To Repent Or Not To Repent, That Is The Question Series

Title:To repent or not to repent, that is the question

Text: Psalm 51:10-12; Samuel 11:1-12:14

This message was preached by Rev. Tony Hamilton as part of our E100 Bible reading challenge. Each sunday during the 20 week challenge we preach on a portion of scripture that the church read that week.

David sinned. David slept with another man’s wife, David tried to trick that man into having sex with his own wife so that the man would think he impregnated his wife, David then had the man killed in a sneaky way because the man would have found out his wife was pregnant by another man. David knew what he was doing was wrong. He knew that he was sinning. He was trying his best to cover it up and only made it worse. It was like a snowball down a hill. It kept getting worse and worse. David knew it was wrong, but never faced up to it and turned back toward God. David tried to handle it all himself and continued sinning and continued to not repent and turn back toward God until Nathan showed him he was sinning. It took an outsider to show David he was going down the wrong path and that he needed to turn around and head back toward God. Sometimes when we are blinded by our sin and caught up in it, we cannot see clearly what we are doing. The devil loves when we lose sight of God and we are blinded by our sin. we try to justify it. You can see David saying in his head that he was king, he deserved to have sex with Bathsheba. He deserved anything he wanted, he was king. We do that sometimes. When we sin, we will justify it or try and say it isn’t so bad, but God hates all sin, small sins, big sins. He doesn’t want any sin in our life. We know right from wrong. One of the jobs that the Holy Spirit has as he lives inside of us is conviction. When we sin and mess up, the Holy Spirit convicts us that we sinned. He did something wrong and that we need to repent. David knew what he did was wrong or he wouldn’t have tried so hard to cover it up. Its hard to face up to sin. Its embarrassing, its saying we failed, its hard. But no one is perfect. David was an amazing believer in God and he messed up. Paul messed up, Peter messed up.. All Christians thru time mess up. I mess up every day of my life. There was only perfect person and that was Jesus Christ. Jesus never sinned. But the rest of us.. we sin. So, when we sin, we have to go further then just knowing we sin. The Holy Spirit tells us, hey, you sinned and then what do we say, oh thats nice. I will try not to do that again.. sorry. It is more than that. There is a big difference between knowing something is wrong and repenting. When we sin, we are called to repent. to Repent means to turn. To turn back towards the ways of God. Back into the light and out of the darkness. To turn fully away from the sin. To say no to the sin and turn away from. It is an action. Just knowing something is wrong, is not enough. We need to take that turn. We need to turn and face God and say we are sorry and choose to obey God. Once Nathan showed David the sin in his life, David repented. He cried out to God and said that he sinned and that he sinned against God. After David repented to God, he wrote the 51st Psalm.

This morning we are going to look into Psalm 51 and see How David cried out to God. How David repented and see if we can learn when we sin, what we need to say to God.

How did David respond? How did David repent? How are we supposed to repent.

Psalm 51 was written by David after Nathan and talked to David after his affair with Bathsheba.

10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

11 Do not cast me from your presence

or take your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation

and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

1. verse 10 God, Change my desire to sin.

We were all born with a sinful nature but when we became a follower of Jesus, He gave us a clean new heart. When we sin, that heart gets dirty. We need to ask God to help change our hearts and our spirits. We need to ask God to create in us a pure heart. To change our hearts. Change our desires. Most of us when we sin ask God to help us not to do the sin again. but we need to ask God to change our desire to sin. To remove the root of the issue. Why do we do that sin and probably do it over and over again. We need to turn back toward God and love what God loves and hate what God hates. When we turn back towards God, he washes the sins away. God hates sin and we must to. We need to have God’s heart and to see sin the way he does. Also, we need that steadfast spirit. A steadfast spirit is a sprit that is unwavering. When sin comes and tempts us, we need to be solid in God’s ways and be obedient to God and not fall into temptation. Like the Lord prayer says to lead us not into temptation. we must not fall for the temptation and be steadfast in the ways of the Lord.