Our Restorative God

Sermon Transcript

Well, what a great day to hear the word of the Lord. I never get tired of hearing stories about God's specific work in the lives of people and how he has redeemed them. As we continue our series, summer in the psalms, I want to talk to you today about our restorative God. And here's why. Because many times when we hear stories about people that come to faith in Jesus Christ, we are quick to testify that no matter what the sin, no matter what they struggle with, no matter who they are, it can be the most grievous sin in the world.

And we will tell them the truth, that through Jesus Christ's death on the cross, through his shed blood, they are totally forgiven. Because Jesus Christ rose from the dead and he has given victory to all who claim his name. And we're great at sharing that. Sometimes we need to share it a little more frequently, but we're great at being able to testify. Yeah, brother, that's true.

But what about christians? What about once you become a believer in Christ? What happens if you get caught in a sin that you can't seem to get out of? What happens as a believer in Christ if you find yourself under the weight of a sin that you can't seem to get out from underneath? What do you do then?

And the fact is that all of us as christians, from the moment we trust in Christ, we're not perfected, we're declared righteous. And yet, even after becoming christians, we can still deal with sin. What are we supposed to do? If you're a believer here today and you say, hey, that's me, that's me. I know, I know Jesus.

I know I love Jesus. But there's this thing in my heart. It's been there for a while. I don't know how to get rid of it. I have great news for you.

God has a word for you today. If you open up your bibles today to psalm, chapter 51. Psalm, chapter 51, this is a psalm of David. And to give you a little history of this psalm, just before we get to this, if you study through the entire Bible and you read through the Bible, when you read through the Old testament, you're going to come across this guy named David. David is anointed as king, even though he's the runt of the family and he's anointed as king.

God has his favor on him from the time he's just a boy. David's going to end up slaying Goliath. He's going to be anointed king. And even though he has every opportunity to become king, King Saul is going to try to kill him, but David hides from him. David even has a chance to kill King Saul.

He's like, nope, I'm not going to do that because I'm a man after God's own heart. I'm going to do it God's way. And David makes it all the way to the throne, and David is doing everything the way God wants. And if you're reading through the Old Testament and you haven't gotten to the new yet, you might think, man, the messiah, might be here, David might actually be the Messiah. And you might even think that all the way up until two Samuel, chapter eleven.

And when you get to two Samuel, chapter eleven, you'll read about a king David, who, although he had the heart of God, although he knew the Lord at the time that men were supposed to go to war, David hung out at his palace. And one day David is standing on the roof of his palace and he noticed a woman off in the distance. Her name's Bathsheba, and she's going to bathe. She takes off her clothes to take a bath and he takes notice and he lusts after her and he summons her and he has a relationship with her. Worse yet, he gets her pregnant.

Worse yet, in order to cover up the fact that the king got this woman pregnant that wasn't his wife, he takes her husband, Uriah, when he finds out who it is, puts him on the front lines and makes sure that he gets killed so that his sin can be covered up. Here's what David did. David was an adulterer and David was a murderer. And David tried to cover it up. You know what it tells me?

Somebody who loves the Lord can sin in a grievous way. And do what? Try to lie and cover it up. That's exactly what David did. And it went on for about a year.

And God was like, he's not getting it. Because do you know that when you sin, you're always blind to your sin? Do you know how easy it is to see the sin in other people's lives? Can I get an amen? Okay.

You know how hard it is to see the sin in our life? We don't see it in our life, but it's easy to see in other people. So God sends David a prophet. His name is Nathan. And in two Samuel, chapter 13, we hear what happened.

The prophet is going to tell him a story, and here's what he says. He came to David and said there were two men in a I'm sorry. Two Samuel, chapter twelve. He came to him and said to him, there were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had many flocks, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb which he had bought.

And he brought it up, and he grew it up with him and his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him. But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. You get the story?

Nathan goes to him and says, hey, listen, there was this guy. He had nothing. There was a rich guy that had all these sheep, but this little guy had nothing. He had one little teeny leany ewe lamb. He fed it from a bottle, it curled up in his lap.

All his children loved this ewe lamb. And when a traveler came to the rich man's house, here's what happened. He didn't want to take one of his own sheep, so he took that little ewe lamb from that guy and had it slaughtered so that his friend could eat. When David heard this, here's David's response. As the lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.

You know what the next words are? Nathan said to Daniel, you are the man. And he begins to explain to him that's exactly what he did by sinning with Bathsheba. And David is cut to the heart. David sees his sin before him.

Can I tell you something, believer? When you see your sin before you, it's a gift from God. God shows us our sin because he loves us. And if he loved us enough to bring us to Christ, he loves us enough even afterwards to show us our sin, then we have a decision to make as to what we're going to do when we have the sin laying in front of us. Are we going to try to hide it, or are we going to get it out in the open?

And David in Psalm 51, pins this psalm right after this story, right after he recognizes what's going on. And there's four things from this psalm. If you're caught in a sin, as a believer, that you need to do, and if you're not caught in one now, hey, save the message. Keep it on CD. You'll need it later.

Okay? Because the truth is, after coming to Christ, there's never a time where you're just going to stop sinning, okay? There's ongoing things in your life that are going to happen where God's going to point things out to you and he's going to show you things and how are you going to handle them. David in Psalm 51 begins it in the first six verses. This way.

Here's what he says. Have mercy on me, o God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, you delight in truth, in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. And what we read in those first six verses is the first thing that David did. And if you're caught in a sin as a believer, this is what you need to do. The first one is this. Authentically approach God based upon his character.

Authentically approach God based upon his character. Approach him in all authenticity. That means real, transparent, true. Notice what David says. Have mercy on me, o God.

I want mercy. I'm begging you. I'm being honest. I did it again. My sin is great.

This is true of who I am. And notice what he calls on. He calls on God's character. He says, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, those are characters of God, qualities of God. God's love for us never fails.

It never runs out. He never gives up. You can confess the same sin over and over a million times, and God is never going to look at you and say, really? Again? You expect forgiveness again?

No, I forgive. That's who I am. I love you with an unconditional love. I have mercy that's unconditional. I give according to who I am.

That's what I do. Hey, Christian, if you're caught in a sin, God wants to lavish you with his love and his mercy. That's who our God is. And David's begging for it. David's begging for it.

Now notice this. He uses three different words. He talks about my transgressions, my iniquity and my sin. I mean, he uses three different words for the same concept. Now let's talk about all these so you understand what it means.

You know what a transgression is? A transgression means God has drawn a line or a standard and said, don't cross it. And you know what that line or standard is? You know exactly what the standard is, and you go ahead and you step across it anyway. Anybody know what I'm talking about?

Okay, this is responsive. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Okay, so you're a Christian. You know God's standard. And there's a time you step across that line that's transgressing.

Every single one of us has done that. There's not a person here who's trusted Christ, who has said, hey, from the moment I trusted him, I've never stepped across the line again. God has a standard. It's very high, it's perfect, it's holy. We step across that as transgression.

What about iniquity? You know what iniquity is? Iniquity are those times in your life where you start thinking you can play with sin a little bit. It's not that big of a deal. And you start toying with sin.

And all of a sudden, before you know it, that sin has a hold of you and it's consuming your life to where your life is defined by your sin pattern. Perhaps you have an ongoing addiction. Perhaps you have an ongoing behavioral problem. Perhaps you get mad all the time. Perhaps there's just something that's iniquity.

Iniquity is. It thoroughly consumes my life every day. I know this is going to be part of who I am. And what's sin? Sin is just the definition of missing the mark.

It's like if God is at the center, he's the bullseye. And we miss. We come up short, we duff the shot. That's sin. David's like, I'm all three.

I've stepped over your line of standard. I've committed adultery. I've stepped over your line. I've committed murder. It's consuming who I am.

I've been blind to my sin and I've missed the mark for who you want me to be. God. I'm telling you everything. I'm being totally honest with you. See, God wants us to come before him in all boldness and truth.

Now when I was preparing this message, I had to look this up. There was a movie. The movie came out in 1992. Were any of you alive in 1992? There was a movie called a few Good Men.

Do you remember that movie? Yeah, it was a movie with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. And Tom Cruise played this guy, Lieutenant Daniel Caffey. And at the very end of the movie, he's interviewing Jack Nicholson, who's Colonel Nathan Jessup. And he's got him on the stand, and things get really, really heated.

And see if you can repeat this line with me. Tom Cruise gets really fired up and he says, I want the. And Colonel Nathan Jessup fires back. You can handle the awesome scene, right? See, when God calls to us, that's what he calls.

He goes, I want the truth. And a lot of times we're like, God, you can't handle the truth. God says, oh, yes, I can, because I've been with you. I've been watching you. I notice it.

And because I'm in you, I've been participating in every sin that you have. I can handle it, and I want the truth. One of the reasons that we don't get out of the rut as christians when we sin is because we're not honest with God. Now, here's how you can be fake with God, okay? You can be fake with God like this.

Like, guys, if you look at porn, you can call yourself an adulterer because that's what the Bible would call you in Matthew five. If you're lusting after someone that's not your wife, if you're single, you're an adulterer. Even though you're not married, you're going after something that doesn't belong to you, someone that doesn't belong to you. But most of the time, as guys, here's what we say. Yeah, I struggled this week with lust.

No, you're an adulterer. And until you can get to the place where you can name your sin, there's no healing. Why? Because God says if you confess your sin, he is faithful and just to forgive your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. What's God looking for?

Just tell me the truth. I already know what the truth is. Just be honest, because I want to know that you know what sin is. Call it what it is. Most of the time, as christians in our prayers, we don't get honest.

We say, oh, God, I struggle with. And we kind of fill in the blank and we mess around with it. But if it was somebody else that was doing the same thing, we'd call it by name. They're this, they're a gossip, they're a liar, they're a cheater, they're an adulterer. But when it's us.

I'm struggling this week. God, forgive me. Am I telling the truth or not? I mean, this is what happens. David's authentically coming before God.

He's begging for his mercy. He's saying, I've done this and I'm wrong. Now notice what he does. I'm going to give you three things that you need to do if you're going to experience God's mercy and grace in your life. And the first is this.

Take ownership. Take ownership. Notice what David says, for I know my transgressions. It's the fourth time he uses the word my and my sin. Fifth time is ever before me.

He takes ownership. It's you. When you sin, it's you. Don't blame other people for your sin. Well, God, if you hadn't given me my spouse, there's no way I would have blown up like that, God, if you didn't give me these children that were acting like this, I wouldn't have acted like that, God, if I didn't have that boss, if I didn't have those employees.

You got to understand, God. I'm just responding to the world around me. That would be like David saying, God, I didn't put that bathtub over there. I didn't ask her to take her clothes off. No.

David says, God, I own it. It was me. It was all me. It was my sin. He's not even saying it was havezes.

He's not saying it was bathsheba. And I. It was me. It's my sin. It's my transgression.

I'm wrong. Take ownership of your sin. If you're gonna get healing, you gotta take ownership of your own personal sin. Second is this. Take responsibility.

Notice what he says. Verse four is a really interesting verse. He says, against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Now, he's had an adulterous affair with a woman and had her husband killed. And here's what he says.

God, against you and only you. I've sinned. Say what? You sinned against Bathsheba. You sinned against her husband.

Yeah, but here's what he's saying. God, I realize that when I sin, I first and foremost sin against you, and it can result in hurting other people. But my sin goes against you right? Now, why is that true? I mean, if you think about marriage for a second, right?

If you're rude to your spouse, right. Why is that a sin against God? Well, because God created your spouse in his image and loves them with an unconditional love. So when you're treating them poorly, you're actually hurting one of God's kids. God against you and only you.

Have I sinned? It's a vertical first, and then it goes horizontal. You lie, you cheat, you steal, you do whatever you're gonna do. It first offends God before it offends anybody else. Okay?

Take responsibility for it. Cause most of the time, what we try to do is fix our sin around other people so that they'll be cool with us without going back to the cross and realizing it's God who forgives our sin. Our sin is first and foremost against him. He's the one we need to be aware of, that we forget we've sinned against. David said, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me?

He goes, I know this. Everything about me is thoroughly sinful. And I've demonstrated in my life that I live for myself. And even though I'm a man after God's own heart, God, I take responsibility for this. It's on me.

It's my sin. So take ownership. Take responsibility. Stop blaming others. And then number three is this.

Take heart. Take heart. God delights in your growth. Notice what he says. Behold, you delight in truth, in the inward being.

And you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Take heart. When you sin and God's showing you your sin, do you know why he's showing it to you? Because he wants to free you up. He doesn't want you to stand there.

Take heart. That God wants to show you a different way to live. He wants to show you wisdom, which is skillful living. You want to know how to live for God? A lot of times it comes through your sin patterns, right?

And through your sin, God begins to show you. That's not the way. I got a better way. How would you have known? See, for many of us, we think that when we trust Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, that we'll always choose rightly.

You won't. Okay? Give yourself a break. Your children and you serve an almighty, perfect, holy God. You won't do everything right all the time.

And yet, when you sin and God convicts you of sin, it his blessing in your life to show you that you don't have to continue to live that way. And he will show you a better way to live. That's who he is. Take heart. We have a God that forgave all of your sins, past, present, and future when he died on the cross and you trusted him, how much more now as he shows you individual things in your life, does he want you to just confess so you can continue to grow?

See, that's who our God is. Our God's a restorative God. But approach him authentically. Approach him based upon his character. Secondly, do this desire for God to change you by restoring your relationship with him.

Desire for God to change you by restoring your relationship with him. David knows God can change him. Notice what he says. He says, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. I mean, here's the question for you. Do you want relief or do you want change?

Do you want peace or do you want relationship? See, when my little kids get something in their eye, they can run to me like, dad, dad, get it out of my eye or they skin their knee. They'll be, dad, dad, give me a band aid. I mean, they want relief, they want peace. They want the pain to go away.

They don't really want me. I just happen to be around, right? There's a difference between just wanting peace and wanting relationship. Sometimes when we're in sin, we just want peace. And when we want peace, we pray prayers like this.

Dear Lord, I promise you I'll never ever do this again if you get me out of it this time. I promise, I promise, I promise. You ever prayed a prayer like that before? Three of you are telling the truth. Have you ever prayed a prayer like that before?

We all prayed prayers like that before. We want the pain to go away. We want the consequence to go away. We don't care what happens. Just get me out of this thing.

Right. That's very different than coming to God and saying, God, I don't care what you do, and I don't care about my reputation. I don't care about anything. But I want my joy back. He says, let these bones that you have crushed be put back together.

And that's metaphoric. We're talking about poetry here. Did you know that when you sin, God doesn't break your bones? Can you imagine what church would look like on Sunday if he did? All of us be coming in here with walkers and chairs and crutches and bandages, right?

Oh, yeah. I saw you sin this week. You sinned too. Oh, my gosh. I mean, we'd be all your pastor would be limping up here.

We'd need a ramp. Right. Because all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, every single one of us. And yet so often we're afraid to come before the Lord and admit the sin and tell him what's truly going on in our heart. If you have a chance, flip over to psalm 32.

I won't spend much time there. It's the companion series to psalm 51. This is David after he's written psalm 51. After he's been forgiven, he writes psalm 32, and he says, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

Notice what he says, what it was like when he was sinning. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long, for day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as in the heat of summer. Do you know, as a believer, when you sin and God begins convicting you of sin and you refuse to acknowledge it? That's exactly what it feels like.

You just feel this weight on your life. You feel like you have to go into hiding. You feel like you got to get in a corner. You feel like nobody can really know who I am. That's what it feels like.

But notice what David said when he confessed his sin. He says, I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. That's the beauty of the gospel. It's the beauty of the gospel.

It's the whole leading up to Christ coming who died on the cross for our sins, who rose in victory, and if you trusted him for the forgiveness of your sins once and for all, how much more? Now, having been a believer, when God begins to point things out in your life, is he willing to forgive those and give you joy and peace? That's exactly what David's thinking. Now, can I just tell you this because I think there's a lot of christians who have come to faith in Christ who genuinely know Christ, but because of some sin in their life, after coming to Christ, they think they're disqualified for any future service. You ever met a person like that?

Is he or she within you this morning? God could never use me because I knew better. After I became a Christian, I stepped over the line. I knew better, and I'm consumed with this, I knew better, and I still missed the mark. Hey, welcome to the christian community.

I mean, one thing that's true about all of us here is that we're all sinners. It's theologically correct. We'd all nod our head and be like, yeah, it's totally true. But one thing is, in church, sometimes it's the least place to be vulnerable, because we think that people are going to judge us when in fact, how could they? Because they're steeped in just as much of it as you are.

Right? We come to church not because we're awesome. We come to church because we serve an awesome God that consistently and continues to continually forgives us and is willing to forgive anybody who would call upon his name. Right? I mean, there's a little nursery rhyme by Mother Goose.

Perhaps you've heard of it. It's about an anthropomorphic egg. You see this egg kind of sitting on a fence with hands and eyes. It goes something like this. Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. What's the story describing? When the egg falls and breaks, it's done. There ain't nobody that can put it back together.

Many of us as christians feel the same way. We feel like God restored us at the cross and then we've got to live perfect, tiptoeing and teetering on this brick wall. But if we fall after being a Christian, nobody could ever put me back together again. No pastor could do it. My small group couldn't do it.

My friend couldn't do it. My wife couldn't do it. My buddy couldn't do it. And you're right. But Jesus Christ can do it.

He can restore everything in your life. That's who he is. That's what David knew. That's why David was calling out to him. David was saying, God, I know you can do this.

It's against you. And only you have sinned. And you and only you are the one that can heal me. That's why verses 1011 and twelve, he begins to talk about it, saying, change me from the inside out. He says this, create in me a clean heart, o God, and renew a right spirit within me.

He's saying, God, change my heart that has not lived for you and give me a spirit that wants to do. You know that's an authentic prayer. Instead of praying your prayer where you promise God God, I promise you I'll never do this again. From this moment on, I will never get angry ever again. I will never drink again.

I will never smoke again. I will never say bad things again. I'll never lie again. I'll never. Instead of making all your promises that you won't make it to the car and keep, why not pray like this?

God, you pointed out my sin and clearly my heart doesn't want to do what you want to do, but I want to do what you want to do. I just don't know how. And I need your help and your power of your spirit to do that in my life. So, Lord, I surrender my heart to you and I ask for your spirit to align with my spirit so that I'll want to do what you want to do, even though right now, you know I don't. I need your help.

You know what that's called? Authenticity, realness. Genuineness, dependence. You know what? The Lord loves that he'll answer that prayer.

He wants your heart and your spirit to be right with him. So confess that it's not, because if it was, you wouldn't be living in the sin pattern that you are. Just agree with him. Second, he says this, I want your presence. He says, cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy spirit from me.

Now, I have great news. Great news. In the Old Testament, when we see the Holy Spirit, what we see in the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit would come on an individual or a group of people for a period of time to accomplish a work. If that person continued to walk with Jesus, the Holy Spirit would stay on them. If that person disobeyed Jesus, guess what would happen?

The Holy Spirit would leave him. I mean, Saul was the anointed king. The spirit was with him. What happened? Saul sinned and the Holy Spirit left him.

What's David praying? Please don't take your presence from me. I can't do this without you. If you study the Old Testament, there were five words that people used all the time where they knew they were in good graces, okay? When you see somebody do something great, here's what the Bible will say.

The Lord was with him. The Lord was with him. Matter of fact, you hear these guys praying prayers in the Old Testament like, hey, we're not going unless you go with us. Hey, we're not going to fight that battle unless you promise you're going to go. So what was David saying?

I can't be king without your presence. I can't do what you're calling me to do without you. So don't remove your holy spirit, even though I know you can, even though my predecessor, that's what you did. Now I got good news for you. In the new covenant in the New Testament, when you trust in Christ, he comes to indwell you with his holy spirit and he will never leave you.

He will never forsake you. He'll always be there. Here's the challenge in the New Testament. If you consistently sin, you can grieve the Holy Spirit and you can eventually quench the Holy Spirit. So that even though God is in your life, even though he's with you, it apparently seems that he's not there.

That's what David was praying. I need your presence. I need my heart to be changed, your spirit to help me, and I need your presence. And finally he says, I need your joy. Notice what he says.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. Can you just pause for a moment for those of you who are believers in Christ and think about what it was like the first time that you recognized and realized the love of Christ? For you personally, I'm not talking about the time you heard a friend talk about. I'm talking about the time Jesus met you in came rushing like a flood. God's amazing grace, where you knew that you knew that you knew that you were loved, that joy that you had basking in his presence, never wanting it to go away.

That's what David's praying for as a believer. He's saying, I want that joy on a continual basis. I want to be that excited God, about who you are. I want you to restore unto me the joy of my salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit that you would want me to walk in that joy. That's what I want.

I want my heart to changed, want to live your way and I want your joy back. That's what David's praying for. See, here's the deal. The reason we talk about sin so much is because sin is what kills us. The wages of sin is death.

It's why Paul has to write in romans six when he begins to explain in romans five why. Hey, get this, no matter how much you sin, God gives you more grace. Did you know the greater sinner you are, the more grace you'll get. That's why Paul has to clarify for me because they're going to ask, well, what should we say? Shall I just sin really boldly and abundantly?

So God gives me more grace and he says, no way. Sin is what kills you, why not just receive his grace and live in it, right? I mean, you living righteously is what brings you life. One of my grandmothers, both grandmothers are still alive. One's 93, one's 101.

I asked my 10 one year old grandmother about five years ago. I'm like, grandma, why do you think you're still alive? And she didn't even hesitate. She said, she just blurted out, she goes, righteous living. I'm like, cool.

Got it, grandma. Right? I mean, there's truth to that, that when we live righteously, there's joy and there's peace and there's life in our hearts, and without it. Without it, we just don't have it. Be authentic before God.

Approach him. His character is one of mercy and grace. Desire for God to change you and restore you. He can. He can thirdly do this.

Once you've experienced that, then the psalm becomes really fun, because once you've been forgiven and you know you're forgiven, then you'll do this endeavor to make God great by teaching other people his ways. Live to make God great by teaching other people his ways. Teach him how he forgives. Notice what he says. He says, Lord, when you forgive me, then I'll teach transgressors your ways.

I'll talk to people who have stepped over the line, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, which would have been the murder of Uriah. O God, o God of my salvation. And my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.

Do you know when God forgives you, there's such a freedom to just want to tell others how awesome he is. It's in God's forgiveness that we want to tell others how awesome he is. It's when we recognize that it ain't about how good I am. It's about how good Jesus is. Do you know that we gather here on the weekend not to proclaim how awesome we are, but how awesome Jesus is?

You know, we're here to proclaim that his shed blood is still available for all people. For those who are lost, they can come to him. And for those who know him, they can experience his freshness, freedom, and joy in Christ so that they can live their lives with boldness and courage. And how awesome is it when God forgives us to know that, oh, I have a clean conscience. Oh, there's no price tag for that.

There's nothing like that. Because then you want to tell everybody. I remember when I was in seminary, some of you know the story. When I was in seminary, I took a class. And because in my undergrad experience, when I was a brand new believer, I didn't know that cheating was like, a sin, right?

So getting a grade, the end, justified the means. But when I went to seminary, I had grown enough in the Lord that knew you can't cheat in seminary and then become a pastor. There's just. It doesn't work. So I'm gonna do all my work, and I'm gonna do it God's way, and I'm gonna honor him him no matter what the grade is.

And I was doing really well in school. And I remember my second year of school, I was taking this class, and the first day of the class, the teacher stood up, and he said, this. This will be the hardest class you take in your entire seminary career. And he was telling the truth. I mean, there was a book about this thick, and we had to memorize the whole back of the book.

It was all these greek words and parts of speech and all these different things. And the very last assignment we had was to take the book of Philippians in Greek without any help and just diagram sentences. Remember those diagram sentences you did in, like, 7th and 8th grade? Yeah. We had to do that in Greek.

And so I started doing them, and we got a little help, you know, in our worksheets at the beginning. But as the semester wore on, we had to diagram them ourselves. So I went to the library to get some help, and wouldn't you know it, I found a book, and the book was actually of Philippians. And in that book, it was the whole book of Philippians diagrammed in Greek, which I found to be a very helpful resource at that time. And I remember I was, like, doing my assignment.

Then I check, and I'd do my assignment and check. But as semester we're on, I just kind of remember copying the stuff and shutting the book and not really thinking about it and turning my assignments in. And one day, I'm having my quiet time, and I'm praying psalm 139. Search me, o Lord, know my heart. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

I wasn't even through the prayer, and I could hear the voice of the Lord, like, not audibly, but, like, right down in here. You cheated. And so what did I do? I didn't cheat. You cheated.

I mean, I'm like, well, what am I gonna do? We had this academic policy that if we went and confessed that we were cheating, we could be kicked out of the school. I'm like, oh, that's gonna look really great. Now I can tell all my friends that have supported me, I just got kicked out of seminary and I can't ever be a Christian again or something, you know? So every single day I woke up, you cheated.

You cheated. Every time I prayed, that's all I heard. That's all I heard. I couldn't get away from it. I'm like, I'm not gonna say anything.

Finally I got to the place where I felt so weakened and so sick. I was like, I don't care if they keep me out of school anymore. I don't even care what happened. I'm just going to tell my teacher what I did. So I went to his office and I sat down and said, listen, I could make this into a real long story, but I'm not going to make it into a long story.

I found this book. This book helped me. I copied several passages towards the back. Didn't even realize I did it, but I did it, and I'm telling you. And so I don't even know what that means.

And by the way, I had already taken the class one time before at a different school, and it got an a in it. So I retook the class so I could have gotten credit for it. So I was making all these excuses and I said, can I pass the class or am I going to have to take it again for a third time? And so he started looking at my grades like, no, your grades are good enough. You'll still pass.

But I got to give you zero on this assignment. And I was totally cool. I remember walking out of his office that day, and I'm like, cool, I got a zero. And I feel awesome, right? Because why?

Because there's no price tag on a clean conscience. Two weeks later, I got my paper bag. I got a 97 on it, and I was like, ready to go back into his office and say no. Did you forget our, like, convert? And I realized that was just him saying, that's grace.

That's grace. You didn't deserve this, but I'm going to give it to you anyway. And I went back to him after I graduated, said your lesson to me was the best lesson I had in all of my seminary career. Why? Because when God puts his hand on your life, he's asking you to be obedient for the thing that's tripping you up.

God wants you to be free to tell other people about who you are. Because here's the thing. In church, sometimes we can kind of be fake, you know, when it comes to. Hey, how's your worship doing? It's great.

Check. How's your marriage? Check. Hey, how's your finances? Check.

How's your health? I'm doing my best. Check. Hey, how are all your relationships doing? Check.

Check. Check. Check. Check. Man, I'm awesome.

How are you? I'm awesome, too, it turns out. And we say this stuff. You know how I know this? Because I got married later in life, and I used to see y'all in church.

You know, guys had their arms around their wives, wives looking at them all happy, and I'm like, man, if you just picked the one, which at the time I got married, we're about 6.1 billion people, so probably like 3 billion women. And out of that pool, I picked the one. I knew it. I mean, God showed me the one, so I knew that when I got married, everything was just going to be perfect until I got married. Because you guys were lying, right?

I didn't realize just because you had your arm around somebody meant that you were having a fantastic day. I didn't realize that there were things you had to work out. Because you know what? When it comes to my worship and finances and health and marriage and parenting, I've done some really dumb things in all of those areas. Did you know that?

And I wish I could tell you, hey, you know what? When I was 18, I did a lot of stupid things before I came to Christ. But since I've been 18, I've lived. Awesome. And there's actually nothing I've ever done wrong.

I wish I could tell you that story. It'd be so false, it's ridiculous, right? And you know the worst part about being a shepherd? You know what a shepherd's role is? A pastor's role is to lead God's sheep to the destiny that they need to go to.

You know what the problem is? Being a shepherd? I'm still a sheep. I mean, it'd be really awesome if when you became a pastor, God said, hey, I'm putting a special anointing on you. You're not going to sin anymore till you get to heaven.

Just help these poor people out. Wouldn't that be awesome? He doesn't do that. I promise you, he doesn't do that. So there's still things in my life, and the more, the higher the standard is that I'm studying on the week that I'm going to preach, the harder my week is, because not only am I called to this standard, but I'm not living this standard.

So I'm spending time all week being authentic before God. Like, lord, I messed it up here. I didn't do this here. Lord, have mercy on me. Give me your grace.

Help me to hold people to a high standard while showing mercy. It's hard, right? But think about your own life for a second. Who do you want in your life? Do you want the person who's going to encourage you by letting you know, hey, I am who I am because of what Christ has done.

And you know what? I've done dumb in my marriage. I've done dumb with my finances. I've done stupid in relationships, too. And you know what?

I don't judge you because I still don't have it all figured out. But I know this. God's good, and he's forgiven me. Isn't that the truth? I mean, when you live like that, those are the people you want to hang out with.

That's what the whole church should be. There's not one person here that can judge you. Who do they think they are? If they're a Christian, it's only because of the blood of Jesus. I mean, there's freedom when you've been through something, but yet sometimes you got to know this.

Whatever area you've sinned the most is sometimes where God's going to pour the most grace. And that's part of your redemptive story that can help the most people. It's like when we give our baptism testimonies all weekend. I've been listening to them, and I identify with the ones that are most like my life. Like, yeah, I totally know that.

I live the exact same life you did. You identify with the ones that are most like you. Right. God wants to use your story to tell others about his love. Now, here's the problem.

In church, sometimes we care more about a reputation than we do about Jesus. I'm not telling him I struggled with that. I'm not telling anybody. I did that because I'm a doctor in town. That might make me look bad.

I've heard that story. I can't tell them this because I'm a businessman in town. If people knew that about me, I might lose business. Hey, I can't do that. Because if people saw me in that way, they might not think my marriage is all that good.

I can't. That's called pride. See, when you get to a place, not where you're airing your dirty laundry with every single person that you find, but when you get to a place where you're like, I don't care if anybody knows anything about my life. And to the extent I can be helpful with you, I'd be happy to, because my life's an open book. I am who I am because of the grace of Jesus Christ.

That's a great place to be. That's where God wants all of us to be. So if you've sinned really grievous in a certain area, chances are that's the area God wants to pour a lot of grace through so that you can be helpful to some other people. That's who you are. That's who you are in Christ.

See, God doesn't want us to go through the routines and the rituals. Notice what David says? He says, for you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.

O God, you will not despise. Now, I don't know your pattern of sin, and I don't know what you do when you sin, but all of us get a religious ritual when we sin. I don't know what yours is. I don't know, like, when you sin and you start feeling guilty, if you're just gonna work harder, I don't know if you're gonna try to make everything right. I don't know if you're gonna back off into a corner, there's some religious ritual that you do.

Like, oh, I did it again. God. Okay, I'll work on it really hard this time. I'll join a small group. I know you've been telling me.

I'll just. Do we want to tell God what we're going to do to make it right when all God's looking for is brokenness inside of us? Two Corinthians 710 talks about this. It tells us exactly what God is looking for. He says, for godly sorrow produces a repentance that leads to salvation with no regret, whereas worldly sorrow produces death.

If God shows you your sin, you're like, yeah, I'm sorry you caught me. Shouldn't have done that. That's very different than Lord, that broke me. I hate that I'm like this. Change me.

Oh, God created me a new heart. You're right in all your judging somebody. This is who I am. But I don't want to stay that way anymore. And I know you're showing me this because you're going to lead me in a new way, and you're going to lead me in wisdom, and I don't have to stay there.

And, lord, I just thank you. And when you get to a place where you don't care about what anybody else thinks other than God, it's a very freeing day for you, because it doesn't matter because God's going to set you free. You know, when I first moved out here, and some of you know this story, too, when I first moved out here, before I actually lived here, I was flying back and forth, and I had a friend from Illinois who told me he was going to be out here. And he called me on the phone, he said, we're going to be out at the same time. He goes, you want to climb a 14 er with me?

And I said, what's a 14 er? And he said, well, it's one of the mountains. And I'm like, well, I can't climb. I don't know how to use all the ropes and stuff. He's like, no, you just walk it.

I'm like, oh, it's just a hike. He said, yeah. I said, okay, cool. I said, how's it work? He goes, well, we start at, like, five in the morning.

And I said, we'll be back by lunch. I'm like, anybody could do that. So I remember telling some of my friends out here what I was going to do, and some of them were like, had a terrified look on their face like, you're going to what? You've never done that before? I'm like, it's just a hike.

We'll be done by lunch. That's what he told me. I'll never forget that day. We went and climbed Mount Elbert. It's the highest peak in all of Colorado.

Literally, we were 25 minutes into the hike, 25 minutes. And I was breathing hard. And I remember asking the person with us, no joke, hey, like, where's the top? Because I don't see it. And as we continued to go, they said, we're not even to the tree line.

I'm like, I don't even know what a tree line is. And we came through the tree line, I still couldn't see the top. And to add insult to injury, there were kids that were eight and ten that were skipping by me. There was a woman that had a knee brace that was coming with her dad that had a cane, and she was telling him, I thought it would be a lot harder than this. And they went zooming by, and I remember I got about three, four up the mountain, and I'm like, I'm done.

And I was, like, laying on the side of the mountain and people were bringing me gummy bears and cookies and they're like, hey, you can finish. I'm like, no, I'm high enough, man. I see everything I need to see from right here. Well, somehow, by God's grace, he restored me. I made it up the mountain and I got all the way to the top.

Now, I was told we'd be back in time for lunch. I summoned it at like 130 in the afternoon, okay, then I had to come back down. Now I can tell you my attitude changed though. Like once I hit the summit, I was a different person, I was freed up. Coming down a mountain was a lot easier than going up a mountain.

So when I was coming down, I was like, mister encouragement to everybody that I saw, right? Oh, hey, you're doing great. It's only a couple more miles. Hey, you're doing great, right? That's what it's like when we're forgiven.

That's what it's like when we're forgiven. It's hard to go through the process when God's showing us our own sin, but when we confess it and we're authentic and we're real, it's real easy to talk about everything God's delivered us from. Like, I don't want to stand up here and err, all my dirty laundry, but there's nothing in my past I'm like, embarrassed to talk about. There's shame in my past I wouldn't want to go back and relive. But I'm telling you right now, God's redeemed it all for me.

I'm new, I'm free, I'm a new creation I don't worry about, I can tell you about as long, that's why I stand up here. I had a desire to go into ministry, not because I was awesome, I had a desire to go into ministry because I knew how much God had forgiven me and I wanted to let other people experience that forgiveness. And that's what David's talking about. He's like, it's not burnt offerings, it's not sacrifices. If that were it, I'd offer it to you.

If there was a religious ritual, I could just get through this stuff and get peace, I'd do it. But that's not what you want. You want my heart, you want my brokenness, and if that's not good enough, then notice what David does in verses 18 and 19, and you can do it too. Once you're forgiven, ask God to bless every area of your influence. When God puts you back together, he puts you back together for a purpose.

He wants to use you. You're not used goods. You're not no good. Ask God to bless every area. Notice what David says.

He begs God. He says, do good to Zion in your good pleasure. Zion is Israel. He's the king of Israel. He says, do good to our nation.

Do good to all of our people. Build up the the walls of Jerusalem. Use my influence to shepherd your people, God. Use whatever I'm called to do. Bless me and bless your people, God.

Then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole offerings. Then bulls will be offered on your altar. He says, there's nothing wrong with a religious routine. As long as you have the right heart with it, there's nothing wrong. And actually, it's very good to come to church and celebrate God and sing to him and to hear his word proclaimed and to pray and to be with other believers and to encourage one another.

Those are all great when your heart's right, but when your heart's not right, it's just activity. It's just activity. David says, hey, let me be an influence for you. Let your testimony of mercy that God's given in your life be an influence to others. Where has God shown you the most mercy?

Where has he given you the most grace? Use that to let other people know how awesome your God is. Then people will worship the Lord. That's why it's really interesting, because when you read through the gospel of Matthew, when Jesus has his sermon on the mount, he tells these knuckleheads that are totally messed up, that are full of sin. He goes, you are the light of the world.

You are a city on the hill. The Bible says, you are my ambassadors. The Bible says, you are my witnesses. And we look around, like, who? Not me.

I messed it up. I mean, I should have known better. I stepped over. I should have known better to be consumed with this sin. I should have known better than to miss the mark.

And Jesus is like, yeah, but I'm willing to forgive you if you confess it. And I want to remind you, you're my plan a. You're the light of the world. You're a city on a hill. You're my ambassadors to get the word out.

You're my witnesses. And here's what you're going to testify to. I'm not sending you out to tell the world how awesome you are. I'm sending you out in the world so you can tell the world how awesome I am. Because if people will see how much I have forgiven in you, they'll know that there's hope for them.

That's the gospel. That's what David's praying. David doesn't make excuses for his sin. He authentically approaches God and begs for his character to be revealed. David comes before God and says, I really, really, really want you to change me.

David says, and when you do, I'll teach other people your ways. I promise you. And then he says this. So, lord, bless every area of my influence for your name's sake. That's what I want.

Can I just say this because I know there's a lot of you here today that are hearing the word. I've had several people this weekend say, were you, like, reading my mail this week? Were you, like, watching what was going on in my heart this week? Why? Because I know from time to time there are christians who have stepped over the line, christians that are living in sin, christians that know that they missed the mark, that are beat up, discouraged and all these different things.

And God's word to you today is, hey, just call on me and I will forgive you right in this moment and you can go and be an influence for me. Is that not good news or what? That's great news. That's the news of our God. Not only was he willing to forgive you, to bring you into the family, but now that you're in the family, he wants to continue to pour out his lavish mercy and grace on your life.

Amen. Amen. Could you stand up with me as we pray? I want to invite our prayer team forward at this time if they come forward. While we sing this song about the greatness of our Lord Jesus, we give you all the praise and glory.

Lord, don't let one person in here leave without confessing to you the sin that you're showing them so they can experience your mercy and your lavish grace in their life. And, lord, we give you all the glory and all the honor and all the praise in Jesus name. Amen.