[0:00] Psalm 51.
[0:21] To the choir master a psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. Mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
[0:37] Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
[0:55] Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with heesop and I shall be clean.
[1:08] Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.
[1:19] Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
[1:32] Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
[1:50] O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it. You will not be pleased, excuse me, with a burnt offering.
[2:05] The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure.
[2:18] Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings, and bulls will be offered on your altar. May God add a blessing to the reading of his word.
[2:29] Would you please be seated? The superscription or title of this psalm says to the choir master, a psalm of David when Nathan, the prophet, went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba.
[2:51] 2 Samuel chapters 11 through 12 record the details of that sordid event. 2 Samuel 11.1 says, David was in a place he should not have been.
[3:21] He was the king of Israel. He should have been out to battle, but he stayed home. Maybe he was tired of fighting. Maybe he was tired or he got bored with winning.
[3:35] Whatever the case, verse 1 makes it clear that during the time of year when kings went out to battle, Israel's king stayed home. David was in a place where he shouldn't have been and soon found himself doing something that he shouldn't have done.
[3:51] 2 Samuel 11, 2 through 5 say, It happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful.
[4:07] And David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, Is not this Bathsheba the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her.
[4:19] Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she returned to her house, and the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, I am pregnant.
[4:31] The rest of chapter 11 shares the depths to which David sank to cover up his sin. David first tried to cover up his sin by calling Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, home from the battlefield.
[4:46] He hoped that Uriah would spend intimate time with his wife and assume that he was the child's father. When that failed, he sent Uriah back to the battlefield with his own death warrant in hand, which he delivered to Joab, David's general, with instructions to put Uriah on the front lines and then draw back from him that he would be an easy target for the enemy to kill.
[5:14] Joab obeyed David's command. Uriah died, and after a period of mourning, David married Bathsheba. About a year later, God sent the prophet Nathan to David.
[5:30] For a year, David lived with the guilt of his sin. He endured the heavy hand of God as he tried to cover his sin, at times maybe even justifying his sin or excusing his actions.
[5:45] But when Nathan confronted him and exposed his sin, David finally broke down and repented. Though there were consequences for David's actions, God forgave him and kept his promise to establish his throne forever.
[6:07] Psalm 51 is one of seven penitential psalms. In this psalm, David expresses the deep sorrow for his sins as he pleads with God not only to forgive him, but also to clear his record of wrongdoing.
[6:25] The main idea of Psalm 51 is that God forgives and clears the record of those who repent of their sins. God forgives and clears the record of those who repent of their sins.
[6:38] The word repentance in the Bible literally means the act of changing one's mind. Biblical repentance goes beyond remorse.
[6:49] It goes beyond regret or guilt or feeling just bad about sin. It's not just a turning from sin, but involves a changed mind, a changed heart, and changed attitudes towards sin.
[7:05] Repentance is a recurring theme in the Old Testament. When God's people sinned, God would send them a message through one of his prophets, and that prophet called the nation and individuals to repent of their sin, to turn away from a life ruled by sin to a life of obedience to God.
[7:30] For example, in Joel 2, 12 through 13, we read, Yet even now declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments.
[7:46] Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and He relents over disaster. The theme of repentance continues in the New Testament, beginning with John the Baptist, whose ministry prepared the way for the arrival of God's Son, Jesus Christ.
[8:08] Matthew 3, 1 through 2 says, In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. And what did he preach? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[8:20] When Jesus began His public ministry, the key theme of His preaching was repentance. Matthew 4, 17 says, From that time, Jesus began to preach.
[8:33] What did He preach? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Many people were saved and transformed and radically reoriented their lives, turning from sin to follow Jesus.
[8:47] And the focus of Jesus' mission was to call sinners to repentance. Luke 5, 32, Jesus says, I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
[9:04] He calls His followers, those who would follow Him, to take up their cross daily, to die to their old self and to obey Him. In Luke 13, 5, Jesus says, No, but I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
[9:20] In His farewell discourse to His disciples, Jesus commanded that they take His message of repentance and forgiveness to the nations.
[9:33] Luke 24, 45 through 47 says, Then He, Jesus, opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and He said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in His name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.
[9:59] Repentance in the Bible involves a complete change of heart and mind leading to different actions. Repentance recognizes that our sin is an offense to our God, our Holy Creator.
[10:17] And repentance sets us on a new trajectory. No longer ruled by sin, we are ruled by Christ whom we follow, obey, and worship because it is through His life, death, and resurrection that God the Father forgives and clears our record of sin, attributing Jesus' sinless life to us, clothing us in His righteousness and giving us eternal life.
[10:48] Now, you may be here this morning and you might be thinking that sounds too good to be true. Maybe you've made a mess of your life because of your choices and you think, I can't ask God for help.
[11:03] I brought this trouble upon myself. Maybe you feel too ashamed to admit that what you've done is something that you need to ask God for His help about.
[11:19] If so, this psalm will be an encouragement to you. David got himself in a mess. When Nathan confronted him with his sin, he realized just how wretched of a man he was, but he also realized God's grace was greater than his sin.
[11:47] God forgave David. God cleared his record. And friend, He'll do the same for you. But maybe you're too proud to admit that you've sinned.
[12:00] the Bible says that pride goes before a fall. And I say this to you in love, your sin is more real and more destructive than you realize.
[12:15] I hope that God will reveal to you today the reality of that before it's too late for you to seek His forgiveness.
[12:26] forgiveness. Maybe you're a believer and you've sinned in ways that make you think since your salvation. Will God still forgive me?
[12:42] God knows all things. He knew what David would do before He called him to be the king of His people. He knew what David would do before time began.
[12:57] He said that David was a man after his own heart before all of these things. If David could be forgiven, these things that he knew about, if David could be forgiven, so can you.
[13:14] If you repent of your sins and you turn to God. God in Psalm 51, David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, walks us through six steps of repentance as we receive God's forgiveness and His grace to clear our record of sin.
[13:39] Step one is contrition over sin. Contrition over sin. When God brought David to the full realization of the enormity of his sin, David no longer hid his sin, excused his sin, or blamed anyone else for his sin.
[14:02] David pleaded for God's forgiveness. When you are honest about your sin, nothing else matters to you than to be forgiven.
[14:15] David no longer cared what people thought of him. David was no longer concerned about what having his sin exposed would cost him. He was desperate for God's forgiveness.
[14:30] In verses one through two, he prays, have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin.
[14:45] How could David ask God to just blot out his transgressions? How could David ask God to just clear his record? He ruined people's lives.
[15:00] He betrayed people's trust. He broke several of the Ten Commandments. He coveted another man's wife. He committed adultery. He murdered someone created in the image of God.
[15:12] He bore false witness as he tried to cover up his sins. How could he just ask God for mercy to forgive him and to cleanse him from this record of sin?
[15:30] He could ask God because David read his Bible. And David trusted that God is who God has revealed himself to be in his word.
[15:43] In Exodus 34, Moses asked God to reveal his glory to him. And God passed before Moses.
[15:55] And as he passed before Moses, God told Moses who he was. Exodus 34, 6-7 says, the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.
[16:35] according to these verses, the essence of God, what he leads with is that he is merciful and gracious.
[16:47] This is the most important thing that sinners need to know about God, that he is merciful, that his mercy is abundant, that it lasts over time.
[17:00] He is steadfast in his love for his people. He is committed to them for the long haul. The Hebrew word translated as abundant mercy in the ESV is a form of the Hebrew word for womb.
[17:16] It carries the sense or the idea of a mother's tender, gentle, loving feelings for her baby. Think of a child who breaks something fragile in the house.
[17:30] They pick up the pieces of that broken thing and they run to their mother with tears streaming down their face and they say, Mommy, I'm sorry.
[17:44] I've done something really bad. Please forgive me. The child knows that what they've done is wrong. They've confessed and they're torn up inside about it.
[17:55] They love you and they know that they've done something bad to disappoint you. And sure, there's going to be a talking to and consequences but in that moment, what that child needs most is to know that their mom or their dad loves them and that they will be forgiven.
[18:18] When we come to God with the broken pieces of our life like David did, we trust that his love is steadfast. there were consequences for David for what he did but the removal of God's love was not one of those consequences for him.
[18:39] David knew God as he revealed himself in his word and he trusted that as he says in verse 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.
[18:51] God, you will not despise. The word contrite in Hebrew means to crush, collapse, or break. David was broken up over his sin and he uses three different words to describe his sin in verses 1 and 2.
[19:10] He describes it as my transgression, my iniquity, my sin. The word transgression refers to crossing the line and willfully rebelling against God.
[19:23] Sin isn't an accident or a mistake, it's a choice. Iniquity refers to being morally twisted, distorted, corrupt, and guilty.
[19:35] The word sin refers to failure to miss the target, in this case not by accident but on purpose. David is not hiding or excusing anything of what he's done.
[19:48] He's guilty, he knows it, but he matches those three words he uses to describe his sin with three words that describe God's forgiveness.
[19:59] Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. These three words fill out the picture of what forgiveness means.
[20:13] God blots out, he washes, he cleanses, and God does all of it. Not David, not anyone else.
[20:25] The first step of repentance is to acknowledge your sin as your sin. You don't excuse it saying things like, well, this is just the way that I am, or I didn't have any other choice, and you don't blame others.
[20:48] Well, if that person hadn't done that thing, then I wouldn't have done what I did. And you don't try to glue the pieces of your broken life back together with your good works.
[21:03] You take the broken pieces to God, and you say to him, this is what I've done. I've done it. I'm sorry.
[21:14] Forgive me. David continues to express just how sorry he is over his sin as he takes the next step of repentance in verses 3-6, which is confession of sin.
[21:31] Confession of sin. Verse 3, David says, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. This could refer to Bathsheba's presence in David's life.
[21:44] At this point, whenever he saw her, he was reminded of the horrible things that he'd done. Or, it could refer to David's replaying in his mind the images of his sinful actions, the lows that he stooped to.
[22:01] Maybe it's both. David buried and hid his sins from others for a year, but he couldn't hide them from himself or from God.
[22:12] He knew where the bodies were buried, and nothing he tried to do could free him from the guilt or blot out the memories of what he'd done.
[22:26] Many people do not find forgiveness because they don't take this step. They pretend they've done nothing wrong. Again, they will blame others.
[22:39] Friend, you may have buried your sin for a long time like David did, but it doesn't go away, and you know that. You need to come clean to God for him to forgive you.
[22:54] David knows he's sinned, and he knows that his sin is ultimately against God. In verse four, he says something that may sound surprising to you.
[23:07] He says, against you, God, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
[23:20] Now, you might hear that, you might be thinking, wait a minute, David, you sinned with Bathsheba. She wasn't the one pursuing you. You were the one that pursued her. You also used your power to get what you wanted, and then you killed Uriah, ordering your general to betray a fellow soldier.
[23:42] soldier. You also broke the trust of the nation that God gave you to rule over. How can you say that you have only sinned against God? While our sins may harm ourselves and others, sin ultimately goes against God's character, God's word, sin is a perversion of God's perfect design.
[24:18] God is the one who gave life. God is the one who gave the law written on our hearts. David understood that his sin, though committed against others, was ultimately, like all of our sin, committed against God our creator, in rebellion against him.
[24:41] In verses 5-6, David makes another necessary confession to receive God's forgiveness. He says, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
[24:53] Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. What does David mean when he says I was brought forth in iniquity?
[25:06] It might sound like David is casting blame on his mom and his dad for his sins, but that's not the case. Here, David makes a profound statement about a truth that is repeatedly taught in the Bible.
[25:22] It's not that we sin, and that makes us sinners, it's that we sin because we are sinful. We are all born, the Bible says, sinful.
[25:33] We are all born with a sinful nature, which we inherited from our parents who inherited it from their parents all the way down back to our first parents, Adam and Eve.
[25:45] We are all natural born sinners. Romans 5, 12 through 14 say, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, speaking of Adam and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sin.
[26:07] For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam who was a type of the one who was to come.
[26:21] Sin affects every aspect of our being. You probably heard it likened to a drop of cyanide in a cup of water.
[26:32] A cyanide has polluted all of the water. Don't drink it, you'll die. Sin has corrupted our minds, our hearts, our bodies, our spirits, our souls, and our wills.
[26:51] you might not be as bad as you could be, but we've all sinned and we've all sinned a lot because we are born sinful.
[27:06] And if you don't believe that, I've said it before, I'll say it now and I'll say it again, go volunteer in our nursery or have a kid in which you realize is that, you know what, the one thing you don't have to teach a child how to do is how to be bad, how to disobey.
[27:27] And not only will they disobey, but they'll enjoy their disobedience because we are all born sinful. This is important to understand because the nature of the disease determines the nature of the cure, which brings us to the third step of repentance, cleansing from sin.
[27:50] Verses seven through nine, David says, purge me with hesop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
[28:02] Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. The word purge is actually a form of the Hebrew word for sin. It means to take away the effect of sin.
[28:15] David is asking literally unsin or de-sin me to make it like he had never sinned before.
[28:26] He asked God to bleach his soul to remove all the sinful stains erasing all of his sinful actions. He asked God to unsin him with hesop.
[28:38] The hesop plant was used to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifices during Passover and other times. Hesop was also used to cleanse lepers and others of their disease in the temple.
[28:52] Here's the thing hesop was just a plant that was made into a brush. What was needed for cleansing was a sacrifice and a priest to apply the blood of that sacrifice.
[29:07] What David is asking for here is for God to make a sacrifice on his behalf and apply the blood of that sacrifice to him to cleanse him from his sins.
[29:24] Brothers, sisters, friends, this is precisely what God did through his son Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away our sins.
[29:36] God sent his son to be a sacrifice for sinners. Hebrews 10, 10-12 says, and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
[29:52] And every priest stands daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.
[30:07] God can de-sin us, he can cleanse us through Jesus Christ who offered himself dying for our sin in our place, shedding his blood, atoning for our sins, cleansing us from all our unrighteousness.
[30:29] 1 John 1, 7-9 is something that reminds us of this. It's a good one to highlight in your Bible. To memorize. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.
[30:45] If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
[31:03] The truth is that we are all sinners. The only hope that we have to be cleansed from our sins, committed against our holy creator is to trust in his sacrifice, his son, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.
[31:21] If we confess our sins, he is faithful to apply the blood of the Lamb to the doorposts of our hearts and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
[31:33] And that's not all. The fourth step of repentance, change of heart towards sin. Change of heart towards sin. David not only desires God to cleanse him from sin, he desires not to sin anymore.
[31:49] He prays to be changed by God in verses 10 through 12. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
[32:03] Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. The word create is the same word used in Genesis 1 where God created all things.
[32:14] David asked for God in essence to recreate him. He would certainly sin against God again unless God dealt with the source of his sin. And so David here asked God for a miracle.
[32:27] And that is what we need to deal with our sinful hearts. The same power that created the world must do a new work of creation to change us into a new person.
[32:40] And God has done this for us in Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5.17 says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away.
[32:50] Behold, the new has come. When you come to the Father through faith in Jesus Christ, the Son, he deals with your sin from the inside out. He begins a work in you that he will one day complete.
[33:05] In this life, the sin nature remains, but in Christ, it no longer has the power over us that it once had to enslave us. We have a new desire to not sin anymore.
[33:17] We don't have to sin anymore now that we are in Christ, but we haven't yet reached the final state of our salvation, which is glorification, where we won't have the ability to sin ever again.
[33:29] Even when we are saved, we still sin, but our attitude towards it changes. We may hide sin for a time, but eventually when God and his grace exposes it, we are grieved by it.
[33:48] We realize how horrible it is. We fear living our lives, continuing in it. we recoil at the thought of what the eternal consequences of sin are.
[34:01] For those who are not saved, to be cast away and out of God's presence forever. God is holy and he will not change his standards to accept us in our sin.
[34:16] Since his holy standard cannot be changed, we must be. When a person is truly repentant, they don't just want their sins cleansed, they desire to change.
[34:29] David desires to become a man like God, to be holy, to be blameless, sinless. Is this your desire? Does your sin grieve you?
[34:42] Do you desire to be changed? When a believer sins and their sin is exposed, if they are truly saved, they will express this desire to change, to be restored, to return back to a right relationship with God.
[35:02] And with that comes the next step of repentance. Step five, commitment to confront sin. Commitment to confront sin. David is contrite over his sin.
[35:13] He confesses his sin. He asks God to cleanse him from his sin and to change his heart towards sin. Now he commits himself to confront the sins of others by teaching them about the goodness of God, to plead with them to turn away from their sin and to turn to God.
[35:33] In verses 13-17, David says, Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from my blood guiltness, O God, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
[35:46] O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise, for you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it to you. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifice of God or a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
[36:05] David here commits himself to share his testimony of God's grace to forgive sinners like him. That's what all people who are saved by God's grace are commanded to do.
[36:21] In Matthew 28, 18-20, Jesus said before he ascended back into heaven, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
[36:39] people may deny who God is, but they can't deny what God has done in your life. Share the gospel, share the good news by giving your testimony.
[36:58] Be honest, like David pledged to be honest, pledged to be committed to this, saying, this is who I was, this is what I've done, but this is who God is, and this is what God has done, to save a sinner like me, to cleanse me, to change me.
[37:21] And then comes the sixth step, celebration for deliverance. Celebration for deliverance. David's hope is that his change will result in God's blessing others.
[37:35] He'll be a better king, and as a result of that, Israel will be a better nation. And there will be cause for celebration as his obedience inspires the obedience of God's people.
[37:47] In verses 18 and 19, do good to Zion in your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem, then you will delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings, then bulls will be offered on your altar. There will be this celebration.
[38:01] God took the initiative in David's deliverance. God makes David and us clean and forgiven.
[38:12] He makes us into men and women who are fit to worship him as we celebrate his deliverance through Jesus Christ to redeem us, to cleanse us, to forgive us through his sinless life, his sacrificial death, and his glorious victorious resurrection.
[38:35] And that's what we do every Sunday. That's what we should be doing every Sunday. We gather for Sunday school, we gather in this room, and we celebrate what God has done.
[38:51] We celebrate God's sacrifice to deliver us from our sins. And that sacrifice is his eternal son, Jesus Christ.
[39:05] And we're in the Christmas season now, and there's so much things that we celebrate about Christmas besides the main reason that we have Christmas in the first place, which is that God's son added a human nature to his divine nature.
[39:29] He lowered himself to become a servant, servant. And he served us by living the sinless life that we couldn't live. He served us by dying on the cross for the sins that we've committed.
[39:44] He served us by rising again on the third day, verifying that who he is is who he is, who he said that he was, that death has been defeated, that there is eternal life in him.
[39:56] All the longings of our heart, all the cravings of our heart are satisfied in him and knowing him, knowing who he is and knowing what he's done. And we worship him and we love him because we know that he's forgiven us and that he's merciful to continue to forgive us because his love is steadfast.
[40:18] And if you're here this morning and you don't know him, he's brought you to this place to hear the truth of who he is. And he's calling you today to turn from your sin and to turn to him in faith.
[40:29] Cry out to him and he will hear your call and he will save you and he will cleanse you and he will change you and he will keep you forever.
[40:42] How do we adjust our lives to what we've heard in this word? I think it's simply to conform to God's ways. That's what we do when we repent. We are conforming to God's ways.
[40:55] We are obeying him. we are following him. We are agreeing with him and what he says about sin and we are trusting that his ways are better than our ways.
[41:07] And in conforming to him and obeying him, that means that we also are commanded by him to forgive like him. To model this picture of forgiveness in our own lives.
[41:22] us, when we've been sinned against, we know as David said that ultimately it's not just us who have been sinned against, it's God who's been sinned against.
[41:32] And so we practice in our church, Matthew 18. We talk to one another, we share our grievances with one another and the ways that we've sinned against one another in a hope that there will be restoration between us.
[41:46] The goal is always restoration and with that comes celebration. Ephesians 4 30-32 says this and we'll give God's word the final word this morning.
[42:01] And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.
[42:15] Speaking of believers in the church, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
[42:26] Let's pray. Lord, we're thankful for the truths that we read in your word. God, we're thankful to know that a man like David, who was blessed by you in tremendous ways and who sinned in horrible ways, was a man that, Lord, you still, forgave when he repented of his sins.
[42:56] And we're thankful for this psalm that we have, Lord, when we sin, when we mess up, that we have this truth from you that we can come to you with the broken pieces and say, God, I've messed up.
[43:11] I've done it again. Lord, I pray for anybody here in this room who does not know you savingly, that today, Lord, through your word, they've heard about who you are, that you are merciful, that you are loving, but Lord, there is a time where our time here on this earth is over.
[43:40] Lord, and if we haven't called out to you, Lord, in repentance of our sin, it's too late. And I pray, Lord, that they would turn to you before it's too late. Lord, for those of us whom you've been gracious to save, I pray, Lord, that we would be reminded of your word when we sin, when we mess up, when Satan lies to us and causes us to doubt your love, that we would remember the truth of Psalm 51 and that we would apply it to our lives and that, Lord, we would be conformed to your word, that we would learn from our sin, we would see that your ways are better than our ways and that sin doesn't bring anything good into our lives or into the lives of those whom we love, and that we would be in your word and seek to be more conformed to your word and to your ways, that we would be more like you, and that, God, with that, we would obey your command to go to make disciples by sharing the good news of the gospel, including our testimony, who we were before you and who we are now as a result of your grace, your mercy, your love, your forgiveness, your sealing us with your spirit who is beginning a work in us, changing us, making us more like
[44:53] Jesus. Until that day, Lord, we are excited for that day when it comes, when we are glorified with you in your presence and will never sin again. God, thank you for who you are.
[45:05] We praise you for what you've done. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.