A Fresh Start- Part 1

If you have your Bibles, look with me this morning to Psalm 51.

Psalm 51, and we're going to read the first 13 verses here in just a few moments.

Psalm chapter 51, verses 1 to 13.

Psalms 51:1–13

I want to begin just a real short sermon series this morning.

It's only this week and next week.

I want to preach two messages, though, that go together,

and I'm calling this a fresh start.

I don't know about you, but I look forward to the beginning of a new year each and every year.

The only thing I don't like is writing checks and then continue to put the last year, right?

But I like a new year because it gives us a fresh start.

And let me just tell you two things about myself that probably you don't know.

One, I'm a little bit of perfectionist.

Now, I'm not a full-blown perfectionist.

A lot of things, you know, just don't really matter.

But certain things, I am.

And in the area of neatness, I'm a little bit of a neat freak.

You know, I just like things to be orderly, and I like them to be neat.

And that's just part of my personality.

But there's a contradiction to that.

I'm a doodler.

How many of y'all are doodlers?

You know what I mean?

And one of the things I like about a new year is when I was working full-time,

my secretary every year would buy me a calendar,

and she'd bring it into my office on January 1 and say,

Here it is, Pastor.

You have a brand-new calendar.

And she knew I looked forward to it because a brand-new calendar is just fresh, right?

There's no scribbling on it.

There's no marks on it.

And you get to plan out the whole year in advance.

And it's just always cool.

And with me, because I'm a neat freak, that part of my personality,

I would always begin, like on January 1, if I had an appointment,

I'd put those down, and I'd just write so neat, you know,

either in cursive or in print.

It would just be so neat.

And I'd do that for the next few days, the next week.

But then in about four or five days, I'd be on the phone talking to somebody,

and if that conversation goes more than about two or three minutes,

then I'd just start doodling.

And that was always there by my phone.

And so I'd start drawing birds, or I'd draw fish, or, you know,

I'd draw trees, or I'd draw mountains,

or I'd just make triangles and circles and figuring,

just all kinds of crazy stuff.

And so after about two weeks, my calendar just looks a mess.

And I just sometimes attempt just to tear out January and go to February, you know,

get another fresh start, right?

Any of you like that, you know what I found through the years?

Our lives are a lot like my calendar.

By the time you get to December 31, boy, our calendars are a mess, aren't they?

Because you've written phone numbers here and there,

and little notes that you go back now, you don't know what your note meant,

all those kind of things.

And my life gets that way a lot of times.

It gets kind of muddled, and the lines get confused,

and it's not neat anymore.

Life is messy, right?

And I don't know about you, but I found a whole lot of times I need a fresh start,

not just with a new calendar.

I need a fresh start with a lot of things.

Sometimes people need a fresh start with a new job, right?

The old one's not working out, and I just need to go find a new job.

And sometimes you're involved in some relationships that just aren't working out,

and you say, you know what, I just need a fresh start here.

Or you're in one, and you're not going to walk away from that relationship.

But you know there are some corrections that need to be made,

because we need to make this thing better than what it's been in the past.

We need to get a fresh new start.

I'll tell you something else.

A lot of folks I've found, and this includes me at times in my life,

we come to a place in our relationship with God where we need a fresh new start.

If you'd be honest about it this morning, not all of you, but some of you in this room,

you look at your relationship with God as it is today, and you just know this,

it's just not what it should be.

It's not what you want it to be.

There was a closeness you enjoyed once with God,

and a fellowship you enjoyed once with Him,

and a sense of joy and peace and power that just filled your life.

And somehow that's gone.

You pray now, and it feels as though God's a thousand miles away.

You wonder, does He even hear me?

And those things that once brought you joy,

you just were elated because of your relationship with God.

Now, it's just not like that.

And you hear people talk about having a sweet, intimate, personal relationship with God,

and you get a little bit envious.

I wish mine were like that, but it's just not.

I just kind of find myself going through the motions.

And so the million-dollar question is this,

what causes us to find ourselves at that place in our lives spiritually?

Can I just tell you this?

Most people I know, it's not that one day they get up and they say,

you know what, I'm not going to believe in God anymore.

It's not that anyone ever just stands up in Sunday school class,

I've never heard of this happening, may have happened somewhere,

but not in the churches I pastored,

where somebody stands up and says, you know what,

I just don't hold to the same things I used to hold to.

I'm becoming a liberal as of this particular day in my life.

Most times people don't consciously walk away.

What happens is they just find themselves getting more and more and more distant from God.

And there are a variety of reasons why that can happen.

But I want to tell you one big one I found as a pastor is this,

and this may surprise you,

it is because of the presence of unconfessed sin in our life.

Because I'm going to promise you something,

if we're to have a meaningful, intimate relationship with God,

and fellowship between us and God is to be sweet and pure in what it should be at its height,

it requires above everything else transparency on our part,

because God absolutely hates hypocrisy.

And God will not deal with us when we're living in a fashion of hypocrisy.

So if we sin against God, and it doesn't have to be some big moral sin,

if we sin against God and we fail to go to God and say,

God, I need to confess this to you and get this right with you,

and we harbor that in our heart,

and it builds up and builds up and builds up,

after a while, it's as though the relationship is strained,

and we find ourselves distant from God.

Now, I'm going to preach this message in two messages,

because I can't get it all in in one.

You'd want to leave before I got through this morning.

But here's what we're going to do in this first message.

We're going to look at a guy, a guy you know.

I'm confident everybody in this room knows this guy.

And you're going to see a guy who allowed that to happen in his life.

He allowed unconfessed sin to break his relationship with God,

to make him feel distant toward God.

And when you know who it is, you'll be surprised,

because you just think, oh, this guy's been so close to God.

And then next week, we're going to come back,

and we're going to talk about how do you fix that problem.

Because I'll just tell you this much now.

The way you fix the problem is you come clean with God,

and you confess your sin to God.

And I just got to be honest with you,

that's something we Baptists just don't know much about.

We kind of look at our Catholic friends,

and we kind of, you know, just almost look down on them,

because they go into this confessional booth,

and they talk to a priest, and we say,

you can't get rid of sin that way.

But you know the Baptist idea?

The Baptist idea is this.

At the end of the service, when they sing the invitation,

you go forward and take a pastor by the hand,

and you say, Pastor, I've sinned,

and I need to rededicate my life to God.

And the pastor prays.

Usually the person doesn't even pray.

The pastor prays, and they go back to their seat,

thinking, well, now I've got that out of the way.

I'm ready for a fresh start with God.

And you and I both know, because you've done that before,

that only lasts about three minutes, right?

I mean, you just know that doesn't really accomplish what you want it to.

You go back to your seat, and you may feel better for a moment,

but it's not long until, man, nothing's changed.

So next week, if you'll come back,

I'm going to preach a comprehensive message on confession,

and I'm going to show you what confession really and truly involves,

and I'm telling you, it's a painful process.

But if you ever want to have peace and power with God again,

confession is necessary.

So let's jump in, and let's just find out

what causes us to lose this relationship.

And as I said, it's unconfessed sin.

And the life I want us to look at is the life of a man by the name of King David.

Everybody knows King David, right?

You read about King David when you're a little bitty boy or girl in Sunday school.

First story you come to is the story of David out tending his sheep,

and he reveals this to Saul.

There were times when he would have to rescue his sheep from the hands of bears and lions.

And so, you know, man, this is an unusually gifted young man.

He's powerful, even as a young man.

We later know he becomes a great, great warrior in Israel.

He goes out to fight Goliath.

When all the adults in the Israeli army are fearful,

little David, teenager David, musters the courage and says,

I'll go in the name of the Lord and fight this great giant, this Goliath of Gath, right?

So we fall instantly in love with David.

And we find out he's multi-gifted.

He's a great musician.

In fact, he writes lots and lots and lots of the Psalms.

He plays his heart for King Saul,

and it soothes his nerves when he was troubled by evil spirits.

He's a great friend to Jonathan.

Remember those early chapters about David?

He creates his friendship with Jonathan, the son of the king.

He's a loyal, trusted friend.

Even when Saul becomes jealous and turns against David,

David will not lay a hand on Saul.

He won't hurt a hair on his head.

He's noble, so much so.

You know what one biblical writer says about David?

You know what I'm going to say, don't you?

He was a man, say it with me, after God's own heart.

Now, I want you to think about this for a minute.

God is directing these men as they write the Scripture,

and this man says, here's a man after God's own heart.

I want to tell you something.

I'd have to think long and hard if I'm writing something

that's really important that's going to one day be Scripture.

They didn't know that at the time.

But if I'm under the inspiration of God,

and I'm writing, here's a man who is after God's own heart,

I'm going to be real careful about pinning that,

because I'm going to tell you something.

I don't want to be guilty of blasphemy.

Who could say of anybody, here's somebody after God's own heart?

So I'm going to tell you, David's stature in my eyes just rises

as high as it can get with that.

I mean, how do you top that?

He's a man after God's own heart.

When you see him worship, remember his wife, Michael,

got angry with him because he's worshiping so transparently

in the streets of Jerusalem when they bring the Ark of the Covenant back?

I mean, here's a hero of heroes.

But you know the rest of the story, don't you?

One day his men are in battle, and David is out on his balcony.

He's a good-looking guy, and he's out on his balcony,

and he spots this woman down below,

and he looks too long, and he lusts after her,

and he sends a servant to get Bathsheba.

She's a beautiful woman, and bring her to him.

Now, have you ever thought about this?

He's not just guilty in doing that of adultery.

He's guilty of abuse of power.

Right now, in our land, that's a big discussion, right?

Where these powerful guys, they just think they can have their way with any woman,

and they just put demands on them?

You think she thought she had a choice in coming to the palace?

It's the king who's beckoning her to come.

It's clearly an abuse of power sexually.

And then he sleeps with her, and she becomes pregnant with his baby,

and now he really sees himself in a bind.

David finds himself in a place he's never been before spiritually.

So what can he do?

Well, he can confess it.

He can come clean with God and with man.

But in his mind, I'm sure he thought,

this will cost me my kingdom if I do that.

So David decides, I'll just cover it up.

And he sends for Uriah and has Uriah come home,

and he thinks when Uriah gets home, he'll go in and be with his wife.

But when he gets home, guess what?

Even though David has been unfaithful to Uriah,

Uriah is faithful to David, and he won't go home to his wife.

And now, in David's mind, he's really in a pickle.

I mean, what am I going to do?

He won't go home.

What's the matter with this crazy guy?

Go home to your wife.

He won't do it.

Well, now he has no recourse unless he's going to come clean,

except to have Uriah killed.

And he pens a note and sends it by the hand of Uriah himself to Joab,

the leader of his army,

saying, I want you to send him out into the front and then fall back.

Can I tell you something?

I don't know if you've ever thought about it like this,

but that's premeditated first-degree capital murder.

David wouldn't have been any more guilty had they had guns in those days,

had he called for Uriah, and as Uriah turned to walk off,

he stuck the pistol in the back of his head and blew his head off.

It was that premeditated.

It was that intentional.

It was that dastardly and cowardly.

This noble, noble man who has fought for Israel,

put his own life on the line,

now takes the life of an innocent man.

He's as guilty as guilty gets.

And so, you read the life of David,

and can I tell you something?

There's nothing there to indicate,

and David fell away from God.

And David stopped worshiping God.

And David stopped trying to write psalms.

You know what happened?

Next morning, it's business as usual.

In fact, can I tell you something?

He turns what looked like a possible tragedy

into a victory for himself.

I don't know if you ever thought about this.

He marries Bathsheba, takes her home.

You know what it looked like to the public?

Think about it for a moment.

Well, that good old King David,

he's taken this fallen soldier's wife,

and he's made her his wife.

Wasn't that a noble thing for him to do?

He's just done a treacherous thing.

But now, he looks like a hero.

And so, time passes,

and he just gets on with his life.

He goes right back to doing probably all the things.

I'm just guessing.

I don't know this.

But there's nothing to indicate otherwise.

Then he just goes right on singing,

right on doing all the things

he's always done in the past.

But I'm going to tell you something.

What it doesn't tell us,

we know because of what Psalm 51 tells us.

Things did change in David's heart and in his life.

His relationship with God began to deteriorate.

And David knew that and felt that.

But he doesn't say anything about it.

He just says the way many of us do in church,

when that happens in our lives,

and we just go right on pretending everything is hunky-dory.

Until one day, this prophet of God, Nathan,

God discloses to him what's happened.

And Nathan goes to David.

He says, King David, I need to talk to you.

And he tells him this story

about this rich guy who's got lots of lambs.

I mean, they're just in abundance.

But rather than kill one of his own

to serve to one of his guests,

he goes to this poor man down the road

who only has one.

It's not a part of a flock.

It's his pet.

And he kills that lamb and serves it to his guests.

And boy, when David hears that

because he's a man who's after God's own heart,

he knows righteousness.

When he hears it, he is outraged.

And he thinks, how conniving and how sorry.

And David says, tell me who that man is

and I'm going to punish him.

And you know the story, don't you?

Nathan points his finger in David's face

and says, David, it's you.

You're the man.

And David, I'm confident,

he wept there in Nathan's presence.

I want you to read the psalm he wrote

as a result of that conversation with David.

Go with me to Psalm 51.

We're going to have to move real quickly.

Look at Psalm 51.

Be gracious to me, God.

Do I need to do something?

Okay.

Mike's going to take care of it.

Be gracious to me, God,

according to your faithful love,

according to your abundant compassion,

blot out my rebellion,

wash away my guilt,

and cleanse me from my sin.

Boy, aren't you thankful we have guys

that know about that stuff.

Yeah, give him an applause.

Good guy.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Michael.

For I am conscious of my rebellion

and my sin is always before me.

Against you, you alone,

I have sinned

and done this evil in your sight.

So you are right when you pass sentence.

You are blameless when you judge.

Indeed, I was guilty when I was born.

I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

Surely you desire integrity

in the inner self

and you teach me wisdom deep within.

Listen to this.

Purify me with hyssop

and I will be clean.

Wash me and I will be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness.

Let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

Turn your face away from my sins.

Blot out all my guilt.

God, create a clean heart for me

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not banish me from your presence

or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore the joy of your salvation to me

and give me a willing spirit.

Then I will teach rebellious,

the rebellious your ways

and sinners will return to you.

Boy, what a beautiful, beautiful prayer.

I want to show you four things

that happened to David real quickly this morning

in these remaining moments.

Four things that happened to David

because he harbored unconfessed sin in his heart.

The first thing is this.

David was eaten up with guilt and shame.

David was absolutely eaten up with guilt and shame.

I want to tell you something.

When a believer sins against God,

the Holy Spirit of God lives within us.

He is going to bombard us with conviction

which leads to us feeling guilt and shame.

God doesn't desire that we feel guilt and shame.

He desires to remind us through guilt and shame

that we need to confess our sin to Him.

But when we fail to do that,

it takes a toll on our life.

I want you to look at verse 1.

Just a portion of the verse real quickly.

Blot out my rebellion.

That's what he says to God.

He recognizes he's rebelled.

He says, God, blot out my rebellion.

Verse 2, wash away my guilt.

Cleanse me from my sin.

Verse 3, my sin is always before me.

You know what he's saying in that?

I can't get away from this thing, God.

Everywhere I turn, I see me and Bathsheba.

Everywhere I turn, I see Uriah.

I see a fallen soldier.

I see his corpse that they brought back for burial.

God, my sin is ever before me.

Now, don't you know,

people can be or suffer from insomnia

for a variety of reasons.

It's not always guilt and shame.

But I'll promise you this,

when you're feeling guilty and shameful,

you're going to have a hard time resting.

You understand that?

Boy, you're going to lay your head down on the pillow

and you'll see that sin right there before you.

You'll be in somebody's midst

and they're talking about something

and something will come up related to what you've done

and you're going to relive that moment in your life.

David was eat up with guilt and shame

and he says,

my sin is always before me.

Verse 5,

I was guilty when I was born.

Can I ask you,

are you eaten up with guilt?

Through the years,

I can't tell you how many people came into my office

and they sat down and they said,

oh, pastor, I'm just beside myself

and I just need some counseling.

I just need some help.

Man, I'm down.

I'm depressed.

And they begin to tell me about their life

and I say,

well, what's been happening in your life?

And they would tell me one thing or another

and I'd say,

was there any sin in your life?

And they would then begin to tell me

about something that had happened.

And they would tell me about this sin

and that sin and the other sin.

They said,

you see,

I just think about these things all the time

and I just feel so,

so guilty.

Can I tell you,

a lot of times I'd listen to that for a few minutes

and after I would,

I'd say,

can I tell you something?

There's a difference in feeling guilty

and being guilty.

Sometimes we feel guilty

when we're really and truly innocent.

That's called shame.

When I,

as a pastor at times,

needed to be three places,

but there was only one of me

and I could only be in one of those places,

I felt bad that I couldn't be

in all three of those places.

But I'm going to tell you something,

that's shame.

That's not guilt.

I'm doing the best that I can do.

But I feel shame about that,

but that shame feels very similar to guilt,

doesn't it?

But I want you to know something.

When I do something that is wrong,

I feel that same sense,

but then it's not that I feel guilty,

it's what?

I am guilty.

And I've said to a lot of folk

when we would be in counseling sessions,

is it that you feel guilty

or is it that you are guilty?

Have you established the fact that

I did this or I did that

or I neglected to do this or that?

And as a result of that,

it's not just a feeling I have.

That feeling is a genuine feeling

because it is true.

I am in fact guilty.

And David felt guilty

because David was in fact guilty.

Let me show you a second thing

that harboring unconfessed sin will do.

It will leave us feeling dirty.

And David felt dirty.

Look again quickly at the scripture

if you have that Bible passage open.

Verse 2,

Wash away my guilt.

Now seven times in just six verses,

he's going to say something about being clean.

Wash away my guilt.

Clean me from my sin.

Verse 7,

Purify me with hyssop and I will be clean.

Verse 7,

Wash me and I will be whiter than snow.

Verse 9,

Blown out all my guilt.

Verse 10,

Create a clean heart in me,

O God.

Do you think it's just coincidental

that again and again and again

he prays this same phrase

about being cleansed and being washed

and having his guilt blotted out?

I'm telling you,

nothing could be further from the truth.

The reason he prays that so often

is because it's heavy on his mind

because he feels dirty

because of his sin.

And you're going to see in the passage

we look at next week in 1 John 1, 9

that that's what sin and guilt does.

It makes us feel dirty.

It makes us feel as though we're impure

and we're unclean.

Years ago,

Dr. Graham was preaching in London

and he was speaking with a man

who was the director of a large mental asylum.

And Dr. Graham asked this man

who was running the asylum,

he said,

tell me,

why are most of the people in this asylum?

And you know what the man told him?

He said,

85% of the people here today

could leave

if they could come to accept

God's forgiveness in their life

because they're eaten up,

they're ridden with guilt.

They're ridden with guilt.

Guilt will leave us feeling dirty.

Remember the story of Pilate

in the New Testament?

Pilate has Jesus brought to him

by the Sanhedrin.

They make their charges.

Pilate questions Jesus.

You know the outcome of that, right?

Pilate says,

this man's not guilty of anything.

He hears Herod's intent.

He sends him quickly to Herod

because he wants to get this monkey off his back.

And when Herod questions him,

guess what?

Another guy didn't have any reason to love Jesus.

But Herod questions Jesus

and he realizes

he's done nothing guilty

deserving of murder

or deserving of death.

And he sends him back to Pilate.

So Pilate questions him a second time,

this time even more carefully.

And when he gets through,

here's the conclusion he reaches.

This guy's not guilty of anything.

He doesn't deserve to be put to death.

And so he goes out to the crowd

and he tries to appease the crowd

by saying,

hey,

it's that time of year

I released somebody.

Who do you want me to release?

Why don't I release Jesus?

And the crowd says,

no,

don't release Jesus.

Release Barabbas.

Crucify Jesus.

You remember what Pilate does?

Interesting thing.

He calls for a bowl of water to be brought

and Pilate takes that water

in front of those religious folk

and he washes his hands

and he's sending them a message.

He says,

symbolically,

I'm washing my hands of this

because I know

and you know

Jesus doesn't deserve

to be put to death.

And so I'm going to

wash my hands of this.

You know why?

Because he felt dirty.

Because he knew

he had Jesus' blood

on his hands.

I want to tell you something.

If you could look

in the depths of hell today,

I believe you'd still see Pilate

wringing those hands

and trying to wash his hands

and rid himself

of the blood

of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm going to tell you today,

sin will leave you feeling

violated

and leave you feeling dirty

before God.

There's a third thing.

It left him feeling

apart from God

and abandoned.

He had a deep sense of loss.

He hadn't lost

his relationship with God.

But get this,

he felt that way.

He felt a deep sense of loss

in his relationship with God.

He hadn't lost his relationship

with God.

But that's how David felt.

You know how I know that?

Listen to verse 11.

Do not banish me

from your presence

or take your Holy Spirit

from me.

Verse 12.

Listen to this verse.

Restore the joy

of your salvation

to me.

Here's the sad thing.

Here's a guy who knows God.

He has a relationship

with God.

But the joy of that relationship,

it's gone.

He has a relationship,

but he doesn't even know

he has a relationship.

He thinks what he's done

is so horrendous

that God has removed himself

from David.

But the truth is,

David has removed himself

from God.

God still loves David

as much as he ever loved David.

But David's sin

made him feel

as though God

were far, far away.

Can I ask you right now,

you don't have to raise your hand,

you don't have to indicate

to a neighbor,

just right there

in your seat

as you think about this.

Am I describing you?

Do you feel as though

you really have the joy

of your salvation?

Do you feel as though

God is really close

when I pray

he listens to me?

I can talk to him

about anything

because we're close,

we're tight.

Is that what you feel?

Or do you feel

maybe what David felt here

in this song?

You see,

I'm convinced

that there are lots

and lots and lots

of us in churches

just like this

from all over the country

where we come Sunday

after Sunday

after Sunday

and rather than admit

we've got a problem,

we'd rather just go

through the motions

and pretend that,

boy, everything's okay

in my relationship

with God.

And I want you to know

you're robbing yourself

of great, great joy,

peace and power

when you do that.

There's one final thing

and I close the message.

It led to a lifeless worship

and a lack of power

in serving God.

I want to show you that

from the scripture.

It says in verse 13,

Then I will teach

transgressors your ways

and sinners will return to you.

That's what he says

in that 13th verse.

You know why he says that?

Because he feels as though

I can't do that.

right now.

He says,

If you will cleanse me

and you will restore

this relationship

and I'll get this joy back,

then I can teach

transgressors sinners

your ways.

But right now,

I can't do it.

Interesting thing.

I'm really anxious

to find out one day

when I get to heaven

what the answer

to this question is.

Did God put David

on a shelf

and just refuse to use him?

That's what we often

think in church.

Well, that guy's got

in sin.

God can't use him

like that.

God will put him

on a shelf.

Or did David

put himself

on the shelf?

Because either way,

he's on the shelf.

You understand that?

Whether God just says,

I refuse to use you

like this,

or David says,

he couldn't possibly

use me like that.

And he just

withdrew himself.

I had a deacon

one time

when I was a young pastor.

I was just fresh

out of seminary.

Had a deacon

about four or five

years older than me.

He came to me

and said,

Pastor,

I want to resign

as a deacon.

And I called him

by name and I said,

man,

why do you want

to do that?

Does anybody

hurt your feelings?

Have I done something?

No, no,

it's not about you.

It's about me.

I said,

well,

why do you want

to resign?

He says,

well,

I mismanaged my money.

I was too selfish

and greedy with my money

and I started spending

more on myself

than I should

and now I'm in debt

and I can't tithe.

And I just,

I want to resign

because I can't tithe.

You see,

he felt disqualified

from service.

You know what I said to him?

I said,

can I give you

a better solution to that?

He said,

what's that?

I said,

why don't you just repent?

Why don't you just tell God,

God,

I've been greedy

and I've been selfish

and I've misused my money

and let us help you

to get on a budget

and you begin

to tithe again.

Why put yourself

on the shelf?

And I want to tell you something,

I've seen a lot of believers

who've done that.

They stop teaching Sunday school,

they fall out of this,

they fall out of that.

Sometimes though,

here's the other thing

that happens,

they just keep doing

what they've always done,

they're just going

through the motions.

You see,

if David did continue

to lead worship,

if he did continue

to write psalms,

can you imagine

how empty

that must have felt

to David?

Can you imagine

how he must have stood

when he told other people

about faith in God?

He's sitting there

thinking to himself,

boy,

I don't even have

this relationship

with God

that I'm telling them

they need to have.

Can you imagine

what that was like?

Sin in David's life,

unconfessed,

led to a lifeless worship

and a lack of power

in serving God.

Well,

what does David do?

That's where we are now.

What does David do?

David

prays this prayer

we've read this morning

in Psalm 51

when he confesses

his sin to God.

And God

restores him

to a right relationship

with himself.

But it doesn't stop there.

I want to show you

something else.

I want you to turn

to one more psalm

with me.

Psalm 139.

One of my favorite psalms

in all the word of God.

Psalm 139.

I want you to find that

and look at this with me

if you will

for just a moment.

Psalm 139.

And while you're

turning there,

after you've turned there,

I want you to look up

and listen

for about two minutes

and we're done.

Ready?

In fact,

I'm going to come down here.

In Psalm 139,

many of you know that psalm,

but a lot of you don't.

You say,

well,

what's that about?

24 verses long.

First 22 verses,

David only talks

about three things.

It's a psalm

that David wrote.

One of the greatest psalms

you'll ever read.

He says three things

and I can break it down

for you real,

real quick.

He says,

God,

you are

everywhere.

Word we use

in theology

is omnipresent.

God,

you are

everywhere.

I can go down here.

You're there.

I go up there.

You're there.

I go over there.

You're there.

You lift up a rock.

You're there.

You're everywhere.

You see everything.

Then he says,

God,

you know

everything.

Word we use there

is omniscient.

You know everything.

It's not like that

champion on Jeopardy.

He knows most of the questions.

He knows everything.

Everything.

Everything.

He saw it all.

He created it all.

He thought it all.

He imagined it all.

He spoke it all

into existence.

There's nothing

he doesn't know.

You know what keeps you

from making perfect decisions?

Lack of knowledge.

If you knew everything,

you'd never make

a bad decision.

God knows everything.

So he says,

God,

you are everywhere

and you know everything

and you're all powerful.

You spoke the world

into existence.

What kind of power

is that?

That you just think it

and say it

and it is.

Now,

in view of that,

here's his conclusion.

Look at verse 22

and 23.

Search me,

God,

and know my heart.

Test me

and know my concerns.

See if there is

any offensive way

in me

and lead me

in the way

everlasting.

Wow.

I don't know

if that sunk in.

Do you get

what he's saying there?

In view of what he said

in his first 22 verses?

Let me put it

in perspective

for you if you don't get it.

You're a CEO

of a company.

You go tomorrow morning

to your office.

You're singing,

listening to the radio.

You pull up

in the parking space

and there's

the 60-minute truck

and it's in your

parking lot.

Or there's

the 2020 truck

and you get out

and they got cameras

going and they got

microphones,

they shove it in your face

and they said,

we're here because

we're launching today

a full-scale

investigation

of you

because we hear

you're practicing

corrupt business

practices.

Makes you a little

nervous,

wouldn't it?

I mean,

have you ever thought

about running

for President

of the United States?

When you sign on

to run for President

of the United States,

I want to tell you

something,

in about three hours,

they know every move

you've ever made

in your life.

They know everything

about,

that's government

though.

This is God

David's talking to.

And he says,

God,

you see it all,

you're everywhere,

you know everything,

you're all powerful,

I'm inviting you.

He's actually

giving the invitation.

He's not just

subject to it.

He says,

God,

I'm inviting you

to do a full-scale

investigation of my life.

Now you're probably

thinking,

he's crazy.

Can you imagine

what that's going

to turn up?

Why would he do

such a thing?

I'll tell you why.

Because he knew

what it was like

to harbor

unconfessed sin

in his heart

and how far away

it took him from God

and he doesn't

ever want to go

there again.

And he says,

oh God,

that's why he's a man

after God's own heart.

God,

I know what it is

to be right with you

and I know what it is

to not be right with you

and I don't ever want

to not be right

with you again.

And I'm begging you,

oh God,

reveal to me

any sin in my life

and if you do,

I'll confess it to you.

Now,

I wish we could

wrap this up

neatly in just

a moment or two

but we can't.

We won't even be able

to do it next week

but I'm going to show you

what real genuine

confession looks like

but I'm going to tell you

where it begins.

It begins by knowing

the truth about yourself

and the only way

you're ever going to

know the truth about yourself

if you can't even

trust your own memory

because you've glossed

over many things.

I've glossed over

many things

but I'm going to tell you

something,

God hadn't.

He saw everything

that ever went down

in your life

and He's not forgotten it.

And if you would

pray that prayer,

if you'd be willing

and daring enough

to pray that prayer

this morning,

we could begin

that process

of your restoration.

You're getting

a fresh start with God.

If you would be

man enough

or woman enough

to say,

God,

there are things

I've done

I don't even remember.

I just kind of

swept all those

under the rug

by saying

at the end of the night,

forgive me of my sins

and my shortcomings.

Okay,

I'm good

but you're not good.

Would you pray

that prayer

and would you

begin to get ready

for God to show you

would you pray it today

and tonight

and tomorrow

and the next day

and the next day

and the next day

until we meet again

and just begin

to catalog God

here's what's wrong

with me

and I need to write

some of these things.

Show me how

I treat my wife,

how I treat my husband,

how I treat my children,

how I treat my employees,

how I treat my neighbors,

how I respond

to what your word says.

Listen,

you don't get in this shape

just by committing

adultery and murder.

It's whatever sin

is present in your life

that you've just kind of

covered over

and swept behind you.

Okay,

I'm good to go.

I'm an okay guy.

It comes down

to you want to play church

or do business with God.

You really want to have

a real meaningful relationship

with God

or you just want to

play at it.

Lawrence is going to lead us.

I'm going to ask you

to stand your feet

and I'm going to ask you

even,

I don't care if you sing

a word of the song,

what I'd like you to do

is at least begin

that prayer with God.

Maybe you just need

to read those two verses.

Just say,

God,

do a full-scale investigation

in my life

begin right now today

showing me

what I need to confess to you.

Would you do that?

Let's stand.

Lawrence lead us

if you will.

Thank you.