1185. Broken Before God pt. 2

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. This week, we've been featuring sermons preached from the Bob Jones University 2021 Bible Conference.

Today, Pastor Will Galkin will be finishing the sermon from yesterday from Psalm 51. You see, what I'm asking for is that you would consider that your manifestations of sin, the things you say, the things you do, the things you think are driven by a selfishness that drives you. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

Who here is able to live perfectly? Who here is able to maintain a perfect sacrifice pleasing to God? The weight of sin is crushing. That's what the law does. The law shows us our infractions and how we've fallen short to the expectations and the character of God. And you begin to see as the law enters into our life, God uses the weight of our sin to break us of self-righteousness and crush us of our self-dependence. Left to your own vices, you will sin. Our only hope is God. No other, no other story describes our natural heart condition like 2 Samuel 11 and 12. But no other Bible prayer expresses the lips of confession quite like Psalm 51. Will you turn there?

Because in Psalm 51, I want to introduce you to a friend. I left Idaho. I went to Northland.

I never once visited. Seriously. We got this little pamphlet and my dad goes, huh, maybe you should go there. I said, okay. I drove there. And for the first time, I think I was a believer prior, but for the first time my heart was getting sliced open through his word and relationship. And somewhere my second semester freshman year, God just busted open just a whole pool of bitterness and a bunch of stuff for my growing up years. I mean, it was like, it was like stuff.

And then that, that, that, that dam was holding back like all sorts of things, man. I went home my freshman summer and I just started clearing my conscience and taking care of things I'd stolen and things I said. And I went back and the next, next year, my sophomore year, and I found it was the first time I ever even heard of the term study Bible. And there was a Ryrie study Bible in the bookstore and it was 50 bucks.

That was a lot of money. And I bought my first study Bible. And for the first time I just started reading the Bible. I mean, like to start, I just was like, okay, yeah, great.

Awesome. Whoa, wow. I never, wow. You should read this, but all along the way, I'd be stumbling. Don't you wish you could just confess sin and never be tempted again? I just became more and more discouraged. Those clouds of sin, those old habits that just didn't want to die. As I'm just reading through the Bible, I come up to Psalm 51 for the first time. I couldn't leave. And if you ever take that old Ryrie Bible, I still have it. And you would go like this.

There's my friend. And you know what Psalm 51 will do for you? I'll give you five handholds to climb up out of your pit of sin and self. Much of scripture talks to us, but Psalm 51 talks for us. Brokenness is the shattering of my will.

So that every action and reaction is controlled by the Spirit of God. David, upon hearing the rebuke of Nathan, he simply said, I've sinned against God. I've sinned against the Lord. Sometime after this private sin was exposed, he composes this public Psalm and as a gift to God's people, there's this prayer that's to be sung publicly as an encouragement to know that God, what God wants when his people sin. The prayer of a heart that's broken cries out to God with phrases like, we're going to see. And the first phrase is this, Lord, forgive me. Look at verse one and two. He says, Have mercy upon me, O God, according thy loving kindness, according the multitude of thy tender mercies.

Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from sin. Can you hear the intensity? I mean, David just burst wide open. He doesn't wait to hear wide open. He doesn't wait for the slow build.

He doesn't wait for the lengthy explanation. He simply says, have mercy on me. It's like he's shouting out for forgiveness. This loud, broken hearted cry comes from one that's seen their sin and it's devastating effects. The way that sin had pushed him so low that the Psalmist almost uses every word, every Hebrew word that's available to him to describe sin. Did you see transgression? That's our open rebellion. Iniquity is that perverse nature that's bent and twisted. Sin is when we've fallen short of the expectations of God. I mean, think back, second Samuel 11 and 12, what David did was hideous.

He murdered multiple people so he could sleep with a woman. But think of our own rebellion. It crushes. Lord, forgive me with intensity. It's almost offensive.

Seriously, think about this. This one just sinned against God and with imperatives. Every one of those verbs is imperative in verse one and two. And with an intensity, these four verbs, he's just like, Lord, have mercy.

Blot out my transgressions, wash me from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. But they're not offensive to God because they're desperate imperatives. When you're lost at sea, you don't whisper for help. When you're dying of a heart attack in the library, you do not respect the no talking sign.

You're desperate. Lord, forgive me. He says, have mercy on me. You could translate that, grace me. It's similar to the words used in the priestly benediction when the priest would say, may the Lord be gracious to you to cry out, have mercy on me, oh God.

It just means that the penitent one has come to the end of himself. My sin is great. I need grace that's greater. Show me mercy.

I have no hope but God. My sin runs deep. Grace me. Blot out my transgressions, wipe it away, scrape it off, remove the permanent stain, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, take my dirty clothes of sin and wash them entirely. Cleanse me from sin so I can come into your presence.

How is it these desperate imperatives are not offensive because they're also dependent imperatives? You see, David, David's told to us, referred to us as the man after God's own heart. He understands the character and promises of God.

Look what he does. These cries are directed to the one who can forgive. They're directed to the one that has the capacity, look what he says, according to thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. In this desperate, dependent, imperative, David is honoring God. When sin disrupts our fellowship with a covenant-keeping God, although we ourselves have no right to those divine blessings, a covenant-keeping God who promised to forgive does.

Exodus 34, the Lord passed before him and said, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. His love is steadfast. His mercy is abundant. I've got a question I want you to answer right now.

You just answer this. Are your sins too big for God? How many of you are thankful that God is a covenant-keeping God? How many thankful that if we confess our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and it cleanses us from all unrighteousness? Why would any one of us want to keep our sin? Let your, let your brokenness over sin be met by the steadfast love and the abundant mercy of God.

Be intense like, like tonight. Be intense and just cry out with David, Lord, forgive me. But the second thing we see here in Psalm 51, the second handhold to help us climb out of our pit of despair and selfishness is Lord, I confess my sin. After this explosive cry of forgiveness, He says, for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me, against Thee and Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest and be clear when Thou judges. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, Thou desire's truth in the inward parts and in the inward part. Thou shalt make me no wisdom. My sin is ever before me.

Lord, forgive me. But now Lord, I confess. He switches from the imperative and he goes to the indicative and now he just gets honest. He was intense and now he's just telling the truth. He just tells it like it is that the verbs switch to the indicative and 30 times he uses a personal pronoun. The cold hard facts are the fact that David's a sinner. David knows he's fallen short. He makes no excuses.

He doesn't say anything like others have, so why can't I? They made me do it. My past is the reason.

You probably would have done the same in my shoes. I'm not as bad as you think. I'm not as bad as others.

No. I have sinned against the Lord. My sin is before me. My sin is ultimately before God. Against thee and thee only have I sinned.

You're just if you want to judge me. You're clear if you want to condemn me. With honesty and without minimizing the pain that he caused all those other people, he recognized that ultimately his sin against God. By the way, this is when we really begin to grow as a Christian in the sanctifying process. It is when we begin to connect everything on this earth with our horizontal relationship with God. When you begin to understand that your fear is because you do not trust God. When you begin to understand that you do not love because you do not understand God's love for you. When you begin to connect all of your horizontal behavior with your vertical relationship with God and with honesty, David just says it as it is. Your words are just.

Your judgments are blameless. My sin is ever before me. It's ultimately before God and it's a part of me.

Behold I was shape and iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Do you know what God wants to do over these next four years that you're here listening to God's word preached over and over and over as you really become a full adult? You know what God wants you to do is to push past outward manifestations of your behavior and begin to understand the desires that drive that behavior so that you can become dependent on the one who can save you. Are you being honest about who you are the sins you're hiding?

Do you know what drives you? David said, Lord forgive me. He said, Lord I confess my sin but he said, Lord cleanse me. Verse seven through nine. It's poetic.

He returns that which he started with but listen to what he does. Purge me with hyssop. I shall be clean.

Wash me. I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness of the bones which thou has broken. May rejoice. Hide thy vase from my sin.

Blot out all my transgressions. It's now he returns and with a cautious yet confident tone. David asked God to mercifully remove the guilt and the grief caused by sinful choices. He didn't start with this. He, he, remember he started with an admission. He started with an acknowledgement and now he's saying, now Lord please.

And he uses a unique grammar. It's an if then kind of a clause. He's, he's like purge me. If you purge me, I will be clean. If you wash me, then I will be whiter than snow. Cleanse me from guilt. Just like the priest would take this branch of hyssop and, and take ceremonial water and, and, and splash it on one to ceremonially clean them. He's saying, that's what I want.

I want to come into your presence. Do you know what I find is that there's some of us, we, we've got a broken concept of, of sin, law, grace. We, we have this broken concept that we almost try to pay for our sin. It's like we can only come to God and we can only ask for forgiveness after I've moaned and after I've whipped myself and after I've punished myself for, okay, that sin's two days. That sin's four days. That sin's six days. And maybe we really do take a season and get before God.

And then we're kind of like, oh, but you know what? I'm, I'm actually just a bad person. No, every look to self ought to be counted with 20 looks to Jesus. You see your sin? You've confessed your sin. Lord, cleanse me from guilt. Lord, cleanse me from pain.

Sin's effect lingers, doesn't it? And I broke my pinky years ago. Isn't that, isn't that awesome and manly? I broke my pinky. Every once in a while it aches.

Atmospheric pressure. You know, every once in a while, I'll remember something I've done, something I've said. Where else can I take my sin? Make me hear joy and gladness.

The bones which you broke may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sin. Lord, help me believe that you've forgiven me and my sin is covered.

Help me believe that you scraped the graffiti of my iniquity off the wall of my soul. And then he switches this prayer. He started, he started, Lord, forgive me. Lord, I confess my sin. Lord, cleanse me. But now he switches to, Lord, renew me and keep me.

Verse 10 through 12. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

Restore him to me the joy of my salvation and behold me with thy free spirit. You know, when I really studied 2 Samuel 11 and 12, to heal me from my sin, Samuel 11 and 12, to hear Samuel say this is a man after God's own heart. That's, that's almost, it's almost incomprehensible.

It's just, it's almost like I can't understand that. But when you read this, verse 10, David didn't say let the kingdom respect me. He didn't say bring me riches, bring me favor.

What did he say? Created me a clean heart. Renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. This is the opposite of self-righteousness.

This is practical brokenness. You see, what David wants is a heart for God. Do you know there's a blessing to getting older? Like there's a blessing. There's, there's temptations that, that you begin to go like, no, I don't want, I don't want to go there. I want Jesus. There's little whispers of mortality. You, you heard of heaven in Sunday school, right?

You saw pictures, big picture books about it. And yet as you get older, you begin to contemplate, no, I, I only really have Jesus. That's the only one I have. That's the only, that's the only person. That's my only, that's my chief treasure. I, I love all these things.

I love all these relationships, but I really only have Jesus. David, he took of his idol. He took his pleasure. He thought it would satisfy. It broke him.

It crushed him. He said, I just want you, God. I want your presence. Don't, don't take your Holy Spirit from me. I want your presence, the enabling power of your spirit.

Don't take that away. I just want you to touch my affections, renew my joy for the, the works of the Lord. I, I just want to sing on the hills of Bethlehem again. I just want my harp and I just want to take care of the sheep and, and Lord, keep me from ever forgetting you again. Uphold me with your willing spirit. How many of you have ever confessed a sin and you got this fear.

You're just going to do it tomorrow. My favorite verse in Psalm 119 verse 176. I've gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek thy servant.

Here's David. I have nowhere to go. I'm a wretch. I'm selfish. I'm broke. I'm a hard-hearted person. Break me.

Forgive me. He says, I confess my sin. Cleanse me. Renew and keep me. And the fifth hand hold.

It's just a response. Lord, I commit to serve and worship you with all my heart. Right? The one that forgives. He gets my heart.

The one who restores. He gets my life. He gets my worship. Verse 13. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways. God, when you do this work in me, when you forgive me and you restore your spirit and you bring back the joy, I will then teach transgressors.

Once you've done your work and sinners, they'll be converted to you. Oh, deliver me from blood guiltiness. Oh God.

Oh God. And my salvation. My tongue will sing aloud of thy righteousness.

Oh Lord, open down my lips and my mouth will show forth thy praise for you don't want sacrifice or I would do it. I know how to round up a hundred thousand lambs and bring them over the brook Kidron. I know how to slay them on the day of atonement.

I know how to water the soil with the blood of lambs. You don't want that. You want a broken heart. Oh God.

You don't just want some burnt sacrifice because your sacrifices are a broken spirit, a broken and contract heart. Oh God, you won't despise. Lord, here I am. Use me. I just, here I am. Use my life story to help others return to you.

That's what he says. Just use me, Lord. I'll do whatever.

I'll say whatever. I have nothing to hide, Lord. I'll write a Psalm. I'll write a Psalm so that people through the ages know of my wickedness. If that's what you want, because it's not glory in the wickedness, it's going to glory the fact that you are a God who is a covenant-keeping God. Use my lips to praise your name. How can I not sing of your praises? You ever had the chance to be in a situation where broken individuals truly found Christ? They sing. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, oh God, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

Open my lips and my mouth will sing forth your praise. I was in New York City and the pastor and I, we took his motorcycle, we were riding double, to use brother Steve's word. Awkward. We drove to a prison in New York City.

Bad. State prison. And we go in and it's like multiple levels of security. It's maximum security prison.

And we go all the way in the middle of this prison. And this pastor would hold a Bible study, a little prayer service, a kind of a chapel service. And there was only about 25 guys and they, the worst of the worst, had found grace.

And these dudes could sing. Because they'd been forgiven. He just says, use me in any way you want. Let the reality of sin crush me so that your grace will shatter my will and my every action and reaction would just be controlled by your spirit. And then in verse 18 through 19 he just says, please don't just renew me but renew all your people. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness.

So, oh, we'll return back to those things that you've commanded us to do. David wasn't negating what God had commanded. He just, the right order. It's like he wanted the heart. God wanted the heart that was broken. We'll return to these, these burnt offerings, the whole burnt offering. They shall offer bullocks upon thy altar. David's sin is great.

It's great. His actions betrayed his condition. I have a question. What was the penalty for stealing a lamb? But what was the penalty for committing murder and adultery? Who deserved to die? But others died for David. Uriah died. The soldiers next to Uriah died. Later on, one of his own sons dies.

This little baby dies. But then David and Bathsheba have another son. And his name is Solomon, and he has a son. And he has a son. And he has a son. And he has a son.

And he has a son. until another son of David is born in Bethlehem, and this son died for the sins of David as well. And this son of David lived perfectly.

Never once did he break the law. In every way he fulfilled the righteousness of God's commands. And this son of David, the perfect Lamb of God, died on the cross, not just for the sin of David, but he died for the sin of you. Have you ever tasted of the joy of being forgiven through the finished work of Jesus Christ? Have you ever laid aside your own self-righteousness and you're you're striving to keep the law?

Have you ever been forgiven? Then run from self and plead for the grace of God. And Christian, if we're saved through the finished work of Jesus Christ, why would I run to anywhere else? Why would I cover my sin? Why would I hide any longer? Why would I leave this place tonight trying to cover my sin? Run to the perfect Lamb of God and find the rest of one forgiven. You've been listening to the conclusion of a sermon by Pastor Will Galkin from the 2021 Bob Jones University Bible Conference. Thanks for listening and join us next time as we'll hear more soul-stirring sermons on The Daily Platform.