Title: When The Godly Fall
Series: Living Godly Lives (Sermon # 4)
Text: Psalm 51
Date Preached: June 29, 2008
COPYRIGHT © Joe La Rue, 2008
Introduction
A. For the past three weeks, we have been talking about living godly lives. We began the series three weeks ago with the general proposition that we should do this—that it is good for us to live godly lives, that this is the right thing for us to do. Two weeks ago we talked about being godly, even when no one is watching—even when no one would ever know whether we do the right thing. Last week we talked about being godly when everyone is watching—when our actions are on display, and the godly choice is the unpopular one, and doing the godly thing may subject us to ridicule or worse. We have looked at scripture in this series that encourages us to train ourselves to be godly, and to let our light shine so that the world can see our good works. This morning, let’s turn our attention to consider one more aspect of godliness. Let’s talk about what happens when the godly fall, when God’s people fail to be and act godly. None of us set out to fail; and yet, we all do. Every one of us sins, and each time we sin we are failing to live a godly life in that moment.
1. Now, sometimes these failures are relatively private. We say something to someone that we shouldn’t, or we act in a way that we shouldn’t, and few people are aware of it, if anyone is at all. These are private failures, private sins.
2. But sometimes our failures are public ones, ones which everybody sees, and everybody knows about. There’s no hiding these sins. They are in the public eye.
3. Either way, whether our sins are known by no one, or by everyone, they are known by God. The Psalmist said to God, “My wrongs are not hidden from You.” (Psalm 69:5, NASB). And God Himself says, “My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity concealed from My eyes.” (Jer 16:17, NASB). The Bible is plain: God sees all our sins, even if no one else does. So, whether our sin is public or private, God always sees. He always knows.
B. David found this out. You remember David—he was the king of Israel. He was an ancestor of Jesus. He was specially chosen by God to lead the people. And, just like us, he fell. In one horrible moment, he failed to be the man God wanted him to be. And he found out that God always knows. Even when we deceive ourselves into thinking that no one could possibly know, God does.
1. You remember that God had given David the Kingdom of Israel, and had also given him success, power, and wealth. In addition, God had given David a number of beautiful women as wives. However, just like us sometimes, David wasn’t satisfied with all that God had given him. He wanted more.
2. One time, while David’s army was off fighting a war, and David was restless at home, he happened to look out from the palace and he saw a beautiful young woman named Bathsheba bathing in the house next to the palace. He looked at her, and he wanted her. He must have thought, “I’m the king! I can have anything I want!”—including her. So David sent a messenger and ordered her to come to his palace. She came—she had no choice—and David slept with her. Now, the Bible says that you should not have relations with someone who is not your spouse. That was true in David’s time, just as it is true today. But David didn’t care. He was attracted to her; he wanted her; so, he slept with her. And lo and behold, Bathsheba got pregnant.
3. When she told David, David knew he had a problem. You see, Bathsheba was married. Not only had David committed the sin of having sex with someone he was not married to, he had also committed the sin of adultery—he had slept with another man’s wife. And this man was one of his soldiers. He was currently off in the war, risking his life for the man who had just slept with his wife.
4. David knew that this would not look good, so David thought, “I’ve got to keep this sin private. No one can ever know.” So David hatched a plan. He sent for Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, and ordered him to come home from the war to report on the army’s progress. Uriah got home and reported, and then David ordered him to go home to his wife. David thought that the people would then think that Uriah was the father of Bathsheba’s baby. Only, there was a problem: Uriah didn’t go home that night. Rather, he slept at the door of the palace. When David questioned him about it the next morning, Uriah protested that and it would be wrong for him to go to his house to enjoy the comforts of home so long as the King’s army was in the field fighting a war. So he refused. David tried again the next night, and the next, but Uriah continued to refuse to go home to his wife.
5. So David hatched another plan. The sin must remain private, he thought. So he prepared a letter and sent it with Uriah to Uriah’s commander. In that letter David instructed the commander to place Uriah on the front lines, and when the enemy attacked, to retreat and leave Uriah to face the enemy, alone. It was Uriah’s death sentence, and Uriah unwittingly carried it to the commander of the army. And the commander did exactly as he was ordered, and Uriah was killed.
6. David then took Bathsheba as his wife, so that the fact that she would soon be noticeably pregnant would not be a problem. No one would ever know. Problem solved—or so David thought.
7. Not long afterward, God sent Nathan the prophet to David, and Nathan told him a story. He said, “King David, within your kingdom there is a very wealthy man, with lots of sheep. And there’s another man who has only one little lamb. And that lamb was very special to that man. He loved it like a daughter. Well, one day the rich guy had visitors come, and he needed to fix a meal for them. But, rather than using one of his many lambs, he took the poor man’s only lamb, the one he loved, and he killed it and fed it to his guests.” David was furious! He said, that man should die! What he’s done is wrong! There is no excuse for that! Let me know who that man is, and I’ll deal with him. And Nathan looked at him, and said, “You are the man.” And Nathan went on to explain how God had seen what David had done—he had taken Uriah’s only wife, whom he loved. And then, he had taken Uriah’s life to cover it up. And David may have thought he had gotten away with it, but he hadn’t. God had seen. God knew.
C. And friends, God knows about our failures too. Whether they are public or private, God sees. God knows.
1. The Bible says that those who sin deserve death. The Bible says that sin separates us from God, and that sin makes us deserving of hell.
2. And we all sin. We all fail. Sometimes publically, sometimes privately. But we all do. And God sees all of it.
D. Trans: So, when we fall, whether publically or privately, what should we do? Well, we should seek forgiveness—that’s what we should do! And the Bible gives us three responses we should make, as we seek that forgiveness, and David illustrates all of them for us. David wrote a Psalm, a worship song, in which he tells us of his response to God following Nathan’s confrontation that day. And in this Psalm, David identifies the response that we all should make when we fail. First,
I. We Should Confess Our Sin.
A. That’s what David did. Look at Psalm 51:3-4 — “For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.” (Psalm 51:3-4, NASB).
1. David didn’t make excuses, and he didn’t try to cast blame elsewhere. He confessed his sin. He said, “I’m a sinner, and You’re blameless and holy.”
a. Now, contrast that with what happened with Adam and Eve. Remember when they ate of the fruit God said not to eat from in the Garden of Eden? When God asked Adam what he had done, Adam blamed both Eve and God. He said, “The woman who you gave to me, she got me to eat.” And Eve blamed the serpent: she said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
b. David, though, blamed no one. He knew who was to blame, and it wasn’t Bathsheba, and it wasn’t God. It was him.
2. Now, someone might say, “Wait a minute! Didn’t David sin against Bathsheba, too? Certainly David sinned against Uriah—how can David say that he had only sinned against God?”
a. David said this, though, because he realized that all sin is ultimately sin against God, because God is the one who set the law in place that defines right from wrong. And “sin” is violating God’s law. You see, David hurt Uriah, and he hurt Bathsheba. He wronged them, but he didn’t sin against them. He sinned against God, because it was God’s law that he violated. So, David was correct to say that he had sinned against God, and God alone. It isn’t that David was trying to ignore the evil he had done to Uriah and Bathsheba. Rather, it is that he was emphasizing the horribleness of having broken God’s law.
3. It has been said that “confession is good for the soul.” But that’s only partly right. Not only is confession good for the soul, it’s good for the body and mind as well. In another Psalm David writes, “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away.” (Psalm 32:3-4, NASB).
a. This is speaking about the guilt that we feel when we have sin in our lives, and we sense that it is standing between us and God. We may have trouble sleeping. We may have trouble concentrating. We know that what we’ve done is wrong, and needs to be made right.
b. That’s why the Bible tells us to “confess our sins, that we may be healed.” Confession moves us beyond guilt, and back toward God. Confession allows us and God to deal with what needs to be dealt with. Plain and simple, confession is good for us.
4. And listen to this promise! The Bible says that “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9, NASB). What a promise! If we confess, God forgives!
a. Now, sometimes I am asked, “Joe, what if I forget about a sin that I have committed, and I never actually confess it? Will God still forgive that sin?”
b. Of course He will. The point isn’t that we have to remember every sin we ever committed, even those we did before we were a Christian, even those we didn’t even know were sins. Rather, the point is that, when we are convicted of sin, and we recognize our sin, we should seek to be made right with God. We should confess it.
5. In addition to confessing to God, we should confess to the one we have wronged, if our sin hurt someone. Jesus said that if you are on your way to church, and remember that you have hurt someone, you should go to them and try to make things right with them before you come to church! So, confession needs to take place with the person we have hurt, as well as with the God we have sinned against. We need to go to the person we have hurt and tell them we are sorry and seek their forgiveness, just as we seek God’s forgiveness.
B. Trans: So first, we should confess. Second,
II. We Should Repent Of Our Sin, Turning To God
A. When we fall, we should repent. Now remember, when I say “fall,” I’m speaking of failing to live a godly life. In other words, we’re talking about sinning. And when we sin, we should repent.
1. This word, “repent,” comes from a Greek word which means “to turn around.” In other words, it means that we stop moving toward sin, and start moving toward God. We appeal to God for cleansing and forgiveness.
2. That’s what David did. Look at verses 1 and 2 of Psalm 51— “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin.” (Psalm 51:1-2, NASB). And now verse 10— “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10, NASB). You see, David was repenting. David was turning to God. David wanted to get this right.
a. What about you and me? When we fail, do we turn to God, like David did? Do we want God to create a clean heart in us? Do we want him to renew a steadfast spirit in us, one that is faithful to God? Or, are we satisfied to continue in our sinful ways, and really, truth be told, we kind of hope that God never really gets around to creating a new heart for us or putting a steadfast spirit in us, because we like our old heart and wandering spirit?
b. Friends, this is a real danger. Too many Christians these days are playing with sin, not realizing that they are playing with fire. For many years now we have highlighted God’s grace, God’s mercy, and God’s love, without also highlighting God’s righteousness, God’s holiness, and God’s justness. And in doing so, we have created an unbalanced portrait of God that has allowed many people to wallow in their sinfulness without recognizing the danger of doing so.
(1) The Bible says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.” (Gal 6:7, NASB).
(2) If we thumb our nose at God, we will suffer the consequences.
3. When we sin, we need to repent. It’s not enough to confess our sin; we need to be sorry enough about our sin that we get off the sin path and get on the God path. And look at verse 17— “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17, NASB). Now that is wonderful news. It means that if we are really sorry for our sins, God will not turn us away. It doesn’t matter where we are, or what we’ve done. It doesn’t matter how horrible we think our sin is. That’s the promise: if we are truly sorry, God will not turn us away!
B. Trans: Okay, so when we discover that we have failed to live godly lives, we should confess our sin, we should repent of our sin, and third, we should re-dedicate ourselves to God.
III. We Should Re-Dedicate Ourselves To God.
A. Look at verses 12-14— David prays, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation; Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.” (Psalm 51:12-14, NASB).
B. You see, David was re-dedicating himself to God. He was saying, “Okay, God, I’m going to do better. I will teach others how wonderful you are. I will sing praises to You. I am dedicating myself to you.”
Conclusion
A. Perhaps you need to do just that: re-dedicate yourself to God. Perhaps you want to say to God, “God, I’m a sinner. I confess my sin to you, and I want to repent of my sin and rededicate myself to you.” You can come forward as we sing the song of invitation and do just that — you can rededicate yourself to God, saying to Him in this public gathering that you are His, and you want to live your life for Him. I’m sure there are many here this morning who need to re-dedicate themselves. If you need to, don’t turn away. Come forward as we sing.
B. Call for salvation.
