W4: A Humble Sinner (MS: Psalm 51:1-10; SS: 2 Samuel 11:1-27; 2 Chronicles 7:14)

Capture: Grab their attention with an illustration.

• Illustration/Story: Share a story about a time that you were forced to hide a secret. It

ate you alive to keep that locked away! If you’re willing to be vulnerable, illustrate

how you struggled with a secret sin that poisoned you until you repented.

Show Kenan and Kel video.

 Kenan was suing a tuna company because there was a screw in the tuna that almost killed him. He was confident that he was going to win this court date. The tuna company would grant him a lifetime worth of tuna and everything, but Kenan wanted that money, which was worth millions! So Kenan and Kel planned their whole thing to prepare for this court date. Kel looked super nervous in the scene, as if something was eating him up. When he went up on the stands as Kenan's first witness, he asked him where he was on the date of the incident. Kel screamed out that he did it! He was keeping a secret this whole time, and he was the one who accidentally put the screw in the tuna. Kel didn’t want to share this because Kenan was so passionate about getting the money. Even though this was a funny TV show, have you ever had to keep a secret that was eating you alive?Sin is toxic. It is always deadly and never avoidable. We all have pain in our lives

when we think about sin. The reality is that many haven’t tasted true spiritual freedom

because there might still sins being kept secret in our lives!

Context: 

The occasion for this psalm was when Nathan the prophet came to David to reprove him and prompt him to repent after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. 

So we see in verse one that David’s plea for God to be gracious to him that is based on God’s character. 

This whole Psalm is about David and him repenting. David is writing this to himself! 

David request for forgiveness is further illustrated with the images of wash me in terms of the removal of filth and cleanse in terms of ritual purification for participation in temple worship. (v. 2-3) 

Verse 4 David is pleading that he know that he did wrong. Him and only him to a Holy God. David here is not denying that he sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba, he knew he had committed the sin of adultery and murder! 

One key thing for our lives is that we understand that we are sinners and we repent to pray to God everyday. 

Even though David sinned against these people, David primary sin was against the Lord, who alone is the source and standard of righteousness. 

We see that David want the desire to know God in the hidden part of His wisdom. Grow in His wisdom to become what God created him to become. 

Verses 7-10 is the following of his confession of sin. David returned to his plea for forgiveness. 

We see David implored God’s mercy, which meant not giving him the death penalty he deserved for both murder and adultery. (Remember, sin=death) 

David understand this as we should as followers of Christ, David recognized that God in His justice cannot simply ignore sin, and that the penalty requires must still somehow be paid. 

David ask God to forgive him and to purify him with hyssop.

Hyssop is an important shrub mentioned in the Bible. Jewish slaves dipped a bunch of it in the blood of a slain lamb and applied some on both the lintel and doorpost of their houses prior to th ePassover. 

It is also used in ceremonial cleansing from skin disease and making a offering. 

So right here hyssop is portrayed as spiritual cleansing, which is parallel that he want to remove his sins from before God. 

So here we see how the Holy Spirit work in the Old Testament. Under the old covenant, the Spirit would come upon individuals to enable then to do remarkable work, but he could also depart form them (as we learned from Saul a few weeks ago) 

No where is the Spirit promised such that He might take up permanent residence in the rank-and-file OT believer. In David’s case, the Spirit came upon him so he could function skillfully as Israel’s king. 

So here in verse 10 and continuing forward, David was requesting that God not take away His special empowerment through the Spirit to function wisely in the role of Israel’s king. 

So how does this happen in our day today? Under the new covenant after the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit permanently comes upon and resides in believers, never to be taken away cause of Jesus has done on the cross! But that does not mean we can do whatever we want. We still must obey God’s word and do not sin no more! 

1. Sin is Poison to Our Soul

• Tension Question: Is there sin that has gone unrepentant in your life? Sin is like a

poison that eats you alive. Confession and repentance is the only source of true

healing!

• Scripture: 2 Samuel 11:1-27 — Summarize the story of the story of David and

Bathsheba for your group.

We are looking at David sin in chapter 11. Adultery was not the only sin. Let look at all what he had done. 

- Instead of David going to war against the Ammonites, he stayed home from the war. He was not doing what he supposed to do.David’s adultery 

we see that David is temptation from Bathsheba bathing. David sin was not in seeing Bathsheba, it was unlikely that he expected or planned to see her.We see David encounters temptation-  

- Not only David committed adultery in his heart up on the roof, now he knew that he had an opportunity to commmit it in practice. Adultery in the heart and mind is bad; and then in practice is far worse.David Pursues the Temptation 

- he laid with herDavid then embraces the temptation

We see David attempts to cover his sin. He try to make Uriah sleep with his wife. Uriah as a man of great integrity. He was willing to sacrifice his own desires and ease and he did not want to enjoy the comfort of home while his fellow soldiers endured hardship on the field of battle.David murders Uriah-  

David try again to cover his sin and then sends Uriah to battle with his own death sentence in hand cause he failed twice to cover his sin. 

David it put him in the front so he has a high chance of dying and he did. 

2. A Humble Heart Repents DAILY!

• Scripture: Psalm 51:1-10 — This Psalm is a song of repentance over the sin of

adultery that David committed with Bathsheba.

• This Psalm comes alive in an entirely new light when we realize what was going

through David’s mind when he wrote this song. This was his musical and spiritual

confession to God for his adultery!

• The theme in these ten verses, as well as the rest of the chapter, is consistent: “I have

sinned, and I am in need of cleansing!”

• David repents as a humble sinner who is broken over the sin in his life that has

caused destruction, as well as the death of his child!

• Like David, true humility in our hearts produces a pain and conviction over sin that

comes from the Holy Spirit. Moreover, a humble heart doesn’t stop with feeling

conviction — it repents!

• Repentance is choosing to turn around and go a different direction. Until you repent

from sin and choose a different path, you’ll never know true humility!

Bottom Line: A humble heart is repentant.

3. Repent Through Prayer

• Scripture: 2 Chronicles 7:14 — This powerful promise from God made to Solomon is

still alive and true for us today.

This is a prayer from Solomon, the son of David.mThis shows that there is always hope if God’s people will fall on their knees and pray as the people did at the dedication of Solomon’s temple. 

God calls His people to pray. Prayer is an earthly request for heavenly intervention. It is a tool we have been given in order to pull something down out of the invisible and into the visible. 

There’s 4 elements from this section we just read about prayer. 

1. We can approach God through our new-covenant relationship with the Son! 

2. The heart attitude of those who seek Him. God seeks those who “humble themselves.”Humble Christians get through to see God. 

3. To God’s call to “seek His face”. We need to seek God for His forgiveness and favor. 

4. For God’s people to “turn from their evil ways.” If we want to turn to God, we must turn to Him in repentance. Repentance is for us to make a 180 and turn back to Him when we did our own thing and change our heart and align it to the Word of God! 

• If you want humility, the first step in God changing your heart is coming to Him in

repentance. Often, God allows difficulty and pressure in our lives to reveal sin in us

that needs repentance! He often may allow the lack of rain or plagues to lead us to

repentance and prayer! (Verse 13)

Bring it to the Cross

“Repentance“ is not basically a religious word. It comes from a culture where people were essentially nomadic and lived in a world with no maps or street signs. It’s easy to get lost walking through the desert. You become aware that the country side is strange. You finally say to yourself, I’m going in the wrong direction. That’s the first act of repentance. The second act of repentance is to go in an alternate direction. It implies that you not only do this but you admit it to your companions.” 

When you understand that we need repentance everyday because of our sinful nature, we understand the more we need the gospel! The good news that God bring His son and lived the life we could not live and died the death that we should of died and rose from the grave on the third day! We understand it more clearly that we will always fall short because of our sinful nature but when you understand the importance of prayer, the importance of repentance, you will understand the importance of the gospel and have a personal relationship with Jesus! He is the key to everything! Especially right now! 

• God wants to heal us. God wants to forgive us. God wants to bless us. For these

things to be true, we first must humble ourselves, pray, and seek God’s face.

• Reflect on your own personal spiritual walk. Are you humbling your heart to pray

daily? To seek God’s face? Pursue humility and repentance this week in prayer!

• Application: Pursue humility and repentance in prayer.

Call: How do we respond to the message?

• Altar moment: In prayer both tonight and throughout this week, seek God’s face!

Pursue His humility by confessing and repenting of any sin that might have taken up

residence in your heart!