6 - What Happens When a Believer Sins? Ps. 51:1-2

Transcription

1 1 6 - What Happens When a Believer Sins? Ps. 51:1-2 Last week in our series of messages about what every believer should know, we addressed the importance of the Cross and the empty Tomb in the life of believers. This was insightful and very well received. We learned about the power to live the Christ life and to possess abundant life. Yet here is the problem. We don t always live in that victory. We don t always live the abundant life. There are times when our old nature overwhelms us and we find ourselves defeated. Paul talked about that in Romans 7:18-19, For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Here is Paul, the same person who wrote about how we are to have victory and abundant life, telling us that there are times when he struggles with sin. So our question that every believer should know the answer to is this: What happens when a believer sins? What happens when we know the right thing to do, and we know the source of the power to do it, but when we don t and we sin against the Lord what do we do? First and foremost I want to remind you of the very first sermon in this series. Every believer must know that God loves them and that will never change. Every Christian must come to know that they are saved and can never be unsaved. They can never lose their salvation. We did nothing to earn our salvation so there can be nothing we can do to lose it. So take heart, my brother and sister God won t vote you off the island when you sin! His love and grace are much greater than that. That having been said, I do NOT want you to think for a millisecond that sin does not powerfully affect your fellowship with the Lord. It does! The fellowship can take a beating while the relationship is unscathed. The relationship is eternal and cannot be lost by our unfaithfulness. However, our moment-bymoment fellowship can be hindered by willful sin in our lives. I want you to see this in the life of King David in the Old Testament. Turn to Psalm 51. This Psalm was written after David had sinned and been exposed by Nathan the prophet. It describes the spiritual journey out of sin and into cleansing. READ and PRAY What is behind Psalm 51 is the tragic and heinous sin of David. When he should have been away at war, he was sitting idle at home in his palace. He saw a woman bathing on top of her house and lusted after her. He sent for her and had relations with her. When she became pregnant, he concocted an elaborate scheme to hide it and make it appear her husband Uriah was the father. When that didn t work, he gave orders to abandon Uriah on the battlefield and allow him to be killed by the enemy. Then, looking gracious and magnanimous, he took Bathsheba as his own wife to comfort her. David was convinced he had it all well hidden until God raised up a prophet named Nathan to expose David publically. That is the context that gave rise to this psalm. What David did was despicable, hurtful, and harmed his fellowship with the Lord powerfully. Yet David was still a child of God. I totally expect to see David in heaven. He was a man after God s own heart. Yet he committed this awful, terrible, horrible sin. Look first at what we can learn of sin s consequences by seeing the negative impacts of David s sin. We discover this by asking why David prayed to the Lord the way he did in this psalm. Then we will learn the process of cleansing that brought him out of that misery. 1 Note the Consequences of Sin in the Life of a Believer - Sin Dirties the Soul vs. 1-2

2 David begins by praying for God to wash him and cleanse him. He is a king. He wears royal robes, sleeps on silken sheets, and bathes in a marble tub with perfumed soap yet he feels dirty and grimy. Why? Because sin dirties the soul. When a believer sins, he is going to dirty his soul and Holy Spirit will see to it that you feel filthy. If you don t sense the filth when you sin you need to seriously ask yourself if you are indeed saved at all. No pig has ever said, Oh, woe is me for I am filthy! No! Because by nature a pig is in his element when he is in the mud and the mire. But the child of God is a new creature and this new person God has created realizes it when he is dirty and longs to be made clean. It is no longer his nature to be in filth. Today there is a form of religion that will get you starched and ironed but not washed. The lost person is never aware of their filth because their spirit is still dead and their nature is to live in sin. But a true child of God, when he sins, he feels sick unclean. Why? Holy Spirit is at work in his life telling him, Son, that is not the way I want you to be. Sin dirtied David s soul. - Sin Dominates the Mind vs. 3 David said, My sins are always before me. What did he mean? Day and night night and day, what David had done was etched on his brain. It plagued him. It reverberated through his spirit. He was conscious of it all the time. Everything he saw, heard, or felt reminded him of his sin. Have you ever been there? Has Holy Spirit every made you miserable because of your sin? Every person you see, you wonder does he know? Every song you hear brings conviction. And prayer no way! You can t pray! You know better than to try! I suggest to you that a real test of your salvation is not that you never sin again, but rather that you sin and don t care! You just forget it, and go on! For the child of God, Holy Spirit will not let you ignore it. He will not let you forget it. He will put His finger on that sore spot and poke! David said, My sins are always before me. There are two wounds that come to the human soul: guilt and sorrow. Sorrow is a clean wound. Give it time and it will heal. But guilt is a dirty wound. It will fester and fester until it pollutes the whole body. It will continue to poison until the wound is cleansed. So David begins praying, Oh God, my soul feels dirty and my mind is dominated by the evil I have done. - Sin Disgraces the Lord vs. 4 The first part of this verse troubles many, and I can understand why. David says that it is against the Lord and only the Lord that he has sinned. Really? What about Bathsheba? What about Uriah? What about the nation he was leading? What about his family? What about his very soul? Do these not matter? David is not suggesting that his sin was not against all of the above. Rather David understood sin for what it really was and affront to God Himself. For a child of God, we must never forget that sin totally disgraces all that God has done to redeem us. It cheapens the price He paid. It ridicules the cross and belittles the blood. It mocks grace and scorns mercy. Because forgiveness cost God so much, it hurts Him the most. David understood this. We have to confess, Lord, not only have I broken your Law I have broken your heart! A lost man will feel sorry for what sin has done to him, but a saved man will feel sorry for what his sin has done to God. He is convicted by what his sin has done to his Lord and out of that regret and remorse he confesses and repents. David is praying, Oh God, my soul feels dirty, my mind is dominated by the evil I have done, and my sin has disgraced You. - Sin Depresses the Heart vs. 8 2

3 David s request to hear joy and gladness, his desire to rejoice comes from the fact that his sin has denied him those blessings. This describes depression. No joy! No gladness! He has lost the joy of his salvation and he wants it restored (12). I want you to know something this morning. The most miserable person on earth is not the lost person, but the person who is saved but out of fellowship with his Lord. Only one thing can rob you of your joy in heart over being saved perpetual and unconfessed sin in your heart! Now learn the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness depends on what happens; that s why it is called happiness. We are not supposed to be happy all the time. It s unrealistic and unnatural. But joy that is another emotion completely! Joy is not ruined by circumstances. Joy is not dependent on everything going well. Joy is peace expressed as an emotion. Joy is confidence in Christ. Happiness is like a thermometer; it registers conditions. Joy is like a thermostat; it controls conditions. You can have happiness without joy, but you can t have joy without happiness. When happiness leaves as circumstances change, joy remains. Someone once said, Pain in inevitable but misery is optional. Why? Because misery is a choice! David is praying, Oh God, my soul feels dirty, my mind is dominated by the evil I have done, my sin has disgraced You, and my heart is desperately heavy. - Sin Diseases the Body vs. 8 Why were David s bones aching? He was crushed! The weight of his sins was crushing the life out of him. The burden of rebellion is heavy indeed! You don t want to bear that burden. It is unnecessary, unhelpful, and senseless. Never think that when we sin God tosses us away. No! Rather, He squeezes all the tighter! He puts on the pressure! Why? So we will repent and turn back to Him. Have you come to realize that spiritual and mental pressure affects the body? It does! Have you heard of psychosomatic illness? Psycho refers to the mind and somatic the body. The mind can make the body sick. Let me show you how this works. (illustration about a fight at the table and the raid on the Pepto Bismol.) The same is true with spiritually caused sickness. Paul told the Corinthians that their disobedience at the Lord s Table was causing some of them to be sick. (1 Cor. 11:30) Sin sickens the body. David is praying, Oh God, my soul feels dirty, my mind is dominated by the evil I have done, my sin has disgraced You, my heart is desperately heavy and my body is sick over my sins. - Sin Defiles the Spirit vs. 8 David needed a clean heart and renewed spirit because he had defiled his! He had a dirty heart and a defiled spirit. When someone is as consumed as David was over his sins, he becomes hypercritical of others. He will not address his own sins, so he finds solace in pointing out the sins of others. We see this when Nathan confronted David over his sin. (2 Samuel 12) Look at verses 5-7. So David s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity. Then Nathan said to David, You are the man! David was quick to pronounce overwhelming judgment on the hypothetical sinner in Nathan s story. But Nathan used it to demonstrate David s own sin. The man had stolen a lamb but David had stolen a woman. The man had killed a lamb but David had killed one of his most trusted generals. Why was he so judgmental? He was living with a defiled spirit. He was out of fellowship with the Lord. He was hiding his sin by his hypercritical analysis of others. 3

4 The backslidden believer is always this way; he always has a sour spirit, a vile spirit, finding fault with everyone but himself. Folks out of fellowship with God are quick to find fault with others. I heard a story of a man in a small, rural church who was the self appointed watchdog for the congregation to keep an eye on the pastor and the entire goings on at the church. One day while snooping around, he entered the janitor s closet and found five new brooms hanging on the wall. He was furious! He accosted the Treasurer about the waste, and then cornered the pastor. He had a fit for himself. Later the Treasurer and the pastor were talking and the Treasurer wanted o comfort his pastor. He said, Pastor, you have to understand his position. How would you like it if you saw everything you had given in your tithes and offerings all year being wasted on five new brooms? Folks who are out of fellowship with God are quick to find fault with others. David had gotten this way. So he prayed, Oh God, my soul feels dirty, my mind is dominated by the evil I have done, my sin has disgraced You, my heart is desperately heavy, my body is sick over my sins, and I am finding fault with everyone. - Sin Destroys the Testimony vs This may well be one of the most costly effects of being out of fellowship with God. David confessed that, because of his bloodshed he had not been able to sing aloud praise to God. His testimony before God and the people had suffered because of his sin. Jesus made us a frightful promise. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops. (Luke 12:3) He was talking about out secret sins that we are convinced no one will ever know about. Here is His principle: What you reveal to Him for cleansing will be forever hidden; and what you hide from Him will be revealed for all to see. David did not come clean with God, so God sent Nathan to publically expose him. Wow! That hurts! But that is how much God loved David and wanted the fellowship restored. How far do you want Him to go with you? Does He have to publically expose your sin for you to confess and repent of it? In verse 15 he asks God to open his lips to sing His praise. Why? Because his lips had been sealed. When a person is out of fellowship with God, worship is drudgery. Prayer is impossible. It is painful. And that is why folks in that condition either stay away from church or when they come they look like they have been sucking persimmons! They stare at you challenging, Bless me. I dare you! The things of God are not interesting to the backslidden person. Lost souls do not move them. Prayer and praise do not affect them. Their spirits are cauterized. It s miserable. David is praying, Oh God, my soul feels dirty, my mind is dominated by the evil I have done, my sin has disgraced You, my heart is desperately heavy, my body is sick over my sins, I am finding fault with everyone, and my testimony is in shambles. David knew he was in a mess, and that is why he cried out to God. This Psalm is his cry for healing, for forgiveness, and cleansing. Dear friend, let me tell you the truth you have to come clean with God before God can make you clean! The Word of God says, you have sinned against the Lord; and be sure your sin will find you out. (Num. 32:23) That is where we are this morning. The time to come clean is now! You and God deal with this matter today while it is still in its infancy. Don t challenge God to make it public. Deal with it in private! Now let s learn the process of cleansing that brought him out of that misery. 2 Cleansing of Sin in the Life of the Believer - Confidence Ps. 51:1-2 David knew that for the multitude of sins he had committed there was in God a multitude of mercy. He had a confidence that God had not stopped loving him. He knew what I shared with you in the 4

5 5 first sermon that God loved him and that would never change! In our time we might say, We didn t do anything to deserve God s grace and we can t do anything to lose it. Because of the cross and resurrection, we would say that we know that we know that we know we are saved and nothing can change that fact. When you have sinned, what the Devil puts in your mind is that you are filthy and God doesn t want anything to do with you. He will convince you that God doesn t love you any more and only has contempt and condemnation for you. Those are lies straight out of hell! Don t fall for them! Jesus told the parable of the prodigal son to illustrate this truth. The father was looking for and longing for the son to return. When he did, he was welcomed warmly and treated royally. That is God s truth. Don t settle for Satan s lies when God offers you His truth. Your trek back to God and His cleansing begins with the confidence that He wants you back. Know that! - Confession Ps 51:2-3 By asking for cleansing, David was confessing his sin. He owned it! It was MY sin. Don t go trying to blame others for your sin. Own it! Man up! Confess it! Look at his choice of words: iniquity, sin, transgression. He didn t try to water down what he did. It wasn t an indiscretion or an affair it was adultery. It wasn t an unfortunate act of war that killed Uriah it was murder! Don t play vocabulary games with God. Admit your sin. Name it for what it really is! Own it! It s like the old spiritual states, It s not my sister or my brother but it s me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. To confess means you agree with God about the sinfulness of your sin to agree with Him that it deserves the most sever punishment. Then bathe in the grace that Jesus took that awful punishment on Himself. I tell you truthfully, one of the great motivators in my life for remaining clean and pure is the knowledge of what my sin cost my Lord! He had to pay dearly for my stupidity and brazen ungodliness. Now that I love Him I can t imagine putting Him through that! It hurts me that it hurts Him. There is one thing our Lord will never accept for our sin an alibi! Jesus did not die for our alibis; He died for our sins! So confess them before the Lord. The next and very vital step is repentance. Hear me well here. God is not satisfied with confession apart from repentance! If you are genuine in your confession, you will be wholehearted in your repentance. Repentance means you turn away from your sinful rebellion and turn toward the Lord. You change your path 180 degrees. In the words of my predecessor, Bro. Danny Just quit it! So, out of your confidence that God loves you and wants unhindered fellowship with you, your next step is to confess and repent of your sin. - Cleansing Ps 51:2-3 Look at David s choice of words. Wash me, purge me, and cleanse me! Why did he choose those words? Because sin makes you dirty, filthy, and God wants you to have a spiritual bath! The words of the old hymn come to my mind: What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Let s look at the Word. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9) Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Is. 1:18) Dear brothers and sisters you don t have to carry that garbage around. You don t have to live in the filthiness and sickening pit of sin any more. Look at David s testimony after his cleansing in Psalm 40. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and

6 established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth praise to our God; Many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord. Wouldn t you like that to be your testimony? Is that your heart s desire? Through confession and repentance, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you of your sin. It is yours for the asking because He has made it abundantly available. David knew this. That is why He wrote, Purge me and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow! (vs. 7) He said, shall! We don t use that word in our day much. But we need to use it here! We SHALL, we WILL be as clean as new fallen snow when the Lord applies the blood to your sins. - Consecration Ps. 51:12-15 There is one step more that is necessary but often overlooked in this process. Read again verses God s purpose is not to cleanse you so that you can be all nice and spotless. He cleanses you so that He can use you in His service! How did David get in trouble in the first place? He was not where he was supposed to be doing what he was supposed to do! The Bible tells us this sin with Bathsheba happened when kings went to war. Instead of being with his generals, he was in the safety and comfort of his palace. He didn t have his mind on strategy but on someone else s wife. Can I give you a bit of sage advice? If you are doing what you are supposed to be doing you will not be doing what you shouldn t be doing. Does that make sense? Do what is right and you won t be doing what is wrong! Take the advice of Paul in Galatians 5:1. Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. When Jesus has set you free, don t go getting tangled back up in the very junk that got you in trouble in the first place. So let s sum up. There are terrible consequences when we sin as believers in Christ. Our rebellion seriously impacts our fellowship with the Lord. The relationship is eternal, but the fellowship is dependent on our walking with Him in loving obedience. It is inevitable that we will fall and fail in our walk with the Lord. But when we do, just as soon as Holy Spirit convicts our heart, rush to Him for cleansing. Keep short accounts with Him when it comes to sin. If we don t, we have seen how terribly it affects us. Just as surely as you put your hand on a hot stove and get burned, if you sin you are bound to suffer for it. But God s wonderful, marvelous, matchless grace forgives and restores us to fellowship when we come in confession and repentance. 6