seem like such a significant loss until you yourself have experienced that. And for David, it was something that was an absolute misery. He was a justified man. He was secure in his salvation. He was headed toward heaven. But despite that, he felt yucky inside. He could not get rid of this sense of an unclean spirit. Verses 2 through 3. wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me." Prior to confessing his sin and praying this psalm, David just could not get rid of this sense of sin. It didn't matter what he was doing, all he could think about was that sin. It was always in front of his face and it sort of reminds me of Shakespeare's play about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and you remember in there how they're constantly washing their hands trying to get rid of the the stain of the bloodshed and they can't do it always washing their hands and to me that's a such a powerful figure of how in ourselves we cannot get rid of that of that sense of yuckiness as it were. a very powerful image. And I've experienced that. David experienced it. I'm sure you've experienced this from time to time as well, that my sin is always before me. Anyway, David continues on in verses 7 through 10. saying, Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness that the bones you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Well, when David confessed his sins, he felt like a new man. He felt clean. No longer did he have that sense of yuckiness. His preoccupation now was joyful worship in the face of God rather than averting himself from the gaze of God upon him. And it's such a blessing. In fact, it's such a blessing, it is simply not worth it to cover over our sins. And so if you've lost the wonder and the joy of being totally transparent and open before God in worship, it is a needless loss. The third loss was divine fellowship. And that's in verse 11. He says, do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Now we've seen in the past, he's not talking about the loss of salvation. We've already seen he was secure in his salvation. But he wanted a restoration of the fellowship and the empowering of the Holy Spirit. And you could just look by way of illustration at King Saul. When the Holy Spirit's anointing left Saul, He no longer felt this fellowship with God. It was not only a lack of restoration of fellowship, but he lost all empowering, lost all joy. And when you lose the empowering and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit and the joy of the Holy Spirit, it can absolutely drain you in your ministry. Several years ago, Chuck Colson told the story of Pat Novak, a Protestant chaplain. And let me just read what he had to say. Pat was making his rounds one summer morning when he was called to visit a patient admitted with an undiagnosed ailment. John, a man in his 60s, had not responded to any treatment. Medical tests showed nothing. Psychological tests were inconclusive. Yet he was wasting away. He had not even been able to swallow for two weeks. The nurses tried everything. Finally, they called the chaplain's office. When Pat walked into the room, John was sitting limply in his bed, strung with IV tubes, staring listlessly at the wall. He was a tall, grandfatherly man, balding a little, but his sallow skin hung loosely on his face, neck, and arms where the weight had dropped from his frame. His eyes were hollow. Pat was terrified. He had no idea what to do. But John seemed to brighten a bit as soon as he saw Pat's chaplain badge and invited him to sit down. As they talked, Pat sensed that God was urging him to do something specific. He knew he was to ask John if he wanted to take communion. Chapel interns were not encouraged to ask this type of thing in this public hospital, but Pat did. At that, John broke down. I can't, he cried. I've sinned and can't be forgiven. Pat paused a moment, knowing he was about to break policy again. Then he told John about 1 Corinthians 11 and Paul's admonition that whoever takes communion in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself. And he asked John if he wanted to confess his sin. John nodded gratefully. To this day, Pat can't remember the particular sin John confessed, nor would he say if he did, but he recalls that it did not strike him as particularly egregious, yet it had been draining the life from this man. John wept. as he confessed and Pat laid hands on him, hugged him and told John his sins were forgiven. Then Pat got the second urging from the Holy Spirit, ask him if he wants to take communion. He did. Pat gave John a Bible and told him he would be back later. Already John was sitting up straighter with a flicker of light in his eyes. Pat visited a few more patients, then ate some lunch in the hospital cafeteria. When he left, he wrapped an extra piece of bread in the napkin and borrowed a coffee cup from the cafeteria. He ran out to a shop a few blocks away and bought a container of grape juice. Then he returned to John's room with the elements and celebrated communion with him, again reciting 1 Corinthians 11. John took the bread and chewed it slowly. It was the first time in weeks he had been able to take solid food in his mouth. He took the cup and swallowed. He had been set free. Within three days, John walked out of that hospital. The nurses were so amazed, they called the newspaper, which later featured the story of John and Pat appropriately, in its Life section. And really, there is nothing so debilitating to a true Christian than the sense you don't have God's fellowship anymore. You don't have His presence and His power in your life. And I know when God has seemed to be absent in my life, the vitality has just been drained away. I don't enjoy ministry. I don't enjoy the things that I'm doing. And it's such a needless loss when God has promised if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from what? all on righteousness, right? In John 10, verse 10, Jesus said, I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. You don't want to lose the abundance of life that comes from walking in fellowship with God. And of course, that leads to point four, the needless loss of joy. Verse 12 says, Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous spirit. Okay? Now, he didn't lose his salvation. He lost the joy of his salvation. But David was not a fool. When his mind got straightened out, he knew where to go to get that joy restored. He didn't, you know, fail to repent and to turn to the God who is the source of our joy, that joy that Nehemiah says is our strength. But too frequently, we have this tendency to want to fill the void with something from creation. It might be eating things, buying things, but creation becomes a substitute for that joy in our life. A Turning Point magazine listed all of the miserably failed attempts to restore joy and found that joy is not found in, first of all, unbelief. It says, Voltaire was an infidel of the most pronounced type. He wrote, I wish I'd never been born. Not in pleasure. Lord Byron lived the life of pleasure if anyone did. He wrote, the worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone, not in money. Jay Gould, the American millionaire, had plenty of that. When dying, he said, I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth. And you could go through a whole list of other things that people have tended to try to restore that sense of joy from. And we can't generate it in ourselves. We can't say, I'm going to be more joyful. There was a conference at a Presbyterian church here in town. I won't tell you which Presbyterian church it was. During the service, everybody was handed a helium balloon, and they were told, when you feel the joy rising up within you, let your balloon go. And when I was reading the article about that, they said at the end of the service, one third of the balloons were still in people's hands. And even though I think that's such a silly experiment that they went through, I'm using it as an illustration because there is a sense in which there are things that bind our joy down. And it is so needless. It is something that God wants us to have, the joy of the Lord. Let me give you some scriptures. 1 Peter 1 8 speaks of joy inexpressible and full of glory that the Christians that he was writing to were experiencing. And what were they going through? They were going through incredible persecution and the loss of property and all kinds of things. Yet they had that joy inexpressible and full of glory. If you've lost joy, you might want to read 1 Peter and see what their secret was. Or John 1511, Jesus said, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full. So if the joy of Christ is not been remaining in you, you might want to read John 15 and see what it is that is the secret of remaining, having that joy remain in us. When he says that my joy may remain in you, he's implying a couple of things. He's implying, first of all, that that joy can evaporate very easily. You can lose that joy almost instantaneously, actually, just like that balloon. You let it go and it's gone. But it also implies that the loss of that joy is so needless. We need not lose our joy in the Lord if we will abide in Christ. Or you can think of 1 John 1.4, and these things we write to you that your joy may be full. So if your joy is not full, I would really urge you to read and reread and reread 1 John, the whole book. And as you're reading it, read it prayerfully and ask God, Lord, make my life conformed to this word. Apply your word in my life. Transform my life by your word. I want that fullness of joy. But the problem is people like to avoid 1 John because, man, it's a convicting book. It has the same message that Psalm 51 has. It's a message of repentance and cleansing and restoration and walking in the light. Okay, the fifth needless loss was the loss of power and passion in witness. And that's verse 13. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners shall be converted to you. Now Satan will try to tempt you to think the exact opposite. Man, if unbelievers knew the sins that I've committed, they'd mock me. They wouldn't believe the gospel. They would think terrible things about me. If they knew about me just like they're going to find out about David after David writes this psalm, it's going to ruin my witness. It's going to ruin my testimony. But the reality is actually the exact opposite. When we are transparent and we have no sins to hide and we're not afraid of our sins because we're secure in Christ and they point out sins in your life and you say, yeah, I had those sins and I am so grateful that God has forgiven me of those sins. It gives you a boldness in witness. Like we said two weeks ago, it is some of the men and the women who have repented of the sin of abortion and have been found cleansing, who have made some of the best post-abortion trauma counselors out there. It is former addicts who have been restored to the Lord or even converted to the Lord, who are sometimes the most aggressive and passionate in their witness for others. So it's the exact opposite of what Satan really tempts you to think about. And David's psalms show a God-engendered desire to keep others from falling into the same sins that he fell into and show a compassion for people who have already so fallen. Now, on the other hand, if you hide your sins, what are you doing? you're running from the light. You're not going to have any desire to draw people into the light. I mean, witnessing is the last thing you're going to want to do unless you're just sharing, you know, in general ways. But really drawing people into an acknowledgment of their sinfulness, applying the law of God and then applying the grace of God, that feels just too uncomfortable. So if you have the needless loss of power and passion in witnessing, Psalm 51 shows the remedy. It's probably the most famous confession of sin. Okay, the sixth loss is the loss of a desire for worship. And let's read verses 14 through 17. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation. Here's the result. And my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall show forth your praise. For you do not desire sacrifice or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise." Now, God does despise worship that is offered up by hardened hearts. He does not enjoy or like worship that is offered up with stained hands. That's why 1 Timothy 2, 8 says that when we pray, we men need to be lifting up, what? Holy hands before God. And so God doesn't like that kind of worship. But neither did David like his worship when he was hiding his sin, at least until the time that Nathan confronted him. And like Jonah, he was running from the light. He was not attracted to the light. How could you be attracted to the light when you're hiding your sin? The light of God's holiness is going to expose that. So when you try to justify your sin, the last thing you want to do is worship. But when David finally confessed his sins, what does 2 Samuel 12, verse 20 say he did? First thing he does, he goes into the temple, he worships. He's got this restored desire to worship God. And it makes sense when you understand what worship is. Here's how William Temple defined worship. Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness, the nourishment of mind with His truth. the purifying of imagination by His beauty, the opening of the heart to His love, the surrender of will to His purpose, and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable, and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness, which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin. So it's no wonder David did not enjoy worshiping when he was holding on to his sin. It was not pleasant. and based upon the testimonies of other Psalms that David wrote, it was an incredible loss because he found great joy in his worship when he was walking close to God. The last loss mentioned in this text is a loss of concern for God's kingdom interests. When we cover our sins, what happens is we tend to become more and more self-absorbed And we tend to not be as interested in praying, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's just not something that's at the top of our radar. But as a result of David's repentance and casting of his sins under the blood of Christ, God began to stir within David this renewed passion and desire for God's kingdom and his glory. So let's take a look at the last two verses. Do good in your good pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then they shall offer bulls on your altar." Now can you see the kingdom vision that was restored in David's life? He says, Do good in your good pleasure to Zion. build the walls of Jerusalem. He's no longer just interested in his own needs being met, but he also has this desire to see God blessing Jerusalem, to bless his kingdom as a whole, Zion as a whole. And I have found that a similar passion for God's kingdom and God's purposes has been released within my heart when I have confessed my sins and I've put it under the blood of Christ. He just automatically readjusts our whole thinking and actually worship every Sunday is designed, it's covenant renewal, it's designed to refocus, readjust our thinking so that we now are thinking in a God-centered way. And so many though not all of the losses can be recovered when we humble ourselves as David did in Psalm 51. So this morning, if any of those seven things is present in your life, you've got any of those seven losses, I would encourage you to say, Holy Spirit, shine your light in my heart and expose anything that I need to confess, anything that I need to do so that I can be restored. And let me end just by reading the poem of F.B. Meyer that you see at the bottom of your bulletins there. One above another, And the taller we grow, the easier we can reach them. Now I find that God's gifts are on shelves, one beneath another, and the lower we stoop, the more we get. May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen. Father, I pray that we would find this call to stoop, to humility, to confession, to realizing that it is Our whole life is a call to have your will be done that finds blessing in our lives when we are not consumed with our own blessing, but we are consumed with blessing you and your purposes and following after you with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind that we find ourselves blessed beyond measure. And I pray that you would indeed cause each one here to have the humility to acknowledge, to confess, to forsake their sins, to find the cleansing from all the yuckiness inside, and to find that renewed energy and joy and gladness of heart that we have, and lightness when we are forgiven and cleansed from sin. Restore power to any who have lost the power of the Holy Spirit. And Father, I pray that you would be glorified in this, your congregation, in Jesus' name. Amen.