Is It Okay To Ask God For Blessings After You’ve Sinned? - Psalm 25 Pt.3 Series

Of David. To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; 2 in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. 3 No one who waits for you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.

4 Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; 5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and I wait for you all day long.

6 Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. 7 Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O LORD.

8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. 9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. 10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant. 11 For the sake of your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

12 Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him. 13 He will spend his days in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land. 14 The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.

15 My eyes are ever on the LORD, for only he will release my feet from the snare. 16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. 17 The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish. 18 Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins. 19 See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me! 20 Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. 20 May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, from all their troubles!

Introduction

What should happen to your joy in Christ when you sin? Should you be full of joy because of His amazing forgiveness? Or should you be crushed and broken over your sin with sorrow and tears of repentance? Is it appropriate to ask for gifts and blessing from God right after you have sinned against Him? And if not, how long should you wait? If I have joy and ask God for gifts of grace, am I failing to take my sin seriously? And if I am broken and crushed with sorrow and sadness, am I failing to truly believe the promises about total forgiveness?

Does God ever become unhappy with a believer? And if so, how do you know when God is angry with you, and what should you do when that happens? In Psalm 25 David asks God not to remember the sins of his youth. Is that really necessary? Didn’t God forgive the sins of his youth way back when he first confessed those sins? (which no doubt, he did. David was a very godly young man.)

David wrote this at a time when he was facing an explosion of trouble in his life from every direction because of his sin. And his response to that was to fix his attention on God. And then his heart had a three-fold response to what he saw. He made those attributes the object of his soul’s desires, he trusted in God’s promises, and he eagerly waited on God, refusing any substitutes for grace. And one attribute that really caught his attention was God’s forgiveness and restoration. One of the truly great things we learn in this psalm is how to take our sin seriously and take forgiveness and grace seriously at the same time. First let’s look at the attribute, then we will consider the three-fold response.

The attribute is God’s gracious memory. And it was an attribute that appealed to David because of his guilt. David is very, very concerned about his sin in this psalm. He brings it up several times, and in verse 11 he says:

11 forgive my iniquity, because it is great.

The seriousness of sin

The reason David had such passion in seeking God’s grace was because of his awareness of the greatness of his sin. And it does not take much knowledge of Scripture to understand that our sin is great too. Even the kinds of sins we tend to think of as small are really great. Every sin we commit is a great evil because it is committed against such a great God. Every one of our sins is a sin against great holiness and great goodness and great power and great mercy and great patience. The longer God has been patient with me the greater the evil when I prey on that patience and use it as an occasion for further evil.