Why God Loves To Forgive - Psalm 51

Why do you and I run from the Lord?

Even in our hardness of heart, you know, we sometimes slip away and get distracted with the cares of this life.

Easily, even as Christians, we find ourselves not as close to God as we once were.

We find ourselves a little less tender in our conscience, a little more distracted in our hearts towards the things of this world.

We find ourselves excusing ourselves, making little of our sins.

We don't realize just how awful the sins are and how big they are.

And it leads us away from God.

You see sin, by its very nature, takes us from God.

You can't commit the smallest sin without taking a step away from the Lord.

Every sin doesn't bring you closer to Christ.

It takes you further away.

Sin leads to separation from God.

The more you sin, the more you're able to sin, the further you get from God.

Some of you are very distant from the Lord.

You're not close at all.

Some of us are not as close as we once was.

We don't realize that because of the deceitfulness of sin and the hardness of the heart.

Another reason sin takes us away from God is because of guilt, guilt and shame.

You know what it's like when you've done something and you feel embarrassed about it.

You don't go and expose it and highlight it and go, look at me.

I'm proud of this. You try to cover it up.

Remember Adam and Eve after they sinned, they went and hid in the bushes.

They hid from the voice of the Lord and they didn't want God to see them.

And it's the guilt and the shame that we seek to run from the Lord.

And I believe guilt is the heart of most.

In fact, I think it's in some sense the heart of most psychological problems in this world.

I think psychology is essentially trying to remedy the guilt problem without a God.

Guilt is what destroys people and all people have it.

A guilty conscience.

I think man's attempt to be religious is their attempt to cover their guilt or to eliminate their guilt.

A guilty conscience will eat at your soul and many ways of dealing with guilt is to excuse yourselves.

Make excuses, justify your sins and rather than being a perpetrator, you're the victim.

I'm a victim of circumstances and I misbehave or I've done this or I've done that because of the situation that I'm in.

Surely God understands and who would not have done what I did under such difficult and extreme circumstances.

So that's a way of making ourselves feel better about things that we're ashamed of and embarrassed about.

There's much to be ashamed about in our lives.

And we want to cover that up and hide it before God.

One of the symptoms or one of the indicators that you have guilt that you're not dealt with, un-delt with guilt, is you're very critical of everybody around you.

You're critical of this person and you see the specs in other people's eyes.

Now there is a big beam in your own eye, but that's okay.

You can see every little flaw and fault and everybody else's eye.

And that's a way of making yourself feel better because everybody else is such a deep hardened sinner that I'm not like them.

So you compare yourself with those who have sins in their lives.

And you put yourself as a judge over others.

So that critical spirit that is easily offended and easily sees sins in others is likely, likely a sin in your own life where you're covering up your own hardness, your pride, your self-righteousness.

Remember King David, he did an awful thing.

He committed adultery.

He knew it was wrong and he did it.

And he knew it was wrong because the woman Bathsheba became pregnant because of this sin.

And he wanted to cover up the sin.

He wanted to cover up his mistake.

He didn't want it to be exposed.

And so he asked the general Joab to bring Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, back from the battle and wanted him to go and spend time with his wife so that it would look like it was his baby and not, it was Uriah's baby and not his.

He's trying to cover up his sins.

And see, that's a technique of guilt, covering up your sins and minimizing it, pushing it back from your conscious, not dealing with it, not exposing it, but hiding it.

David went as far to commit more sins to cover up his sins.

When Uriah refused to go in and spend time with his wife, out of honor, he stayed outside of the house because he realized his companions were out at battle.

And in no way is he going to take comfort in his own home when his men are at war.

David schemed another thing.

He had Joab leave Uriah at the front of the battle, then leave him so that he would be killed in battle.

So he committed murder to cover up his sin of adultery.

Now this is murder.

And David, after that, when Nathan came to him and talked about this guy who had all these sheep and wanted to kill a sheep to provide for a feast, he went to his neighbor who only had one little lamb and took that little, one little sheep away from his neighbor and killed it.

And David got so incensed, got so mad and so angry.

You see, those who are living in sin and covering up their guilt, it's easy for those who are doing that to find sin in others and to be even angry, angry with other people's sin.

He wanted to kill this guy at first.

Now, there's a lot of reasons we want to run from God and maybe you are, in fact, if you're lost, you are running from God. And some of you who are Christians, you're not running to God. And it's because of your sins.

It's because of your sins that keeps you from God.

And it seems counterintuitive knowing that God is a just God and he's upset with you.

It's like, I can't, I can't take my sins to the Lord.

I don't want to. I'm too embarrassed. I'm too shamed.

I need the intuitive nature in us to say, I need to clean myself up first.

I will stop sitting and wait for two or three weeks.

And after I have a clean record for a good while, after I prove myself to be a better person and God can be pleased with me, then I will go to God and ask for forgiveness for those sins that I've committed.

I need to do something to make up for what I've done.

I need to redeem myself. I need to prove that I'm worthy of forgiveness.

But that'll never work. It'll never work.

You can never wait until you're worthy to come to God.

In this psalm, we have David's repentance.

When Nathan said to him, you are the man, you're the man.

You are the one I'm talking about.

It's not this rich man who took this one man's only sheep.

It's you who have all this wealth and all these other things and these, all the plenty of wives you went and took this one man's wife.

You're the man.

Now, I want you today to go. I am the person.

I don't want you or I don't want you to think I'm thinking of you personally.

So just thinking about me, you know, I'm not thinking about you, but I want you to think about you.

I want you to think right now what sins are in my life that I haven't exposed before God.

I want you to even pray the prayer of the psalmist who said, search me, oh Lord, and see if there's any evil way in my life.

See if there's something I'm missing.

I want you to do an examination and ask God to examine your heart and expose your guilt.

And then once you have a measure of guilt, any guilt or a lot of guilt, I want you to come to God with your guilt.

Now you don't come to God with your righteousness.

You don't come to God with your good works.

You don't come to God with your with.

Hey, I prayed this morning.

I read my Bible.

I'm a good Christian.

I'm you don't come to God with some sense of I deserve his favor.

I deserve his goodwill.

You don't come to God that way.

You you come to God with your sins in your hands.

You come to God confessing, admitting your guilt.

You come to God with your guilt.

As the song seems reads, nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I clean.

Neck had come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace.

Foul I do that fountain fly, worse me saviour or I die.

I come to you, dear God, as a wicked man.

I come to you as the followed.

I come to you as someone who's unholy.

I come to you, God, as someone who's in pure.

I've come to you, dear God, knowing I'm a sinner.

I come to you.

I don't want to clean myself up.

I can't clean myself up to you, but I come to you with my sense with all my sense.

And we have 10 reasons in Psalm 51 why you can run to God with your sense.

So I don't know if I can do that.

God's going to kill me.

He's going to kill me.

He's going to throw me into hell.

I need to I need to pretend like I'm not a sinner.

I need to hide my sin.

I'm scared of him.

I need to run from him or I'm afraid of his justice and his righteousness.

But here are 10 reasons he's willing to forgive you.

10 reasons why you sinner can come to God.

Jesus says I didn't come for the righteous ones.

I come for the sinners.

And here's 10 reasons you can pray to God.

And 10 reasons you can be certain he will forgive you.

Why you can run to God and flee to God and take refuge in God.

You know, as a sinner, you can come.

One, we see in verse one because of his love and mercy.

Remember, God is a God of love.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love.

Here's David.

He says he's come to turn that he is the sinner.

He's the one who who committed adultery.

He's the one who's a murderer.

And what would he come to God?

Why would God receive him?

He's a murderer.

He says, Oh, have mercy.

Have compassion upon me.

Forgive me, dear God, according to your great love, according to your steadfast love.

The fact that your love doesn't come up and come down.

You can go to the Lord sinner believer, even you who are Christians and sometimes us Christians, you can go, I've done so much as a Christian.

I'm just ashamed to go back to the well.

I'm ashamed to go back to God again and again and again and again.

It's like every day, every day I'm asking for forgiveness and it's going to run out.

But remember, his love is steadfast.

Your spouse love comes up and down and it grows stronger and weaker.

Some days your spouse is more forgiving.

Other days your spouse doesn't want to talk to you.

But don't judge God's based upon your spouse's waiting law.

God's love for you is steadfast.

Your sins does not remove his love for you.

Your sins did not take one ounce of love away from you.

David is a man who was loved by God.

And he understood that he was still yet loved by God.

So you can come to God in your sins because he loves you.

And his love endures forever.

Not only is a God who loves, but he's a merciful God.

He says, have mercy of him on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgression.

The New King James says, according to your tender mercies, literally your gentle compassion.

God's heart is not hard.

You know, you can do a lot of things to a lot of people.

They become hard hearted towards you.

They become stiff neck.

They don't want to see you.

They don't want to talk to you.

They're resistant.

They become bitter towards you.

They hold a grudge against you.

But God has tender.

Mercies.

His heart is soft towards you.

He's not like a hardened king who will not hear or have compassion.

But his mercies are like a mother towards her newborn child.

He's moved easily to compassion.

He is tender in his compassion.

So have mercy upon me.

You can run to God because he is compassionate.

And he's like his compassion is so tender and so compassionate.

It doesn't take much to move him to say you're forgiven.

I just feel I feel bad for you.

I feel sorry for you.

I I I see your brokenness and please please I see how difficult this is for you.

And he's easily moved to be compassionate towards you.

The ESV says he's abundant.

His abundant mercies literally he's has multitude of mercies.

His mercies do not run out.

King James verses is according to the multitude of died tender mercies.

Bought out my transgressions.

One version says have mercy on me.

Oh God according to with your merciful love and in your abundant compassion.

Imagine.

I mean you're an eyes compassion kind of has a limit.

You keep hurting me and I'm going to get frustrated eventually.

Hold you at a distance.

My God's mercies are new every morning.

They're new and he he doesn't grow hard.

After years of rebellion.

But he's tender and because of this he will forgive you.

Daniel nine nine the Lord our God is merciful and forgiving.

He's a man who can run to God for forgiveness.

He said I don't know what to do.

God will forgive you.

The second reason you can run or flee to God.

With your sins.

Don't run from God or hide your sins but take your sins to God.

Flea to God because God can cleanse you.

Look at verse two through four.

Or me through thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgression and my sin is ever before me.

Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your side.

You see sin produces great shame and guilt with us.

This is why David tried to hide his adultery.

And didn't want people to know that he had a child.

That would be born out of web lock.

That would be embarrassing for him.

That would be a shameful act.

And your sins.

Your sins you try to cover you try to put a facade of self-righteousness and you.

You may be a tomb that's got dead bones in it but you want.

To put some type of white worship all over it to make yourself look righteous and clean and clean.

But deep down you know there's something in your heart that's just not right.

There's thoughts in your mind that are not pleasant.

That if your thoughts of your inner soul was exposed and put out in front of everybody you would.

You wouldn't even come to church anymore.

You'd be so embarrassed if the true nature of your heart was revealed to the world.

All your may look and have learned how to put on a good facade for others to look at you as a righteous woman or a good mother or a good man.

But deep down your sins causes you to feel ashamed.

Sin may be fun.

But is inherently wrong and shameful and embarrassing.

I once had a conversation with a man struggling with homosexuality.

And he told me in a moment.

A weakness.

That he knew was wrong.

You know you can't get him to admit that.

They're not going to admit that.

But he said he do he knew deep down that it was embarrassing.

And he said the only way he was able to deal with it is to continue on in it.

Just to indulge himself further into it.

And this round himself with others that would tell him it's okay.

And that's what he did.

And I lived a lifestyle.

Indulging in that sin.

But he says when I sleep at night when I lay down at night.

I said I I do feel guilt.

I am embarrassed about it.

And that's the nature of such a disgraceful sin.

Let's be honest about homosexuality.

If you think about it, it is very unnatural.

And very gross.

It's embarrassing.

It's shameful.

That community has to parade it.

They have to say we're proud of it.

To cover up their guilt.

And they're not going to be satisfied until every voice says it's okay.

And the reason they're going to Dean Christians as hateful Christianity as hate speech.

Because it only takes one lone voice in their conscience to condemn them.

The whole world can say it's okay.

But one little girl can say that's wrong.

And that will verify with their conscience.

And that alone produces the shame of what they're doing is evil.

But all sin is like this selfishness.

We all struggle with selfishness.

And selfishness.

If you think about selfishness, no one brags about selfishness.

Well, some people do.

And the reason athletes brag about their selfishness and their pride is because of the same reason homosexuals brag about their sin to cover it up.

But we do have our sins that we have figured out a way to boast in.

Make ourselves feel better about our sins.

But you see, David couldn't run from his sins.

And once he's committed them, he couldn't take it away.

He couldn't undo it.

Ever had a sin like that you did.

And once it come to your mind that you did it, you're like, oh, no.

There's no reverse button.

There's no erase button.

I can't act like I didn't do that.

I can't undo that.

I did.

It's like that's the hardness and the difficulty and the shame of it.

It's like, I can't I can't pretend like it didn't happen.

It happened.

What do I do?

And you look to the world, you look to your friends, you look inside and there's no remedy.

There's no way of cleansing it.

There's no way of undoing it.

Now you have a dirty conscience.

Now you have dirt and field, not just on the outside, but you feel dirty on the inside.

You feel wicked.

You feel kind of shameful.

It's like, what do you do with that shame?

What do you do with it?

Where's going to cleanse it?

How are you going to remedy of your sins?

You're going to take a.

A pilgrims pilgrimage to drizzle.

You think that's going to work.

You're just going to go to church for a while.

You're going to give some money away.

You're going to do this.

You're going to do that.

You think that's going to undo your guilt.

You will remain miserable, full of shame and guilt.

You may suppress that guilt.

You may cover it up.

You may entertain yourself to death so you don't have to face the music.

You distract yourself all you want, but at the end of the day, the guilt lies in the conscience.

It will eat your soul.

If you don't find forgiveness, it will be the thing that tortures you for all eternity.

No therapist will be able to help you.

Limited it.

And I'm convinced in my experience working in the mental health field that most therapists go is to blame your mother, your father, to bring your health, bring chemicals, imbalance, to blame something other than yourself to help you deal with your conscience.

But there's no remedy as long as you're excusing yourselves and blaming everything but yourself.

Here's one you have to do.

If you want to be cleansed, you have to admit that you're a sinner.

For I know my transgressions.

I know them.

I can act like I don't, but I do know them.

And my sins is ever before me.

Here's David.

He's he's coming to terms that he is an adulterer.

Maybe I had something like a tornado come in, you know, like it devastated your home and it just like it changed your life forever.

And he's like, man, I can't go back.

I can't preset the life prior to that.

And now that he's an adulterer, he's an adulterer.

And then a murderer.

You're a thief.

You're a liar.

You're a cheat.

You're a dollar.

Raise your hand if you've been sinless.

Raise your hand if you have no guilt.

Raise your hand if you've been sinless since last Sunday.

Raise your hand if you if you're in a moral position to judge others.

Of the specs in their eye.

Without having any specs in your own eye.

What do you do?

Well, admit to your sins.

Confess them, see them.

And realize that no one can.

You can't even cleanse you or eliminate those sins other than God.

Verse four says against you and you only have a sin and done what is evil in your side.

You can't run to the therapist.

You can't even run to the person you sinned against.

There's no one and no person to go in this world.

To fix your guilt.

To undo your sins.

To eliminate your transgressions.

Only God.

Only God is the place to run to.

And you're running from God.

You're you're running in the opposite direction of the only hope that you have.

Turn around and face God and run towards him.

Confess your sins.

And he will forgive you.

He will cleanse you.

He will take the guilt, the shame, the dirtiness, and he will worse that away.

He'll take your sins and throw them into the sea and forget them as if they never happen.

You could actually hit the reset button by going to God.

What do you mean?

You mean all my sins I've ever committed and the sins I've just committed this morning and the pride of my heart and the the iniquity that I've stored up and all this sin that is ever before me.

I can get rid of it.

No, you can't.

But God can.

And he does.

Here's the faithful promise of God.

This is why you can run to God with your sins.

If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us.

To forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you from all your unrighteousness.

Isaiah 43 25.

I even I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and remembers your sin.

Know more.

What good news is this?

Third reason you should run to God with your sins because of the gospel.

Look at verse four.

It says against you and you only have a sin and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

This is saying two things that seems to be impossible.

That God can be both righteous and merciful.

He can keep his promise that if you come to him, he'll forgive you.

But he will also remain just and righteous in his declaration and in his judgments.

How can God be both just and merciful?

See that God's a just God.

Why would you take your sins to him?

Would that not mean that he's surely going to condemn you?

And if God's going to condemn me, I best run as long as I can and take the rest of my life and flee from the from the presence of God and run from his wrath because he's going to catch up with me one day and visually throw me to hell so I can't face them now.

I don't want to go to hell now.

So how can I run to God if he's a just and angry God and he's going to do what's right?

Well, we know the remedy is Jesus Christ.

He can be both just in his judgments and uphold his promises and his word to you because Christ can take the judgment on your behalf.

The death of Christ gives us confidence that we can go to God with our sins.

We know he will forgive us.

His word will be uphold.

He will not turn you aside and push you away and say, no, you're too much of a sinner for me.

You've done too much.

He will not say that to you if you come to him.

He will forgive you if you look for him through him and say, Lord, please have mercy upon me.

A sinner.

He will forgive you, but yet remain just in his judgments because Christ took those sins and paid for them on your behalf.

I tell you, I know this is the gospel that we've heard for years, but it's the sweetest thing I've ever heard.

It is the most glorious news ever.

And the more I see my sins, even as a believer, the more I have to have that gospel.

That's the only thing I have.

Let me confess to you.

Pastor Jeff Johnson has nothing but Jesus Christ.

I'm not going to claim anything on the day of judgment.

I don't have anything to boast in.

I don't.

He said, Jeff, you've done this.

And I don't.

I think even my best stuff comes up short.

But I know a man.

He's my only hope.

He's all that I have.

Pastor Jeff is not a good man.

I don't have anything to boast in, but Pastor Jeff is forgiven.

I don't have anything to boast in.

I don't have anything to boast in.

I don't have anything to boast in.

Our disposition is not towards love and holiness.

Our disposition is towards pride and selfishness.

Psalm 58, 3, the wicked are exchanged from the womb.

The lies go straight from birth.

You run to God, not because you can change your sin nature any more than a leper can change its spots.

You can't change yourself.

This is the message here.

This is good news.

You don't have to wait to become someone to come to you.

Don't have to become a Christian before you become a Christian.

You don't have to cleanse yourself before you can be cleansed.

You don't have to sanctify yourself before you can be sanctified.

You don't have to do anything before you can be forgiven.

You come as you are.

You come as a sinner.

This is the free-ness of it.

This is the good news of it.

You come in your bad condition.

You come weak, wounded.

You come as a broken woman, a broken man.

You come as a sinner and he will cleanse you and he will teach you his ways.

This is what he says.

Verse 6, you delight in truth in the inward being and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

See, God delights in transforming us by his word.

He teaches us the ways of righteousness.

He gives us the wisdom which is from above and he and only he can teach your heart these things.

I can teach your head.

I can tell you the wisdom that's from above, from an external way, reading the Word of God, expounding the Word of God, but I can't, none of us can, parents cannot.

We cannot take the Word of God and instill it in the heart.

We're incapable of changing the heart.

But come to Christ as a fool.

Admit your foolishness.

Come to them in your ignorance and he will teach you.

He'll give you a new heart.

He'll take the Word of God and change your heart and transform you.

You'll be sanctified by the Word and made into a new creation.

And even as a Christian will be going from one stage of sanctification to the next from grace to grace, from truth to truth, it is foolishness that leads us into sin.

It is wisdom that leads us into righteousness.

You see in verse seven, you can run to God with your sins because he transforms you from within by the power of his word.

Purge me with hiship and I shall be clean.

Or me and I shall be broader than snow.

All your guilt, all the stain of your sins can be cleansed from within.

One time, one time something happened to me when I was in my early twenties.

And I saw something and I'll just put it this way.

I went home and took a shower.

It was intuitively. I wasn't physically dirty.

I just felt so dirty.

And I don't know what it was in me. I just went and took a shower.

And I stayed in that shower with soap and soap and soap and soap and soap.

And you come out of the out just as dirty as you went in.

You can't unsee stuff.

You've done stuff. You've seen stuff. You behaved wickedly.

And you can't do anything about it.

You can't get baptized and the outward water of baptism cleans the heart within.

But God can. God can take that heart.

And only God can take that heart and worship and make it as white as snow.

To be newborn, to have new life, that old life, all those sins be no more.

And you can have a new heart.

Today you don't have to leave this room with any guilt.

None. You can leave with your sins forgiven.

Now I want you to I'm only on four and I got six more.

You don't have to wait to the other ones.

We're not going to have an altar call. You can have your heart cleanse right now.

Five. Run to God with your sins to regain joy.

Look at verse eight. Let me hear joy and gladness.

Gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

You see, it's your sins that have drove you in despair.

Johnny football or Johnny Munzel at one time won the Heisman Trophy as a freshman.

And he was considered he went from hardly anyone knowing his name and just a few short months of being one of the most well-known athletes in the world.

And it utterly wrecked him.

And he went from drugs to more drugs.

He went from partying to greater levels of partying.

He even got drafted into the NFL, never practiced, never studied the films and anything of that nature. He just went into sin to sin.

And he reports of that time that he never felt more empty in his life.

He is well known as a great athlete and he was wealthy and felt empty to the point that he tried to commit suicide.

Your sins are not leading you to joy.

I give you a pleasure for a moment.

They give you a high. They distract you from your guilt, but they bring you into deeper despair and misery.

None of you who are living in sin are happy.

None of you are fulfilled.

So even as Christians, we find ourselves discontent.

We're just wanting the next thing. We're on a shopping spree in our mind.

Even if we don't have money to purchase things, we're constantly wanting something to purchase.

We're just discontent.

We don't have the joy. We have lost it.

You see, not only does our sin make us miserable, but sometimes God, if we belong to God, He breaks our bones.

Look at this. Let me hear joy and gladness.

Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Sometimes God has to break us, to chastise us.

If we're running from God, sometimes the only way to get us to stop, He must break our legs.

Sometimes God must allow us to come to the end of ourselves and become miserable, to show us our misery.

Out of love, He may have broken one of our bones.

But if one of your bones or many of your bones are broken right now, and if you see the depth of your misery and you see that this world has nothing to offer you, your sin has caused you to lose your joy, then come back to God.

In verse 12, he says, restore to me the joy of your salvation.

It's been a long time, you may think to yourself, that I've been truly joyful.

It's been a long time that my heart's leaped and be filled with the fullness of God's salvation and the joy of my salvation.

I remember the early days.

For me, at the age of 20, I almost killed myself, and God intervened, and I think for almost 12 months solid, I was the happiest person you'd ever seen.

I think I was just, I couldn't get over the fact.

And sometimes we forget what God's done for us, and we're just in the routine of the Christian life.

It becomes just a duty.

It's not the joy that's set before us that we do and live and run to God.

It's just methodically carrying out our responsibilities.

Well, come back to God, and He'll restore your joy, and He'll heal your broken bones.

6. Run to God with your sins to regain a right spirit.

Look at verse 9.

Hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

If your spirit is critical towards others, or if you're easily irritable, frustrated, displeased, if you're always seeing specks in people's eyes, and you're overly critical, or if you're overly frustrated, immiscible, discontent, something's not right with your spirit.

Your spirit is disgruntled.

Because the Bible says, where does wars and fighting come from within you?

Why are you always angry with your spouse?

Why do you have so much marriage problems?

James diagnoses it does not come from within you.

War you don't have because you ask, you don't receive because you're asking a miss.

You want things to consume on your own passions.

You're just selfish, James says.

This is what's caused your spirit to be out of line and disgruntled.

Where does pride come from?

Where does self-righteousness come from?

Self-righteousness comes from unrepentant sin.

So let us get the beam out of our eyes.

Let us go to the Lord ourselves.

Say, Lord, search me.

See if there's any evil way.

I don't want any sin in my life, unrepentant sin.

And God can renew a right spirit of humility and kindness and gentleness and meagness.

All those fruits of the spirit that we all long to have, oh, God can restore those to our soul and give us a sense of humility when we think better of others than we do ourselves.

Wouldn't that be wonderful to regain that?

And there's where the joy is.

And there's where happiness is.

Some of us are fighting to keep our reputation.

Just come down.

It's too much work.

It's too miserable to have this facade of their reputation.

Just come down and confess your sins before God.

Seven, run to God with your sins so that you may remain in His presence.

Look at verse 11.

Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

You know, one of the most dreadful words I think it could ever be said to you would be by God when you think that you're going to go to heaven.

But he says, depart from me, for I never knew you.

All this time you were a hypocrite.

All this time you were a false professor.

All this time you were not a true, genuine believer.

Now he's going to keep his own.

He's not going to lose his elect.

But if we're living in sin, the Bible tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling and to examine ourselves, to make sure.

And there's no better way if you're struggling with assurance, there's no better way than just do what unbelievers need to do.

You can be certain of your forgiveness.

You can be certain that Christ will receive you.

Say to God, please don't cast me from your presence.

Do not take your spirit of conviction from me.

Break my bones if you have to.

Call me to yourself.

Don't leave me to wander in my own way.

Don't allow me to be hard-hearted and to continue in this path of sin and hardness and wickedness.

Oh, Lord, please don't allow me to run from you.

Come after me.

I want to say one little word.

I know that.

Forgive me.

I forgive me if I feel like I'm preaching along, but forgive me because I'm so burdened.

But one of the words I want to say to you, unbelievers, the worst thing that can happen is you don't have conviction anymore.

For God to leave you to yourself.

Where you can sin without conviction.

Oh, Lord, don't leave us.

Don't leave me, Jeff Johnson, dear God.

This salvation is too serious.

My soul is the most valuable thing I have.

It's too serious.

Hey, run to God with your sins to regain a willing heart of obedience.

Look at verse 12.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.

See, God is going to keep us.

I believe that I believe he's going to keep his own.

He may have to break our bones, but we don't want our bones to be broken.

I don't want to have to be always corrected and chastised to stay in the faith.

I don't need.

I don't want that.

I've had my bones broken.

I have been disciplined by God.

Sometimes we're so disciplined by God, we look up and say, God, what is it you want me to learn?

I'm ready to learn it.

I want to know.

I want to know what you're teaching me and I want to be humble.

I want to be obedient.

I want to be I want to be holy.

If there's anything in my life, please show it to me.

My bones hurt.

And uphold me with a willing spirit.

I want to be a willing follower.

I don't want to be the one you have to chase him with a rod.

I don't want to be an unwilling, resistant disciple.

I want to be a happy disciple who hears an old baze with a happy heart.

I want that joy of obedience.

Yes, sir.

I'll follow you for the joy that is set before me.

I'm willing to endure whatever you have for me.

I don't want to go kicking and screaming.

Needing constant correction and disciplining.

Lord uphold us with a willing spirit.

Let us run to Christ now so we don't have to continue to be corrected by God.

I mean, come now.

Some of you Christians need to come right now.

Right now, before God may have to come after you more severely.

Out of love you would come after you.

You want him to come after you.

Don't take your rod of correction away from me.

But please, I want you not to have to use that rod of correction.

Nine.

We're almost done.

Run to God with your sins to regain your usefulness.

Look at verse 13.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you.

You know, one time sometimes God allows us to sin, maybe commit adultery.

Even what David he he murdered somewhat.

God allows that.

So that when we are.

Forgiven and brought back to restoration.

We can be better useful in his hands.

We can teach other righteous people how to be righteous.

That we can teach sinners.

Have committed the sins that we have committed.

To be restored and know your way.

Who here doesn't want to be useful tool in the hands of God to lead sinners in the path of righteousness.

I want to only get 40 years left if I have lucky.

I want that to be useful.

Be useful in the hands of God.

Come to God in your sins so that you can be forgiven.

And you can lead others to forgiveness in Christ.

Ten.

Last reason you should run at least the last reason in this text.

Run to God with your sins is that you can properly worship him in humility.

We see this in verses 14 through 19.

You see verse 14 15 only after we have been forgiven.

Do we properly understand God's glory and his justice.

Look at verse 14.

Deliver me from blood guilt.

Tenus.

You know I'm a murderer forgive me the fact that I killed someone.

Oh God oh God of my salvation.

And my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

Oh Lord open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.

You see those who are forgiven.

Can't help but love God's righteousness.

The very righteousness that scares the unrighteous the very righteousness that makes sinners fearful of God for those who are forgiven can see the righteousness that are fulfilled in Jesus Christ is something worthy of praise and worship.

We can see him God's righteousness and justice because we understand that we are forgiven at the cross.

And the more that we have been forgiven the more we can worship.

The Bible says this the more who is forgiven much loves much.

In fact we read that in Luke for those of us are reading through the gospel of Luke.

We saw how Jesus took Mary Magdalene and compared.

She was she was a very shameful sinner and compared her love with Peter's love who was a fisherman.

Mary Magdalene wept over the feet of Jesus anointed his feet with her tears and took her hair worshiped him wiping his feet.

And then Peter's like why are you allowing that to happen.

Jesus looked at Peter says hey when I come into your house you didn't even give me water to wash my feet.

You didn't even give me a towel.

I hear this one who has been forgiven much.

She has done what you haven't done.

You've seen we can run to God with our sins because seeing that we are forgiven by God we can worship God properly.

Now let me say it this way.

The thing that kills worship is self righteousness.

That's the thing that kills it. You know any type of look at me in our worship.

I've heard some praise and worship songs it says like I'm doing this and I've done this and I'm I'm I'm you know like no no that's not helpful.

That's not helpful.

Worship is not self centered or I start even trying to get God to look at us.

We might want to sing about nothing in my hands I bring.

That's OK to talk about.

But we don't want to go hey look look at me.

We're going to worship God. We go look I'm a sinner.

All I have is sin.

But look at that man named Jesus Christ.

Now he's worthy of worship.

He's who I pray. He's he's the reason I'm joyful.

He's worthy.

I'm going to hide behind him.

Don't look at me. I must decrease that Christ might increase and not just in the church but increase in my own thoughts and my own evaluation to think less of me and more of Christ.

Now that's worship.

And only when we go to God with our sins do we properly understand that we're unworthy.

We need to see our unworthiness to be able to see the worthiness of Jesus Christ.

Now the proper spotlight and glory is on him and not ourselves.

We see this in verse 16.

For you do not delight in sacrifice or would give it.

You will not be pleased with a burnt offering that David is thinking.

He's thinking here I just committed murder. I'm a daughter.

What animals are going to take care of this. He's already known had to sacrifice hundreds of cows and lambs.

He's a wealthy man.

He says this is not going to do it.

I can't just bring more animals to the to the temple and say hey sacrifice these for my sins.

He knows that's not going to cleanse his heart.

He says if that's what you want it if you if you want it more sacrifice for me I would bring it but that's not going to work.

You say well I'll go to church more I'll pray more and I'll sacrifice I'll give more to the offering place.

That's not going to work. That's not going to work.

You can't come to God and get forgiveness by what you do or your sacrifices.

Rather we see in verse 17 what you must do.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and contrite heart.

Oh God.

You will not despise humility.

Humility is when you say I have nothing.

I am nothing. I have nothing to present to you. All I have is filthy rags.

Please Lord beat your chest.

Not like the Pharisees thought he was something.

But you're more like that tax collector.

You're the murderer. You're the adulterer. You're the idolater.

This be your chest. Oh Lord I have mercy upon me.

Center.

I come to you as I am.

Broke it.

That he will not despise.

Humble yourself before the mighty hand of God lower yourself.

God will.

Because all you have God will lift you up.

God will forgive you. And then verse 18 and 19.

It gives us the proper place for sacrifices and good works and worship.

Look at verse 18 do good design.

That is God you do good design and your good pleasure build up the walls of Jerusalem.

Then will you delight and write sacrifices and burn offerings and hope burnt offerings.

Then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Listen there's a place to bring the offerings and the bulls and the sacrifices.

There's a place for the temple is not going to cleanse you of your sins.

But once you are cleansed and God does a work in your life then you can bring your good works as a sweet smelling aroma to the Lord.

Then your prayers are sweet before God after you humbles yourself before the Lord you have nothing.

Then you're built up by God to be able to worship God and serve God in a way that's pleasing to him.

But you begin with humility not self righteousness.

In conclusion God forgave this adulterer murderer.

Nathan told David God told Nathan to tell David I have put your sins away.

You will not die.

Why can you come to God because God is good because of the loving kindness and mercy of the Lord.

Those who come to God with nothing but their sin nothing but their guilt and their shame will leave God forgiven.

They will leave forgiven cleansed and full of joy. Amen.

Thank you.