SPEAKER_00: If you have a copy of God's word, go ahead and grab it and turn to Psalm 51.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 51 is where we're going to be this morning.
SPEAKER_00: As Pastor Allen already said, we're going to continue in our ordinary people series this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at King David.
SPEAKER_00: The psalmist David, one and the same.
SPEAKER_00: So we are going to start in Psalm 51 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If you're able and willing, would you stand with me in honor of reading God's Word?
SPEAKER_00: And we will look at this passage in multiple passages together.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 51 to the choir master, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba.
SPEAKER_00: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
SPEAKER_00: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
SPEAKER_00: For I know my transgression as my sin is ever before me.
SPEAKER_00: Against you and you only have I sin and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
SPEAKER_00: May God add his blessings to the reading of his word.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we we come before you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And God, as we look to your word, Father, I pray that you would speak to our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: A man that would be called a man after your own own your own heart is also someone that we see in Scripture to have completely and utterly failed in pursuing after your heart.
SPEAKER_00: He did something that we all would call absolutely deplorable and yes, and yet all of us have the capability of doing the exact same thing.
SPEAKER_00: So, Father, this morning, would you speak to our hearts?
SPEAKER_00: May we read hard things from Scripture, yet allow your spirit to work in us through those hard things that you can continue to create in us and to uh sanctify us a heart that desires to pursue after you?
SPEAKER_00: Father, may you do a sanctifying work among us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Would you do a salvific work among us this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Father, would you speak to us clearly from your word?
SPEAKER_00: Would we have ears to hear and eyes to see what your word says?
SPEAKER_00: And Father, may we allow your word to do its work through the work of your Holy Spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that you would give me the words to say and that it would be your words and not mine.
SPEAKER_00: I know the only reason that I am up here is by your strength and by what you have called me to do, no more, no less.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Father, would you do what only you can do and speak to your people today?
SPEAKER_00: You have a word for them.
SPEAKER_00: May we hear it, may we receive it, may it change us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this all in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You may be seated.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to get up and and talk about Peter last week because Peter um we see that his rejection of the Lord when he is before all of the court and with the people around the courtyard that is um that is against him.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to talk about those things because we just see the restoration shortly after uh Peter's complete failure.
SPEAKER_00: And we talked last week that that God restores us by his grace, right?
SPEAKER_00: It is accomplished by his great grace, his restoration.
SPEAKER_00: But my fear in walking through this is there are people that would say, well, for those people that need restoration, it's good for them to know that restoration is available.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't done anything that's really needed anything like that, but I'm glad there's something out there for them.
SPEAKER_00: So what I wanted to do is shortly after that to bring us, bring before us someone who would be called a man after God's own heart, and yet would allow himself and would make decisions that we would say are contrary to the first statement, to see that every single one of us have the capability and the disposition to act the same way that David did.
SPEAKER_00: And that we would see what then is the tool or the weapon that we use to walk in holiness and obedience and to keep sinful passions, desires in check.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna walk through that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us in here at some point or another are guilty of overestimating ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We overestimate how good we are at multitasking, and that's why we never get anything done.
SPEAKER_00: Because we start one project and we move on to the next.
SPEAKER_00: We overestimate ourselves and our physical abilities, and that's why some of us have injuries to prove it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we overestimate ourselves and our uh and our intellectual abilities, and then uh we find ourselves in a situation that we have to ask for help.
SPEAKER_00: All of us are guilty of overestimating ourselves, but but when it comes to sin, um our first thought should not be to overestimate how much we can resist sin, yet to underestimate that which leads us to a place of acknowledging that we need the work of the Lord in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: In 1948, Billy Graham gathered other evangelists around him because they were beginning to see some very troubling signs as they were trying to do evangelical uh ministries and events all throughout the country.
SPEAKER_00: One of them was a financial need, and their fear was that those that were seeking to do this would either end up um stealing money or um glorifying money.
SPEAKER_00: And so they came up with some rules that they would have as they would travel around as far as how they dealt with finances.
SPEAKER_00: But the other rule they came up with is how they dealt with traveling on the road alone.
SPEAKER_00: And so Graham and these men came up with what is known today as the Billy Graham rule, specifically when it comes to traveling by themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And what they would say is that they would never put themselves in a position where they would find themselves alone with another woman that is not their spouse, whether that is publicly or privately.
SPEAKER_00: So Billy Graham would say, I will never sit at a dinner table with someone with a person of the opposite sex ever unless it is my wife.
SPEAKER_00: I will never be caught in a car with someone of the opposite sex ever unless it is my wife.
SPEAKER_00: And the the reason for this was not a legalistic reason.
SPEAKER_00: It is to, number one, in his words, to live above reproach and walk in integrity, but number two, to not allow any temptation of that sort to be brought before him as he is seeking to serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when I went to school, or when my brother first went to Liberty, Jerry Falwell Sr.
SPEAKER_00: was still alive.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, Jerry Falwell Sr.
SPEAKER_00: lived by the same rule, and he would often say at freshman orientation, um, please, ladies, if you are walking to class in the rain and you see me pass by in my little suburban that I drive, and I don't ask you to get in the car so I can drive you in the protection from the rain of my car to class, please don't think I'm being rude.
SPEAKER_00: I'm protecting myself.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want anybody seeing you getting out of that car with me because not only is that a bad look for me, it's a bad look for you.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to put myself in any situation that it would seem like I am compromising and and and allowing certain things to come into my life.
SPEAKER_00: We don't hear about those stories.
SPEAKER_00: We do hear about the stories of people like Ravi Zacharias, Jimmy Swagger, Steve Lawson, Johnny Hunt.
SPEAKER_00: And we can keep going.
SPEAKER_00: Men also like Darren Patrick or Josh McDowell or Mark Driscoll, where where it's not just sexual sin that gets them in trouble, but but it's anger, it's it's it's poor leadership, it's malice that is in them.
SPEAKER_00: It is all these other things that go unchecked.
SPEAKER_00: We overestimate how much we got everything together and how how well we keep this sin that is and within this war that is waging within us at bay.
SPEAKER_00: And all of us yet are just one really dumb decision away from doing something incredibly foolish that if we heard it for about somebody else, we would say, I can't believe they did that.
SPEAKER_00: When as a matter of fact, we can believe it if we begin to look at ourselves and go how how flippant or how lax we are when it comes to fighting and standing firm against that sin that desperately desires us to act on it.
SPEAKER_00: The the main idea that I want you to see this morning is this because you and I are prone to sin, we must stay sensitive to its effect on our desires, our thoughts, and our actions.
SPEAKER_00: Because you and I are prone to sin, we must stay sensitive to its effect on our desires, our thoughts, and our actions.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is anything that we say, think, or do that goes against the character, nature, and law of God.
SPEAKER_00: That is why when Jesus gives the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes, it is such a scandalous teaching because all throughout the Old Testament you had the Ten Commandments that says, don't do these things.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus would even say, though, if you think these things, if this is even a desire, that this condemns you.
SPEAKER_00: So sin affects everything that you and I say, think, and do.
SPEAKER_00: And so because and do, so because of that, we have to be sensitive and aware of everything we think, say, do, desire, because sin's influence, like what we looked at in the end of the book of Ephesians, sin's influence comes through our enemy's scheming to let it take root in every area of our life.
SPEAKER_00: David is a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_00: We see and and all we get to look at David all throughout his life.
SPEAKER_00: We see he's the youngest son of Jesse.
SPEAKER_00: He is the most uh inadequate, uh underqualified candidate to come about and be king, and yet it is through Samuel that he is appointed to be the next king of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And then we see David uh stand up by the strength of God, through his faith in God against Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: And by God's strength and by God's leading, he is able to be victorious over Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: He's victorious in his battles.
SPEAKER_00: Saul tries to kill him because it is known that he will replace Saul, and yet David runs from Saul, he flees from Saul, he does not strike against Saul.
SPEAKER_00: We even see when Saul is actually killed, that he kills the person that killed Saul because they killed God's anointed.
SPEAKER_00: David is seeking to honor the Lord and what he does.
SPEAKER_00: We see that then he is appointed king when he's 30-something, and God is using David for great things.
SPEAKER_00: More than likely, when we get to 2 Samuel chapter 11, David is somewhere in his early 40s.
SPEAKER_00: So from walking with the Lord from a young boy and seeing what God did to Goliath, seeing what God had done, freeing him from Abimelech, seeing what God did all throughout all the different uh battles that he had been in, how he spared him from Saul, how he made him king, seeing all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: We get to 2 Samuel chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: You and I are more prone to sin than you think.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the first thing that I want you to.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you four points of application really quick.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna move through these.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is this awareness of sin helps us to resist temptation.
SPEAKER_00: In a world where we live in, where we try to hide our imperfections and highlight our good qualities, what we will see in scripture is that if we desire to follow after the Lord and walk with him, we must be aware of where we fall short and aware of the sin that is in our life, so that when temptation comes, for us to walk in that sin, we can be best prepared for it.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me really quickly to 1 Samuel chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: Or 2 Samuel, I'm sorry, 2 Samuel chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Samuel chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: In the spring of the year.
SPEAKER_00: I'll read verse 1 for you, you can catch up.
SPEAKER_00: In the spring of the year, the time came, or the time when kings go out to battle.
SPEAKER_00: David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah.
SPEAKER_00: But David remained at Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know who wrote 2 Samuel because Samuel died at the end of 1 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: So we're not sure who wrote the book of 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: It is anonymous.
SPEAKER_00: But what we do know is the author here is very intentionally placing something that David did that is not a good thing that has happened.
SPEAKER_00: And that is that unlike every other king who would go out as their army is in battle during this time of the year and go out and be with them and see what is going on, David made the decision not to go, but to stay back.
SPEAKER_00: Mistake number one.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't a proverb officially, but it is a well-known saying.
SPEAKER_00: Especially for all of us, there's nothing more dangerous, the proverb goes than a man that is bored.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing more dangerous than any person that is idle, bored, has nothing else to do.
SPEAKER_00: Because look at what happens.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2 it happened late one afternoon when David rose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: And David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Iliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?
SPEAKER_00: So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he laid with her.
SPEAKER_00: Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanliness.
SPEAKER_00: Then she returned to her house, and the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, I am pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 5, you might be confused about this uncleanliness.
SPEAKER_00: Um, this would signify that she has just gone through her time of the month, and during that time she would be seen as unclean.
SPEAKER_00: So after she had gone through that time of the month, she would go through a purification process.
SPEAKER_00: And the writer is giving you this to say she was not pregnant when she went to David's house.
SPEAKER_00: So this is what has happened.
SPEAKER_00: This is what has occurred.
SPEAKER_00: David went somewhere that he shouldn't have gone.
SPEAKER_00: Not only should he not been at home, he probably shouldn't go on the roof because what good is he gonna see from there?
SPEAKER_00: He he saw someone bathing on the top of their roof.
SPEAKER_00: I would argue, took more than a second glance because he not only saw that it was a woman, but then we get an adjective of that woman that says she is a beautiful woman.
SPEAKER_00: So his eyes lingered way too long than they should have.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't have anybody around him to keep him from pursuing this.
SPEAKER_00: So he asks people, who is that girl?
SPEAKER_00: And they don't say, Why?
SPEAKER_00: You have concubines, you have other people here, why are you interested in that?
SPEAKER_00: They said, Oh, yeah, isn't that Bathsheba?
SPEAKER_00: Then he said, Go bring her here, and they do that, and all of this is taking place.
SPEAKER_00: He let his impulse cloud his decision makings, and what started out as a decision to walk out on his roof, or first to stay home from battle, then to walk on in his roof turned into one of the darkest times for King David.
SPEAKER_00: Let me summarize the rest of the chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Bath Jeda comes to David, says she's pregnant, he freaks out, he brings Uriah home from battle, he sends him home to go to his house.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a soldier that hasn't seen his wife in a while would go home and do what comes naturally.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Uriah sleeps on his front porch because men are out serving in battle, they're out sacrificing.
SPEAKER_00: Why would I live under the luxuries of what's happening here?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not doing that.
SPEAKER_00: David then goes, fine, plan B.
SPEAKER_00: He gets him drunk, then he sends him home, and Uriah still decides not to do anything.
SPEAKER_00: He stays outside of his house.
SPEAKER_00: And then David writes to Joab to send Uriah to the front lines, and when the army advances, to retreat from him and let him die.
SPEAKER_00: So let's follow the timeline here.
SPEAKER_00: Idleness, going somewhere he shouldn't have gone, adultery, drunkenness, murder.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see how slippery of a slope that that that can be?
SPEAKER_00: A lack of awareness to sin and what you and I are capable of because sin runs within, it is our nature, it is evident in what we see here.
SPEAKER_00: David ultimately is rebuked, and we'll see that in a little bit by Nathan, but I want you to flip back to Psalm 51.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your finger right there at 2 Samuel chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: Flip back though to Psalm 51, and I want you to see uh David's response to this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Number two, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
SPEAKER_00: Wash me from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin.
SPEAKER_00: Those are describing two different things that we would still categorize as the same.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't use a euphemism for for sin or another synonym like transgression.
SPEAKER_00: Typically, with sin we see transgression.
SPEAKER_00: Um, both of those things are outwardly visible to others.
SPEAKER_00: Iniquity is what is within the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Iniquity is the corruption within all of us.
SPEAKER_00: David sees that this is not only something that he has done externally, but it first came from within, from within the deceit and the corruption of his heart, his iniquity.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Jr.
SPEAKER_00: would say that iniquity is inward and it is the perversion of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And you might be able to hide things from other people as David tried, but what David acknowledges is that it is a much deeper issue than what he has done.
SPEAKER_00: And that is that it all came from within and it is all done out of this corruption that he has within himself.
SPEAKER_00: It is the effects of sin.
SPEAKER_00: It is a much deeper issue.
SPEAKER_00: More than just what anybody else knows and sees from your life.
SPEAKER_00: God sees through all of that into your heart and knows exactly everything you have thought, said, and done.
SPEAKER_00: People always joke.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say it, I just thought it.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that make it better?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is no.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: The Sermon on the Mount would tell us that.
SPEAKER_00: But that's exactly what David's saying here.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, it's not even about what I've done, it's about what's in here.
SPEAKER_00: What's running through my head, what what what my heart is enticed to, what my desires are prone to, all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us are again our one poor decision away from throwing everything away.
SPEAKER_00: And all of it begins with the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And whether or not it has come out into the public or not, the Lord still sees.
SPEAKER_00: H.B.
SPEAKER_00: Charles would also say, a secret sin on earth is an open scandal in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: God knows.
SPEAKER_00: David is acknowledging not only what he's done, but what God has, but what is happening within him.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at this in Ephesians chapter 5, but Paul says, look carefully then how you walk, not as wise, but as not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
SPEAKER_00: And then he would go on to tell us that we need to be spirit-filled.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, the reason that we need to be spirit-filled is not only influences every single area, every single area of our lives, but because you and I are engaged in a spiritual battle, not against flesh and blood, but but against the spiritual forces that are currently at work in the sons of disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: And you and I are fighting a battle to keep sin at bay through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that we do not walk in disobedience and we don't fall or give in to temptation as we see here.
SPEAKER_00: Then there's times in our lives when we aren't aware of sin.
SPEAKER_00: We refuse to acknowledge sin.
SPEAKER_00: There are moments in our lives where maybe we aren't here yet, and David was not there in 2 Samuel chapter 11, but at 2 Samuel chapter 12, he got there pretty quick.
SPEAKER_00: And let's turn to it very quickly.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Samuel chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: You know this story.
SPEAKER_00: If you've read this, you know what's about to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord sent Nathan to David, and he came to him and said to him, There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.
SPEAKER_00: Nathan goes on to describe that there was a rich man that had a bunch of lambs that were in his possession.
SPEAKER_00: And when fam, or when uh guests came into town and they went to go slaughter an animal for them to feast on, the rich man, rather than taking one of the many lambs that he already has, he sees this lamb that this poor man has.
SPEAKER_00: And so what he does is he goes over and he takes that man's lamb and he slaughters it for his guests.
SPEAKER_00: Then David's David was anger.
SPEAKER_00: David was angry, or and then David's anger was greatly kindled, the Bible says in verse 5, against the man, and he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die.
SPEAKER_00: And he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.
SPEAKER_00: This is clearly a parable that Nathan is telling.
SPEAKER_00: Nathan's telling a parable of what David has done.
SPEAKER_00: Ironically, the petty theft did not necessarily mean that a person would be stoned to death, but the insinuation that this is more than just a stolen lamb, David starts going, Well, man, that guy needs to pay.
SPEAKER_00: That guy really has done something wrong.
SPEAKER_00: He really needs wrath after him.
SPEAKER_00: And what does Nathan say?
SPEAKER_00: Nathan said to David, You are that man.
SPEAKER_00: Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel and delivered you out of the handed Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: I gave you all of this.
SPEAKER_00: And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.
SPEAKER_00: Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight?
SPEAKER_00: Really quickly, I want you to see something here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's point number two.
SPEAKER_00: You need someone in your life that is willing to provide accountability.
SPEAKER_00: You need someone in your life that's willing to provide accountability.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for some of us, we would say, I have no problem being a Nathan to somebody.
SPEAKER_00: If I see someone's messed up, oh, I'm I'm gonna go tell them.
SPEAKER_00: No problem being an athan.
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of us have problems with Nathans in our lives, and that's why we kind of keep them at an arm's length.
SPEAKER_00: Because they're always up in our business.
SPEAKER_00: They're always questioning our motives, they're always asking us the hard questions of why we're doing certain things.
SPEAKER_00: But the purpose of having someone in your life that provides accountability is to be able to see things that either one, you are not aware of, or two, to show you that what you are desperately trying to hide is not fooling anybody.
SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest reasons that we talk about diving into a biblical community and joining a Sunday school class, joining a Bible study, is because of the accountability that comes with it.
SPEAKER_00: Show me someone that has been overly involved, or show me someone that has fallen into great sin, and I can probably show you someone that either doesn't have any accountability around them, or no one that is willing, or they're willing to have speak into their lives, or they've hidden themselves so much in sin that even those that were there to provide accountability still could not see what had taken place.
SPEAKER_00: Look at all that David did and devised after he found out that his sin was going to be found out.
SPEAKER_00: His sin went from, again, adultery to lying, deception, to alcoholism, and ultimately to murder.
SPEAKER_00: But what started it all is men that were surrounded, men that were around David that were willing to do what he asked them to do, even if it was bringing somebody that's not his wife, up to his room.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody there.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody that's there to check, nobody that's there to kind of ask questions.
SPEAKER_00: You and I need people in our life that will ask us questions, ask us the hard questions.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, how are you doing spiritually?
SPEAKER_00: And this goes well beyond sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing spiritually?
SPEAKER_00: How are you running your business?
SPEAKER_00: How are you treating people when you quote prices?
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing when it comes to being honest with others?
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing when it comes to not abusing alcohol?
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing when it comes to not going on your phone and scrolling to things you shouldn't be scrolling to late at night?
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing with those things?
SPEAKER_00: That's what you and I need.
SPEAKER_00: You and I do not need cheerleaders.
SPEAKER_00: We are already our biggest cheerleader.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need someone to affirm because you affirm what you do already.
SPEAKER_00: You need someone to ask hard questions.
SPEAKER_00: You need someone that it will be in the trenches with you and go, let's not play games as to what we're doing here.
SPEAKER_00: We're here to bring accountability and we are here to keep each other from succumbing to the attacks of the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: So let's let's be honest with what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: Because you and I do really silly things alone.
SPEAKER_00: And to think that you were above any of them is absolutely foolish.
SPEAKER_00: Especially when it comes to this temptation that David has gone through of sexual temptation.
SPEAKER_00: As Vodi Bakum would say, the wisest man in the Bible fell into sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: The strongest man in the Bible fell into sexual sin, and the godliest man in the Bible fell into sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: For me to think that I am above falling into this sin is to think that I am wiser than Solomon, stronger than Samson, and godlier than King David.
SPEAKER_00: This is what you and I are capable of within ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And we need awareness of that.
SPEAKER_00: We need accountability with that.
SPEAKER_00: But but the second thing that we the third thing that I want you to see in this is because eventually what happens when we give in to this is there are consequences that we we are not ready for.
SPEAKER_00: The third point is this.
SPEAKER_00: And you've you've heard this before.
SPEAKER_00: You can choose your sin, but you cannot choose your consequences.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 28:13 says, Whoever conceals his transgressions will not proster, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Look at 2 Samuel chapter 12, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We saw this last week with with Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Your sin necessarily is not ultimately the effect it has on other people, while other people are casualties of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Your sin ultimately is against God.
SPEAKER_00: That is the ultimate, that is the one who takes on the brunt of the effects or the brunt of the the um.
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, whatever we want to use.
SPEAKER_00: The person that's hurts hurt the most is God.
SPEAKER_00: The person that is hurt the most in the story of David and Bathsheba is not Bathsheba, it's not Uriah, it's not Joab, it's not David, it is God.
SPEAKER_00: That's why David said, I've sinned against you and you alone.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he says here, I've sinned against the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Nathan said to David, the Lord has put away your sin, you shall not die.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.
SPEAKER_00: You can choose your sin.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot choose the consequences, as we like to say in our house, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
SPEAKER_00: This is a word of warning from you and I.
SPEAKER_00: Adrian Rogers said famously, sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.
SPEAKER_00: The warning, the warning here is that ordinary people like you and I can so easily slip into sin so heinous that we can completely lose sight of what we are called to do and how we are called to live and be so overwhelmed and drawn away by the desires of our heart that it takes us to a place where we not only feel its effect, but we see its effect in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage is ruined, friends lost, businesses gone, uh, prison sentences, prison sentences happening.
SPEAKER_00: All of it is a consequence of the decision that we made to pursue after sin.
SPEAKER_00: You might be in a place where it's still private and you haven't gotten caught, give it time, it'll come out.
SPEAKER_00: I remember I was sitting at a marriage or a men's event in 2021, hearing the word from Johnny Hunt saying, every person is one dumb decision away from ending up exactly like the person that you can't believe did that thing.
SPEAKER_00: And two years later, it comes out that 15 years ago he did a really dumb thing, and it never came out until that moment.
SPEAKER_00: And what are the effects now?
SPEAKER_00: No church, no job.
SPEAKER_00: You can choose the the sin that you that you want to pursue, you can't be upset when the consequences come.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a shocking part of God's grace that I want us to see in this point.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get to some to really the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: David has sinned against the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Nathan said that he has scorned the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But look at what verse 13 says.
SPEAKER_00: And Nathan said to David, the Lord has put away your sin.
SPEAKER_00: He has forgiven you of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not die.
SPEAKER_00: That's the ultimate wage of sin, as Paul would tell us in Romans chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: The wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: Now we would say that that is harsh, but but it is the ultimate consequence of sin.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord and his forbearance delays that consequence in the life of David, just like he did in the life of Adam and Eve, just like he did in the life of the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The ultimate consequence of sin is death, and yet God still shows grace.
SPEAKER_00: What did God tell Adam and Eve?
SPEAKER_00: The moment that you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, what would happen?
SPEAKER_00: You will surely die.
SPEAKER_00: On that day, did they die?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually did they die?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Main reason he kicked them out of the garden, so they wouldn't eat from the tree of life and live forever.
SPEAKER_00: The consequence did come, but God in his grace and his forbearance did not have that consequence come in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: Nathan, the Lord could have told Nathan, tell David, the time's up, this is his judgment for coming, and he could have perished just like just like um Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5, who lied to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And what happened in that moment?
SPEAKER_00: Death.
SPEAKER_00: You and I constantly sin against the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord knows what we said, did, and thought yesterday, but guess what?
SPEAKER_00: We still get to sit in this room, still walking in sin by the grace and mercy of God, ultimately for you to hear this morning that the Lord sees you in your sin, repent and come out of it.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord sees you in your repent and turn to him.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord sees exactly where you are.
SPEAKER_00: Repent and trust in him.
SPEAKER_00: As we saw last week, there is still restoration that occurs even after some of the worst things imaginable that you have done.
SPEAKER_00: So you're sitting here this morning and you're saying, Alright, I get it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a terrible person.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, I got it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm capable of some really terrible things.
SPEAKER_00: So what I'm trying really hard.
SPEAKER_00: That there's the problem right there.
SPEAKER_00: The biggest weapon to fight against temptation is not your own strength or to white knuckle your way through.
SPEAKER_00: The fourth thing that I want you to see this morning is this that the biggest or the greatest weapon of the believer in the fight with sin is joy in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now you might be sitting here and going, I don't understand what you're saying.
SPEAKER_00: Turn back to Psalm 51.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna look at verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what David says here.
SPEAKER_00: David doesn't say, God, just give me the strength to not do that.
SPEAKER_00: David doesn't barter and say, God, like I'm gonna try really hard if you could just kind of be be gracious with me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh David says none of those things.
SPEAKER_00: Starting in verse 8, he says, verse 7, he says, purge me with hipp hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So he's he's asking the Lord to cleanse him, he's asking the Lord to work in him.
SPEAKER_00: This is Old Testament cleansing rituals that would be done.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
SPEAKER_00: Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
SPEAKER_00: Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Our tendency to walk in sin or to succumb to sin is when we take our eyes off of Christ and put them on something else that we think will satisfy us more than He does.
SPEAKER_00: The fallacy with that is that there is nothing that can satisfy your heart more than Christ.
SPEAKER_00: An affair can't, money can't, alcohol can't, fraud can't, embezzlement can't, nothing can satisfy your heart more than Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And what David asked the Lord in this moment is to restore to him the joy of his salvation, the joy of the saving work of the Lord, who didn't smite him and what we feel like should have happened in that moment, but forgave him and continues to walk with him in restoration.
SPEAKER_00: The joy of the Lord, the psalmist would say, is our strength.
SPEAKER_00: Delight in the Lord, and he will give you what the desires of your heart, and the desires of your heart would be then in this moment more of him, because our joy is in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is the good news of the gospel message: that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, and this death that he died, and this salvation that he gives us not only satisfies the atonement needed for our sin, but it satisfies our heart to not turn back and run towards sin.
SPEAKER_00: The reason that you should read your Bible, the reason that you should seek the Lord in prayer, the reason why your following Jesus should be just more than Sundays is because there is infinite joy to be had in Christ Jesus from time spent learning more about Him and reading His word.
SPEAKER_00: And when we don't read His Word and we don't seek Him in prayer and we don't seek Him outside of this hour, don't be surprised when He doesn't seem sufficient to match the desires of sin that you have in your life.
SPEAKER_00: If you desire to walk intimately with the Lord, He should alone fill you with enough joy, which He says He will, to where anything else does not seem as sweet as Him.
SPEAKER_00: We talked last week.
SPEAKER_00: The reason that Peter didn't um wasn't a rabbi or didn't go into rabbinical school is because he he didn't make it really the through the call, he wasn't top of his class, right?
SPEAKER_00: And me neither, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I mean I don't know why I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: Um but but Peter wasn't top of his class.
SPEAKER_00: Class, so he got to go, he got to go fish, but all the other students would would be there.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what the rabbis would do the first day of school: that they would hand the all the students a little rock that would be etched on it, the Shema, which would be Deuteronomy chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: Here, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_00: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, and and it shall be taught to your children, all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what the rabbis would do: they would drench it in honey.
SPEAKER_00: Now, these kids would not come from many means, so much of them would never have tasted honey.
SPEAKER_00: So as this honey would be all over this tablet, they would lick their fingers and see, oh, how delicious this is, how sweet is this.
SPEAKER_00: And the rabbis would say, As sweet as the honey is to your lips, so let the word of the Lord be to your life.
SPEAKER_00: When the Lord in his word and his character is as sweet as honey is to our lips, nothing else will satisfy like he does.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, who have no spiritual strength of their own, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven because it has been provided to them by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who mourn their sin, right?
SPEAKER_00: Who mourn.
SPEAKER_00: They know that they're sinners, they know they have sinned.
SPEAKER_00: Well, they'll be comforted because salvation has come to save sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who who are meek, who who live that life of strength under control through the work of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: It is not complicated, but it is a choice that you and I have to make.
SPEAKER_00: If your desire is to fight sin, the best way to do so is to choose to see Jesus as more beautiful than anything you could ever want or desire.
SPEAKER_00: White knuckling your way through temptation will only lead you to frustration and despair.
SPEAKER_00: Fighting temptation with the joy of knowing Christ is the only hope that you have of walking close enough to the Lord that any temptation falls short in comparison to him.
SPEAKER_00: When you treasure him, you will find living within his ways a delight.
SPEAKER_00: When you are satisfied in him, you will find living under his precepts as something that brings you great benefit and joy as opposed to oppression and leaves you wanting.
SPEAKER_00: And if you we abide in him, his word his love will abide in us.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 11, he says, These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in here this morning and you can't let someone to come in and call you from sin, then in that moment you're saying, My delight and my desire is not to find joy in the Lord, it's to find joy in other things.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in here this morning and walking in open rebellion against the Lord and you call yourself a follower of Jesus, you have gotten to this moment because you have taken your eyes off of Christ and said, There's something else better that's out here for me.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in here this morning and you are struggling, why I mean, struggling to fight to honor the Lord and all that you are doing and you are running low on strength, the Lord says in his word to come to him, all who are weary and heavy laden, he will give you rest, and you will find in him joy and satisfaction, strength and endurance to where he will fight for you, he will keep you, and through his spirit you will be his, and by his spirit you can continue to walk through each day.
SPEAKER_00: That is the Lord's desire for you, that you would delight in him.
SPEAKER_00: As they just sang in Psalm 23, that's the psalm, the psalmist, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 16 says, Take care, brothers, least there be, I'm sorry, sir.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 16, starting in verse 9, says, Therefore, my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices.
SPEAKER_00: My flesh also dwells secure.
SPEAKER_00: For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your holy one see corruption.
SPEAKER_00: You made known to me the paths of life.
SPEAKER_00: In your presence there is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: David.
SPEAKER_00: David stayed back and in the days to follow allowed himself to be put in a situation he never should have been in.
SPEAKER_00: To to make a decision that nobody ever should have let him make.
SPEAKER_00: And and to ultimately have something happen that would result in something much worse than it just in the moment of weakness and and and asking of who this woman was.
SPEAKER_00: In an instant without closely walking with the Spirit and allowing yourself to be sensitive to sin, having people in your life that are walking with you through certain things, and and understanding that it is the joy of the Lord that strengthens you for this battle, without choosing to do that day by day.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be surprised when that temptation just seems too hard to resist.
SPEAKER_00: When that sin and its desire continues to fester and grow within you.
SPEAKER_00: For we have come to share in Christ, if we indeed hold our original confidence firm to the end.
SPEAKER_00: Would you in this moment say, I have sinned against God?
SPEAKER_00: And would you repent and turn to him?
SPEAKER_00: Whether it is for the first time, would you repent and go, I have sinned against God, his wrath is coming for me.
SPEAKER_00: I repent of sin and I trust in him for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Today you have that opportunity, and the consequence of your sin, if you are not covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, is death in hell.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in Christ here this morning, though, and you have you have fallen into sin, stumbled, fallen, wallowing, uh uh just no idea what to do.
SPEAKER_00: If a man after God's own heart can do all of these heinous things and still be used by God to write the psalms and to give us this psalm that talks about a contrite heart, you you can in your contrition come to him, be forgiven, and God still use you to serve him with your life.
SPEAKER_00: Would you this morning repent of your sin?
SPEAKER_00: And would you allow the Lord to restore you by reminding you of the joy of his salvation?
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go into a time of response, and and and I've been dealing with this passage all week.
SPEAKER_00: And so um I know that every single one of us in this room are sitting here going, man, this is the thing that I'm really struggling with.
SPEAKER_00: And it's either something that's incredibly visible and everybody knows, or something that just you know, and you're sitting here going, man, I'm struggling with this, and my spouse doesn't know it, or my friends don't know it, or my accountability partners don't know it, or my small group doesn't know it, but man, this is really a big temptation for me.
SPEAKER_00: Would you in this moment allow the Lord to convict you of that sin to fall on your face in prayer, whether it's up here or at your seat, to fall on your face in prayer and going, God, I have sinned against you, forgive me, restore to me the joy of my salvation, create in me a clean heart, purge me with his bring Nathan's into my life.
SPEAKER_00: But God, would you work in my life right now?
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have a time to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Pastors will be up front and would love to pray with you.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord desires to do business with you, his ultimate desire, if you are a follower of Jesus, is to make you more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that is not an easy work, that's a hard work.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes those chisels that he makes to make you more like Jesus are small, and other times he's ready to take a chunk out.
SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, we got some chunks that the Lord just needs to rip away from us.
SPEAKER_00: Would you allow him to do that work now?
SPEAKER_00: If you're in here this morning, you've never repented of your sins and trusted in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You know that you are walking in sin, you know that it is unrepentant, you know that you need salvation because you have never trusted in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's never been more delightful to you than sin.
SPEAKER_00: He's always just kind of been an add on in your life that maybe will make things a little bit better.
SPEAKER_00: Today, would you trust in the Lord for salvation?
SPEAKER_00: As we respond to the Lord in worship, would you pray with me?