Sermon Tone Analysis

According to Dr. Linda Gottlieb, the practice of psychotherapy in the United States is losing its client base.

In 11 years the number of patients receiving psychological interventions plummeted by 30 percent.

The reasons for this decline are complex, but Dr. Gottlieb focuses on one trend: psychotherapy involves the long, hard work of facing our own issues, but many people today would rather blame others for their problems.

In other words, psychotherapists used to see patients who were unhappy and wanted to understand themselves.

Now they see more patients who come in "because they wanted someone else or something else to change."

As one of Gottlieb's colleagues put it, "I'd see fewer and fewer people coming in and saying, 'I want to change.'"

What is repentance?

Simply, A change of mind.

Today I wonder as Christians do we desire repentance hoping for change in us or hoping for everything else to change around us.

Sure, we know that we did wrong, but deep down inside we think it is because of other people messing with me, from upbringing, culture, and even God for not doing anything about it.

It’s chemical issue, I did wrong, but it is because I forgot my medication.

As a result, true repentance goes unrevealed.

Shane show me how to get rich.

It’s never, Shane show me how to be content.

Show me how to change my surroundings.

Never, Shane how do I change.

Show me how to fix my wife and my kids.

How do I fix my job situation?

Maybe I am part of the problem.

Maybe I am the problem.

We as the church, need to repent today.

Just take a look at our world, the culture, the core values in the world, ethics, the coming and looming elections, ect.

We are not being what we need to be.

Let us not be deceived… Before the world can be changed, we need to change.

Before the things around us that we want to be changed will change, we need to be changed.

What we must realize, is a church that will not repent, is part of the problem and not the solution.

We all need to turn from our sins today.

Stop looking at the sins of others and look at ourselves, fall to our knees in humility and beg the Lord for mercy.

This is our call today.

The call of Christ.

Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.

David was just rebuked by the Lord through the prophet Nathan; calling him out on his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah.

David was shown the gravity of his sin with a parable bringing real conviction in his heart.

He was brought to silence in shame and his words were few… “I have sinned against the Lord.”

The Lord gave him a kind and merciful gift in His Judgement, His Kindness, and the grace of repentance.

David with sorrow and peace in his heart, sits down with his lyre and writes…

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the words of our God stand forever.

The superscription of this Psalm shows us that this is what David wrote after Nathan rebuked him about his sin with Bathsheba.

This psalm now would now be a beautiful picture of true repentance in the heart of one who belongs to the Lord.

This is how we should respond when we are face to face with our own sins.

Repentance.

This Psalm teaches us 4 things about repentance.

Confession of Sin.

Reliance on God’s mercy.

Cleansing comes through blood.

New Obedience.

1.

The Blood

2. Whiter then Snow

3. The Kindness of the Cross

The first thing we will explore is the wonders of the precious blood of Christ.

Oh precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.

The second thing we will look into is vivid imagery of what it means that it makes us whiter than snow.

Blood makes us white?

Finally, we will look at the kindness of God the kindness of the cross, it is His kindness that leads us to repentance.

Thesis: Though our sin nature and the deceptions of this world continue to lead us to reject repentance, it is the continued compassion and kindness of our Lord that will lead us to repentance; the confession of sin, the reliance on God’s mercy, the blood of Christ, and the filling of the Spirit to experience even more change in our lives.

I.

The Blood

- Cleansing will come through blood.

A. We saw that the Lord is going to have mercy on David.

But this is begging an obvious question.

How in the world is he supposed to do it?

What do I mean?

Our God is a righteous judge and David transgressed the law, it is of no consequence, David is to be judged and condemned.

And if God is a Holy God than it is of His very nature to hate sin and if David is by his own admission that he is by nature a sinner.

We are natural enemies with God.

David is doomed?

Right?

B. What if a father, who is a judge, is face to face with his son who has broken the law?

Sure, the father loves his child as a father and his desire is to show mercy, but he is a judge and has the responsibility to judge those who break the law, even his own children.

What does he do?

The Lord showed us what He did.

C. The Lord shed blood.

The price was paid.

That’s what he does.

Vs. 7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

D. Hyssop?

It is a spongy type plant that even today grows in Palestine and tends to grow in crevices and on walls.

If you to look at the wailing wall today, you will see a plant growing on it… that plant is hyssop.

Because of its shape and its texture, the plant was used as a kind of brush.

The hyssop was used to sprinkle and brush the blood of the sacrifice on the sinner who was being cleansed.

Let’s look closer.

F. This is the ritual for the cleansing of a leper who was healed (which is a picture of us in our sins; unclean and in need of cleaning for final purification) The first thing is that the first bird was sacrificed, and its blood was mixed with pure water in a clay pot.

The hyssop plant was dipped in it and the blood was sprinkled on the person.

Then blood with pure water was sprinkled on the other bird and set free.

G.

This is a picture of how the blood of Christ cleanses us.

Never a need to make a sacrifice again.

H.

And our sins have flown away it has been taken away from us like a bird.

I. What can wash away my sins, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh the beauty of being covered by the blood of Jesus.

- On November 26, 2008, a gang of terrorists stormed the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, India.

After the carnage had left 200 people dead, a reporter interviewed a guest who had been at the hotel for dinner that night.

The guest described how he and his friends were eating dinner when they heard gunshots.

Someone grabbed him and pulled him under the table.

The assassins came striding through the restaurant, shooting at will, until everyone (or so they thought) had been killed.

Miraculously, this man survived.

When the interviewer asked the guest how he lived when everyone else at his table had been killed, he replied, "I suppose because I was covered in someone else's blood, and they took me for dead."

L. We like lepers are in need of purification.

And of course, we find it in Christ who is willing.