Fight for Recovery

Morning.

Good morning, CCW.

Take your Bibles out this morning to 2 Samuel chapter 12.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

And I'll tell you what is a good sight is that I think we got about 12 seats left in here without somebody in it.

So folks, we're going to need some chairs soon.

So you be praying with us.

That's a good thing to be needing.

But praise the Lord for what we got.

And I'm glad that you're here this morning.

We're continuing a series called Slay.

It's the roller coaster life of David.

And if you if you watched and been with him through this study, you see that David's just like us.

Ups and downs and loops.

And so I want you in 2 Samuel chapter 12 to see what's going to happen after last time we met, David took a loop and probably fought and went against his greatest defeat.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

David was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he was tempted, he lusted, he committed adultery, and ultimately committed murder.

And so today's message title is Fighting for Recovery.

How do you recover?

In my mid-20s, I got pretty out of shape.

What was happening was Heather would get pregnant, and so did I.

She would leave the cravings and I would keep them.

And one time she went to Texas and I hurt my back really bad.

I had made a fitness goal because of getting out of shape.

So I was in the gym and in there lifting and I was trying to reach my goal.

And that particular day, nobody else was in the gym, and I got in a bad position.

I went like this with a couple of dumbbells, and in that moment I dropped them, and I thought, if I seated is going, I was in excruciating pain like this, and I'm like, I can't walk.

And so I'm making movements and trying to figure it out.

So I finally got myself out to my van.

I get out to uh I get to my house and I'm pumping.

I'm just going through the cabinet, and everything hurts.

I have three steps out front of my house, and it was like probably 30 minutes.

And I'm looking at them like, I don't know.

Either you guys are giving or I'm giving, I'm gonna roll, what am I gonna do?

So I got in and I got some uh ibuprofen and I got myself in my couch and and everything hurt.

C did hurt.

Uh the ibuprofen didn't work.

I got myself back out to my car, made it to the emergency room, and uh, I don't know what kind of magic they put in these needles, but they shot me up with some magic, and I and and I was good.

Well, like three years go by, and I feel something this time that feels similar to what was leading to that time, and so the feelings started to trigger flags, and I go, huh, I feel like I'm about to be hurt again.

And so just as I'm thinking that stuff, I got up from the table and I said, uh-uh, I know this feeling.

And so I sent myself, I immediately went to urgent care, shot me up with some magic.

I'm good.

Okay.

Um when we moved here, it started to happen, it crept up on me one more time.

And so I'm like, I know what this is immediately.

I know what's trying to happen, and so I start to figure out informationally and experientially, I've sort of learned what to do if I get these feelings.

And so um, in my fitness routine, I roll on a rolling thing, I stretch, I try to work out my back.

I'm working, y'all help me.

I need to lose a little more weight.

Um, so I'm working on that this year.

Um, but I stretch, I do all this.

If it starts getting bad, I ice.

I shower with hot water, I do whatever it takes because I have learned how to make it right.

I don't want to be in that position anymore.

I don't want to be the guy in the emergency room like I feel like I can't sit, I can't walk, I can't do anything.

I'm in this kind of pain.

And so what I've learned in life is how to make it right and how to make a recovery.

Let's pray together.

Father, we love you this morning, and we're so thankful.

Lord, you're already in this.

The things that have been said and things that have been sung, God, are all leading to what we're gonna be saying.

And God, I believe that you know in our humanity, all of us stumble, we fall, Lord, we live in the struggle, and God, right now, um, Lord, in the world we're in, we just fight.

And so, God, I pray that you help every one of us to realize what it takes to make a recovery, for what it takes to be strengthened by you, how to move on when we slip up, how to move on when we fail, and not to get stuck in the mud of sin.

So, God, I pray that you would speak through your word.

God, you know I've got nothing of me.

It's all about you right now, Jesus.

We love you in your name.

Amen.

And so, again, in 2 Samuel 11, we see the great fall.

And David has fallen into a great sin.

And in 2 Samuel chapter 12, I want you to see here.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

We're gonna start in verse 1 through 6.

Point one this morning is this it there's a confrontation with self.

When you fall down, when you mess up, the first thing that we need to see is that you have to have a one-on-one confrontation with you.

That's the first thing you need to do.

And look at uh chapter 12, verse 1 through 6, we're gonna read it.

Then the Lord said Nathan to David, and he came to him, and he said to him, There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor.

The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except one little you lamb, which he had bought and nourished, and it grew up together with him and with his children.

It ate of his own food and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom.

It was like a daughter to him.

And a traveller came to the rich man who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him.

But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.

So David's anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who has done this surely will die, and he will restore fourfold the lamb because he had done this thing, and he had no pity.

And so what we see here is Nathan the prophet is sent by God to give David an analogy.

Letter A is this an analogy that's met with anger.

There's an analogy here that Nathan brings to him, and it's very shrewd, it's very smart in the way that he goes about this.

And I want you to know, if you look in verse 15 of the chapter, we'll give you a timeline.

In verse 15, it shares that the Lord struck the child, Uriah's wife, that was born to David.

And so David's child had been born.

So we're given a gap here between chapter 11 that ends and chapter 12 of approximately about a year's time.

For a year, David is living without any sign of dealing with this sin.

For a full year.

I don't know if any of you have dealt and lived in a sin for a full year, but I want you to turn with me to Psalms chapter 32.

Psalms 32 · chapter mention

And I want to just, let's unpack a little bit because David often, if you're studying his life, in a Psalm, you'll go back and find that he wrote about situations.

And so in Psalms 32, David tells us about his year gap between chapter 11 and 12.

Okay, he has this gap, he's not dealing with sin, he's just living, ignoring, acting as if nothing really has happened, and trying to move on.

And let me tell you what he writes in his Psal here.

Psalms 32, verse 3 and 4.

Psalms 32:3

When I kept silent, my bones grew old.

Through my groaning all the day long, for day and night your hand was heavy upon me.

My vitality was turned into the drought of summer.

Man, do you see that how heavy this statement is?

David is living without any sign of dealing with sin, and this has been his most miserable year.

This comes from a man with all the money he wants, living in a palace, and now he's even got the woman he wanted, and he says, My spirit is just groaning.

It's gray, it's dark.

This teaches an important spiritual truth to us, church, and it's this spiritual sickness, walking away from God, leads to emotional sickness.

You will get sad, you should get sad, and then can least lead to physical sickness.

He said, My bones grew weary, right?

And we don't have time to get into it, but if you look at the effects of sin choices, right, if you become an alcoholic, you're going to cause your body to incur some physical damage.

If you become certain things, sin choices cause emotional and then physical damage.

And so, if you want to be healthy, church, live right.

But David, it says he just groaned.

It was dark, it was weary, it was gray.

And at the end of chapter 11, we're left with this cold verse, right?

Remember?

That's how we ended.

It was a hard way to end service the other week.

But it says this bleak, sort of heartless statement.

It says, But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

It was cold, it felt callous, it felt godless.

He had a godless year.

Up to that point in his life and ministry, the hand of God was on David, and now for a year.

How many here, church, have fallen and it took a while to get things back together?

You ever felt like this?

Do you do you associate with the groaning of David what it was like and how you try to look for another way, another path?

Well, that's where David is, and uh, Pastor Colin Smith says this about the natural sequence of sin.

The natural, the human, not biblical, but the human way of sin is not to immediately repent.

The sinner's first impulse is always run and hide.

I've done wrong, and so I go into darkness.

And the question I have to, what hope for reconciliation is there when we run and hide?

There's none.

That does not solve anything.

It says he groaned night and day.

But David's misery is good news.

He is miserable, and that is good.

Why would you say that, Pastor?

It shows whose he is.

It's good because it shows whose he is.

He's the Lord's.

And I want to submit to you today: if you're living in sin and you're not miserable, there might be a question that needs to calculate for you.

It shows who David belonged to, and the people that belong to the Lord will live in misery if they continue in sin.

So God says, enough.

And he sends Nathan the prophet.

And I bet David probably wasn't that excited to see Nathan.

I bet he wasn't like, oh good, the preacher's here.

Right?

I've shown up at a lot of people's homes who weren't that excited to see me.

Right?

I didn't ask, I'm not there to judge, but I've seen people and they're scattering, moving things, right?

Ooh, hey, oh, the preacher's here.

Preacher's here.

Like, I'm not here to do that judgment.

I just came to see you.

Uh, but there's been a lot of people not too excited about seeing my face.

Um, but Nathan has a job, and his job is simply to bring God's word.

And this is what he said.

He said, David, there's a rich man with everything.

And he took a poor man's prize sheep, his one sheep, the sheep that he loved.

He took this man's sheep.

This sheep slept in his bed.

He loved this sheep.

It was like another family member, this sheep.

He ate with this sheep.

Y'all with your sweet little pets.

You know what I'm talking about this morning, right?

Just laying in bed next to your head.

I'm not saying no names.

But you got your sweet little pets, right?

And he says, This man has a sheep, right?

And the rich man, instead of taking from his many flocks, took this one little ew lamb and he gave it to the traveler.

And what does it say in scripture there?

David's anger was greatly aroused.

In today's terms, it says that David raged.

Y'all, I like the kids saying today.

They ask all the time, why are you raging?

Why you raging?

He, David goes on a rant.

Look at verse 5 and 6, right?

It says that his anger is greatly aroused against the man, and he starts spitting out.

He starts spewing all of this anger.

And David says, he should die.

And after that, he should pay back the money for the sheep two times, three, no, four times.

And he's pacing and raging and screaming.

He says, I can't believe this guy, no pity.

Took his one little baby, his little baby sheep, and David loves sheep.

And David used to be a shepherd, and he says, I can't show him.

He says, I'm going to show him.

Let me add him.

I'll kill him.

I'll rip him up.

And he is livid that someone would do this thing.

And that takes us to letter B.

Letter B is an accusal met with anguish.

So how does David transition from this information and Nathan take David to the truth of the matter?

I'm going to read verse 7.

It says, Then Nathan said to David, You are the man.

Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.

I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your keeping, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah.

And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more.

Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight?

And you've killed Uriah the Hittite with a sword, you've taken his wife to be your wife, and you've killed him with the sword of the people of Amnon.

And so Nathan musters up a lot of courage, and he looks David in his eye and he says, You're the man.

You are the man who took the sheep.

You had all of this, but you did this, and this is difficult.

Nathan's probably the unsung hero of the story, someone who's willing to confront sin.

And if you have to ask Christian if your job is to confront sin, the answer is yes.

You do it tactfully, you do it lovingly, but the Bible says that the truth shall set you free.

So when the opportunity arises and it's in front of you, you don't walk away.

You only hurt people if you avoid their sin.

And so he doesn't do that.

Nathan is willing to boldly call it out for what it is.

And this is what he said.

He said, God told me to tell you.

He made you a king, he delivered you from Saul, He gave you your house, He made you royalty.

And you've forgotten where you came from.

Don't you remember?

Remember God's hand in battle?

Remember the rock that killed Goliath?

Remember my hand on you when you were on the run?

And he said in verse 8, this penetrating, I read this and it hit me over and over.

He said, and if it weren't enough, if that wasn't enough, I'd have given you much more.

But instead of David, you asking, you took what was not to be yours.

You took what was another man's.

Instead of praying, instead of seeking me, you just went off the rails.

Now I want you to see verse 9 and 14.

The word that Nathan brings from God to penetrate the heart of David.

Verse 9.

Look at the directness of this verse and the heart of it.

Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight?

Look at verse 14.

However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.

He says, You've scorned me.

You're a man after my heart.

I've been with you.

But for no real good reason except your appetite, you've scorned and you've given occasion for all of the enemies of Israel.

Now you were my example of who I am and what I can do to the world.

And now they look at me in laughter.

You have mocked my name because you wanted something.

I would have given you something.

You didn't ask me, but you did it the wrong way.

And so when Nathan met with David, and for a year, nothing.

Listen to me, church, this is important for you to hear.

Some of you that have wayward family members, some of you with a prodigal in your family, some of you that have been praying and thinking on someone else.

When nothing would work for a full year on David, a man after God's heart, a prophet brought the word of God.

He brought the word of God.

So you keep inviting to church, you keep sharing that devotion.

You Facebook blast that word that God gave you.

You send that text because when nothing else worked for a year, the word of God through a prophet of God came and it hit the heartstrings of David.

Never, never, never underestimate the word of God.

It says that it will not return void, but will do what it set out to accomplish.

The word of God is powerful.

And I've told parents for a long time in student ministry, yes, I don't care if they don't really, they're not into it, just bring them anyway.

They might get it by accident.

Just let them come, let them hear it.

Let the word just come in and go out because who knows what the word of God will do.

In Hebrews 12, 11, it says this, and I believe David, this is where he was at.

It says, No discipline, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful.

But afterward, nevertheless, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

So God hear, or Nathan, or David hears the word of God in this moment.

And I gotta tell you, I don't think he was looking forward to his meeting with Nathan, but then he hears it.

And God allowed David under this analogy to sit as judge over his own life.

He's hearing his own life sin and he pronounces the judgment upon himself.

He says he should be killed.

How could this be let to happen?

And he pronounces his own death sentence on himself.

So that his heavenly Father could grant him the gift of a better and cleansed life.

God allows him.

And that takes us to point number two this morning: a cleansing from sin.

Hold your place there in 2 Samuel 12, and then if you would, turn over to Psalms 51.

I hope this is a famous psalm for you.

One of my favorite psalms.

But in Psalms 51, David is writing of what happens to him right after this encounter.

What happens right after Nathan the prophet comes with his story?

Some of you you'll have that in the heading of your Bible.

Mine says, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the Prophet went to him after he had gone to Bathsheba.

It says in verse 1, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies.

Blot out my transgression, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I acknowledge my transgression, my sin is before me.

Against you, you only have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight, that you may be found just when you speak, and blameless when you judge.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.

Last verse here.

You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom.

And so David has this meeting with God, and this is a call, letter A, for confession.

Maybe, maybe, David's second greatest victory next to Goliath is this moment.

What you do when the Holy Spirit pricks your heart about where you're at with God will determine sometimes years, it may determine a decade.

And for some people, I believe it's determined a lifetime.

What you do when the Holy Spirit says go, what you do when the Holy Spirit says clean it, what you do at altar calls and revival meetings, and when you're in your bedroom and you finally pop the Bible back up, what you do, and I think this might have been David's second greatest victory.

And here's what he tells us in verses one through six steps for a proper sin confession.

This is what we do, church.

Okay?

This is how we get it right.

The first thing we see in verse one, we appeal to God.

We have to appeal to God.

Understand that only God can clear a person of their sin.

God is just and God is judge.

So David appeals to the nature of God's kindness and his mercy.

And so I was thinking about this, and uh, you know, Heather might say something to me like, um, Rick, you look really strong today.

Rick, I've noticed uh that you've been working out a lot, and I'm like, what?

Ooh, me working out, you know, just a little.

And she might say, you know, feel my arm and say, babe, can you get those three large cases of water for me out of the car?

And I'm like, absolutely.

Get them all at once, right?

And uh listen, not that we can in any way manipulate God, but David is appealing to the part of God that is needed for his cleansing.

So he says, God, please, according to all of your mercies, which are great in many, would you show me mercy?

So, number one, to confess, to have a cleansing from sin, we have to appeal to the God and his mercy that can cleanse it.

Number two, we have to aim for cleansing.

Okay, appeal to God to aim for cleansing.

I don't know how many of you, as a little kid, uh when you scraped your leg or your elbow, your parents brought you in and said, just sit down.

And uh they brought out the brown bottle.

You know, you know what I'm talking about?

Brought out the brown bottle, and they're like, Alright, so I'm just gonna clean this up.

And your parents, you know, everything your whole life at this point, you've believed them, right?

And they looked you bold faced in your face, and at this moment, they were the greatest liar you've ever met.

They said, This is just gonna hurt a little.

You're just gonna feel it just a little.

And then they opened this thing up and poured it on your knee, on your elbow, and you're like, You said you loved me, and you're a liar.

Right?

It hurts.

Or maybe y'all got past that and you had some of y'all old enough you had the other bottles.

You remember macuricomb or methylate?

You kids don't know this stuff.

You need to look it up.

Probably it's probably outlawed now, but you I want them to try it just to know, right?

And that stuff, you got orange arms and knees all of a sudden, right?

Here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

To get cleansed, it hurts a little.

Y'all hear me?

To look in the mirror of myself and see my scrapes, my bruises, and what I've done, it hurts a little.

And here's the thing about God, He doesn't want you just to get by.

He doesn't want to band-aid or patch up your dirt.

Because a little bit of dirt will cause an infection.

And I know a little bit about infection too.

I went on a camp trip and my whole leg got infected.

I didn't even notice.

I looked down and my foot was exploding, and Heather was like, and I'm looking, thinking that was somebody else's foot.

I'm like, what's wrong with that guy?

It needed cleanse.

And so what I understand is God will not accept a little bit of filth in you.

Now it might hurt, but what he wants is for people to come and just pour it out.

Get it out to cleanse all the bad.

So we have to aim for cleansing.

David for a year groaned in his dirt.

He tried to patch it, he tried to get by, he tried to do probably religious things.

He probably, you know, went to some temple services.

He probably did some pretty normal things of a king, but he didn't deal with his heart.

And there wasn't a patch, there wasn't nothing that had cleansed.

And so he had to aim for cleansing.

Number three is this you have to acknowledge your sin against God.

Acknowledge your specific sin against God.

And then if people are involved, you need to go to people.

But he acknowledges his sin there.

He says, verse 4, against you, you only have I sinned.

And he so he acknowledges his sin before God and his propensity toward sin.

As a sinner, he says, This is what I am.

And in counseling, they would use this terminology.

This is called owning it.

I want you to look at the person next to you and say, own it.

Look at the other person and say, you need to own it too.

This is called owning it.

And the opposite is when we say the word denial.

God won't bless that.

This is why I think David gets it right.

Because in this moment of confrontation, he owns it.

And he in verse 4, is it interesting to anybody else what he says?

Right?

Like, think about these words.

Verse 4, he says, Against you, and you only have I sinned.

I don't know if that perplexed you.

It perplexed me when I read it.

What about Bathsheba?

What about Uriah?

What about his wives?

What about his kids?

What about the nation of Israel?

Did David miss it?

So dig in.

What was David's sin?

You remember?

It was.

David's sin was wanting an intimate relationship with another man's wife.

But David says, against you, and you alone, God, have I sinned?

What does that mean?

So what he's saying to God is this, God, I've cheated against you.

What I did was I turned my eyes off of the intimate relationship that I have with you that fulfilled me and gave me purpose.

And I took my eyes off that intimacy and looked for another intimacy.

And he says, I've cheated on you, Lord.

I've sinned.

There's an old hymn, and uh, I think we have a picture of it.

I want the guys to pull it up.

Um called Turn your Eyes Upon Jesus.

And thinking about what David's gone through, I want you to hear the words of the Course in one of the verses says, Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look full at his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

Oh, that the whole world would be behind us as compared to the glory of being close to Jesus.

And so that verse, though, it says before it, and this is what David went through for a year.

He says, Oh, soul, are you weary and troubled?

No light in the darkness you see.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

And so David says, I cheated.

Before I cheated on anyone else, God, I cheated on you.

I cheated on Jesus.

Let me ask CCW, are you away from Jesus Christ right now?

If he were looking down today on your life, would he say, They are dedicated to me.

He walks with me.

She talks with me.

They have a daily dedication and walk with me.

Nothing on earth has my place.

Nothing has stolen them away from me.

Their intimacy, first and foremost, is found with me.

No earthly sinner success has their heart.

I want to tell you, church, if your soul feels heavy, if you feel weary, if you feel stressed, if there's tension in your life, sin is heavy.

And today you can confess it.

And I hope that you will.

It'll release your burden.

That's the first part of the cleansing.

And so he appeals, he acknowledges, right?

And he looks for cleansing.

The second part is this letter B.

David has a cry for change.

I want you guys to put up that picture of the hyssop plant.

David has a cry for change.

As you look at this beautiful plant, I want you to keep it up while we read this verse so you can just see where we're going.

But verse 7, David says, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

And so the second part, there's a cry for change.

Hyssop, this plant was abundant in Israel.

And what is hyssop known for, church?

Hyssop is known for absorption.

Hyssop was a means of transferring through Scripture of blood from the sacrifice to the sinner.

And so in Old Testament, we see it as early as the book of Exodus, when there was a Passover, they would take hyssop and dip it into the blood and then put it on the doorpost.

And so then we see it in Leviticus.

It was used to cleanse a leper.

They would dip hyssop.

And then it's in Numbers 19, 18, it says, clean persons should take hyssop, dip it in water, sprinkle it on all vessels and persons for purification.

So hyssop is known for absorption.

Absorption is this.

When one thing soaks in or draws in from another.

And church, I need you to know today, that's what Jesus Christ did for you and me.

He immersed and soaked in our sin.

He mopped up our sin.

He consumed all of this.

He ingested all of this.

He imbibed all of this.

And he absorbed it in like histop.

C C W.

Sin had no chance.

Paul said, Death, where is your sting?

Grave, where is your victory?

In Revelation, we see this.

He said, I am the living one.

I was dead, and now look, I'm alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and hell.

And so sin was absorbed by what Jesus did on the cross.

In Romans 6, 23, he said, For the wages of sin is death.

We all have a death day.

We have an expiration date because of sin.

But what he says at the end of that verse is, But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

He absorbed it like hyssop.

And so David makes no mistake in using this term, purge me with hyssop.

You see, repentance is part confession, and then it's sorrow and change.

Acknowledging sin is the first part.

We have to acknowledge it.

But if there is no sorrow, I submit church, it means nothing.

Because without sorrow, there's no repentance.

You say, What do you mean, Pastor?

I want you to turn to 2 Corinthians, and I want you to see this.

2 Corinthians chapter 7.

2 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

There has to be a moment in your repentance, in your cleansing, where you're sorry for this.

But sorrow to change, sorrow for change.

And it's not real sorrow without change.

So if you say, I admitted that, yes, I told this, I went to somebody, but then your life doesn't change, then that's not repentance.

And we can prove it right here in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, 9 through 11.

2 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

It says, Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, not rejoicing that you were sorrow, not rejoicing in your sin and that you had to go through this, but that your sorrow led to repentance.

For you were made sorrow in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing.

For godly sorrow, listen, produces repentance, leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow that the world produces, it produces death.

For observe this very thing that you sorrowed in a godly manner, and what diligence it produced in you, and what clearing, important word there, clearing of yourselves.

What indignation, what fear, what desire, what zeal, what vindication, and all things you proved yourselves to be cleared.

And what he says, acknowledge sin, but then there has to be godly sorrow that works repentance.

It clears the matter.

And back here in Psalms 51, it says, in verse 9, it says, Hide your face from my sins.

It's a picture of turning and being forgiven.

And then in verse 10 and 11, listen to this.

I don't want you to miss this.

David interestingly says, Now create in me a clean heart, O God.

Renew a right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence.

And so David says, create a clean heart.

Interesting.

He asked God to create.

Listen, not use what is already there, right?

He says, create in me new.

The word bara, that new, is the same word used in Genesis 1-1.

In the beginning, God created.

Out of nothing, God spoke, and things came to be.

And so David's appeal was for a divine miracle.

And sometimes that's what it takes for a change to happen.

God divinely changed me.

I even sometimes have prayed these words.

God, I don't have the motivation in myself to do what I gotta do.

So what I need, God, is for you to create the motivation in me so that I'll be what you want me to be.

Because in my own flesh, I just don't want to be it.

I don't have enough.

So he says, create, change so that I can be something that you can use.

Because he says, God, in me there's nothing.

In this heart, God, there's nothing.

He was not asking for renovation.

He was asking for something new.

He wanted a new heart.

Old Pastor Jay Vernon McGee said this.

Sometimes we hear an invitation in a service, and we'll hear something that sounds sort of like this.

Come today and give God your heart.

Jay Vernon McGee says, God doesn't want it.

God's not asking you to give your heart.

What God wants is to give you a new heart.

He wants to give you something new.

He wants to create new in you.

You see, David, the shell existed.

For over a year, the shell existed, but he said, I'm gonna need something new, God.

I'm empty and I'm deserted and I feel hopeless without you because of this sin.

God, I need you because I can't do it in myself.

I need you to make me new.

Not just forgive, but create something new and clean.

He said, Create in me a clean heart.

Matthew 5, 8 said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

He says, Give me a new heart.

You see, repentance, church, is I'm walking on a path and I'm sorry for my sin.

And because of my sorrow for my sin, I stop and my path changes.

I have a 180.

I'm not going any longer towards that sin.

I'm not going any longer.

I don't have a propensity any longer because God created a new path.

And so you cannot repent without a new path.

If there is no change, if there's no new direction, if David would have got up in two days and went adultering again, everybody said, Well, he prayed and he said he changed, but he didn't change.

He's cheating again.

He's lustful again.

And you'd say, nothing has changed.

And for us today, we have to understand we have to have a 180 for recovery.

There has to be a that's what 2 Corinthians says, godly sorrow leadeth to repentance and change.

There has to be change.

And that takes us to the third point this morning: a celebration of salvation.

Do you remember church when you got saved?

Remember that joy?

That feeling?

For some of you that maybe got saved at an older age, you remember getting into the Word of God, and it was like, He wrote this thing just for me.

And you you just didn't have enough time in the day to give to it.

And another day came and you said, Oh, I can't believe this is what I'm going through.

And you're like, this is crazy.

And there was like a celebration of joy.

Well, look at verse 12 and 13.

David says this after he says, Make me new, God.

Oh, make me new.

He says, Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me by that generous spirit.

Then I'll teach transgressors your ways, and sinners shall be converted to you.

And so the third point is a celebration of salvation.

We see letter A, David has an aspiration to be an advocate.

He has an aspiration to be an advocate to help.

It was by this act that Nathan the prophet points out that onlookers wouldn't believe.

And David says, But restore me and I'll teach them.

Look at the group that David mentions.

I'll teach transgressors and sinners your way.

By the way, this is the heart of Jesus.

David says, Restore me and I'll teach others.

Use my story of failure, God.

I admit before you I've failed and I am willing to be used.

And so, how does David get such a wrong situation so right?

Is that when it came to his sin, he owned it and he said, Now, God, if you're willing, just use me.

Use my story.

Do whatever you gotta do, restore me, and I will use it to tell others.

And so for me and you, Church, he says, Let your burden build a bridge.

If I had to ask today how many people here have ever been addicted to something, probably some hands would go up.

And so what God says is, Yes, your sin was great, but I paid for that sin.

And so now, if you would use your sin to build a bridge so you can go across to and take somebody who's going through that same thing and walk them back over to me.

Let your burden build a bridge, because not everybody's been through divorce, but somebody who's been through divorce.

And you know who can help?

Somebody who's been through divorce, not somebody who hasn't, but somebody who's been through divorce.

He says, Let that burden, that life, that that situation build a bridge and help somebody else.

You know who can help somebody who's been through cancer?

Somebody who's been through that burden.

And so he says, build a bridge.

Who can help an alcoholic?

Somebody that's been on alcoholists.

So he says, go get into celebrate recovery and help somebody build a bridge.

And you've walked through struggle and trial and storm.

And he says, Let your burden build a bridge.

And David says, I'll be an advocate, God.

I'll help somebody that was like me.

Use my story so that people will look to you.

And we're here today listening to David's story, and we're enthralled in it because we can relate to a guy that falls.

If David were all perfect, we'd come out of here going, oh, there's nothing for me.

But he was a sinner and a roller coaster because of his failure.

And he got back up.

And because you have failed, church, you have a testimony.

You have a story, and you get to say this.

To the coworker, the family member, you get to say this.

Let me tell you how I got through it.

And all the struggles change for different people, but the answer's the same.

It was because of Jesus that I got through my struggle.

And none here has an unusable story.

Let me tell you.

David doesn't stop there.

He gives one more confession.

I need you to see for the depth of it.

Verse 14, he says, Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God.

I can't even fathom what it felt like in this moment to know what he did to Uriah.

Culturally, for us, we look at murder and go, This is like the unpardonable sin, right?

We feel like this is heinous, this is vile, and we, I think, humanly have this, right, moral struggle with certain sins.

And so for us, we look at it and go, I cannot believe this happened.

And right, the scripture says there's a time for war, there's a time for lifetime.

So, you know, but what we're seeing here with David is he did this thing, and we go, I can't even, I can't even with that.

And when you hear about somebody that forgives the murder of some family member or something, we go, wow, how?

How is this possible?

But God has no barrier for his forgiveness church.

His blood cancels all of sin.

And David says, and for my God, I know that you'll renew me, but I just want to say again, for the bloodshed, God, forgive me.

And what Satan means to do for you, church, is to make you sit in a mire in the clay of your sin and go, I'm unforgivable.

I'll look like a hypocrite now to all the people that have seen my life if I change now.

And he whispers these things in our ear, you're not good enough.

You'll never be good enough.

It's not going to be okay.

It will not cleanse you.

You might as well not try.

You shouldn't do it.

And God says, just come to me.

I'm forgiven murderers.

So David, letter B continues.

He gives an assurance of adoration.

Look at the end of verse 14 through 17.

He says, And my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth your praise.

For you don't desire sacrifice, or else I just give a sacrifice.

You do not delight in burnt offering.

The sacrifices of a God are this: a broken and contrite heart.

And these, O God, you will not despise.

He said, I'll sing, I'll praise, I'll sacrifice.

Jesus, listen, Jesus' point to coming on earth was to bring glory to the Father, and he says that in the greatest act of history of grace that we'll ever see was that it would bring ultimate glory to God.

So I want you to understand, yes, God today desires recognition, church.

What a beautiful task we have.

God, the creator, cannot worship himself.

And so he made us, and we have a relationship that we can worship the creator of all things.

And you have to have something greater than yourself to worship.

So God cannot worship himself.

So he's chosen us to worship him.

And David says, I will worship you.

And in Luke, he says this if we don't do it, the rocks will cry out.

I mean to tell you something, church, I don't want a rock taking my job.

But what Satan does is a really masterful job of injuring us and making us think we can't get it right.

As a teenager, I spent three years running from God.

And I woke up and I felt like this verse.

I don't know if you've experienced this, but I felt groaning and sick.

I woke up in the pit of my stomach, physically felt ill about myself.

And then I'd have to go run to some sin to feel a little bit better for a moment, and then I'd wake up again and I'd feel sick.

And day after day after day, I continued this.

As a Christian running from God.

When God said in 1 John 1 9, if we confess, He's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we confess, but a lot of people, because of their pride or other people's thoughts, don't want to start through that process.

We'll have an altar call today.

And I'm going to tell you, church, I don't know how it is that every Sunday that people are not running to an altar.

Because if you feel like me and I try to live close to God, there's times where I just gotta get there.

And I've said this before when I was at Calvary Baptist Church for 10 years, 52 services a year, over 1,500 services.

There's people that never once.

I'm like, what kind of life are you living that you never need to just come and cry out before God?

Why are we never just running?

We think that other people think we're perfect.

We're not.

We're all living this thing in a mess.

And so he says, if we confess.

We see, again, one more time, it's not misplaced.

We see the hiss-up branch show up one more time in Scripture.

And if you want to look it up, John 19.

I love the way that God weaves things through the story.

In John 19, verse 28 through 30, it says this.

John 19:28–30

After this, Jesus, he's on the cross, knowing that all was now finished, said, I thirst.

And the soldiers there mocking him, offer him a jar of sour wine, vinegar.

And they put it, the sour wine and vinegar on guess what?

A hyssop branch.

And they held it to his mouth.

When Jesus received the wine, scripture says he said it is finished, and Jesus died in our place.

The wine and the vinegar, this is what the picture is.

It's so full of picture here.

Jesus drank the cup of God's wrath for our sins.

And so right before he says it is finished, on that branch, he's offered the cup, the picture of all of the wrath, all of the sin, everything you and I would do that he wants to forgive, that so many won't even give him a chance to forgive.

And he took it all in that place and drank God's wrath that we were supposed to drink.

And it was God ordained that the hyssop branch would show up right at the cross to remind everyone who was watching, Jesus Christ absorbed my wrath.

And he poured out the sacrifice, the blood sacrifice that would cleanse all of my sin.

He said, My son's blood has paid the price so that you could recover.

Um during the pandemic, my son Wyatt got on a ripstick.

And down around the hill from my house, we were I was walking the dog, and um I watched him go around me, and in maybe my worst parental moment, I watched him and I seen impending danger up ahead, and I didn't scream, shout, or stop him from what he was doing.

I saw the ripstick and him on it, and there's this hill.

And in my mind it even flashed, this isn't, this is about to not be good.

As I go back and play it, I wish I would have tackled him, stopped him, whatever I could have done.

But he kept going down that hill.

And a month prior, I injured my hamstring ice skating with teenagers.

Look, youth ministry is not for the old.

So I watched him and he's going, going, going, and he hits a manhole and he catapults into the air.

He landed on his head and rolled.

I'm like, oh my god.

And I ran as best I could with my torn-up hamstring, and I get down to him, and I'm like, please, God.

All I wanted was for him to be okay, and I get to him, and there's blood, and I'm sitting there with him, and he can't open his eyes, and he says, Daddy, am I going to die?

I'm like, oh.

We get him back home, and the emergency people come, and this is how crazy the pandemic was.

They didn't want to take him for a chance that he might get COVID.

I'm like, dude, I'm about to give somebody else an injury.

And so they're like, they wouldn't take him.

And I call up, thank God, I don't know if I've seen her today, but for Leslie Sawyer, a godly pediatrician.

And I called her and I said, Leslie, this is what happened.

Wyatt hasn't opened his eyes.

And she's like, you never know what can happen in a skull.

You gotta take him somewhere.

So I'm getting Wyatt together, and I'm telling you, it was a madhouse of stuff happening.

And he still hadn't opened his eyes.

He's gotten nauseous, and and all of this, all I could think, God, I just want my son to be okay.

I just want him to be okay, God.

And we get in the car, finally get in the car, we're going to the emergency, and he says, Daddy, hadn't opened his eyes.

Will you please pray for me?

Church, I prayed every name of God that there's ever been said.

I got into the most Pentecostal fit a person can get in.

I said, God, Jehovah Jiver, Jehovah, Jehovah Sitko, Jehovah McDonald's, Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah.

And I'm just, God, make him right, make him okay.

God, make him okay.

And we get there and I carry him to a wheelchair, and we get to the hospital, emergency room, and he still hasn't opened his eyes.

And I'm like, oh my, he's not gonna be okay.

And so we're sitting there, I'm signing him in, I'm just praying, God, please, God, you know the promises.

I'll do anything you want me to do.

I'm already submitted.

I resubmit, God.

What do you want out of this life?

Just make my boy okay.

And Wyatt, as I'm signing in, he gets nauseous.

And I'm telling you, he had walked, had looked, nothing has happened with him.

And when he got nauseous, he sprung out of the wheelchair, he ran, dove, sliding across the room, gets in between the room and another doorway where there's a trash can, slides in and vomits in a trash can.

And weird time to celebrate, but I'm like, whoa! He's okay.

He can walk, he can run, and he can aim.

Like all I wanted.

I just wanted him to be okay.

I just wanted him to be himself.

I just wanted my boy back.

Got home that night and I was.

I don't I don't rent expensive movies.

I bought him a$25 movie.

The next day I went to the store five times, every Gatorade, anything the boy wanted.

That was the time why you had your chance.

I'd have given him anything, and I did.

I just wanted my son back and I wanted him right.

This is the picture, church, of David and you and me.

And God says, I just want you right.

Just come back.

You don't have to be hurt.

You don't have to sit in that.

All I want is for you to be right.

And I've already paid the price for your healing.

Just be right.

Just be right.