Recovery from Failure thru a Broken and Contrite Heart 07-17-2022
Transcript Search
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
The Puppies 1st Sin
The Puppies 1st Sin
Max Lucado had a puppy when he was a boy.
It was sweat and soft and cuddly.
The puppies mother died the day it was born so Max had to feed it milk from baby bottles.
Max and the puppy were very close
One day, Max took a bowl of food in the back yard for the puppy
who was having fun barking and ,
chasing and
snapping at,
a butterfly.
Max called out to the puppy to come for dinner.
The puppy sat down, and it looked back at Max.
Then it looked at the butterfly,
Looked back at max and took off after the butter fly again.
For the first time in it’s life, the little puppy had a decision to make,
a conflict to resolve.
Should it do what it’s master wanted,
or just keep having fun?
The puppy chose fun and chased, and snapped and jumped at the butterfly
until it flew over the fence and left the yard.
The puppy stared at the fence a while but the butterfly wasn’t coming back.
Then the puppy sat again, and looked back at Max.
Slowly, it got up and started walking over to Max,
head down, it looked like it felt guilty,
knowing it had disobeyed.
And Max was not happy with the puppy right then.
Sometimes people do the same thing.
We know what God wants us to do,
or what our parents want us to do,
but we choose to chase the butterflies around us instead,
and then we feel guilt and shame and fear our punishment.
Max say
“Man cannot cope with guilt alone . . .”
Going to church doesn’t fix our guilt,
Giving to God doesn’t fix our guilt.
Because it’s never enough to blot out our sins.
We need to stop being supper nice,
we need to confess our sins and ask forgiveness.
Max saw the genuine remorse and shame in the puppies face and he
kindly called her over to him again.
Tina, the puppy sensed the forgiveness in his tone and switched to bounding over to him.
All was forgiven.
Her guilt was gone.
When we blow it, and make a wrong choice,
When we feel guilt, because we have done wrong,
God is watching to see how we respond.
Because
“… God will not reject a heart that is broken and sorry for sin. (based on Ps 51:17)
Let’s Pray.
King David pronounces his own judgement
King David pronounces his own judgement
In 2 Samuel 11 we have the full account of David’s sin, starting with seeing beautiful Bathsheba bathing in the evening,
Inquiring about who she was,
and sending for her.
Bathsheba was a married women so the king committed adultery that night.
Some time later, Bathsheba sent word to the king that she was pregnant.
And king David tried to cover up his sin by giving Uriah, her husband a chance to come home and take a break from the war, but Uriah would not enjoy the luxuries of home and heart while his men were out fighting the war.
David spent time with Uriah and tried to get him drunk enough to lower his standards, and go home to his wife before returning to the war, but that didn’t work either.
So David saw he wasn’t going to be able to cover his sin with Bathsheba the wife of Uriah this way and he had to find some other way to hide his sin.
King David wrote a letter, that is gave orders to Joab the commander of his army to attack and retreat in such a way that Uriah would be unprotected and would die by the enemies hand.
That worked!
Uriah was killed and
King David quickly married the widow,
his sin was all covered up.
One trouble with sin, our own sins, is that to hide them,
we often commit more sins.
That is, our sin often escalate, when we try to hide it.
King David;s sins certainly compounded,
when he tried to project his reputation.
Then in 2 Samuel 12 Nathan the prophet comes to see the King.
He tells him a story about to shepherds:
one with many sheet
one with just one lamb, he loves like a daughter
The story in chapter 12 has the rich man taking the poor man’s single lamb and serving it at his dinner party.
The king burns with anger and says that man must die
To which Nathan say, you are the man! then he shares with King David what God had to say about David’s abundance of wives and yet steeling Uriah’s wife.
That is the background to Psalm 51.
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
18 May it please you to prosper Zion,
to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
in burnt offerings offered whole;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
May the Lord apply his words to our hearts, minds and memories.
Psalm 51 is a psalm of King David’s repentance and restoration.
It’s a great example of how to get right with God when we have sinned and failed Him.
Let’s look at David’s response to his sin,
`once he was found out.
Turns to God his only Hope
Turns to God his only Hope
King David turned to God, and pleaded, earnestly for forgiveness
He asked for Mercy
because of God’s unfailing love
He asked for his record to be Expunged
blotted out
the record of his sin removed
. . .
because of God’s great compassion
How could he even think of asking for this, he is an adulterer, a murderer and liar.
The reason he can ask for forgiveness, has nothing to do with who David is
or what bank of prior good deeds he has to draw on
it all depends on God’s character.
He would have known Exod 34.6-7
6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
This verse and others talk of two kinds of sinners
forgiven ones, though wicked, rebellious sinner and
unforgiven sinners.
What is the difference,
the first group were the sinners that felt sorry for their sins and pursued God’s forgiveness.
God is our only hope for forgiveness of sin too.
Prays for Cleansing
Prays for Cleansing
He Prayed wash me
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
but washing wasn’t good enough he also asked
Use hyssop
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
In the Old Testament hyssop was used to sprinkle blood as part of the Jewish Passover.
Hyssop was mentioned in the Bible for its cleansing effect in connection with
plague,
leprosy and
chest ailments and
symbolically in cleansing the soul
(https://arborgate.com/picks/growing-hyssop-a-biblical-herb/#:~:text=In%20the%20Old%20Testament%20hyssop,symbolically%20in%20cleansing%20the%20soul.)
So in review, David turns to God his only hope
and he prays for cleansing.
What else does he do?
Makes Serious confession
Makes Serious confession
King David did not soft pedal his sins, he said several things about his sin
His sin is ever before him
His sin is ever before him
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
How good it is when we have to make things right,
if God keeps pestering us
until we come to Him with the right attitude.
His sin is only against God
His sin is only against God
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
In no way is that a trivializing of the bad things David did,
the hurt King David caused in the lives of
Bathsheba
Uriah
the kingdom
all would suffer or did suffer because of his sin
Yet from heaven’s perspective, all sins is sin against God,
our master, our creator.
That is a topic we will have to look in more another time.
He Declares God right to punish him
He Declares God right to punish him
Would be innocent if cast him out
The New International Version Psalm 51
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
How often do we want to give excuses
Well if Bathsheba had been a little more careful with her curtains
Well I wouldn’t have had to kill Uriah if he had just spent the night at home
before going back to the troops.
But David isn’t giving any excuses.
He more or less is saying, I messed up and you Lord would be right in casting me out
but please don’t!
His sin is natural, it’s the human condition
His sin is natural, it’s the human condition
David goes on the say
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
This is not a declaration that Davids mother was an evil women or
That David was conceived through sin
What it is,
is an acknowledgement that King David is part of the human race and
since Adam’s sin,
we have all been born with a sin nature.
As cute and cuddle as babies are, or puppies too.
It’s not long before we can see how selfish they are
nobody has to teach children to lie
to take things
or to hoard things.
We need God’s help to overcome our nature.
His sin is was against the light he already had.
His sin is was against the light he already had.
God’s law, a certain amount of it is written on our hearts.
So we know when we are doing wrong.
Even the puppy knew it had done wrong.
David says in verse 6
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
Even in the womb, God gives wisdom to us.
So that was 5 ways king David showed agreement with the prophet Nathan that he, king David was guilty
Then
He Pleads for Renewal
He Pleads for Renewal
How many ways, how many times did David ask for renewal
Not cast out
Not cast out
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Heart New, Right and Firm
Heart New, Right and Firm
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
He wanted the new heart steadfast on God
Joy of his Salvation again
Joy of his Salvation again
he asks for this in 8
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
The Message translation puts verse 8 this way
8 Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
set these once-broken bones to dancing.
Broken bones to dancing.
That is restoration and healing.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
David remembers his Joy in the Lord
He wants to feel it again.
Did you notice in reading this Psalm there is no requests for help with sexual sin.
No, request,
don’t let my eyes wonder
Don’t let me do double takes,
to check out what I just say
He didn’t pray, don’t let me see my neighbors
bathing at twilight
Perhaps sexual sin is not the root cause.
Perhaps if we have a better renewal of the Joy of the Lord
sexual sin, would be less of an issue.
Not only does David want joy,
he wants so much joy that it will spill over into praise.
Joy would overflow into praise
Joy would overflow into praise
15 Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
life of effective evangelism
life of effective evangelism
The kind of renewal David is looking for is
Not content to just be clean in his heart
Not content to just be part of God’s Chosen people, God’s family
Not content to just have a right spirit inside
Not content to keep his Joy in the Lord to himself
Not content until his brokenness before God starts to lead others to healing and restoration
He says
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
Without genuine repentance before God, your gifts of time and money
may be seen for what they are
attempts to bribe God.
But with the right heart attitude,
they can be received with Joy
The right attitude is a broken and contrite heart.
Broken Hearted Joy
Broken Hearted Joy
17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
You know with cause, the law can arrest you.
They can search you
They can search your house and your car
But they never,
not so far anyway
can search your mind and your heart.
But
As your pastor, I have both experience that rightness with God as i have walked with him.
I have also experience that hollowness when you know you have sinned and fallen short of God’s expectations
and you just don’t feel like dealing with it.
Not dealing with it, just prolongs the pain.
At least that’s been my experience.
What about you?
What about you?
How does this Psalm hit you this morning.
Is it Good News to share
Or a heavy load to bear?
What did this Psalm teach us by example?
Come to God with a repentant, genuinely repentant heart
Pray for Cleansing
Making serious confession
Acknowledging God’s right to judge me
Plead for renewal and restoration
Plead for Joy, Gladness and hearts overflowing with Praise.
Such that we naturally tell others what God has done for us.
Let’s Pray.