The Godly Sinner: Finding Grace in Our Failures

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:01] Well hey Summit families, you're making your way to Psalm chapter 32. We have been spending the last couple months making our way through the book of Revelation. We ended that series last week. One of the things that just should have stood out as we wrapped up that series is a statement that Jesus makes when he says,
[00:00:19] Behold, I am making all things new. Not that he will make all things new, as if renewal is something that happens in the future. The process of renewal actually is taking place right now.
[00:00:31] And this week, the next couple of weeks, we want to really kind of camp out on this aspect of renewal. And today I want to look at what renewal should look like in the heart and life of those
[00:00:42] of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus. Psalms 32 is written by King David. King David it writes these words in Psalm 32.
[00:00:53] Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
[00:00:59] Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
[00:01:05] For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
[00:01:11] For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me.
[00:01:14] My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
[00:01:18] I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity.
[00:01:27] I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
[00:01:34] Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found.
[00:01:40] Surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him.
[00:01:43] You are a hiding place for me.
[00:01:47] You preserve me from trouble.
[00:01:48] You surround me with shouts of deliverance.
[00:01:50] I will instruct you, verse 8, and teach you in the way you should go.
[00:01:54] I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
[00:01:57] Be not like a horse or a mule without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.
[00:02:06] Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
[00:02:13] Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
[00:02:23] Let me say a word of prayer and off we go.
[00:02:25] God, thank you.
[00:02:26] God, we continue to just bask in the afterglow of what you did at our church a couple weeks ago, Lord God.
[00:02:33] And I just think of the hundreds of people who got baptized and the many, Lord God, who profess faith in you, Lord God, for the first time.
[00:02:41] Spirit of the living God, you are alive and well in and through our church.
[00:02:46] Something is happening.
[00:02:47] And we do pray for all of those, Lord God, who said yes to you for the first time, Father.
[00:02:52] We pray that they would be nurtured, discipled, and unleashed in RDU in the uttermost parts of the earth.
[00:03:01] Thank you for the opportunity we have to live sent to care, Lord God, for our community, Father.
[00:03:07] God, we just pray that you would breathe on that event.
[00:03:10] Now, Lord God, we need to hear from you.
[00:03:12] Give us hope.
[00:03:13] Give us help.
[00:03:14] Give us encouragement today, Lord God.
[00:03:16] Be with me as your vessel.
[00:03:17] I don't want to be an impediment, Lord God.
[00:03:21] I don't want to attract undue attention to myself.
[00:03:23] So edit out everything, Lord God, that would do that.
[00:03:27] And edit in everything, Lord God, that would magnify and glorify your name and edify your people.
[00:03:32] Father, I just kind of throw the promise of Scripture back at you.
[00:03:37] Here's what you said, that your word is living and active.
[00:03:43] That your word would not return void or empty.
[00:03:48] And so, Father God, would you do that?
[00:03:49] I stand as the sower, scattering the seed of your word.
[00:03:54] I pray that it falls on good ground, takes root, and bears much fruit.
[00:03:58] It's in Jesus' name I pray, amen.
[00:04:01] Alfred Nobel was having breakfast one day.
[00:04:04] And on this particular day, he was grieving.
[00:04:08] See, Alfred Nobel, his brother Ludwig had just died.
[00:04:12] And as he's sitting there eating breakfast, he's got his newspaper.
[00:04:15] I can see him hurriedly flipping to the obituary section, anxious to see what the journalist was going to say about his brother and his passing, Ludwig. And wouldn't you know it, he gets to the
[00:04:27] obituary section, true story, and Alfred is shocked to discover that he's not reading his brother Ludwig's obituary. Alfred is reading his obituary. See, the journalist had got it wrong. He thought alfred nobel had died when in reality it was his brother ludwig who had died now you need to
[00:04:49] understand alfred nobel was the inventor of dynamite so the title of alfred's obituary was merchant of death has died and in so many words the rest of the obituary said good riddance the world's a better place this guy caused a lot of destruction and death and chaos i mean wouldn't
[00:05:09] be something for you to read your own obituary and and you're just gonna come away with a sense of like Alfred did that day that's what they really think about me Alfred Nobel says I've got to make some changes so here's what he did
[00:05:24] drawing from his vast amount of material wealth he set up a fund that would annually award people not who caused chaos and destruction but this fund would be used to annually award people who promoted peace that's right the nobel peace prize
[00:05:47] chances are when i said the name alfred nobel you did not think dynamite dynamite death or destruction but chances are you fought peace oh what alfred nobel teaches us is it's never too late to change your legacy failure is not final i don't care how much we may have screwed up in
[00:06:11] in this life the very fact as my grandmother would say that god woke you up this morning and started you on your way it's his way of saying i'm not done with you yet there is still hope
[00:06:24] failure isn't final it's never too late to change your legacy oh if anybody knows that in scripture it's it's our author today it's king david i want to encourage you write these three passages of
[00:06:37] scripture down in fact theologians say these three passages of scripture are linked second samuel chapter 11 psalm 51 and psalm 32. second samuel chapter 11 is all about king david's well documented failure and fall his egregious sin with a woman named bathsheba in fact the narrator said
[00:07:02] it's the time in which kings go out to war here is david he decides to tap out i'm not going to gonna go out to war. He's at home. Maybe he's a little bit bored. He's walking around. He sees a
[00:07:12] woman who is bathing, and instead of looking the other way, he stops, and he looks, and he looks intently. You can see the lust awakening in him. He inquires of her, and news gets sent to him.
[00:07:25] That's Bathsheba. She's married to one of your top soldiers, a guy by the name of Uriah. This doesn't deter David. He abuses his position. He abuses his power. He takes her. He commits sexual immorality with her. He doesn't come clean then. In fact, he decides that what he would do is that
[00:07:44] he would make a bad situation worse by covering it all up by having her husband murdered.
[00:07:50] Then in Psalm 51, it's his great confession, which David says, created me a clean heart, oh god and renew a right spirit within me but many scholars say between the time of david's sin second samuel chapter 11 and the time of his confession psalm 51 several months up to a year
[00:08:17] goes by psalm 32 is david's reflections on the year when he kept silent now i don't know about you if we were to rank sin and i would encourage you we shouldn't do that but if we were to rank
[00:08:40] sin sexual immorality and murder is right at the top but what blows my mind is here's king david abused his position commit sexual morality murder and yet what does god say of him he's a man after
[00:08:57] my own heart here's a man sexual morality murder and listen to his epitaph written in acts chapter 13 after david had accomplished the purposes of god in his generation he laid down and died now here's the one that really trips me out of all the titles our lord and savior jesus christ
[00:09:22] gladly wore during his earthly ministry here's the one he wore the proudest son of david wait a minute wait a minute if i'm doing brand management for jesus i'm gonna say hey man we We probably shouldn't use that one.
[00:09:40] Let's just cast that to the side.
[00:09:42] Dave had a little bit of controversy attached to it.
[00:09:44] You're the Messiah.
[00:09:46] You wanna keep a clean image.
[00:09:47] You wanna distance yourself.
[00:09:49] And I know, I'm kind of, I'm theologically accurate.
[00:09:53] Jesus never said this, but Jesus would say, hey, you need to know I'm the friend of sinners.
[00:10:00] So here's a guy, deeply sinful, man after God's own heart, amazing epitaph.
[00:10:10] Our Messiah wore the title Son of David.
[00:10:20] And here he is in our text, in the midst of all of his failures, reflecting on his year of sin, and David makes a stunning invitation.
[00:10:35] David says in verse six, "'Therefore, let everyone who is godly.'" Stop right there.
[00:10:48] Wait a minute, David.
[00:10:50] This whole thing is about sin and the year in which you kept silent, and in the midst of talking about sin, you make an invitation to godly people while talking about sin.
[00:11:05] I think David is helping us to wrestle with how to be a godly sinner.
[00:11:15] Yeah, that's what I want to talk about.
[00:11:19] How to be a godly sinner.
[00:11:32] What I've just employed is something you've learned in elementary school, middle school, high school.
[00:11:39] Godly, sinner, that's what your teachers taught us.
[00:11:42] It's called an oxymoron.
[00:11:47] An oxymoron are two things that come together that should not be together.
[00:11:55] Tight slacks, airplane, food, ACC, football, Nicholas Cage, great actor, oxymoron.
[00:12:18] moron two things that are joined together that should not be together godly sinner if you get nothing else I say I want you to get this what David is going to show us today is the way that you know that you're godly it's not that
[00:12:46] you don't sin we all sin if godliness were a matter of perfection nobody should be called godly but the way that you know that you're godly it's not that you don't sin but the way that you know that you're godly is how I respond to my
[00:13:02] sin godly sinner I don't know about you don't one of the things that I try to do whenever I stand before you it's I I just want to pick I just want to knock myself off of any pedestal and I I'm like you I've got this this conflict
[00:13:27] this tension inside of me the flesh and the spirit as Paul talks about in Galatians chapter 5 and these two things are at war in me and and I don't always get it right in fact there's there's some seasons in my life it feels like
[00:13:41] i'm catching more losses than victories and and i gotta tell you in seasons like that it's i don't want to take steps towards god i want to take steps away from god when when when i'm not walking
[00:14:01] the way that i should when i'm struggling in my walk with christ there's there's something in me that says ah i'm not going to read my bible and pray today the hypocrisy would just be too much
[00:14:12] if I had the choice there's sometimes as I'm gonna sit this Sunday out I just can't go to church I'm just not in a good place right now and what's going on inside of me is this whole thought of I don't know I don't think God is a safe
[00:14:31] place for me to process my humanity and my sinfulness and then I look around at the broader culture and I I say it's kind of interesting that people in the world look at the church as being judgmental and self-righteous but I got
[00:14:47] the world can be judgmental and self-righteous and not a great place to fail. Cancel culture exists out there as well. In fact, we saw that this summer, didn't we? With this couple who were married to other people. They decided to go to a Coldplay concert and there they are on the
[00:15:03] jumbotron in front of the whole world to see. They went viral. We remember them, don't we? And you kind of slid into the comment section and you just saw the mean and cruel things that the world
[00:15:15] had to say. I'm not saying they shouldn't have lost their job, but what you saw in moments like that is, I don't know if the world is even a safe place to process some kind of failure and sin that
[00:15:27] I'm dealing with. And then we come back to the church, and sadly, there are many Christians, many church people that aren't really safe. I remember I had a young man in my office not too
[00:15:40] long ago, and we were talking about a very well-known Christian leader who had a moral failure. I'm not saying this person shouldn't have lost their job. And yeah, there's real consequences to that i get it james chapter 3 says we shouldn't jump at being teachers because we
[00:15:52] have a stricter kind of judgment i get that how i live matters paul tells timothy keep a close watch over your life and on the doctrine i understand all of that but then he kind of makes this remark
[00:16:03] to me about this fallen leader well i guess i gotta throw away all his books and i said can we talk about that for a moment you may need to do that you have freedom in christ to do that
[00:16:16] but if perfection is the requirement as it relates to who you read then why are you throwing out books get rid of genesis exodus leviticus numbers of neuronomy because a guy by the name of moses
[00:16:26] wrote that and moses disobeyed god by striking the rock when god told him to speak to the rock oh prior to that he was a murderer and get rid of first peter and second peter as well because
[00:16:37] peter denied jesus and yet what did jesus do he cooked him breakfast and then said i want you to actually preach the first sermon in which the church will be birthed and there will be over
[00:16:46] 3 000 people who will get saved by anointing and you want to throw stuff out just got to be very careful i listen to how christians process other people's stuff and i got to even say this one of
[00:17:06] the running discussions my wife and i've had since day one since we've been together in ministry various churches we've served we you know as leaders we sit and go my wife and i always talk
[00:17:14] about now are we really going to go to a small group and are we really going to sit in a small group and really share and will that be a place a safe place for us to process our humanity david
[00:17:37] in the context of processing his sin says something very counterintuitive he says the invitation is let everyone who is godly verse 6 offer prayer to you at a time when you in fact here's what he's saying instead of taking steps away from god take steps towards god why verse
[00:17:58] seven he says of god you are a hiding place for me here is david don't miss it in the midst of his sin not on the other side of it in the midst of his sin he says god you're safe for me why
[00:18:15] verse one blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered i want to share with you two things. He says you can come to God in the midst of your sin. He's a safe place for
[00:18:30] you. He's a hiding place. Why? Two things. Number one, because he wants us to understand that in God our sins are covered. That when we were saved, we were covered by the blood of Christ. Every sin
[00:18:48] I've ever committed and committing and will ever commit has been penned in full by the blood of Jesus Christ. In fact, God says, I want you to know in my omniscience, I knew you would do what
[00:19:00] you did before you did it. And I still prepaid it by the blood of Jesus Christ. I want you to look at this image. It is the time-life photo of the year from 1996. On the ground is a white gentleman
[00:19:12] by the name of Albert. He's got on a t-shirt with a Confederate flag. He's a member of the Neo-Nazi party. He decides to go to the black side of this protest. He says some very insensitive and hurtful
[00:19:23] things as you can see he gets knocked to the ground the mob is moving in to to to really ravage him and notice who is covering him an african-american girl named keisha and i know
[00:19:35] some of you with that bit of a context may be saying get off of him keisha let him get what he's got covering coming to him stop covering him but if you read this or see this with spiritual
[00:19:48] eyes you would see ain't none of us keisha all of us are albert we've all said things done things thought things we shouldn't have we're all sinners and christ is the true and better keisha who by
[00:20:05] his life by his blood covers us and continues to cover us and he is a safe place for us to process our sin because we are covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. But not only is he a safe place
[00:20:22] because he covers us. Verse two, David writes, blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity. We can come to God because he covers us and because he does not count our iniquity, our sin against us. I told you this some months ago. One of my sons, I got two sons
[00:20:40] in college. And one of them, when they were winding down their first semester, I called him at the end of his first semester. I said, son, how's it going in school? How are your grades?
[00:20:49] And he kind of paused and he says, dad, you know, I respect you, but I'm a grown man now. I shouldn't have to tell you about my grades. I immediately started laughing. He says, dad, why are you
[00:21:00] laughing? That's a bit weird. Why are you laughing? I said, son, that news couldn't have come at a better time. He says, why? Because I just got notification from your school that the deposit it for next semester is due. But since you are grown, you can handle that. If you're going to
[00:21:12] be grown, I need you to be all the way grown. He thought for a second. He goes, okay, I'll go ahead and tell you my grades. Next semester, a couple of weeks in, I called him. I said, son, how's it
[00:21:23] going? He goes, ah, dad, it's going pretty well. One class I'm struggling. I didn't do so well on the quiz, but dad, don't freak out. I said, why? He says, because the professor has a policy.
[00:21:32] I said, what's the policy?
[00:21:34] The professor's policy is he takes our worst grade and throws it away.
[00:21:39] It doesn't count against us.
[00:21:41] And then later on that day, I got to thinking in the spirit realm about professor God who doesn't just take my worst grade, but who takes all of my failures, all of my sins, all of my faults
[00:21:54] and throws them away as far as the east is from the west.
[00:21:59] I praise God that he's got a math problem.
[00:22:01] He does not count.
[00:22:06] We can go to him in the midst of our sin.
[00:22:08] He is a safe place because he covers us and he doesn't count it against us.
[00:22:23] Yeah, Brian, okay, but you're talking about how to be a godly sinner.
[00:22:27] I get going to God.
[00:22:30] He's our hiding place.
[00:22:31] He covers us.
[00:22:32] He doesn't count it against us.
[00:22:34] But as we round second and head for third in this sermon, if godliness does not mean perfection, but a mark, a mark of godliness is seen in our response to our sin. How does God
[00:22:50] want us to respond to our sin? Three things and we're done. Verse three, David, in thinking about his sin, when he sinned, look at what he says. For when I kept silent, my, hear these terms,
[00:23:08] my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night your hand was heavy upon me my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer you see what david is saying when i sinned
[00:23:26] i was i was groaning uh my my bones wasted away here's what he's saying godly sinners feel their sin. One of the primary litmus tests that you know that you're saved, it's not that you don't
[00:23:43] sin, we all sin. One of the primary litmus tests that you know that you're saved is that when you do sin, you feel it. I'm always very leery of individuals who can sin and say they know Christ
[00:23:57] and feel nothing. I got to ask you, it's almost as if David is saying, man, I couldn't even enjoy my sin because your hand was heavy against me i was groaning no christ follower do you feel your sin
[00:24:25] i travel a good deal and um i'm a bit of a travel diva i got this thing down to a science i um i don't check bags i i just kind of always do a carry-on i could be gone for six months
[00:24:43] carry-ons all i need i got tsa pre-check and i get annoyed at little stuff if if i see someone ahead ahead of me in TSA pre-check, if I see you ahead of me in TSA pre-check
[00:24:53] and you're taking off your shoes and taking the computer out of your bag and belt off, I'm gonna rebuke you in the name of Jesus.
[00:25:04] One of the things that irks me, traveling.
[00:25:07] I got this thing down to a science.
[00:25:08] I know what the rules are, no water, none of that stuff, and keep the liquids to three ounces.
[00:25:14] I got all that down.
[00:25:15] One of the things that just drives me nuts is that as I'm traveling, I go through the scanners And on one side, going one way, it lets me get through.
[00:25:27] I don't get pinged, I don't get stopped, I go through.
[00:25:32] And then on the return trip, this has happened to me so many times, same stuff.
[00:25:37] I haven't bought anything new, I haven't put anything new in, same stuff, and all of a sudden the scanner goes off, they're pulling me to the side, they're patting me down.
[00:25:49] And I hear some of you, is that Pastor Brian?
[00:25:51] you doing over there all the things and it's just maddening because one scanner lets me get away with stuff that the other scanner does not well you know the reason for that one scanner the the
[00:26:07] sensitivity meter is cranked up why is it that the world can do some things that if you did the same thing you can't even really enjoy it you feel it and they don't because when you got saved the Holy Spirit moved into your life and the
[00:26:37] sensitivity meter on your conscience redemptively cranked up one of the ways you know you're saved and that the Holy Spirit is inside of you is stuff you could do before Christ in the world you can't even do now exactly what Paul had
[00:26:57] in mind when he says these words to the Corinthians will you look at it with me Second Corinthians chapter, he says these words as he's writing to them.
[00:27:06] Paul says, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret.
[00:27:14] Godly grief, not godly guilt.
[00:27:19] Guilt keeps us away from God, but notice what he says godly grief does.
[00:27:25] It leads to repentance.
[00:27:25] The idea here is when I sin, I'm going away from God.
[00:27:29] repentance is the u-turn which brings me back to god and all of that is triggered by godly grief i feel it i feel it recently i read dane ortland's book deeper and in a passage he talks about this
[00:27:51] very issue of the importance of believers feeling their sins dane ortland in his book deeper writes look at it despair is not an end in itself of course but it is a vital element of healthy
[00:28:03] spirituality it cannot be bypassed one reason some christians remain shallow their whole lives is they do not allow themselves ever more deeply throughout their lives to pass through the painful corridor of honesty about who they really are hear it now feel your sinfulness
[00:28:22] let it humble you let it sober you listen we're not talking about wallowing in shame or guilt or condemnation need i remind you what paul wrote to the romans there is therefore now no condemnation
[00:28:40] for those who are in christ jesus but godly grief is a gift from the holy spirit alerting me that i'm going in the right direction and prompting me to make the u-turn of repentance back home to the
[00:28:54] father who is not waiting to condemn me but like the father in luke 15 and the prodigal son is waiting to kill the fatted calf and welcome me back home secondly how do i respond to sin godly
[00:29:11] sinners we feel our sin but secondly godly sinners own their sin listen to david's stunning ownership in verse 5. i acknowledge my sin to you and i did not cover my iniquity i said i will confess
[00:29:30] my transgressions to the lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin you don't have to spend a day in seminary to figure out david is owning his sin at no point is he like well saul got away with
[00:29:43] whatever and this isn't as bad and the stuff he did he's not bringing anybody else's name and bathsheba shouldn't have and he shouldn't have done this and and if he would have it's just david
[00:29:54] he says i acknowledge i own in fact i love the personal pronoun my my it's my sin my transgression he's owning it in fact david gets a lot more detailed in the original language original
[00:30:13] language of our text is hebrew and notice the three synonyms for wrongdoing david uses david begins by saying i acknowledge my sin the hebrew word for sin it means to miss the mark in thought and action david says listen i'm not only am i owning what i did i was wrong when i looked
[00:30:37] at her and then he goes on to say i will confess my transgressions to the lord transgression it means to intentionally step over the line can we stop saying a phrase that we christians love to
[00:31:01] use sozo fell into sin as if sin was some pothole you didn't see just kind of slipped off into sin No, my experience is we Christians see the line, we know the line, and we just jump right over it.
[00:31:19] Corey and I are sometimes asked, at what age do we start disciplining these precious little kids of ours?
[00:31:27] I always say the same thing.
[00:31:28] When that glorious little tax write-off is about to put his finger into the outlet and you say, don't do that, and that precious little Paul stops and looks back at you and does it anyways,
[00:31:42] Oh, they're ready. David doesn't just call that sin. He calls that transgression. That kid sees the line and he crosses it. David's saying, I knew where the line was. I wasn't ignorant.
[00:32:10] And finally, David says, don't miss it. And you forgave the iniquity, the iniquity, the iniquity of my sin. Iniquity. Oh, this messes me up. Do you know if the Hebrew word iniquity means, oh, this messes me up. It means a morally depraved pattern of behavior. David is saying,
[00:32:36] when I look at my own heart, I have a twisted heart. Do you see him owning it?
[00:32:51] A friend of mine, he'd gotten himself into some trouble recently. And he was telling me he went to go see the head of a PR firm and the PR firm sat him down and says, look, man, I'm happy to
[00:33:01] help is what we do he says listen let me just say what you already know I can't really help you if you're not honest with me and then the head of the PR firm goes here's what honesty means you you can't deny and you can't drip you can't
[00:33:16] deny and you can't drip you can't deny and you can't drip and my friends like I get denial what does drip mean my and the head of PR firm says well drip means you you tell a little bit here you don't tell them you tell a little bit here
[00:33:31] Some time goes by, something else comes out.
[00:33:33] Oh, I'll tell a little bit more, but you still don't tell the whole thing.
[00:33:36] Some time goes by, some more comes out.
[00:33:37] And you tell a little bit more.
[00:33:38] He says, no dripping.
[00:33:41] We got to rip the Band-Aid off.
[00:33:44] If you're not ready to do that, if you're in drip mode, can't help you.
[00:33:52] Notice David is not dripping or denying.
[00:34:00] He's owning.
[00:34:03] He doesn't say, oh, we just went out for coffee once.
[00:34:07] He doesn't say, oh, Bathsheba kind of slid into my DMs.
[00:34:13] He doesn't say, oh, it was an entanglement.
[00:34:15] He owns it.
[00:34:22] let me just say this word and it wasn't my manuscript i was led to say it in the first service and then again the second service i'll say it to you again listen all of us are in need
[00:34:31] of this word i just want to encourage i don't know what it is i and i just kind of saw this and i did it when i was a teenager and i saw it in my sons as well and and when my sons did it to
[00:34:46] me i always remember that word of encouragement my mother gave me when i got on her nerves once when I was a teenager. She said, God's going to bless you with a child just like you. He's going
[00:34:55] to bless you real good with a child just like you. Teenagers, I want to encourage you. Own it.
[00:35:08] Own it. Don't excuse it. Don't add anyone else's name. Don't pull an Adam. Oh, I'd be okay if it wasn't for the woman that you gave me. No, own it. Some moments like these, I'm always drawn to James
[00:35:33] 5 16. james says therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed what james is calling them to is own it own it within the context of community
[00:35:50] i i love it this is this is exactly what david did when finally the nathan pro the prophet nathan is sent by god and he corners him and and and he just says man you just got to come clean
[00:36:01] here's David's response. Look at it with me. David simply says, I have sinned. Is that you?
[00:36:15] Godly sinners don't excuse it. Godly sinners don't drip. Godly sinners aren't more concerned about their reputation. Let's put it out there. So I'm so glad if you're here today and you're just kind of either living a hidden life or you're overcome by substance abuse, or maybe there's
[00:36:45] some morally depraved pattern behavior, I wanna encourage you to check out our G4 groups.
[00:36:50] Just go online.
[00:36:51] They're just groups of people who are sitting together and man, they're just doing James 5.16.
[00:36:56] They're confessing their sins, they're getting help, they're walking through, but you can't be helped until you own it.
[00:37:03] Finally, David says something, man.
[00:37:10] It just jolts me when I read it.
[00:37:13] In the context of talking about his sin, look at what he says in verse eight.
[00:37:16] I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.
[00:37:20] I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
[00:37:23] I remember the first time reading this going, hey, David, is that what we're doing now?
[00:37:26] We preaching now?
[00:37:27] David, you just committed sexual immorality.
[00:37:33] You just committed murder.
[00:37:34] And now you're talking about instructing folk and teaching folk and counseling folk.
[00:37:39] Is that what we're doing now?
[00:37:45] Here's what godly people do.
[00:37:48] They figure out a way to turn their losses into lessons.
[00:37:53] now hear me I get we should probably put some space between what we did and get some healing but I'm just gonna tell you and I'm just saying so this ain't pastoral what I'm about to tell you God delivered me from fake people and all
[00:38:11] they want to talk about is the sunny days in their life I need to be around some folk toe up from the flow up you know who my pastor is the guy who shaped me the most guy named Kenneth Ulmer he's on his third marriage he was
[00:38:35] divorced twice by 26, tried to kill himself.
[00:38:39] God showed up.
[00:38:41] The wife he's with now, he's been with her for almost 50 years.
[00:38:45] He can shepherd and pastor me because he pastors me from a deep well of empathy that says, now son, I done been down that street.
[00:39:00] He pastors me from his failures.
[00:39:07] David says, I've been down the road of sexual morality and murder.
[00:39:11] When I see someone going down that road, I'm going to grab them by the scruff of their neck, and I'm going to say, I got the t-shirt and the hat. I can tell you that ain't going to scratch you where your soul itches. I've been
[00:39:25] there. Someone needs to hear about the abortion you had. Someone's thinking about going to Planned Parenthood, and me and Pastor JD, we may not be able to get to them, but you have a story of
[00:39:46] actually going there and maybe god wants that loss to be a lesson that saves a couple of lives yeah maybe it's time to talk about that divorce that was your fault and you see another person
[00:40:09] making similar mistakes maybe it's time to not just give them a verse but to give them a verse out of your own failure god deliver me from community where all we do is just kind of airbrush
[00:40:29] ourselves I hate brown spots on my fruit hate it hate it hate it hate it so you can imagine how distraught I was when a couple months ago I'm walking the kitchen and there's a cluster of completely brown bananas I did put any
[00:41:04] sensible person would do I pick up the cluster bananas and I'm going to the trash. My wife said, hey, you know that banana bread you love? You know that banana bread that you say is the best thing I make. And you've been asking me what my secret ingredient is. I couldn't
[00:41:30] tell you because I know what you don't like. You're holding it. And in her own way, she said, what looks like trash to you is treasure to me. What you consider to be rotten, I can repurpose
[00:41:57] into something delicious in your hands it's worthless but if you put it in my hands i can do something with that someone's here today and you feel rotten god says i i can make some banana
[00:42:25] bread i've been doing that for centuries in fact have you seen the folk in the genealogy of my son jesus a lot of them in the world looked at and said rotten woman named rahab but she came to me
[00:42:43] by faith. I made some banana bread. Failure ain't final. Yeah, come to me with your eating disorder.
[00:43:00] Come to me. I know you just got out of prison, but come to me with your criminal record. Come to me with the affair they don't know about you. Come to me with the bankruptcy. I can do something with
[00:43:26] you. When you come, I need you to come as a godly sinner. Letting the Holy Spirit lead you to godly grief will come dripping. For if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of
[00:43:53] our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's the God I serve. So Father, we bless you in this place today. We thank you for who you are. There's someone here, Lord God, across our campuses
[00:44:20] and maybe they're in church for the first time and they were asked by someone to come here and it just felt like the time was right because when they look through the rear view mirror of their
[00:44:30] own life in your providence they have been well acquainted at this season in their life with with feeling like a failure I pray today Lord God that that they would meet a Jesus who who covers
[00:44:47] them Jesus who does not count their sin against them I pray for others of my brothers and sisters Lord God who are here and they do know you as Lord and Savior of their life and yet Lord God
[00:45:03] they have made some decisions, they've sinned, they've transgressed. Maybe there's even iniquity patterns of morally depraved areas in their life and they feel rotten. Oh God, I pray that you would get your hands on their life, that you would repurpose for your glory. Do it, we pray in Jesus' name.