A Heart for God, Part 14

Dr. Michael Yusef, inviting you into this episode of Leading the Way Audio. Today we're going to see the absolute blessing that is hidden in true confession. The absolute blessings that are hidden in facing reality and acknowledging of one's failure.

Why? Because when we confess, we come in agreement with God. God already knows what's going on. But when we come in confession to Him, we say, God, we agree with you.

And God is honored that way. When we repent of sin, there is untold blessings that comes out of that repentance. In the wake of life changing events that originated from his sin with Bathsheba, King David is confronted by Nathan the prophet. On this episode of Leading the Way, Dr. Yusef looks at David's response, his confession and healing from his epic fail.

It's a true to life lesson revealing that blessings can be had from owning up to one's sins and responsibilities, from humbling oneself before God and facing failure. We thank you for listening to this episode of Leading the Way Audio. As pastor and author, Dr. Michael Yusef takes you to one of the final episodes in his life changing series, A Heart for God. Join me now in listening as Dr. Michael Yusef begins this teaching time. In 2 Samuel 12, here you find David, a man whose heart after God accepting full responsibility for his sin. Now let me speculate just for a moment. Probably between the time that David had committed the sin with Bathsheba and then arranging for the killing of Uriah which we saw in the last message, probably between that time and the time that Nathan the prophet came and confronted him with that sin, probably David said, well, this is just a royal prerogative.

I am a king, right? Well, this has nothing to do with my spiritual life. I just need to put this out of my mind and move on.

This is not the issue. The most important issue is that when David was confronted with his sin, when he was confronted with that travesty, how did he react? You see, that is the heart of the matter. I don't want you to miss it. How did he react? Don't get sidetracked because this is important.

Here's the great news. David did not pass the buck. David did not say, as some people do today, well, you know, it was Bathsheba's fault and she's the one who walked around naked and it's her fault or it was Uriah's fault because after all, if he handled the sword properly, he wouldn't be killed by the enemies or I just can't help it because my father was a passionate man and his father before him was a passionate man and I just happened to be a passionate man or, you know, my mother just weaned me too early or I was potty trained too soon. My wife doesn't love me. My mother dropped me on my head when I was a boy. Oh, here's the regular one. This is the popular one that I hear it very often.

I'm out of love with my wife. David said nothing of the sort. He did not say any of this. No wonder the Bible said that his heart was turned toward God. It didn't say that he was perfect. It didn't say that he was sinless.

Only Jesus was sinless. Listen to me. When your heart is turned toward God, you immediately face up to your responsibilities. You accept the consequences with courage. You will not go around looking for some scapegoats. You will not point your finger elsewhere.

You're not going to pass the blame. David immediately confessed to the Lord and repented of his sin. Now my beloved, listen to me. This is the first step to true and genuine experiencing of forgiveness. Not that God has not forgiven you, but it's a genuine experience of that forgiveness and the washing and the cleansing and the restoration. Jesus talks about two people went to pray in the temple. One was a religious man. Man, he was religious. He was self-righteous. He thought he was doing everything right.

He broke his elbow patting himself on the back. I thank the Lord. You're not thanking the Lord. I thank the Lord. I'm better than all these people.

That I'm really good. And then there was a man of the world who knew that he was a man of the world. And he comes and smacks his chest and he says forgive me a sinner. Jesus said I tell you the man who confessed is the man who was blessed and went home justified. And the last message we saw the prophet Nathan comes in and tells David a parable and then he applies the parable about the man who only had one new lamb and the other rich man who had so many but then he took the new lamb because he had a wandering visitor which is his eyes or wandering lustful eyes. And when David is spiritually sobered up the prophet Nathan gently probably with a tear or two said to him David you're that man. David did not only accept responsibility. David did not only own up to his sin. David did not only acknowledge his failure but David also confessed and repented and listen carefully he accepted the consequences. Beloved this is an issue over which a whole lot of Christian believers are confused. I've talked to enough people to know there is so much confusion on this particular issue. I'm talking about the differentiation between God's absolute unqualified forgiveness of our sins when we repent and the scars that sometimes these sins leave behind. Some of them last for a long time and maybe even for a lifetime.

Always make that distinction because not making that distinction gets you into trouble. There are some people who look at the scars that are natural consequences of sin and think because of these scars God has not forgiven them. Listen to me read my lips that is a lie from Satan. If you look at the consequences of David's sin if you look at the tragic scars that that sin left behind someone might ask who said what kind of forgiveness is this? Why didn't God take care of the scars? I'm going to come to that in a moment to put a marker in your brain on your notes because I'm coming to it. So when you see the first consequence of that sin is that the baby born out of wedlock been sin resulted from adultery. He dies. Now not all suffering is a result of sin.

Did you get that? Say Amen. Not all suffering is a result of sin.

Some is but not all of them. We throw the story of Job. The reason the Bible has it there is to remind us that sometimes the righteous suffer for righteousness sake.

Don't muddle those two. But people say wait a minute what is the baby's fault here? Oh no the baby has no fault. The baby did not suffer. The baby went to heaven like all babies do. It's the parents who suffered.

The baby did not suffer. The parents seeing the consequences. Later we find that one of David's sons Amnon rapes his half sister Tamar and then the other half brother Absalom revenges his sister and kills Amnon and later on still Absalom rebels against his father the king and he conducts a coup d'etat. Painful consequences. Painful consequences. One after the other.

Here's a fact. Listen carefully. David had been a great general. David had been a great king. David had been a wonderful songwriter like nothing before or since. But as we saw in the last message David failed to exercise spiritual leadership and servant leadership and spiritual headship in the home.

Allow me to speculate. Let me speak to those in my generation. Because it's a trap and David possibly he may have I don't know but he may have fallen in that trap of thinking that I don't want my kids to suffer like I did. I don't want my kids to go without like I did. I don't want my kids to work as hard as I did. I want my kids to have all the things that I did not have growing up. And on and on and on. When we hand our children and grandchildren everything on a platter we are not helping them we are hurting them.

Because it is only through hard work perseverance and diligence that they will learn the proper values of life. If mom and dad say to little Billy he said Billy don't play with matches. Don't touch the stove. Billy don't do that. This is dangerous.

This is harmful. And then Billy knowing human nature again he does. And then he gets burned.

Imagine him on the ride in the ambulance going to the emergency room and little Billy is hurting and saying mom dad I'm sorry I should have listened to you forgive me. Of course you're going to forgive him. Am I right? Of course.

Absolutely. And yet the pain still there and the scars could be there for a long time. Here's the problem.

Some people confuse God's forgiveness with the quality of God's love for them after they repent. I need to explain this because so many people do it. Some do it in the privacy of their mind. Thank God some tell me.

So I can explain to them. Listen carefully. When God forgives you he forgives you fully. He forgives you completely. He forgives you without reservation. Your sins and his forgiveness never affect the quality of his love for you. It never affects it. I know because we human being after we forgive somebody that affects the quality of your love for that person. And we take that and reflect it on God and think that God's quality of his love for us has been affected.

It has not. Not with God. By the same token forgiveness does not stop the consequences or erase the consequences at times.

Why? Because God's forgiveness does not alter the fact that sin is a transgression of righteousness. Forgiveness that I am talking about is the daily forgiveness. I'm not talking about salvation. That has been taken care of the moment you come to Jesus. It's not going to affect your salvation. When Jesus taught the disciples in the disciples prayer our father who art in heaven and then he goes and say forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. He's not talking about salvation.

He's talking about the daily life. In the same way when Peter reacted to Jesus washing the feet and he said you can't wash my feet and then Jesus said if I don't wash your feet you have no part of me. Peter again the same reaction. He said well not just my feet if that's the case just wash all of me. You know what Jesus said?

He said no no no Peter. Those who have been washed already only need their feet to be washed. Beloved you and I are walking in this world and our feet get dirty and they need to be washed. That is the daily forgiveness that Jesus is talking about in the disciples prayer. That's the daily forgiveness we're talking about here. Forgiveness does not alter the fact that sin and righteousness are opposed to each other.

I know I know this is not very popular today. I know it is not a popular message especially today in a day when so many people have lowered down the bar of righteousness. They have lowered it all the way down to the point that they teach that God only winks at sin. Not that he forgives it.

He just winks at it. But God forgives sin at an enormous cost to him. He watched his son bleed on that cross. Don't blare righteousness or lower the bar of righteousness so low that the righteousness and sin get blared. Blaring the line between sin and righteousness is not so with God because sin cost God plenty and therefore we can never blare the line between righteousness and sin. We cross over from sin to righteousness. Of course, that is the joy of the believers.

Don't miss what I'm going to tell you. Please, this is important because when you blur the line between sin and righteousness, it means that Jesus bled and died for our sin in vain. It means that he left the splendor of heaven and came as an embryo in a virgin's womb in vain.

It means that Jesus' holiness means nothing. But in reality, on that cross Jesus made a bridge possible whereby you and I can cross from sin to righteousness. And for the rest of our earthly life, we are constantly aware of the difference. And when we step out in the wrong side, we come back repenting. We step in the wrong side, we come back, we know the difference.

There is a line. And that is why his forgiveness is most effective only, only, only when we repent and recognize the wrong, confess the wrong done and come to him to the right side. Let me explain it this way. When God pardoned us, he does not condone what we have done. While God redeems us, he does not accept our shift of blame. He made me do it. He made me do it.

The devil made me do it. While God does not hold the sin against us, that's what it means when it says God not only forgives but he forgets. Doesn't mean he has an amnesia. No, no, no. It means that he doesn't hold it against you. While he does not hold our sin against us, he does not look at it in a light-hearted manner. Oh, that's all right.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Some parents tend to forgive their children so easily and so quickly. Some parents tend to forgive and then go with a light-hearted manner and say, it's all right.

No, no, no, no, no, my beloved, it's not. We tend to forgive them without proper explanation of the wrong that has been done. We tend to quickly absolve them of blame thinking that somehow we are helping them to grow up guilt-free. No. Listen, I spend better part of 40 plus years warning against false guilt.

That's my life. I've been preaching against false guilt and that's not what I'm talking about. There are some people going around with false guilt.

That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the conviction of the Holy Spirit when we sin and that leads us to repentance which gives us peace. Learn to take responsibility for your action. It's the first step. Beloved, I am convinced that this is the first step for peace.

Peace in your heart, peace in the family, peace in society, peace at your workplace. It's the first step. In 2 Samuel 12, we see God individually forgives repentant David and he makes it clear and he communicates it so well through the prophet Nathan.

And then immediately, look at chapter 13. David then recognizes the consequences of his sins. Listen carefully. The confession is in verses 13 and 14 of chapter 12. Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan replied, the Lord has taken away sin.

You're not going to die. And Nathan continued, but because by doing this, you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the unborn to you will die. Again, the baby did not suffer.

The parents did. Please hear me right. Do not confuse God's forgiveness with the scars that sin may have created. And don't ever forget that God's forgiveness does not mean that he stopped hating sin. Because he forgives sin doesn't mean that he stopped hating sin or seeing sin as an apparent.

Don't ever think because God is a forgiving God that we can take that forgiveness for granted or excuse ourselves and think we're entitled to his forgiveness. The apostle Paul said whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whatever sows generously shall reap generously. This has to do with giving money, but it also has to do with everything in life. Everything in life.

When you forgive generously, you'll be forgiven generously. Every area of life. In fact, I can tell you that the harvest is always answerable to the seed and the reward is always answerable to the work.

You say, what do you mean by that? Well, if you sow cotton, what do you get? If you sow corn, you get what? You do not sow cotton and then you reap wheat, right? That's what I mean by the seed is answerable to the harvest.

The size of your crop is also dependent on the quantity of your sowing. God's salvation is a free gift. You can do nothing. You can actually work hard for 20,000 lifetimes and you could not earn it. It is a gift of God to you. It's a gift of grace. But the reward is dependent on the level of faithfulness. Can I get an amen? Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3, 8, each will be rewarded according to his own labor.

Now beloved, listen to me. God is not going to reward the person who sat and warmed the pew Sunday after Sunday and that's all they've done. The same reward as the person who worked hard, gave generously, sacrificed day and night and worked for Jesus.

God is not an unjust God. I want to tell you this as I conclude. When we first come to Christ, convicted by him, receiving the gift of grace, receive Jesus as Savior and Lord, there's always an image that I keep in mind. That moment we were like a poor, homeless, stinking person who was picked up off the streets by the king. And the king takes you to the palace. The king takes you home. The king bathes you. The king washes you.

The king cleanses you. The king grooms you. The king dresses you in royal robe.

The king adopts you and he gives you his last name and then he calls you a prince or princess. Then the king teaches us from his word how to live like a prince or princesses, how to behave like a prince or princess, how to live up to the palace standards. And out of gratitude, we do everything we can not to embarrass our king, not to bring shame to the name of our adopted king, but in every way we seek to please that generous king. We seek to honor the king. We seek to obey the king.

We seek to focus on living like royalties. Now we seek to focus of doing good to the other subjects of the king. May God grant us wisdom in these hard and difficult days to know who we are and whose we are. To know not to blur sin with righteousness, but to know how to cross by confession and repentance from sin to righteousness. To know that when we fall and fail, we most assuredly will, as long as we live in this flesh, to know how to confess, repent, and gratefully receive forgiveness. Thank you for taking the time to listen to Dr. Michael Youssef on this episode of Leading the Way.

You know, you can connect with additional content from Dr. Youssef and Leading the Way online at ltw.org. In a world where power and influence are often overvalued, God honors the humble and those who have a heart for Him. There is no greater example in the Bible than the life of King David. Through times of victory, epic failure, weakness, and brokenness, God used David to shape a generation and be an example to all of history. In his new book, A Heart for God, Dr. Michael Youssef offers you powerful reminders of God's faithfulness to bring glory and victory out of brokenness and failure.

Walk through David's desperate cries recorded in the Psalms and witness how God honors a heart for God as He leads him to impact a nation and world. A Heart for God is available right now when you give a gift of any amount to the ongoing ministry of Leading the Way. The website where you can learn more about the content and order your copy is ltw.org, ltw.org. Dr. Youssef is offering to send it when you give a gift of any amount to Leading the Way. Order online at ltw.org or call and speak with a ministry representative at the call center, 866-626-4356. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.