You guys can have a seat. You know, this morning, we're going to celebrate just for a few minutes over just the past week that we've walked through. You know, I realized this week that this summer has been one for the records, right? I mean, one that none of us had expected. None of us were kind of looking towards, probably since about 1918, maybe Spanish Flu time, which not many of us were around for. We haven't really experienced moments like we've been walking through. And so I think it's important though, for us just to know that, God's not done with us.

He's not finished with us. God hasn't hit the pause button. He's not on a break. He's not taking a break from church. Get back when things are normal. Man, God's moving and he's active and he's working and man, I hope that you're sensing that. I hope that in your circle, you're seeing that and I just want to give us an example this morning of how He worked even just this week. And so I know that one of the bedrocks of this church is VBX kind of when we get kids together and families together and people take off work for it and man it's a week around here and it's so powerful and we wondered this year how, are we going to do it?

Well, we figured it out. And we know a lot of you weren't able to be a part of it. A lot of you are in situations where it just wasn't the wise thing for your family. And that's okay. We want to bring you into that world just for a minute. So you can have a little bit of this campus this week. So you guys, check out this video with me. And then I'm going to talk to pastor Aaron.

I want you guys to give a really big welcome to one of the best children's pastors on the planet, pastor Aaron Holloway.

Oh, man. You know, I think just to bring you into the loop just for a minute, Aaron and his team this week, knocked it out of the park when it comes to having a pandemic style VBX. And this might be the first time that maybe he's ever done before who knows on that scale. But I thought it was important because a lot of you didn't get to be a part of it, just to kind of talk about the week a little bit.  Aaron, why not just punt? I mean, why don't we just punt? Why don't we just produce a couple videos and tell families best of luck this week?  Wouldn't that have just been a whole lot easier on your team to do? Talk us through why do VBX this week?

Well, I think we are blessed as a church that we believe in ministry to children and students. That there's an urgency to reach people with the gospel. We know the statistic 85% of Christians accept Christ between the ages of 4 and 14. And when the new guidelines came out, we're like, you know, what, the first church, they suffered persecution. And we kind of stepped back into that role and said, how can we do this within the safety guidelines? And we wanted to reach kids with the gospel.

You know, like, I guess it was maybe, I don't know, 7 or 8 weeks ago, Aaron and I were meeting together we're just talking, we're dreaming. Okay, God, how can this work? You know, because I mean obviously, in our world and in yours, everything changes every morning, you wake up, it's kind of like Groundhog Day, is what we say a lot. And, Aaron was like, man, I think that if we can get to this place, and if we can do this, I think we can get there. And so this past week, just to kind of give you a little bit of a kind of feel for the week, we had four grade levels. Every grade level had their own quadrant of this building and had their own kind of entrance to this building. They were spaced in their classrooms with their building and they kind of operated as this little family unit for the week. Aaron, tell us kind of what did the week feel like? What did it look like for you? 

Well, it was awesome. I mean, I gotta tell you, being part of a kid's building that has no kids in it is kind of scary. It's just spooky but it was nice that there was an excitement of kids being here. We did our younger classes only had 12 in them. The older grades had 25 still socially distance. And I think my daughter Kate said it. She said, "Dad, I loved it this year because at rec we actually got to play the games and we didn't have to wait in any lines." It was tremendous. And we had over 500 different children attend. Y

eah, that's awesome! Amen, you can clap for that! 

And, and I was sharing with Matt earlier that my first year here 13 years ago, we were averaging about 500 kids. So it was pretty exciting to do that. We also had 24 salvation decisions. 

Come on.

Hey, come on. And that's it, man. 

It's okay to be excited. I promise. I know everybody's a little beat down. But it's good. Twenty kids this week, gave their life to the Lord in the middle of just a craziness of where we are right now. Aaron, just walk us through. I know you had worship rallies, and it was kind of a little bit hard to see like one kid and four chairs and one kid but hey, they did it. But tell us your favorite part of the whole week this week?

Well, I'd have to say I had two moments. One was on Tuesday, during our gospel presentation to our fourth graders. And there's a gentleman that has gone to church here for several years. And I asked them after we concluded the prayer and the time I said, I need you to, when you get back to your class, go share with your teacher. And the young man was sitting right over here, and he just immediately made a beeline for his teacher and, they were just so excited. And then he asked if he could come up and talk to me. And he said, Pastor Aaron, and he says, "I have known for a long time now that I've had to accept Jesus as my Savior. And today was the day that I did it." That was pretty awesome.  

Amen. That's awesome. Yeah. So Aaron, parents dropped off kids every morning, and there was a bunch of temperature checks, and everybody was walking around the hall with like, this bubble around them. Tell us how did kind of the spiritual, like the climate feel like? How did the leaders connect with the kids like what did it look like?

Teamwork makes the dream work, right? We had a great set of volunteers and they just, it was kind of nice to be small because everybody knew everybody's name. I got to connect with leaders that I may have just been like, hey, how you doing and got to find out what's going on in lives and how I can pray for them. So in that respect, it was good. I call it VBS Vacation Bible Small because everything was small. And we did three different sessions. So, but it was great. It was great. 

That's good. You know, I think it's just really important for us to see that man, God is not done and I don't know about you, but I wake up in the mornings and I'm like, oh man, what am I gonna get today or what's gonna be fed to me today and, and I just thought it was important for you guys to hear this week and to be able to see this week that, this is what you're a part of. You know, every week we do giving moments and we talk about what things go to and what things have and how we're providing and I want you to know church this week, you were part of over 500 kids hearing the Gospel of Jesus, and over 20 of them walking into an eternity with Jesus. And, I can't be more proud. This pastor can't be more proud of your team, Aaron and the other teams that kind of made this thing work this week and church, listen, we are going to continually see God do things all the way through the mess, right? Because we're not just going to roll over, we're going to be safe. We're going to be kind of spacious but when we're going to just see and operate under the power of the Holy Spirit and listen if that's where you want to belong, then welcome to Burnt Hickory. And thanks for being here. Aaron, would you just pray over us, our kids ministry and just pray us into the message this morning.

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we love you and we praise you and we thank you for Jesus, we thank you that he took the penalty of our sin willingly. Lord, we thank you for all that was done this week in Your name. And I thank you for the volunteers that didn't sacrifice but Lord, they invested in the next generation. Lord, I thank you again for all that you're doing. Lord, may we continue to be a lighthouse to this community and beyond, in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Can you guys give Aaron one more hand for just being with us? Nice, you know, I know this is hard for you guys to understand. But it's felt a little lonely around here,  uh, over the last week and there was actually life back in the building this week, which was awesome. Well, hey, look, if you got a copy of Scripture this morning, I want you to get with me in Psalm 51. All right? Psalms 51 and we're going to conclude our series that have been based around the summer of Psalms of what we have done is we've kind of looked at these top tunes of ancient Israel. We've kind of dissected them and looked at this book that was written over the course of about 400 to 500 years, it was written by about 7 maybe 12 authors depending upon who you attribute, some of them to and we've watched how so many of these authors have just kind of put their heart on the table. They put their minds on the table. They've kind of sang for joy and they've kind of sang the message of Christ over us and showed us this level of devotion that God has called us to. And what we have done is we've kind of experienced these Psalms, which we've said all along, is just a Hebrew word for song. S-o-n-g and I got to thinking this week that music is incredibly powerful. And it's also incredibly telling, is it not?  

I mean, if I were right now to sneak out to your car or to grab your mobile device, and if I were to open up your Spotify playlist, or maybe if you're not Spotify, maybe yours is just an iTunes playlist, or maybe you kind of even go back a little bit farther into your binder of CDs or your milk crate of tunes. Maybe if I was to just get on your audio device in your car and look at your presets, what that would tell me about you is kind of the mood in which you operate in most often right, it would tell me a lot about you.  If you're an 80s, rock guy kind of like me, you're a Journey guy kind of like me, it kind of tells me you like to roll the windows down and just kind of let the breeze blow. If you're a classic person, you're kind of a deep thinker. If you're, a rap person, we'll pray for you. I mean, if you're, I'm just kidding. If you're just an all gospel person, you're a liar. You listen to other stuff, too. All right? But here's what music does. Music tells me and tells you a lot about just kind of where we are. And it tells us kind of where we are in our emotions and how we're feeling right now. And it tells me about how I'm experiencing life, right? Because I mean, you don't get in your car after a breakup and just jam out with Van Halen. I mean, it's just not how it works. Not that we would do that anyway. Maybe but you would, kind of go to something else. You gotta have a moment of your life where maybe you're kind of on that track and you're trying to beat your best PR kind of time you're probably not listening to the symphonic orchestra at that time, you got some of this kind of music thats giving you a little bit of pep. Well, look, songs are like that, right? And it's really important for us when we go to the Bible, and when we go to this book called Psalms, to realize that these are songs that they used. And this is kind of a, if you want, it's an ancient hymnal that was given to the Jews to be able to, at some point, celebrate and at some points tell God who He was. And at some points, it was just to have these moments that they check in every year and if you look at maybe even Psalm 113 through 118, it told them some things they should be singing over their families during the Passover Feast. We looked at a bunch of the Psalms of ascent, and we've looked at a lot of these praise moments throughout Scripture, but there's also a category of these that we haven't looked at yet. And it's this category of Psalms or songs, whichever one you want to say it of, lament, of just heaviness, of depth and there's this category that we haven't looked at, but we need to because they're important, and here's why they're important. 

They're important because at some point in your life, you're going to crash and burn. All right? I know that was incredibly, that was incredibly uplifting, right? But at some point in your life, you're gonna have some decisions, you're gonna have some moments, you're gonna have some things that happen in your life to where you hit rock bottom, where the wheels fall off for a little while, and maybe it's kind of temporary. Maybe it's for a long season. I mean, man, maybe you're in one right now, just to be honest. At some point in your life, you're gonna have a time in your life where you're at the bottom of where you think life can be, and you're looking up to a world and you're just wondering, how do I get myself back to where God wants me to be? Well, Psalm 51. Psalm 51 gives us the prescription of how to do that. Now, look, you might not be in one of those seasons right now. But I'll guarantee you if you live long enough, you're gonna be in a moment in your life, where you look in despair with heaviness, with depth, in your soul going God, I just don't even know what to do. Well listen, King David gives us what to do when we hit bottom, and I want you to see it. 

Psalm chapter 51. Before we get to verse one, it's important for us and I'm always wanting to give you some ways that you can be a better Bible student. All right? It's important for us not to jump straight to verse 1 in Psalm 51. We need to go to the introduction, right? We need to go and see because in every Psalm or in most of the Psalms, it kind of gives us this little backstory. This kind of behind the scenes story and Psalm 51 has quite the backstory. In fact, this is what it says it's pretty long. It can tells us why it's written, who it's written to is the title. Listen to the title of Psalm 51. It says this you can look at your device it's probably in your app, and I'm gonna put it on the screen it says this.  It says, "For the director of music.  A psalm of David.  When the prophet Nathan came to him, after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba." Now, that's quite the qualifier, is it not? I mean, that's not just like, have a happy day. I mean, that's going to show us that this song is going to be emotional. It's not going to be one of those where we're just setting our eyes up to the mountain and praising. It's not going to be one of those where everybody wins and we have wings like eagles.  It's not going be one of those that we all walk away feeling better. It's not going to be a couple skate moment. It's not going to be any of that. It's not even going to be a love song. It's going to be a song that's heavy. And by the way, what if you wrote the song?  Because I mean, people wrote them right? 

What if you were King David and you wrote this song and later on, I mean maybe if David were kind of able to kind of spend a couple moments with us now and he's flipping through your Bible, and he's looking at Psalm 51. And he's like, are you kidding me? That's the intro to the song that I wrote? Why couldn't we just let that go? I got to thinking this week about what this would look like. Anybody remember Casey Kasem? Anybody in the house?  And you're going no man, I would never do that. Yes, you did. All right? Casey Kasem every week, what did he give us? He gave us the top 100. He gave us the top 100 every week, for those of you that are young look him up on the internet. All right? I mean, he's there. I promise. I'm not making it up. And I can just hear Casey Kasem, in my mind on this story, saying something like, hey, I got a shout out right now to all of you who committed adultery with your neighbor and killed her husband. This one's for you. I mean, basically, I mean, basically, that's the intro to this Psalm. And I mean, think about poor David. 

Every time he gets to kind of look at this. I don't know if we kind of get to look at the Bible in heaven or not? And we probably do, but but every time he looks at this, you know, he's just like, oh man, I had to put that there? I mean, why can't we move past this, but I can tell you why we can't move past it. Because the Bible is showing us something with this. And it's showing us that the Bible is a real document. It's raw. It's not glossed over. It's not something that has just been kind of put down. Nobody's made it read easier. The Bible is a real document that basically can look to the depths of who we are and it can speak to us. And it's showing us that even some of the heroes of the people that we looked up to had moments in their life where they had fatal crashes and fatal burns. And let's learn from what happened in their lives. That's why the intro is there. So we get this VH 1 behind the scenes, right? We get this little look at this little scene of what the band was thinking when this thing was written and how it felt behind all of this and we get to see that this Psalm is about David's rooftop experience. It's about his rooftop experience. 

We see that in the intro right?  Now, this is David?  David was the shepherd boy that looked up one day and said, "You want me to be what? The king?"  And he was thrust into this position of being the king of all of Israel. This is David that killed Goliath with the stone. This is David that ruled. He was an incredible military leader. This is David that should have been off to war, right? We look at First and Second Samuel, we see all of these things that David did and I'm gonna encourage you this week to dive into both of those books and just read about the life of David. And we get to 2 Samuel 11 and 12 and we see this story of what happened in David's life where he should have been off at war, but he wasn't and he was up on his palace roof. And what was he doing? He was looking out over his kingdom,  he was looking in and he was watching Bethsheba.  But now if you would have caught David while he was watching, Bethsheba take a bath, he would have said that it was the first time right? Because that's what guys say, when they're caught, but we all know that's not the truth. I mean, I've spent enough time with guys. I've spent enough time in counseling sessions that this wasn't the first time.   David knew where to look. He knew which houses had smaller curtains. He knew which ways that he could gaze his eyes at certain times of the day to find what? What he was looking for, right?  He knew where to go on his roof to get exactly what he wanted to find. He knew the channels, right? He knew the sites to go to, he knew the music and he knew the shows to watch from his kingdom. He was sitting on his rooftop one night and he was overlooking all the smaller homes in the village. And what was happening is these homes were built out of concrete and through the day in the Mediterranean living they would just continue to heat up all day long and get hotter and hotter. And so at nighttime to let the house cool down, they would go up on the roof and have kind of an outdoor living experience and they would have dinner together on the roof, they would have entertainment on the roof together and then after the night closed, that is actually where they would bathe to let the water kind of carry gravity would carry the water away from the house and David all of a sudden began to get in his place and overlook the kingdom in these places that he knew that he could look.  

And let's just be honest, we all have rooftops don't we?  We all have rooftops and we all know where we can find the stuff that we shouldn't have anything to do with. We all have rooftops and we all know how to get to the places that we shouldn't be a part of and whether it be a site or whether it be people or whether it be a channel or a book or an app, we all know how to get to the things that do not honor God. And we position ourselves so many times in life, knowing that we shouldn't be there right? In places that we can view and soak in the things that it is.  Now look, it doesn't have to be just sexually.  It can be pride and it can be from the area of your work or from the area of your relationships. It might be false encouragement. It might be greed or lying.  David knew where to look and he did,  right?  And what he did,  he called for this lady, Bethsheba to come to him.  They slept together and he finds out later on that she's pregnant. She has a child and what does David do? He starts scheming. He starts scheming this guy, David, right?  King David after God's heart, that wrote 73 of the Psalms.   73 of them written by this guy.  He wrote a note to the commander of the army to have Bethsheba's husband killed. Think about that.  

The hand that wrote the Bible wrote the note to have this guy killed. He had him killed. And David does what's noble right?  He takes in his friend, which was Uriah who he killed, takes in Bethsheba into the King's house. Why? Because he's a good guy, right? Because he wants to be noble right?  And the news got out that David was an incredibly good guy and he thinks that he gets away with it until one day this guy named Nathan walks up and he's a prophet. What's a prophet? A prophet is a guy who comes and talks about who God is. A prophet is a guy who's a mouthpiece for God and Nathan comes in front of King David and David says, "What's going on Nathan?" And David says, "we got a problem with the kingdom?" Remember the story? I love it. "We got a problem with the king." He was like, "What? What's the problem?" He goes, "listen to this David. He goes, "They were having a party and this rich guy over here had 1000 sheep having a barbecue, but he looked over at his neighbor who only had one sheep and the guy with 1000 needed to have a sheep for a barbecue and he stole the one from the guy who only had one sheep. And this guy gave everything to have this one sheep."   He fed it at his table. He named this sheep, right? And David's looking at him in anger, and Nathan's going, "Can you believe that David? This guy had 1000, this guy only had one but the guy who had a 1000 stole the one. What are we going to do about this David?"  And David said, "That guy must die." Nathan looks back at David and if you remember the story I want you to read it this week. I'm not making this out. Right? This is just good for TV stuff.

King David looks at Nathan and says, "That guy needs to die." and Nathan goes, "Wait a minute, David. That guy's you." And then what happens in David's life that leads up to this Psalm, David repents.  David's heart is crushed, his soul was crushed. And he begins this process of realizing what he did to get into this moment. And Nathan looks at David in this moment and he says, "David, you have been forgiven because you have repented." But God, there's gonna be some things in your life and as David is dealing with this huge mess, after this, he gives us the example of Psalm 51. Now, I know that's a long intro, right?

But you got to feel the weight of the music. You gotta feel it. Psalm 51:1-2, David begins to tell us how to dig out of the hole. Look at it right here. It says, "Have mercy on me, Oh God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions." Just a big word right there.  Transgression is just this big word of where I went wrong. "Wash away my iniquity." That's a long term purposeful, wrong.  "Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me", David said, "from my sin." Now what is this adultering murder guy doing right here? He's looking at us. And he's looking at himself and he's calling out to God and he's given us his first lesson. When we hit bottom, he's saying this, if you're going to dig out, you got to realize that healing number one starts with the power and the purpose of the cross. But what does he do? David calls out to God and he points all of his focus into the direction not of his own power, because that hasn't worked already, but into the power of who God is. 

This Psalm is about the power of God and what God can do. What does he say?   The Psalmist starts right off the bat and David says, "God have mercy on me according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion."  What does that mean? That means that God has offered us this love that will not fail, no matter how wrong we are, no matter how much we need it, God has compassion on us that He wants to bring us back. He wants to give us power back. He wants to have fellowship with us. And David takes us right to this point, that there's things in our life, there's stuff in your life, I'm calling us out, that you can not fix. You can't. No matter how good you are, no matter how much money you have, no matter how strong you are, no matter what your system is, there are things in your life that only by beginning with the power and the purpose of the cross can be fixed. But this is not what our culture tells us. Our culture tells us that it is on us. Listen, here's the deal, you're never going to be good enough to give back to God. You're never going to be that good.  

You can't go to church enough. You can't memorize enough scripture. You can't be good enough to enough people.  And even as King David realized when he fell hard.  When he fell onto the bottom of the bottom, realizing that he got away with it, he realized this. I can't fix it. Isn't that freeing? I mean, honestly, let's just put our pride to the side and  let's talk as real people right here. Isn't it freeing knowing that the Bible doesn't say that it starts with us, that it starts with God? Isn't it freeing to know that the power that is in your life does not start with you? It starts with God every single time. It starts with the power of God. It starts with the purpose of the cross and David realizes this about God's love and His compassion and His giving. And he realizes that it is only through God's unfailing love and His compassion that he will ever begin to get himself back out of the pit, out of it, and here's the thing, this was even pre Jesus. So shame on us, right? Shame on us because we can look back to the cross. David didn't have the cross to look at right? We can look back to the power of not only the presence of God through the Old Testament, but we can look at the power of God in the cross, and know that that's where it starts.   Romans 5:8, says "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."   

I love Colossians 1:21. It says, "Once you were alienated from God, and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.  But now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight without blemish and free from accusations."  Here's what he's saying. He's saying if you could have saved yourself from sin, I would have not had to send Jesus and if you think that you can get yourself up out of this thing without the power and the purpose of the cross then we were looking at Jesus and telling Him what he did was not necessary.  It always starts with the cross, always.  It's in God's power through the cross that you will begin to get out of the pit. So here's what I'm challenging you with this week. You got to quit looking at yourself because you're not going to get yourself there, but God can. God can number one, but it doesn't stop there. He keeps going. It keeps going, that'll be enough. They'll get our money's worth out of number one, but there's a couple more.  Number one, he shows us that healing starts with the power and purpose of the cross. 

But he also shows us number two, that our sin, this is a hard one, that our sin is really more about God than it is others. Now this is not Christianity 101,  all right?  We're moving into like 201 and 301. Right here, okay?  But you can handle it.  Alright?  It's been a good summer. Here it is. Our sin is really more about God than it is about others. And David shows us this is hard to look at from a guy who killed somebody committed adultery. All right? This is hard to look at from a guy who had premeditated murder in his heart, but it's true. Look at verse 3, it says this, "For I know my transgressions", David says, "and my sin is always before me." In other words, I always know that it's there, I can't forget about it. And then look at  verse 4,  "Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight;" he's talking to God, "so that you are right in your verdict, and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.  Yet you deserved faithfulness, even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place."  Now, did David sin against Bathsheba? Yes. Did David sin against Uriah?  He's dead, right? 

Did David sin against all the people he was supposed to be ruling in authority over? Yes.  Did David destroy lives and split families and cause generational divides and hurts? Yes, I'm not disputing any of that. But what I am saying with this heaviness in my heart is this; all of our sin, all of our sin, while it may be against other people it is primarily, listen to me, it is primarily against God.  It is primarily against God. Now this is a change of paradigm for some of us because we have never heard this before. But let me just tell you this.  Your sin is against others, but it is primarily every single time against God first.   Listen to what JI Packar said.  He died on Thursday, an incredible theologian for years and years and years. I thought it was important. Let's just read what he has to say. He says this, "We sin against others by doing to them what God has forbidden or by failing to do to them or for them what God has commanded. The commandments do not come from others but from God. Therefore, the sin", what does he say, "is first and foremost against God."  David realizes this in Second Samuel 12:13, when David says to Nathan, he looks at Nathan and he says these words even after killing this guy, "I have sinned against the Lord."  David's sin  and our sin, it breaks the heart of God first.  It shatters our relationship. But for some reason, we have been able to separate in our minds when we sin against another person, we feel like that sin is really just against them. But God says no, no, no, it's against me first, because I'm the designer of life, and morality, right? I'm the one who's laid out the principles here. So this just totally breaks down one of culturals biggest myths we're living by right now, and it's this; As long as it doesn't hurt anybody else, it must not be a sin.

Oh, yes, it is. Why? Because it doesn't matter if it hurts anybody else because it hurts the heart of God first.

So those things that you do in secret that you think are not against anyone else on this planet, they shatter your relationship with God, David says.  It doesn't matter about other people that's secondary. Matt, you don't care about other people. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying primarily it's God, David says, it's God. So I mean, if we've all sinned, I mean Romans 3:23, we've all sinned, and what have we done? We've fallen short of the glory of God. What does that mean?  That our sin primarily shows us that our relationship with God is broken first, and our relationship with others and ourselves is broken  secondly, but for some reason, we focus so much of our attention on what our relationship with others look like first.  Where God goes, hey, if you fix your relationship with me, the outflow from that is going to be relationship with others.

I think we got it backwards right? I think we got it backwards. Our sin is primarily against God always, but he doesn't stop there. It gets even  heavier. If you can believe that. This is AP stuff we're about to get into. We move past 201 and 201, right?  The third lesson he gives us is this. He says remember that your past sins, they can have consequences.

Remember your past sins, they can have consequences. Now, this is another heavy one, right? Because remember, as a redeemed follower of Jesus, have I been cleansed from my sins, have I been? Have I truly been forgiven of my past, my present and my future sins? What's the answer to that question? Yes. Oh my goodness, we got a long way to go. Yes, you have been.  The moment you given your life to Jesus, you are fully justified. He washes you in the blood. God views you through the lens of Jesus because He has forgiven you. That's the only way a holy God can be in the presence of a sinful man is the fact that we're under the banner of Jesus, But there's consequences to some of those sins. Okay? There's consequences. I love Second Samuel 12:13 where Nathan says, Hey, David, "The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die." In other words, David's like whoah I'm not going to die, but because by doing this, you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die."  Here's what that means.  Is David fully forgiven? Yes. All right? That's the answer. Just answer yes for the rest of time. Okay? Yes, he is fully forgiven in Psalms 51, when David comes to God with this lamenting cry, is he already forgiven? Yes, I told you the answer. Yes. Thanks, Marcus. Yes, he is. But David's heart is heavy, because there's consequences that can follow, even being forgiven from our sins. And some of you have never heard this before, this is heavy. I'm telling you this end of the summer heavy. So what is David doing? He's processing through what he has done, and he's looking at some of the things that it has brought into his life. Now this is going to be freeing for some of you because some of you always wondered, has God forgiven me for this, if I still struggle that I've done it? Yes, he has forgiven, but that doesn't mean he takes all the consequences. 

Look at verse three, Psalm 51:3 says this, "For I know my transgressions, and my sin." David says what?  "My sin is always before me." What is he saying? God doesn't just make you forget about something because you're forgiven of it. It's always there. It's always gonna be in front of you. He keeps going in verse 7, he says, "Cleanse me God with the hyssop", that's a plant it's like a ancient sponge.  "Cleanse me with the hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness;  let the bones you have crushed rejoice.  "Hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquity." What is David doing? He is calling out to God to restore in him the power and the presence of who God has been in his life. If you want to look at the holiness, and just the heaviness of this, go back to Psalm 32 and Psalm 38, we don't have time for that today if you want lunch, but I promise you you're gonna see in those that David is a broken man, I mean, he's got so many stomach issues, he's got family issues, his back is hurting, his head hurts him and his neighbors have left him and he's heavy in this moment, because of his sin. But is he forgiven? What's the answer? Yes, we're gonna get it. Yes, that's the answer. He's forgiven. So why are there consequences? 

Why does God allow us to walk out some consequences from our sins? Well listen in so I can keep this as brief as possible. Let me just read you this quote by john Piper. It says this, the aim of God sent consequences of forgiven sin, right? This is true believers. All right, this is not if you're non believer that's not for you. For believers. The aim of God sent consequences of forgiven sin is not to settle accounts demanded by retribution of justice. In other words, God is not punishing you so that there can be justice in your relationship.  Who served that justice?   Jesus did right answer.   

Jesus or Moses or Yes, you're gonna be okay.  So here what it tells us? God's not punishing us so that we can receive justice. That's what he's already done through Jesus. But listen to this, the aim of God sent consequences of forgiven sin are number one, to demonstrate the exceedingly evilness of sin, just to show us that,  hey sin stings, sin is evil. And it's not just a get out of jail free card, when you give Jesus your life number two, to show that God does not take sin lightly. Even when he lays aside his punishment. What is his punishment for the wages of sin?  It's death, right? That's what we deserve. But he's laid that aside. But in order to show us that sin is serious, he allows there to be some carrying consequences, but looking number three, to humble and sanctified the forgiven sinner, what does it do? and when God allows us to see our consequences from our sin, it's showing us how we can walk in His holiness and not walk back in the person we used to be.

You ever wondered? God why can't I just get rid of this God? Why can't I forget this God? Why does this not go from my life? You know what He's doing?  He's sharpening you by showing you how to walk in holiness and not walking back in your sin. I told you this is heavy. Remember, Hebrews 12:6, the writer of Hebrews agrees with it. He says, "The Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chases everyone He accepts as his son."  When it comes to the consequences of our sins, we walk in some of those consequences so that God can watch us become more holy, become more righteous and become more trustworthy in the sanctifying. All right, that's the becoming more like Him process and that's what David is praying for. He's not praying for forgiveness, he's already forgiven. Yes, he's forgiven. But David doesn't stop there and the consequences because David had some consequences, right? 

If you read the rest of Second Samuel, you'll see that he's got family issues. He's got generational issues. He's got two sons that are trying to kill each other. He's got a baby that died.  He's got incest, he's got kingdoms being stolen from him. He didn't get to build the temple, all of this stuff because of his sin. But he doesn't stop there. He gives us number four and this is the hopefulness. All right, we're heavy. Let's get hopeful for a minute. Look at this number four, David says, remember that it's God who offers freedom and usefulness, even after we fall. It's God. It's God that offers the freedom. It's God that offers the usefulness. David goes back into his soul into the depths of his soul and he says, God, I'm remembering. God, that it is only your unfailing love. It is only your rich mercy that can get me to this point. And if you think about it, us looking back onto the cross of Jesus is the only way for us to see that we can have freedom and usefulness even after we fall.  Because here's the deal, you're never going to get enough distance between the fall and where you are to get you there. But David said, no, no, no, listen.

Did I blow it? Yeah. Are those families ever gonna be made whole again? No, they're not going to be. But I know that my Maker, the Creators of the heaven and earth, He has made me whole. Can tell you something?  He wants to make you whole. He doesn't want to leave you in the bottom. He wants you to see that it's him. In fact, David gets so incredibly animated. Look at verse 10 right here. Look at the cry of David's heart he takes us to school on what we should be praying and crying if we want God to get us out of the pit. He says, "Create in me, a pure heart, O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me." He begs God to make him  pure, he begs God to make him new.  He begs God to fully restore the power and the presence of his relationship in his life.  That should be our prayer this week to get us out of the pit. Right?  Keeps going verse 11, "Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me." Now look, this is the Old Testament. Here's what we know. In the New Testament, once you are sealed with the Holy Spirit, you no longer have to pray for God to leave the Holy Spirit. But you have to pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to be present in your life. What is he saying? Although God, I know that I deserve for you to never be around me, what is he doing? He's dropping his pride. He's realizing this thing is not for me. It's nothing I can do. I can't get myself out of this. I can't talk my way out of it. He's  saying, God, I need you to step in and look at verse 12. It's the theme verse of the whole deal.  "Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing Spirit to sustain me." Sustain me.  What is he praying? He's not praying that God would restore his salvation. That's not the prayer. Why? Because once you were saved, you were sealed. There's nothing you can do. What does he bring God, restore me the joy of my salvation.

Listen, here's what I know. Here's what I know. I'm just gonna call it out and say it like it is. Some of you haven't walked in the joy of your salvation for a long time. Because your're deep, deep, deep in despair. How do you get out? You realize that it starts with power and purpose of Christ.  You realize that my sin is really more about me against God than it is others.  You realize that man there's still gonna be some consequences but I need to start working through those and I don't need to blame God that they're there maybe they're guard rails and I need to see that God is offering me freedom to begin to rise up and see that He is King.

What does David do right here? David gets his salvation joy restored. How do you know Matt? Well I know because for the next 30 to 40 years of David's life he lives as God's own man. I know because from this Psalm on we begin to see in chronological order that the next songs that we see are just Psalms of David saying how worthy God is.  How precious God is.  How powerful God is and that is not a song of lament.

That is a song of praise.

So look, I don't know where you come from this morning. I don't know if you're in despair. Or I don't know if you're on the mountaintop. But here's what I do know. God wants to meet you there. He wants to meet you there. Listen, there's a group I haven't talked to this morning and it's those of you that don't know Jesus.

Here's the deal. You can't get out of despair on your own. You can try. But it's not gonna work. But He can get you there. So the Bible says that the wages of sin is death, that's what we deserve. But then it says that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you need to give your life to Jesus today? Do you need to ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins like  these 20 kids this week have done?  And ask him to step into your life, forgive you your sins come in to your heart as your Savior and your Lord.  If that's you today, man what are you waiting on? The Bible says, just to confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and you can be saved. Listen, if that's your heart today and you don't know the words, say, you don't know kind of what that looks like, I'm just gonna ask you to do something. Since we're kind of socially distance right now. I just want you to wherever if you're online, or if you're in a room, I just want you to text the word next to 678-506-2462. And I just want you to say, I need Jesus and listen, somebody, I promise you that somebody will get back with you today. And they'll show you what it looks like to get out of despair. Maybe you are a believer in the room today and you just need God just to wash a freshness of the joy of your salvation over you. Can I tell you that's the definition of revival.

That's the definition, in these next moments of just singing together, I'm just gonna ask Just to say the words that David has just given us.  Restore to me, God. Restore me God.  Restore me God. Lord Jesus today. We give you our hearts, we give you our lives, work in us, Jesus.  Its in your name, Amen. Stand and sing just for a minute and allow God to just connect us and move us.