No Your Way Back

[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Well, good morning. Would you help me welcome all of our campuses who are worshiping with us today? It's so good to have all of you. [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC PLAYING] [APPLAUSE] I want to let you know that this past week we launched our eight, eight prison campus

to the glory of God here in Colorado. [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC PLAYING] We were at the Max Penitentiary in Florence. It was volunteer to come to the gym. 547 inmates came. Only 30 did not come. And we presented the gospel. And as you know, we give a response to the gospel because somebody said, "I'm going to stand." It doesn't make him a Christian because somebody sits. It doesn't mean they didn't come to Christ. But we extended the gospel. Over half of those guys in that room stood up to receive Jesus. [APPLAUSE] And it was awesome. [APPLAUSE] I was told by the wardens, nothing like that. And all the federal penitentiaries they've ever seen and all of their years have been a warden. They are so fired up about what we're doing. Just you know, we're in every federal prison in the state of Colorado right now. [APPLAUSE] And doors are opening up because they're calling all their friends. So now South Dakota, Illinois, Texas, Florida. They all want us to come and put brave campuses in their prisons too. So be praying for what the Lord may do. Amen. It's exciting to see what he's doing. [APPLAUSE]

Secondly, all the women's conferences coming up, please sign up. If you need help financially, we'll help you with all of that. But I know we've had great experiences last few years and we've done this. Kim will be up here next week telling you a little bit about it. So guys, make sure that your wives can come. You being at home on a Saturday morning is not called babysitting. That's called being a dad. Just so you know. So be a dad, let your wives come and be a part of what's going on so that they can enjoy the word and grow in as well. Next week is our ministry launch for the year. So we have baptisms. If you've come to faith in Christ but you've never been baptized by water since, please sign up this week for baptism. We also are doing child dedications. If you have a young child, I hear several of them while I preach. You want to dedicate them to the Lord. Bring them next week. We will dedicate them to the Lord. It's going to be an exciting time. We're going to install elders. We're going to be doing a lot of different things. As I told you, our hope is to be in the building next door back in our building next week. We're going to wait one more week. Don't moan. You're sitting in comfortable seats. The reason I'm saying that is you get one chance to make a first impression. Our team's done a phenomenal job but they're not going to have the upper deck done. There's going to be some things we'd say you can't go there. We want to walk in and let it be your home.

We're going to take one more week here. We're going to celebrate with baptism. It's going to be a great Sunday. Then we'll move in next week with that. Men's warrior call won't be this Saturday. It'll be the following Saturday. We'll send out emails, texts and different things so that you're aware of all the times and dates for that. Okay. Tons of announcements. Too many. With that, let's go to the Lord. Let's get ready to hear his word. Would you pray with me? Our Father in Heaven, what a privilege it is today to gather in your home, in your house, with your saints and call upon your name. Lord, to worship you. Lord, to seek your faith and prayer. And Lord, to gather with your body. And Lord, to hear your living and active word. And Lord, we are so encouraged to hear your word this morning because we as a people believe that every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed that it is you who are speaking. So our prayer this morning is speak, Lord, for we are ready to hear. And so now for everyone who is here, who desires to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to you, who will believe what he tells you and who will by faith put into practice what he shows you, will you agree with me very loudly by saying the word. Amen. Amen. The greatest news on the planet is the gospel.

The God the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. That Jesus Christ, the God man who had always existed, put on flesh 2000 years ago, came and did for you what you couldn't do for yourself. He fulfilled the law. He was perfectly obedient. He was without sin in every way. And before he left this planet, he died on a cross for all the sins of the world. He took the full measure of the wrath of God. He was buried in the grave three days later, he rose and anybody in the future who is repented and placed their faith and trust in Jesus has eternal life. It is a guarantee, there's nothing better in the world that Jesus Christ paid for our sins. Amen. What this series has been about, called No Mercy. after you become a Christian. And we talked about, we have three enemies, the devil, the world, and our sinful self, but we spend a lot of time talking about the sin inside of us as a believer because we really don't wanna deal with it. For many of us, we go to the easy button of, well, all Christians sin, and God forgives, and I'll just deal with it. Others live under guilt, shame, and condemnation all the time, feeling like I can never be the kind of Christian God wants me to be. And we've been talking about here has been what your sin is and how to be merciless with your sin, how to know a way out from temptation, how to use forgiveness, how to use other people in your life. We've been talking about specific things that you can put into place so that you don't sin

because the truth is, Christians, you don't have to sin. You can choose to sin, but you don't have to sin. The challenge that we have, especially when we gather in the church, is we know theologically that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We know that even after coming to Christ, we all continue to sin, and yet in church, sometimes is the least vulnerable place to admit it. Like what's really going on in your life? We hide our sin. I wouldn't want another Christian to know I'm dealing with that. I wouldn't want another Christian to know that I sinned that way. I mean, look in front of you, look side by side. Look at the person behind you. They are thorough sinners. They're very good at it. They've been practicing it their whole life. And yet what happens when we come to church? How is it that we can get out of sin? Because even if we put all the things that we want to put into practice and we follow the word of God and we're doing what He wants, what happens when we're in sin? Today I want to talk to you about how to know your way back. How is it you can restore fellowship with God when you do sin? How is it that you can keep short accounts with Him? How is it if you're dealing with the sin in your life,

you can't seem to shake that you can get rid of it and come back and be in fellowship with the Lord? And to do that today to know your way back, we're gonna be in Psalm 51, Psalm 51. So I invite you to open your copy of God's word this morning to Psalm 51. And while you're turning there, I'm gonna share with you the story where this comes out of because this is David's true confession and repentance from what took place in 2 Samuel, chapters 11 and 12. And you'll remember that story and I'll set it up for you that David was a demand after God's own heart. David was the king that had the whole heart that was setting up the kingdom the way God wanted. And yet the Bible tells us at the time that kings went out to war, David stayed in Jerusalem. So he sends Joab and all the army officers out and they go out to war, but David is still in Jerusalem. That's not where he should have been. And when you're not where you're supposed to be, bad things can happen. And David was up one night, he was looking out on the roof and he noticed an attractive woman. I tell you she was attractive 'cause the Bible makes clear that she was attractive and she was bathing. And David coveted that woman and David wanted that woman. And he summoned her as the king and brought her into his chambers and they had relations together. And because this all happened, she waited, she went home, her husband didn't know about any of this.

His name was Uriah and Uriah was a loyal guy. So when Uriah gets back, David sends him home because David had gotten the word that this woman, Bathsheba, was pregnant. So when Uriah got home, he sent him home to his wife in hopes that they would come together and then he would think the baby is his. But Uriah was so loyal, he never went home. So the soldier said, hey, he didn't go home last night and he was so loyal to David, David came up with another plan. David put him on the front lines where he knew that he would be in serious trouble. And during their next battle, Uriah the Hiddite, though loyal servant to David was killed. And after Bathsheba had grieved him, David brought her in to be one of his wives. And this is where the story picks up 'cause David's like, it's over. Whew, I escaped that one, right? Now nobody has to know, but do you know what? God always knows. No matter what you send, nobody else may know, but God always knows. And God knew, so God sent a prophet to him by the name of Nathan. And I'm just gonna read you the rebuke, I won't read you the whole story. It's in 2nd Samuel chapter 12, but this will set up our text for the day. Then the Lord sent Nathan to David

and he came to him and said, he tells him this parable. There were two men in one city, the one rich in the other poor. The rich man had gathered many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except one little U lamb, which he bought and nourished and it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom and was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man and he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him. Rather he took the poor man's U lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. So Nathan is called by God to go tell David about his sin and what he does is he comes up with a parable and he says there was a rich man who had everything and there were a poor man and the poor man had this one little U lamb, it's all he really had. He nourished it, he fed it, he kept it. It was like a daughter to him and the rich man rich man said, "I don't want to take anything from me." So he went and took that little u-lam from that guy, the only thing he owned, slaughtered it and served the meal that way. So David's hearing this story. And David, who hears it, and has a moral conscience, says this, verse 5, "Then David's anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die." How could you rob somebody from what's theirs when you have all this stuff? That guy deserves death. And Nathan said this among other things, but this is how he started his talk. You are the man. That's you. That's who you are. That's exactly what you've done. That's what you did to

Uriah. You're that guy. And what we're going to read about in Psalm 51 is how David responded to that. Because there's a lot of people when they get called out in their sin, don't respond positively. They make excuses for it or they brush it off. What you're going to find in David is he's a man after God's own heart. He has the heart of God and he's going to respond the right way. And I want to tell you this, when you find yourself in a sin, these are the principles that you can use to confess and release the sin to God so that you can live free with him, right? So I'm going to give you four from the text this morning from Psalm 51. And the first is this, when you're convicted of sin, whether it's God that shows you or another believer or however it comes through his word, here's what you want to do. You want to come to God honest and broken about your sin. Be honest about it. Be broken about it. Honesty means you call sin, sin. You don't call it I struggle with. I'm having a hard time with. I was brazed in this kind of family. That's why I am. I mean, no, no, you call the sin a sin, right? I mean, it's like, it's like when you get pulled over by a police officer. You can make all the excuses. You can say all you want or you can just say, yeah, I did it. I was speeding, right? I mean, this is what it means to be honest with God. God knows it all. You don't need to make editorial remarks. You don't need to say all those things. Just be honest and broken. And it's exactly what David does. He says, "Be gracious to me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the greatness of your compassion, blot out my transgression." So what is the appeal to first? He appeals to God's character. He's totally honest about God's character. He asks for God's grace. He wants to be gracious. And he says, "Be gracious to me according to your loving kindness." That's God's hesed love. That's His covenant to love. That's His unfailing love. That's His steadfast love. That's the love of God that never changes. Can I tell you something about the love of God believer? His love for you never changes. He doesn't love you more on a good day and less on a bad day. He loves you unconditional all the time because that's His nature. Even when you sin, He loves you. And so He's begging them. He's saying, "God, be gracious to me according to your loving kindness. According to the greatness of your compassion, the Bible says God is compassionate and slow to anger. Lord, you're a compassionate God. You see that I'm a problem, but be gracious to me. Be compassionate to me." And then He says this, "Blot out my transgressions." He's not just saying, "Forgive what I did wrong." He's

saying, "Take Him out of me. I don't want it here anymore." And the reality is, as you grow in Christ, there will be things that pop into your life where you realize that sin. And you will say, "I hate that about it. I don't want that. God, get this out of me." And you need the Lord to be the one that's able to do that work in your life. Here's the deal. If you could get rid of sin on your own, you don't need Jesus. And if you don't need Jesus, then you're living independently of Jesus. We all still need Jesus in His grace today, the same way we did when we first got saved. Right? And so David's pleading with God. And then He says this, "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin." That's what He's saying. He goes, "I want it all gone. I want my iniquity gone, my sin gone, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before." He goes, "Get it out of me." Right? I don't want it there anymore. And it's really interesting, because He goes on in verse 4 to talk about His sin. And He says this, "Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight." It's a really interesting thing that He says. I mean, He's definitely sinned against Bathsheba. He's definitely sinned against the armies for not being responsible for what He was doing. He coveted, He lusted, He committed adultery, He committed murder. So He clearly had sin against Uriah, clearly had sin against Bathsheba, clearly had sin against other people. And yet what does He pray? "Lord, against you and only you have I sinned and done what is wicked in your sight." Why does He pray that way? Because you need to realize that the Bible highlights two relationships. One is vertical. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Having a relationship with Christ is a relationship. It's not just, "Okay, He's up there and I'm down here and I don't know who He is." We're relating to Him. He's a person. Our God is a person. Father, other son of the Holy Spirit, the Godhead, three persons in one. it's a mystery of the Godhead. We have a relationship with God, and if that gets messed up, all our horizontal relationships are gone. And here's what you need to know. When you sin, even when you sin against another, you're first and foremost sinning against the Lord.

When you say something evil about another person, you're transgressing God's commands and you're committing trees and against God and you're being a rebel first before you ever do that. So David's coming to God and saying, "God, you see it. "You know it. "I'm confessing the fact that my sin first went to you." So he's not just saying, "I know I sinned. "I shouldn't have done that. "Please forgive me. "Help me get on with my life." He's saying, "Here's the problem. "I can't just get on with my life "because I've sinned against you. "And until we restore our fellowship, "there's no hope in me moving forward "with all my other relationships." Amen? And so that's where he goes. And I pause here to tell you, because when we sin, we sometimes tend to think, "Well, if I can just fix it, I'll fix it." Sometimes I lose my temper but I'll just fix it. I'll work on it. Or we hear a sermon and we're like, "You know, I'm gonna commit to that." I probably gossip a little too much but I'm gonna work on it. I'm gonna fix it. I'm gonna do that less.

Or I have a hard time forgiving somebody that hurts me but I'm gonna work on it. Listen, if you can work on it and get better at it without Jesus and you don't need Jesus, I'm gonna give you a little help. You'll never get any better. Now, truthfully, you can change behavior without Jesus. Truthfully, I've met people who are former alcoholics and not alcoholics anymore. They don't know Jesus or drug addicts who don't do drugs anymore. They don't know Jesus or people that were immoral in their sexuality who are now living a little more moral. But here's what you can't do. You can't go from being dead to being made alive without Jesus. And you need Jesus if you're gonna walk as though you're alive. And he wants you to depend upon him and so he wants you to understand the sin in your life that you're looking horizontally about. First look to me and see how you've offended me. 'Cause if you get that right, then everything else tends to work out. If you want what God wants, everything else will work out. So be honest with God. He says this, I've known what is evil in your sight so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge. In other words, God, when I see your word

and I hear what you say, what you say is true, what you say is right, it's not how I feel, it's what right and wrong is. 'Cause you're God. So when God says sexual relationships are only between a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage to death, be a part that's a container, anything else that falls shy of that, you know what they call that? We can come up with lots of words to describe the different kinds of things. It's called sin. And you need to call that sin, not a struggle. Lord, I've sinned and I'm sinning against you because I'm lusting after somebody else, that your daughter or your son and I want that and I'm coveting that and I desire that and I think that that would fill me more than I think you would fill me. And so I'm going after something horizontal 'cause I don't really believe that you can fulfill my deepest needs. So Lord, I've sinned against you and you alone. That's honest, right? And so as we get honest with God, that changes everything. Even as I'm sitting here preaching, I remember in college when I was first starting to walk with the Lord and I would pray very religious prayers, such like, Lord, I promise, I'm really sorry

about last night, but I promise I'll never do it again. Or Lord, if you can just get me through this test, this time, I promise, going forward, I will study. (congregation laughing) Or whatever, you know, just get me through this, I know I shouldn't have done that, I know I just get me through it. And I remember one day when I was praying to the Lord about a night that I had before and I was telling him what I was going to do and making all these commitments, it hit me. You're lying. 'Cause even while you're praying, you're thinking about committing the same sins you sinned yesterday 'cause you enjoyed them so much. And it was a switch in my head at that moment, I'm like, Lord, I'm done lying to you. You watch what I did last night, you saw what I did last night, I'm not going to tell you I didn't enjoy it 'cause I did, but I hate how I feel as a result of that. And I don't even know how to do what you want me to do. So would you teach me to love what you love and hate what you hate? Can you change me? 'Cause I don't even know how to do this. That's when things started to change for me. You know why? (congregation applauding) Because God can handle honesty.

If you're not going to be honest with the Lord, you can't grow. As a matter of fact, this week I was down at the prison in Florence and I was talking to one of the inmates after I preached and I'm like, hey, did you receive Christ's days? I know, I said, why not? He goes, 'cause I like partying, bro. And I like girls and I was thinking, well, you ain't going to do that in here, but you know. (congregation laughing) But I said to him, I said, well, I love that you're being honest. I said, so maybe the prayer that you need to pray is that you want to tell God that you love those things more than you love Him. But if God is worthy of your love more than those things that He changed your heart, would you pray that? 'Cause I could be honest like that. I said, be honest. See, the problem that we have sometimes in churches, we turn religious and we hear the messages and we want to do what God's word wants to do 'cause that's what the Holy Spirit inside of us is telling us, but then we think the way that we're gonna get there is by committing our way to better behavior rather than full dependence and allegiance God wants to change your heart. If he changes your heart, your behavior will catch up. Your behavior will get there.

If all we do is change the symptoms, we can't be the fullness of what God wants us to be. Amen? And so David's saying, God, your word is true. And then he goes on to talk about himself in verses five and six. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin, my mother conceived me. Behold, you desire truth in the inmost being and in the hidden part, you will make me no wisdom. What's he saying? He's like, Lord, I confess, I was born in iniquity. My parents were sinners, they passed that down to me. From the time I came out, I know I'm thoroughly sinful. I have a track record of sin in my life that you know even better than me. Lord, I'm being honest about that fact. I'm not better than anybody else. I'm a sinner, I know I am and you see it, but I know you desire me to have truth in the inmost parts. There's something in me that wants more of you and I want that. That's what he's saying. And this is coming after his sexual immorality with Bathsheba after his murder of Uriah, after being called out by a prophet. He's the king and he's confessing all these things. This is who I am. I know that's who I am. And when you meet somebody that is genuinely repentant,

which means they desire what God wants, here's some markers that you'll see. Number one, they'll be very remorseful. They'll be remorseful. They will call sin sin. Secondly, you'll notice that they're marked by humility. They're always humble. Humble people, like when you get called out and sin and God's healing you, you don't really care who knows. Now, I'm not saying you air your dirty laundry to everybody, that's not it. But you should have a couple of people in your life or a few people in your life that you can share genuinely about what God's doing. I mean, I've seen it. I've watched people, I've seen it in my own life when I'm willing to accept what God wants. When I'm truly accepting of it, I'm remorseful, I'm broken, my heart is softened. I don't care what other people think. I just want the grace of God in my life. And here's what you're also gonna notice. They won't care. They don't care about who knows. All they care about is wanting to have a relationship restored with Christ. But here's some unrepentance tells. When I'm around people that get called out in their sin, either through the word or through another believer, through the preaching or whatever,

they're very good at becoming historical revisionists. La la la. I hear what you're saying, but that's not really the way that it went down. It's kind of like this. You don't understand, right? I'm gonna change the story 'cause it fits my narrative of my sin better, and I'm talking about people out there. I've done the same thing, so have you. We modified the story, so we're not calling sin, sin. And then here's what you see. You see, face savers and excuse makers. So when sin comes, I can't let anybody know that that's a sin in my life. How could I get along with that? I'm gonna save faith. So I'm gonna start talking to people with more Christianese language. I'm gonna start acting like I got it all together 'cause I can't let anybody know. And if they really do know, I'm gonna make excuses for why it is. That's a telltale sign of unrepentance in somebody's life. 'Cause I care too much about what everybody else might think about me, even though they're not thinking about me, but I care too much about what they might think about me, then what God has actually saying to me. And if, as an elder in a church, when we're dealing with this,

when we're walking people through a restoration process, and we point out, hey, this is what needs to happen now. Like, this is how you need to live going forward. This is what goes on. I'm telling you, the person that's repentant will be like, yeah, whatever you say. The person that's unrepentant will say, yeah, that's kinda harsh. I don't think we really need that. You know, you guys are just not seeing the whole story clear. And if you hold the line, if you hold the line, parents, this is true with your kids, they will blame and slander you for being too harsh with them. 'Cause they won't deal with their sin. I mean, I've watched it. I've sat in meetings with my wife with couples that are in adultery, and genuine repentance looks like this. Seen it with a guy, seen it with a gal, seen it with a gal, seen it with both. Here's genuine repentance. I sinned. I was wrong. I know I'm wrong. I'll do whatever it is. I need to restore my relationship with God. I don't even know God can fix this thing, but if he can, to God be the glory. But I gotta get right with God.

I don't care, who knows? I don't care, pastor, just tell me what I need to do. I've seen God heal a lot of marriages that way. I've seen the opposite where you're sitting down saying, hey, you confess adultery? Yeah, but if you lived with her, if you knew my husband, you know, it's just, you're not seeing it clearly. We've always had some struggles. We've always done this. Hey, this is what you need to do, bro. You need to move out of your house for a period of time. You need to grow a cry. And, you know, you're just kind of being too harsh. You're being like judgmental and legalistic. We're not doing that. We're fine. And if we hold the line and say, no, You got a man, brave church, and that pastor, they're like so legalistic. No, what it really is is you don't wanna deal with your sin. You see it parents to kids when they're remorseful versus when they're just faking it. They're being historical revisionists of whatever. I didn't break the window. That was my brother, whatever, you know. And here's the deal. God wants you to be genuine in what happens, right? I mean, a doctor can only help you to the extent that you can tell him what's actually really going on

in your life. Like here's what's actually happening. Here's my behaviors. Here's what I'm experiencing. Here's what's going on. Now take all that information and put it together with the other information you have, and that'll help you work it out. But sometimes we don't wanna be honest about what the problem actually is. Don't want people to know. Here's what I would tell you at break church. Who cares what other people think? Care what God thinks. Amen. (audience applauds) So come to him, honest and broken. Second is this, ask God to wash your sin completely. Ask him to wash your sin completely. Notice what he says. He says, Purify me with hiss up and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be wider than snow, right? Hiss up branch was used to paint the blood on the doorpost next to this 12. It was used for ceremonial rituals with water. He's describing what he needs to do. He wants to be completely purified and completely washed clean by the Lord. So when he's talking like this, he's not saying, we get like when you have clothes, they need to be washed.

We get them when you have a car, it needs to be washed. We get all that stuff. You have a home or an apartment, it needs to be clean. We get all that. Here's what he's saying. He goes, if we were using a car analogy, he wouldn't say it needs to get washed. He would say this whole thing needs to get detailed. I want somebody to come through and do the outside. I want them to do the inside. I want them to go under every seat. I want them to pull out every last piece of trash. I want them to vacuum every piece of dirt. I want it to look as good or better than new when I get back in it. That's how David's praying for a sin. David's not just saying, Lord, I committed adultery. Lord, I murdered Uriah. I'm really sorry, can you please forgive me so I can get on with my life. He's saying, Lord, I want you and I want to be pure and I want all this garbage gone in my life. I don't want anything remaining. I want it all gone. Purify me, Lord, heal me, Lord, restore me, Lord. That's what he's praying and that's how he's praying, amen? And then he said, make me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones which you have broken rejoice. What's he want? Restore my joy.

I want to be joyful again. I want to be glad again. Like the bones which you have broken is his metaphor to say it's just horrible feeling the guilt and the shame of sin. And guilt and shame are God's gifts to the believer whose sin, not so you remain in it, but so you come running back to him and he can remove it, right? We've already read in Romans eight one, there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. He's not condemning you. He's convicting you and what you feel about your sin is know that you've committed treason against Almighty God and you want to restore the relationship. And then he says this, hide your face from my sins and there's that word again and blot out all my iniquities. Lord, I don't want you to see any sin in my life. I want you to blot it all out. I want to stand pure as a pure vessel before you. Now it's really interesting 'cause in Psalm chapter 32, we don't know if this is paired with Psalm 51, if this is exactly how David felt with the sin of Bathsheba. But David wrote this Psalm and it was certainly a time in his life when he had sinned and this is how he felt. See if this is how you feel. He starts by saying how blessed it is whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, how blessed is the man to whom the Lord

does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Here's what he's saying, there is no price tag on a clean conscience. When you know that you know that you know that you're completely forgiven, when you know you're standing before the Lord saying, "Lord, I don't think there's anything right now." And the reality is because we're so thoroughly engulfed in sin as we progressively grow in Christ, there's more, we just don't see it. And God loves us enough to not highlight it all at one time or it would be overwhelming. So we're progressively growing in it, but isn't it good to be in a position with Almighty God in your relationship with him when you're not trying to suppress sin or deal with sin or have to get through sin? 'Cause here's the problem. If you're not gonna deal with your sin, church is gonna be awful for you. You're gonna hate the people that go there. You're gonna say church just really isn't for you. I'm not gonna go to church, I'm gonna be the church. All that kind of garbage, a lot of times comes from people who aren't willing to deal with their sin and don't wanna be in community where it gets exposed. 'Cause there's something about when your sin is truly forgiven and you know that you're free, that being with God's people, regardless of what the style of worship,

regardless of what kind of preaching it, the words being preached and worship is happening and people are praying. I wanna be with those people, but when I'm in sin, I don't like those people. They're kind of judgmental, they're kind of judgy. Those fun, you know what I'm talking about? It's a sign not what's going on in other people. So here's what David said about a sin. See if you resonate with a sin. And here's what I want you to say. Some of you in here are in sin, and when you hear this, it's gonna feel like God is poking on your chest with everything he has. But this is not me calling you out, this is the word of the Lord, so just hear it. When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away. Through my groaning all day long, for day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was drained as with the fever heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity I did not hide. I said I will confess my transgression to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin. What was he saying? When he tried to hide a sin, his vitality was gone. Like he couldn't function anymore. Like as a believer, it's possible for you to send

the same sins that you send when you were an unbeliever, but you won't enjoy 'em. And you'll feel conviction about 'em, and you won't wanna stay in them. And if you don't repent and confess of them, it is gonna drain the very life out of you that Jesus Christ wants you to have. And that's what David is saying. So that's why he's saying in this text, not only come to God honest and broken, but ask God to wash your sin completely. Ask him to take it out. I mean, think about this. If you got a cut on your arm and you went to the ER, and it was something that was pretty opened up, and they were gonna have to sew it up, and it had soil and gravel and everything in it from where you did it, they would not be doing their job if they just bandaged it up. I mean, if you've ever been in the ER, people come in, scrubbed their hands, they put on gloves, and then they do very painful things to what's already very painful. And they scrub it out, and they make sure there's nothing left in it, 'cause it's gotta be clean. And then they put things like alcohol and other things that burn on it, so it can take all of the things that are bad out of it, then they bandage it up.

Why? Because if you don't take out the garbage that's in there, it's gonna get even more infected when it gets bandaged. Right? We do the same things in our sin. Hey, Lord, forgive me. I'm not gonna deal with it, but just forgive me. I mean, bandage it up, patch it up so I can move on. God's not interesting and bandage it up. He's interested in going deep into your heart and the plunge into the areas that are sinful and free you from it. And I'm telling you, it's one of the most difficult things that we ever do, but it's the most freeing thing you can ever do, too. I'm using an illustration here, I probably shouldn't use it on a Sunday morning, but if you've ever gotten sick before, it's one of the worst things that ever happens. If you're kneeling around a toilet and projectile is coming out of your mouth, there is no more humbling position I can think of than that. Those are times you don't invite your friends and family over, you're not taking pictures, you're not doing, it's just, but, tell me if it's not true, you felt sick and you felt sick and you felt sick. As it's coming out, it's like, thank goodness, I hate this, but it's gone. And when you're done,

that's what it's like to confess your sins. Because if you don't, it's like you're suppressing it and you're keeping it down and you're still feeling sick and the fever heat of summer is on you and God's hand is on you like, I'm showing you it, you bro. Every Sunday you come to church, it's the same thing. I'm showing you, but you're not dealing with it and we don't want to deal with it. And God's like, hey, give it to me. And when you do, it will free you up, amen? So come to God, honest and broken and ask God to wash your sin completely. And then do this, plead with God to heal and restore your relationship with him. I mean, for David, this is not just about getting his sin forgiven so he can go on with his life, it's he wants the relationship with his father restored. So he says in verse 10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, "and renew a steadfast spirit within me." That word creates the same word you see in Genesis chapter one where God creates the whole world out of nothing. He's saying, "Create in me a heart like that." And why is he going after the heart? Because God doesn't go after your behaviors, he goes after your heart and your heart's the reason you sin all those behaviors. Jesus said it's not what goes into a person's mouth that makes them unclean, it's what comes out of the heart

that makes them unclean. You can't change yourself for God. Only a heart change will change you. So I'm a sermon on the Mount. If your right eye calls you sin, cut it out, your right hand calls you sin, cut it off. What's he saying? He's not saying be righty or lefty or patch. He's saying, he's saying, hey listen, the deal is you don't need to change your hand. You don't need to change your eye. That's not what's causing the problem. The problem is right here. And unless I do heart surgery on you, you'll never change. But if I can change your heart, I can change your right hand. If I change your heart, I can change your right eye. I can change you, but you've got to let me change your heart. So create me a clean heart. Search me and try me, oh Lord, see if there's any offensive way in me and leave me in the way everlasting. Lord, change my heart. Lord, what's wrong with my heart? That's what we're doing. And when the Lord changes your heart, within me, renew my spirit to stay steadfast in you, renew me to stay aligned with you, Lord, renew me in such a way that I want to follow after you. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came on a person and then would come off a person and he would use them for duty and then come off of them, or when they were obedient they would be there, the Lord was with them and then they were disobedient, the Spirit would

come off. I have great news for you. As a New Testament believer, the Holy Spirit, when you're born again, comes to indwell you forever. He's not going anywhere. Amen? It's good news. But what David was addressing in that dispensation was the fact that the fellowship had been strained with the Lord. Don't take your Holy Spirit. I need your presence. What happens in the New Testament? Holy Spirit hasn't gone anywhere. He's still in you, but you've grieved him or you quenched him and God starts feeling distant again, even though God's in you, but as you repent and as you confess, he's saying, I want to sense your presence with me. I want to be in right fellowship with you because you break the fellowship. There's never a problem in your relationship with God with God. God's not the problem. It's always us and the fellowship needs to be restored. David's not just saying, get me out of the sin, blot it out, and I'll get on with my life. He's like, Lord, I want you. He's the one that wrote better as one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. Lord, I just want to sit in your temple and gaze on your beauty. Lord, I want you. I've strained our relationship, Lord. James 4/8 says it this way, "Drone near to God and he will draw near to you, cleanse your hands and purify your hearts." How about the famous Psalm in Psalm 23?

The Lord is my shepherd. I show him that one. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters, and then how about this one? He restores my soul. Then he leads me in the past of righteousness for what? For his name's sake, for his reputation. What's David praying? David's praying that the Lord would heal and restore his relationship with him. He said, "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit." What's he want? He wants to joy back. He wants to joy of his relationship back. Next week, we're going to have a lot of baptisms up here. I love baptisms. I mean, isn't it cool when somebody comes to know Christ and they realize, "I was dead. Now I'm alive and I just got to tell everybody." Do you remember what that was like for you? When you went from being dead to alive, and then this thing happens in church when you're not dealing with your sin, where people will tell you over time, "Oh, yeah, I used to be like that, but now I'm a serious Christian." What? You think you're going to get to heaven? I mean, some of those people, I can't wait to see them in heaven because some of those stoic, serious Christian people, they're going to be doing a jig down the aisle somewhere and say, "I didn't even believe Christian's dance, but they'll dance." Do you understand what I'm saying? There's joy to have your sin forgiven. There was the first time you went from being dead to alive. There's also joy as a believer when you know there's a sin you've been dealing with and

you've been honest with the Lord and he starts removing that sin from you or takes it from you and you have the freedom and joy of the Lord again in your heart and however you express that joy, you want to express that joy. And joy is that inward knowing of, "I love my relationship with my Father. I love who He is and I love the way He loves me and it's back." Right? I mean, you need to understand like if you have a child, when your child sins, I mean, think about it like this. Because Jesus talked about earthly fathers, He's like, "You know how to give good gifts to your children and your evil. I mean, imagine how good your heavenly Father is." But think about us, evil fathers. I mean, when your kids do wrong, you're not like, "Okay, get out. That's one time. We're done." Right? You couldn't authentically do that and so if there's discipline in your house or encouragement in your house or blessing in your house or favor in your house, it's not to kick them out of the family. It's to keep them in. So through their sin, they've strained the relationship with you as parents, but your purpose isn't kicking them out. Your purpose is restoring the relationship, but oftentimes it's on your child to make sure the relationship gets restored, that they're going to own what they did wrong. Right? Same is true of us as God's children and we're always the ones that are wrong. As parents, sometimes we're the ones that are wrong. As our heavenly Father, He's never wrong. So there's a problem in your relationship with God. You're the problem.

If there's a problem in my relationship with God, I'm the problem, right? And so we plead with God to heal and restore our relationship, like, "Lord, do something. Restore it." And then what do you do? Then you share the joy of your restored relationships with others. When He restores the joy, you can't help but tell others, notice this in verse 13, "Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted to you." Like, "Hey, Lord, once you show me, I can get through this sin." I'll go start telling people they can get through their sin. Do you know why I tell you all the time that it's possible for you to not live in sin? Because I know how steeped in sin I used to be. then he shows me others. But there's such a track record of the Lord being able to heal, then I want to continue to let him heal. Here's what I want to say. There's not one of you here who has sinned too far as a non-believer or as a believer where God wouldn't welcome you home right now in this place and give you total freedom. That's the good news of the gospel. And that's why I stand up here and preach. It's not a job, it's that I believe that our God, Jesus Christ loves sinners and is able to change them. The apostle Paul agreed with me. I should say I agree with him. In 1 Timothy, chapter 1, here's what he says, "It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came in the world to save sinners." You can take that to the bank, that's why he came. He came to save sinners and what does Paul say, "Among whom I am foremost of all." I don't think that means that nobody ever sinned more grievously than Paul before or after him. I think what it means is Paul's saying, "I'm so acquainted with me that compared to what

I know about the depth of my sin and myself, not bothered by anybody else." I mean, there's no worse sinner than me. I mean, when I go under the maximum security prisons and I'm standing before a bunch of guys who have been booked on crimes that are in that prison, I don't think I'm better than them, but for the grace of God, that's me. I needed the same grace to save me, that they need to save them. There's no greater measure of grace. We all get the same measure of grace. Well, I only needed a little grace because I was a pretty good guy. No such thing. Everybody comes to the cross the same way. At whatever age you are and however you've dealt with the Lord, amen? And so that's what he's saying. He's like, "Lord, I'm willing to go public as you forgive my sins, all these sins, and as we restore the relationship and tell others." He goes on to say, "Deliver me from blood, guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation, then my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness, O Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise." One of the things that happens when you're totally free is that you can't help but praise God. You can't help but tell God he's good. You can't help but want to tell the Lord, thank you for what you're doing in my life because I'm experiencing presently all your goodness. And then he's really going to sum up in a couple of verses what this whole thing is about. He says, "For you do not delight and sacrifice, otherwise I give it. You are not pleased with burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken contrite and heart O God. You will not despise." What's he saying?

You don't care, God, when I'm in sin, you don't care about my religious activity. What happens in church is what will say is something like this. You sin and like, "Okay, I'll pray harder this week or I'll read my Bible more and then I'll get ready to go back to God." Once I get this thing dealt with and I'll go back to church, I'm going to do all this religious activity and then I'll feel better about myself and then I can kind of move on. God doesn't care about any of that. He cares about your heart. He doesn't care about how you're sacrificing and what you're doing and I'll get this thing right. He cares about your heart and you know he has your heart because he presses on it all the time and that's like when you're reading in the Word sometimes. This happened to me when I was a new believer, I'd read in the Word and I'm like, "Man, I can't get through a page without seeing what a filthy sinner I'm going to go to another page and I flip my Bible." Same thing. I mean because the Word is living and active, it's exposing my heart and when you deal with your heart rather than dealing with trying to be religious, that's what God cares about. It's a broken spirit. A broken is one that's crushed or shattered where your sin bothers you. It hurts to know that you sinned and the way that you sinned. It hurts to know that you rebelled against God and it hurts to know that you hurt other people by the things that you did. That's a broken heart. A contrite heart is one that's softened, it's sorrowful, it's willing to be spoken to. It's not just broken but it's like, "Change me, I need that," that's what the Lord is looking at. It's why sometimes you'll see like a recovering addict who becomes the most effective in their field as a counselor for other addicts because they're able to say, "I went through that and I want to see you get through that because if I could get through that, you could get

through that too," or a soldier that made it through a certain battle, using certain techniques that he learned ends up training other military leaders saying, "Hey, I got through this. Here's what you need to know because I want to see you get through it too." That's what we do in the body of Christ is people who are thoroughly sinners who have been forgiven by Christ and then as we learn to grow in Christ and repent of sin and confess sin and forsake sin and we teach others, this is what worked for me. I was honest with the Lord and I shared this and this is what God began to do and that's very different because you've been around people like this, you've been in church for a while, you've been around people like this where you're in a cadre and you start sharing what's going on and somebody says something prideful. Bro, I know I can still sin every sin anybody else can sin and I'm on your team and I want to see you grow and don't you like being around. And here's the thing. Do you like being around people that have it all together? Do you like know it all Christians? They're the perfect married person, perfect husband, perfect wife, perfect kids, perfect. Do you want to be around them? They're just prideful idiots. I don't like being around them. I want to be around the person that says, I do love my wife and I'm doing my best to love my wife, but these are some ways that I'm still not loving my wife the way Christ loved his church. And I need God's help to grow it. Would you pray with me about that? Or wives that say I love my husband and I want to honor him in every way and I want to serve him and submit to him as Christ did to his dad. But it's really hard right now and I know I could do a better job of this and I need to grow in that. I mean, I can hang out with people like that all day long. Anybody that knows there's room for growth. Why? Because for all of us, there's room for growth. And then as you grow, you're just sharing with others, here's what I did to get through it. Here's the problem in the church. The problem in the church is we're willing to share the gospel because that's a one-time event where somebody goes from being dead to alive. But when it comes to discipling people, here's what we think discipleship is. It's just teaching. I'm just going to teach. Well, what are you going to teach? The Bible. Well, as soon as I know the Bible, I'll be ready to teach you. If you wait till you know the Bible till you're ready to teach you, you're going to meet Jesus first. And here's what you're going to teach. Here's what you have available. Here's your curriculum in

case you want to know what would I ever teach. Teach your experience about what God did to set you free. That's your curriculum. Here's what he did in my life, right? And it won't resonate with every single person, but the principles and the truth of what God did will be true for all people. Just share what he's done in you. Share what he's done in your life. And it's really fun. Not only when you see what God's done in your life, but when you see him begin to do it and other people's lives too. And they begin to get the joy of the Lord. And they begin to talk about Jesus. And then they start telling other people and it starts multiplying because that's God's desire and that's God's hope. Here's how I want to end this series. It's been a fun series. Have you enjoyed this series? I've enjoyed this series a lot. But here's how I want to end this series. I want to end this series by just reminding you of what the Father is like when you sin and come back. Because if you're here and you've never trusted Christ, there's lies that you've heard for a long, long time. You've got to get right. You've got to make things change. You've got to do different things. Then if you get this stuff right, then maybe God will love you. And there's others of you here who are born again believers who know that you're saved, but you're just like, man, I know better. I should have known better. I could have done better. If I would have done this, this and this, I'd still have my marriage. If I would have done this, this and this, I still wouldn't have, I'd still have that job. If I would have, what it could have showed us? I want to let you know no matter who you are, you can come back and receive the fullness of God's grace immediately right now in this place. That's the good news of the gospel. Every time I go to a prison, every time we launch a campus and we started the church with a story, we talked about the prodigal son. It was a man who had two sons, and the younger son came to his dad and said, Dad, just give me my share of the property and I'll be on my way. He was basically saying, I know I'm going to get a third. My brother's going to get two thirds, but I wish you were dead and I hate you and I don't even care about you. Just give me money because I want to live for myself. And when he got it, the father let him go. He went off to a distant country, squandered all he had in wild living. When he had lost everything he had to make matters worse, he had no friends, he had no money, he had no nothing, then there was a famine in the land. So now he's hungry, he's got nothing to eat, so he has to go and hire himself out. You know what Joby found? As

a Jewish boy, feeding pigs. I mean, growing up, if you were thinking, what's the worst thing that could ever happen in my life, it would be feeding pigs. I mean, there's some of you here today that are in a season in your life that you said, there's no way I ever thought I'd be here. When I was seven years old, if somebody would have told me that was going to be my lot and that was, there's no way. But then he came to his senses and he realized, you know what? The servants at my father's house are doing better than me. I know what I'll do. I'll concoct a three-point sermon and go back and see my dad. Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son, make me like one of your hired men. But the reason we knew he wasn't given lip services because he went back to his dad. Now check out what happens. As he comes down the path and we don't know how far he was, but it was a long way away. The Bible tells us the Father saw him and you know what the Father did when he saw him? Sprinted to him. He ran to his son. Now if you're the younger son and you told your dad you wished he was dead and took all his money and blew it all on wild living and then you were feeding pigs and then you came home and you've never seen your dad run because Jewish men don't run because it's undignified. Now you see your dad sprinting towards you. What would you think? Probably not. Dad's coming to give me a hug. Really miss me. And that's how most of us think. We've been thinking God is so mad. He's just going to judge it. He's going and what's the Father do? He comes and runs and he puts his arms around his manure stained son that stinks and starts kissing his face. So the son pulls his head away and starts saying, "Father, I've sinned against heaven against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called get the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Let's kill the fat and calf and celebrate." For this son of mine, he was dead and now he's alive and he was lost and now found. So he threw a party in his honor. He put the robe on him so that everybody would know he has the place of honor. He put a ring on him so he would know that he belonged to a fair feat. My son's not a slave. He's my son. And every time you come home to the Lord you come home as a daughter or a son in that relationship, not as a slave. And then what happens? They have this huge party. Now I love that story and anybody wants Jesus loves that story, but there's some people that don't love Jesus because they hear that story and say, "Well, that's not fair. I mean, it's not fair. How can God give grace to that person that

will send all those ways when he doesn't give?" I mean, the same way to me and I'm a really good person. That was the older brother because when the older brother came in from the field he heard music and dancing so he called one of the slaves, said, "What's going on?" He's like, "Well, your brother, he's come home and your dad's thrown this huge party for him." And you would think the older brother would be like, "He's back. That's awesome." He refused to go into the party. I'm not celebrating that. He didn't do the right things. He wasn't here with dad. Dad, you're giving him the best cattle, the best beef. Who do you think was here feeding that cattle for all the years? Well, he was gone. It was me. I deserve more. So the father goes out to the older son too. He goes out to the prideful one and he begs him to come into the party and he said, "Hey, all that I have is yours and you could have had anything, but we had to celebrate because his brother years was dead and now he's alive. He was lost and now he's found." But the older brother is like, "No, this son of yours squandered everything. This son of yours did that. He's not my brother. I'm not in relationship to him anymore. I'm in a relationship to you." And he refused to go into the party. Some are like that. Some things that God's grace shouldn't be extended to real sinners. And if you think that, it's because you don't see the real sinner that you are. See, here's the beauty of the gospel. I don't know that that story is truly evangelistic. I think it's depicted of a believer in Christ who's wandered away who feels like they can't come home and God says, "Come back. I got you." Some of you during the series, I know you felt the pressure of the Lord to hand upon you, to confess your sin and get right with him. He wants you to do that today. Not get all religious. Not make all your promises as to what you're going to do this week. Not say, "I'm going to start studying, no, no, just right now." I say, "Lord, I need you in my life and wherever I'm at, you can have this sin and just restore my relationship with you." So that's how I want to finish this series. I just want to invite you to stand. I'd like to pray over you. Lord Jesus, all sorts of different people standing across all our campuses right now. If you're here today and there's never been a time that you've repented of your sins and trusted Jesus Christ is your personal Savior. Do that now. Here's how you can pray. Lord, save me. I know you died on the cross for my sins and we're buried. I know you rose from the dead. I believe you're the one and only God. I turn from my sin and I trust you. Come into my life. It's

not the words you pray that are magic. It's the belief that Jesus Christ is your Lord and you want Him to be your God. And Lord, there's a lot of us here today that love you. And there's some of us, of those people that love you that have been dealing with some sin that's just pervading our lives. We haven't been able to get out. And though we're just being honest with you today, here it is. We don't even know what to do with it. But Lord, we give it to you. You take it. I bring it to the cross and give it to you. I don't want it. Even though as I'm praying that, I kind of want it. So Lord, teach me to love what you love and teach me to hate what you hate. And Lord, created me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right steadfast spirit within me. Lord, we give you all the glory. Lord, we give you all the honor. We give you all the praise. Lord, do a work in each and every one of us. Let every person here be free. It's for freedom Jesus that you set us free. We love you Lord. We bless you and we praise you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Can we give God praise for His word today? We crown you, King of the glory. We crown you, King of the glory.