Pick-Pocketed by the Past Psalms 51:1-51:14
I want to begin this morning with a story about a man named Dave.
This is the story of a man who was a godly man. He was used by God in great ways.
He was someone who helped people when they were down.
He was someone who helped people against those who were trying to hurt them.
He was a man who walked by faith.
One weekend, he found himself home alone. HIs wife was gone for the weekend and the guys he worked with were away on business. He should have been off with them, but he was in a bit of a depression. His relationship with the Lord had not been that good for a while and didn’t feel like doing what he should have been doing in his job.
So he was home for the weekend and on the computer. He saw the wife of one of his buddies on Facebook. Her name was Beth and her husband was on the trip that Dave was supposed to be on. He started chatting with her and they were participating in some “innocent” flirting.
She was a bit scared to be home alone, so Dave went to check on things.
One thing led to another and they ended up having an affair.
Maybe you’ve never been involved in an affair,
• But have you ever something that seem to be a defining moments in a negative way?
• Have you ever done something that keep you awake at night thinking if you’d only done things differently
• Have you ever done Things that others won’t let you forget
• Things that hold you hostage to that identity
• Maybe it is an adulterous affair so now you’re, the Adulterer
• Maybe it is a DUI you received and now you’re the Alcoholic
• Maybe it is past drug use and all you hear in your head is that you’re the Addict
• Maybe your past includes jail time and you feel like you’ll always be the Felon
• Maybe in your past you haven’t always acted they way you should
• Maybe you’ve acted up when you shouldn’t have and you got labeled a loser,
• A problem kid and now you can’t seem to shake that identity,
• Now while our past may have included things that contributed to these labels,
• And while we still face consequences for our sinful actions
• We need to understand that It’s Satan who tries to steal our identity
• The identity that we can have in Christ
Satan does this By reminding us about these past sins
• And he tries to keep us tied to that identity
• He tries to keep us away from the identity that God has for created us
This could have easily happened to Dave
• But it didn’t.
• I want you to hear what Dave wrote after he was eventually confronted
Turn with me to Psalm 51.
The story I was telling is really a modern day version of the story of King David and Bathsheba.
• King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and had Uriah, her husband, killed.
• After David sinned with Bathsheba, he did experience some difficult times,
• But he also went on to reign and rule Israel and see his kingdom continue in his son Solomon.
• How did David overcome this terrible sin to go on to be known as David,
• “a man after God’s own heart”
• instead of David, a sinful king?
I believe that Psalm 51 gives us some insight into that.
• This is what he wrote after he was confronted by Nathan
• And it helps give us some insight on how we might defend ourselves
against being pick-pocketed by the past.
Ps 51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Ps 51:2 Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. Ps 51:3 For I recognize my shameful deeds— they haunt me day and night.
Ps 51:4 Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.
You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just. Ps 51:5 For I was born a sinner— yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. Ps 51:6 But you desire honesty from the heart, so you can teach me to be wise in my inmost being.
Ps 51:7 Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Ps 51:8 Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me—now let me rejoice.
Ps 51:9 Don’t keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. Ps 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.Ps 51:11 Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. Ps 51:12 Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. Ps 51:13 Then I will teach your ways to sinners, and they will return to you. Ps 51:14 Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves; then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness.
Notice first, right at the beginning of Psalm 51, David says
• Have mercy on me, O God, because to your unfailing love
• David recognized the unfailing love of God
• And he knew that God’s incredible love / unfailing love was what he needed
• And that he could only receive it through God’s mercy and grace.
To avoid being pick-pocketed by our past, we need to…
Receive God’s Love
We, like David, don’t deserve God’s love.
• But because God is merciful,
• He has made his unfailing love available to all who will receive it.
John 3:16 tells us.
John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
We, need to receive his unfailing love.
• Without receiving the love God has made available to us through His Son,
• We’ll never be able to have our identity restored
• To be the person That God created us to be.
• We will always be a victim of identity theft.
• We receive that love by receiving His Son and we are born into the family of God
• The apostle John tells us in John 1:12 that,
• But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
• Children of God born into his family by receiving His love that’s offered through His Son.
Born Again = New Creation
• This is why you hear Christians say they are “born again.”
• They have been spiritually reborn into the family of God.
Now the phrase, ‘born again,’ sometimes gets a bad rap,
• But all it really means is that you are spiritually reborn as a child of God
• Because you have trusted Jesus as your Savior
• And now you have your identity in Him
If you don’t receive Him,
• Then you aren’t “born again,”
• And you won’t experience the true identity that God has for you as his child.
When Jesus spoke with Nicodemus in John 3,
He said, “I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
Being born again is finding our identity in Christ.
Listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 -
What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!
God has an identity in Christ for all of us.
• Satan is just trying rob us of that identity
• But in order to claim that identity
• we must receive God’s love by trusting in Jesus as our Savior
• It’s then that we becoming a new creation with an identity in Him
When this happens ,
• We can overcome the labels of our past sins and actions
• As Christ strengthens us We grow in our identity in Him,
• And the result is people will see that we are a new creation.
Salvation comes by grace through faith and a true faith will express itself.
Paul tells us in Romans 10:9 -if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
You will be saved,
• You will be that new creation,
• You will be able to find your true identity in Christ,
Have you ever really done that?
• Have you ever turned to the Lord
• And consciously confessed your belief that Jesus is your Lord,
• That you believe He is God in the flesh
• And that He died for your sins and defeated death by rising from the dead
• And you have received Him as your Savior?
• If you haven’t, you are not saved.
• You are not a new Creation.
• You are not a Christian.
• By definition, a Christian is someone who has received Jesus as their Savior and has become His follower.
• If you haven’t done that, you can this morning.
• If you are stuck with an identity of past mistakes and sins,
• Then it’s time to be washed this morning
• It’s time to claim the identity that God has created for you
• Transition
Now I hope that most of us here are thinking
• That sounds all good
• But I have already received Jesus as my Savior
• And I still struggle with some of the sins from my past.
• I feel guilty.
• I still feel like my identity is tied to my past
• Even though I have received Jesus as my Savior.
The reason for this is because even though our sins have been forgiven
• Even though the eternal consequences have been removed,
• We still sin and that sin has effects on our life.
• We have to continually deal with sin in our life
• And because we do we continue to grow in our relationship with Christ
• And through this our identity becomes more and more tied to Him
• And less tied to the things we have done.
• This process of growing is the sanctification process.
• It is a maturing process in Christ.
• It’s the process of becoming more like Him
So beyond just receiving Jesus as our Savior, we need to be growing in Him.
Now, I want to talk specifically about a few things that will help us
Confess our Sins
Psalm 51:3-43 For I recognize my shameful deeds— they haunt me day and night.
Ps 51:4 Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.
You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.
David recognized that he had sinned so he confessed it to God.
• Even though we have been forgiven of all of our sins – past, present and future –
• We still need to confess and repent of our sins to experience forgiveness
In John’s first letter, John writes to Christians and says
1Jn 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. 1Jn 1:9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. (1 John 1:8-9)
If we are not confessing and repenting of sin,
• We are going to continually be burdened by the things we do.
Listen to what David writes in Psalm 32:3-5
When I refused to confess my sin, I was weak and miserable, and I groaned all day long. Ps 32:4 Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Ps 32:5 Finally, I confessed all my sins to you
and stopped trying to hide them. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the LORD.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.
We need to confess our sins.
• We also need to realize that to overcome and defend ourselves
• From being pickpocketed by the past, we need to Receive God’s forgiveness
• The last line we just read, Psalm 32:5 says forgave me! All my guilt is gone.”
• In Psalm 51:14, David says, “Forgive me for shedding blood
• David wants God’s forgiveness and He’s ready to receive it
• He’s ready to be set free from the guilt that sin brings.
To often, when we have confessed and repented of sin,
• We continue to go back and listen to Satan say, “you don’t deserve forgiveness.
• You’re still the same.
• You’re still an addict / killer / adulterer.”
• We still feel guilty.
• We need to receive God’s forgiveness
• And we need to accept the payment for our sin and claim our identity in Christ.
• We need to respond to Satan with,
• Yeah I did it,
• But Christ has paid the penalty for my sin and I have been forgiven.”
We need to know the truth of God’s word and commit it to our minds and our hearts.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.
When we don’t receive the forgiveness that we have been given,
• We continue living like we’re that old person
• And our identity is being pick-pocketed.
Now, receiving God’s forgiveness doesn’t mean that there aren’t consequences to our sins and actions.
• So If we are going to move beyond who we used to be,
• And defend ourselves from being pick-pocketed by the past,
• We need to Accept God’s Purification
Psalm 51:7-10
Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Ps 51:8 Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me—
now let me rejoice. Ps 51:9 Don’t keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt.
Ps 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.
We need to let God purifyus / cleanse us.
1 John 1:9 says that
If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong
We are forgiven,
• But the purifying process is usually a painful process
• And this process is often worked out through the consequences of our sin
• And it helps us grow
If we did not face consequences for sin,
• We’d just do it again.
• God wants to grow us and purify us and make us more like His Son.
David had consequences
• When David sinned with Bathsheba / killed Uriah,
• A man who was one of his mighty men,
• He sought forgiveness and his guilt was removed
• He confessed and repented in faith and he trusted the Lord
• And because of this he wouldn’t suffer eternal death,
• But there were still consequences for his sin.
His child died
• Now not every death of a child is due to the parents sin.
• When Jesus was asked about a blind man and whose sin it was that caused him to be blind
• Jesus replied, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned…
• But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (John 9:3)
But David also realized that this separation from his child by death was not for eternity.
After the boy died David said, I will go to him one day, but he cannot return to me (2 Samuel 12:23)
David accepted what the Lord was doing to purifying him.
In the midst of God purifying us through our consequences and our discipline,
• We have got to keep an on the big picture.
• Consequences and pain don’t mean that we aren’t forgiven.
• The consequences are there to purify us from the unrighteousness
• So that it might benefit us in the future
This leads to the final thing that will help us defend ourselves from being pick-pocketed by the past.
And that is we need to Obey God’s Ways
Psalm 51:12-13 Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. Ps 51:13 Then I will teach your ways to sinners, and they will return to you.
David asks for the Lord to grant him a willing spirit.
• A spirit that will guide him and help him to know that the joy of his salvation
• Is found in obeying the Lord and helping others to obey.
• Our focus doesn’t need to be on the past,
• It needs to be on God and what He calls us to do.
• Paul, who had sinned against the Lord by persecuting the church
• By killing its members, said this in Philippians 3:13b-14 –
I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, Phil 3:14 I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.
So today as we get ready to close
• We need to understand that when we keep our eyes on the Prize,
• We will better understand the Lord’s love and receive it
• And then We can better see our sin and confess our sins and receive the forgiveness He gives
• Then we can accept God’s purification from our sin and our unrighteousness
• It’s through this process that we can obey Him
• As He strengthens us we can experience our true identity in Christ.
Paul tells us in Romans 12:1-2
I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Ro 12:2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.
