Well, good evening. Good evening. It’s a joy to be with you. And it’s good to see some of your faces who have been out for some time with sickness and trials and struggles. God, it’s good to bring us back together. I think we forget the grace it is to just be in this room together. And just gathering and seeing one another, I think, is a means of grace that God uses to encourage our hearts. We’ll never take for granted being bodily present with the saints. That’s a true grace.

So I was pretty deep into my Revelation sermon. And I just, you know, it happens. You hit a wall. And I just didn’t feel like that’s what the Lord wanted me to preach. So.

Well, I’m going to preach it. I’m going to preach our monthly memory verse. But I want to preach our monthly memory verse a little different way. I want to do a compare and contrast between two biblical characters to do it.

So Proverbs 28, 13 says,

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper. But he who conceals his transgressions will not prosper. But he who confesses and forsakes them will attain mercy.

Someone has said each man has a definite repertoire of roles which he plays in ordinary circumstances. But put him into even only slightly different circumstance and he is unable to find a suitable role. For a short time. He becomes. Himself.

In other words, we all know the masks that we need to play or wear in different situations in life. It’s when things happen that we don’t want to happen. It’s when trial comes. It’s when our desires are challenged. That we become who we are. It’s shown what we’re really about, what we love.

I want to turn with you to 1st St. Paul. 1st Samuel chapter 13.

Now, I’m not putting the verses on the screen because I want you to do your own Bible work here. And we’re going to wear your Bible out. If you’ve got a digital Bible, it might be dead by the time we get done. But I want to look at King Saul.

I want to look at King Saul with you first. And we’ll be in 1st Samuel chapter 13. 1st Samuel chapter 13, verse 11.

It says, Samuel said, What have you done? And Saul said, When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Mishmash, I said, Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord. So I forced myself and offered, the burnt offering. And Samuel said to Saul, You’ve done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. Okay, go to 1st Samuel chapter 14, verse 24.

1st Samuel chapter 14, verse 24.

1st Samuel chapter 14, verse 24. 1st Samuel chapter 14, verse 24. And the men of Israel had been hard-pressed that day, so Saul had laid an oath on the people, saying, Cursed be the man who eats food until it is evening, and I am avenged on my enemies. So none of the people had tasted food. And now when all the people came to the forest, behold, there was honey on the ground. And when the people entered the forest, behold, the honey was dropping, but no one put his hand to his mouth, for the people feared the oath. But Jonathan, Saul’s son, had not heard his father charge the people with the oath. So he put out the tip of his staff that was in his hand and dipped it in the honeycomb and put his hand to his mouth and his eyes became bright.

1st Samuel chapter 15, verse 17. I’m sorry. 1st Samuel chapter 15, verse 17. And Samuel said, Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel, and the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites. Fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said to Samuel, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I’ve gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I’ve brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and I’ve devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took of the spoiled sheep oxen the best of the things of old. I’ve devoted to destruction to sacrifice to the Lord your God and Gilgal. And Samuel said, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than to the fat of rams.

1st Samuel chapter 22, verse 17.

1st Samuel chapter 22, verse 17. And the king said to the guard who stood about him, Turn and kill the priests. Of the Lord, because their hand also is with David. And they knew that he fled and did not disclose it. But the servants of the king would not put out their hand to strike the priests of the Lord. Then the king said to Doug, You turn and strike the priests. And Doug the Edomite turned and struck down the priests. And he killed on that day 85 persons. And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to sword both man, woman, child, infant, ox, donkey, sheep. He put to the sword. 1st Samuel 24, verse 16. 1st Samuel 24, verse 16.

As soon as David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, Is this your voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. He said to David, You are more righteous than I, for you have repaid me good, where I have repaid you evil. And you have declared this day how you have dealt well with me, and that you did not kill me when the Lord put me into your hands.

1st Samuel chapter 26, verse 21. 1st Samuel chapter 26, verse 21.

1st Samuel chapter 26, verse 21. Then Saul said, I have sinned. Return, my son David, for I will no more do you harm, because my life is precious in your eyes this day. Behold, I have acted foolishly and have made a great mistake. 1st Samuel chapter 27, verse 1. David said in his heart, Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.

1st Samuel 28, verse 4.

The Philistines assembled and camped at Shunem. And Saul gathered all Israel, and they encamped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer. By dream, by Urim, or prophets, Saul said to his servant, Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her. And his servant said to him, Behold, there is a medium. There is a medium at Endor.

Last one, 1st Samuel 28, verse 15. Samuel said to Saul, Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up? Saul answered, I am in great distress, for the Philistines are warring against me, and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophet or dream. Therefore I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do. And Samuel said, Why then do you ask me, since the Lord has turned from you and become your enemy? The Lord has done to you as he spoke by me. 1st Samuel 28, verse 15. The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, David. And we go down to verse 20. It says, Saul fell at once full length on the ground, filled with fear because of the words of Samuel. And there was no strength in him, for he had eaten nothing all day and all night.

In each of these passages,

what you get is a character profile of a man, a man who refuses genuine, authentic repentance. In the first passage we read,

Samuel scolds Saul because he made an inappropriate sacrifice. He was supposed to wait for Samuel. Samuel didn’t come. What’s he say? Hey, you didn’t come in time. So guess what? It made sense to me for me to do what he shouldn’t have done. He had no right to do. Make a sacrifice. See, he had his own good reasons for it. And of course, Samuel says, the kingdom will be torn from you. Next, we read this account where Saul is so enraged, he makes this really stupid oath that no one can eat until he kills his enemies. And his son Jonathan doesn’t know this. And what does Jonathan do? He eats honey. And Saul is willing to slaughter his own son. And it’s only because the people step in and intercede for him and says, you’re not killing yourself. Son, Saul has no humility to go back on the wrong things he’s done. Next, we read that Saul is supposed to devote to destruction all the Amalekites. But notice it said that he kept back the king alive, Agag, and him and the people, they kept the spoils. And when Samuel confronts him, he says, it wasn’t me. It was the people.

In 1 Samuel 24 or 22, in his blind rage, he slaughters the priests of God. In 1 Samuel 24, he tries to kill David and he promises he’s not going to do it again. What happens? We saw in 26, he promises David again. Hey, I’m not going to do this again. We read in 1 Samuel 27, David finally says in his heart, I know that I’m eventually going to die by the hand of Saul. If I don’t leave. 1 Samuel 28. And this is really the doozy that really just seals the deal.

Saul does what was absolutely reprehensible. He inquired of a necromancer. He inquired through witchcraft. He did a wrong thing to try to get to a right end. Because God wouldn’t talk to him. That was his reason. Obviously, I’m justified to do a wrong thing. Because God’s not doing what I want him to do. And Saul ends his life, literally, committing suicide.

Saul, after all these episodes where he’s the same man time and time again, he’s not genuinely sorry. He’s only dejected. Saul is just sorry life has turned out this way. He’s not sorry for his sin. And if you have a child, you know the difference, don’t you? Between you’re sorry you got caught, you’re sorry your choices brought you to this place, and you’re sorry for what you’ve done. He’s not come only to a physical end. He’s come to spiritual ruin. And so I wanted to walk off through all those passages to show you that there truly is a life and death difference between understanding what superficial repentance before God is and what authentic, genuine brokenness is before God. And we saw Saul time and time again not once truly repent of the things he did. And we can do the same thing. We can think so little of our own sin. We don’t fear the Lord as we ought. But just like Saul, you and I have the capacity to come up with our really good reasons.

Well, Samuel didn’t show up in time. It was the people, not me, really. Well, I wanted it to happen that way. That’s why it happened that way. Well, the Lord wouldn’t speak to me.

Here’s what I want you to see. The more that you pass over and justify your sins, that much easier it becomes in the future to let yourself off the hook. You kind of develop this pattern of rationalizing sin and what you’re doing is you’re comforting yourself and you’re giving yourself what you want. And what are we doing is we’re pushing away the fear of the Lord. We’re pushing away the holiness of God.

Who gets the final say in your heart at the expense of what your flesh desires, at the expense of what’s uncomfortable, of what’s difficult?

Israel, if you go back, Saul’s the first king. Israel demanded a human king. They were truly a theocracy. God was their king. They demanded a human king. And what did God do? Boy, He gave them exactly what they asked for. A man who lived for himself, who worked every situation to his own benefit. And it brought Israel literally to the brink of ruin.

Let me say it a different way. Let me say it a different way for us this evening. The great aim of the Christian life, the great aim of the Christian life is to be holy.

All that you and I could do for God, whatever seems great, whatever seems wonderful and powerful, it’s a lush garden of weeds if it’s above what it means for you to be like God. If you’re being, if being like God is not as important to you as you’re doing for God. Adam and Eve were moved from the garden not just because they did a wrong thing. They did do a wrong thing. Adam and Eve became wrong. They became unlike God. We read about that mysterious figure in the Old Testament, Enoch. And we’re not told hardly anything other than Enoch walked with God and was no more. He was unlike his generation that was wicked. When we think about the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat where God’s presence was and you think about all the written laws that the people got with all the festivals and all the different things that seem so tedious, the reason that God gave them these things is not to modify their behavior. God gave these things to His people so that they would be different. They would desire inwardly their God and His ways. So what is God saying in Leviticus? Leviticus chapter… 11 For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourself therefore and be holy for I am holy. And when we come to the New Testament age, that truth is amplified because the Apostle Peter says as obedient children, do not be conformed. Israel wasn’t supposed to be conformed. We’re not supposed to be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as He who called you is holy, so also you be holy in all your conduct since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy.

So you have to ask yourself, church, if we’re on this side of the cross and unlike Old Testament saints, if you really believe this, if you’ve got good pneumatology, you believe the very fullness of the Spirit of God dwells in you and Christ Himself lives inside of you, how can you not have the Christ who perfectly walked in the fear of the Lord, the Christ who always, always lived holy, how can we have that Christ inside of us and yet our lives seem to go from bad to worse or stagnant? How can that be? The answer is it can’t. The answer is it can’t. The plain answer is we too often marginalize sin in our life and we let sin be a bad habit rather than an indicator of bad character. That’s to say a heart that doesn’t look like Christ. That’s to say a heart that doesn’t walk in the fear of the Lord.

I would rather a heart that had no conviction than someone who experiences conviction and they know what they’re doing is wrong and yet they’ve figured out how to force and push away that feeling and sweep it under the rug. Time and time again, the psalmist says, if you hear the voice of the Lord, don’t harden your heart as your ancestors did in the wilderness. The Hebrew writer has a lot to say about tasting and seeing that the Lord is good and then hardening your heart against Him. Friends, when we hear the Lord, there’s only one thing that true, genuine Christians can do and that’s come in repentance and know that what we’re doing is wrong. Not become accustomed to our sin.

And perhaps you’re thinking about the Great Commission. And you think, well, this Great Commission, doesn’t the Great Commission of Jesus blow a hole in this being as more important than doing? Because Jesus says in the Great Commission, go, make disciples, baptize them, teach. That’s a lot of doing. So isn’t my doing more important than my being? And the answer is absolutely not because who is more important than me? Can go and make a disciple who hasn’t first themselves been saturated in the presence of Christ and the Spirit and who they themselves are saturated in the truth of God’s Word? Can the flesh produce the Spirit?

No, it’s only when someone has spent time with Jesus themselves and they’ve become like Christ that they’re useful to gospel ministry. Never think your doing is more important than your being. The Spirit of God uses vessels shaped and formed by the fire of genuine repentance, self-denial, and relentless commitment to be rid of sin. I don’t know if you’ve ever had fleas or spiders or some kind of pest like that in your home, but the last thing you do is get rid of 95% of it. You know what happens if you get rid of 95% of it? It’ll come back. It’ll come back with a vengeance and you’ll be back where you started.

Do you go to the doctor and the doctor says, we got rid of 98% of your cancer cells. Just deal with it. That’s good. Isn’t that pretty good? Don’t worry about that 2%. No, you would shake them and you would say, no, I want to live. Get rid of all of it. Yet, isn’t it weird? Weird is an understatement. Terrible, shocking, heartbreaking. When we have sin in our life, we’re able to do that and just kind of marginalize it and push it aside. Friends, as long as you and I are in these bodies, what does Jesus require that we war against the flesh and the spirit? I think people get discouraged so often in the Christian life when they have sin present. There’s this sin that I keep dealing with or I’m not where I want to be. Don’t get discouraged about that. Get discouraged when you give up. Stop fighting that sin. That’s the time to get discouraged. See, that’s when the enemy has the victory. Not when you have sin, but when you don’t care and you’ve given up the fight against that sin in your life.

So this man Saul, he came to an end because he allowed sin to rule and master over him. It was never what it should have been. He had a great unlikeness to God and he had then a great cause for his spiritual ruin.

And I guess it reminded me of that John Owen quote. I think I’ve said it before, but it’s simple but to the point. Be killing sin or sin will be killing you. That’s really as simple as this is. Be killing sin or sin will be killing you. And I’m not talking about the big ones. I mean the big ones. But it doesn’t start big.

Sin creeps, doesn’t it? It’s like you kind of let yourself off the hook for like cursing in your head and talking nastier in your mind than you would say out loud and then one day you find yourself talking and speaking out loud the way you think because you’re allowing things to pass through your heart. You shouldn’t. And it’s like you get chatty with the wrong person at work and it’s just one step down the road of adultery. And it’s like, well, pornography doesn’t hurt anyone else and I don’t do it so frequently. It’s not a big deal and even so, no one knows about it.

And I make plenty of money so it’s not wrong if I, you know, if I indulge myself all the time in this, or worse, these are debts we can handle. We’ll pay it off someday. Or it’s not a big deal if I have murderous, condescending thoughts of other people. It’s not a big deal. I just kind of have my own secret world of sin no one knows about. Friend, these are the things that Christ was crucified for. Not that the big picture things that we can, you know, hide or I can put my mask on and no one knows on Sunday at church. But that my very inward heart would be shaped and formed in the image of Christ and I would repent and hate the man I was before. It’s these infant sins that must be snuffed out. It’s these nagging ones that we must fight until we have the victory. Conceal. Justify. Rationalize. Pass over. And in the end, you’ve been had.

So I want to contrast this man Saul with this better man that Samuel mentioned, King David. And we come to Acts chapter 13 if you want to turn there. Acts chapter 13, verse 21.

And Paul’s recounting here just the story of the Israelites and the Gospels here. And he said, Then they asked for a king and God gave them a king. And God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king of whom he testified and said, I have found in David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will. Now that’s true.

At least it was true for a while. David was a great man of faith and David was a man of righteousness.

But not always.

2 Samuel chapter 12. Samuel’s gone on now and Nathan’s the prophet. And in 2 Samuel chapter 12, verse 7,

Nathan said to David, You are the man. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul and I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in His sight? You’ve struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. And of course, if you’re not familiar with the story, but David decides he wants another man’s wife and he thinks he can cover it up and it doesn’t work out, so he kills that man by sending him to the front of the battle line and he thinks that it’s all tucked away with. This is no different. I want to make this point so clear. There’s nothing at this point that’s any different between King David and King Saul. They are both selfish, self-serving, murderers, people at this point. There’s no difference between them. Here is the only difference. It’s important you see it. David did the one thing that Saul never did. He repented.

David was not sorry to Nathan as Saul was attempting to be sorry to Samuel and hey, it’s not a big deal. Let’s just make amends. Let’s go on. David was not concerned to save face. David did not make excuses. David did not rationalize. What did David do? He owned his sin and he confessed it to the Lord alone. The fullness of his sin-sick, dirty life. How unholy and unwretched he was. He brought it and pleaded before the Lord. And that’s why Psalm 51 is such a treasure. You can turn there if you’d like because I’m going to read the whole thing.

Psalm 51. This is David’s heart before God for his adultery, his murder, these capital offenses. This is the heart of David. And he says, Have mercy on me, O God. According to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me, clean me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you and you only have I sinned. And I’ve done what’s evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being and you teach wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than the snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you’ve broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins. Blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart. Renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me with the willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God. O God of my salvation, my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, my mouth will declare your praise, for you will not delight in sacrifice or I will give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of the Lord, the sacrifices of God, are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, you will not despise.

What is David saying? What is he saying here? He is bringing full confession before the Lord. I am not like you, so I am not doing outwardly the things that you would approve of. David recognized he’s got a dirty, old, nasty heart. And he says what? Create in me a clean heart. Then he says, I’ll praise you and go tell of your righteousness to everyone. He owns everything and he brings it before the Lord. He seeks God’s mercy according to his character. Did you notice that beautiful line at the end?

He says, a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. In other words, it didn’t matter how bad David’s sins were and it didn’t matter how bad Saul’s sins were. The person, regardless of the sin, if they will come broken before God, God cannot but help to forgive.

Now, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to be disciplined. David said, you’ve broken my bones. And that’s part of it, is discipline. But friends, let that truth sink in. When we come to God and we plead mercy and we own that we’re filthy and we own that we’re not like God and we own and we confess our sin, what will God do but create in us a clean heart and He’ll make us new and He’ll restore us. And God desires to show mercy. And if that’s still not enough, in 1 Kings, I’m not going to go there for time’s sake, but in 1 Kings 21, King Ahab, who married Queen Jezebel, who was horrible, right? What’s it say in 1 Kings 21? It says that King Ahab was the most evil king in the history of Israel. He was the most evil. Yet, yet, when God brought His judgment, even in the history of Israel, even after everything that Ahab had done, it says he was incited by his wife Jezebel. Even after all of that, God relented when Ahab repented of his sin. Friends, this is the marvel of mercy. This is the gospel of grace. This is God calling sinners and saying, if you conceal your sin, you won’t prosper. But if you come to my son Jesus, you will find mercy. And you will find renewal. And you will find life. And if God is so merciful to sinners like you and me, let us come daily. Let us come hourly. Didn’t you know you need hourly renewal? Didn’t you know you need an hourly washing in the Spirit? Didn’t you know Christ stands forevermore, ready to forgive? Didn’t you know He stands eternally as an intercessor? Didn’t you know He stands eternally as an intercessor? If you’re thirsty, and there’s a well, are you slow to get a drink? No. If you’re hungry, and there’s a feast before you, are you slow to eat? No. But if we’re in need of grace, and grace is limitless, and grace is accessible, why are we so slow to take it?

Two things we suffer when we do. We suffer seasons of spiritual decay.

God is, God is our satisfaction. God is our joy. Knowing God. Back to the being. Being like God. Being in His presence is our all in all. And what are we? Suffering seasons of poor sanctification, poor growth, when we choose to wallow in our sin, or play games with our sin and not take it seriously. In other words, we’ve made a declaration, that Christ, you are joy, and you are purpose, and you truly are the thing that satisfies me, yet for this season of life, I’m going to fixate on this lesser foolish thing called sin.

And secondly, when that happens, we suffer seasons of unfruitfulness. So not to disagree with myself, fruitfulness is important, and the doing is important, and living for God is important. What does Paul say? That we’ve been prepared for good works. We’ve been prepared for good works. You should desire, to go out into the world and live for Him. You should desire to serve Him with your hands, but that only comes when the heart is right. And you and I, if we truly are the Lord’s, these seasons of waiting in sin, and these seasons of poor service, should break our hearts. Because we love God, and we love His gospel, and we desire to be effective and useful to His kingdom, and we hate the thought of being useless in His service.

So, Saul found no pardon, only death, because he concealed.

David found God’s great grace and mercy, because he humbled himself, and he confessed. And in the confession, there is freedom. You bring that dirty old nasty sin into the light of the gospel of Christ, and it has no power against what Jesus accomplished. He dragged that dirty old nasty sin out of the gospel of Christ, out of the closet of your heart where you think it’s safe there, and it’s really killing you, and you bring it into the light of Jesus, and what happens? It loses all grip and power, and it’s not good, and it doesn’t taste good, and sin’s not pleasant. You realize it’s dirty, and it’s filthy, and it was tricking you into thinking it could compete with the joy of knowing and having Jesus.

So, just closing, I want to say to you this. God is not calling us in this life to be perfect.

If He is, I’m in trouble. And you know you are too. God is not calling us to be perfect. He’s calling us to abide in His Son, Jesus. Because when you abide in Jesus, there is simultaneously forgiveness and growth. And it’s this abiding in the presence of Christ in which we’re brought to a glorious, eternal end. Are you abiding in Jesus? That’s the question here. Are you abiding in the Lord Jesus Christ? Because He and He alone can make you new.

That starts, certainly, in your own heart. I know I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it a million times.

Repentance is not an act. Repentance is a lifestyle.

So, tenderhearted. Tenderhearted should be the most mainly term to you fellas. Tenderhearted. Okay? You just be like this big, tough, gruff guy. People can’t tell me what to do.

Tenderhearted means Jesus can come into my heart and life and say, hey man, man, I’m putting my finger on that. And you go, Jesus, ooh, thank you. Because you’re sensitive to the Spirit. You’re sensitive to the voice of Jesus. And sometimes it’s a soft whisper. Sometimes it’s a, what are you doing? So are you tender to the voice of Christ in your own life? Are you living a lifestyle of repentance where you’re driving down the road and you have that nasty thought about that person? And you go, whoa. Lord, I want to submit that person to you in prayer. I just hated them in my heart. That was wrong. Or you have that passing, adulterous thought and you just kind of let it go. Oh, Lord, no, that’s wrong.

In the words of Charles Spurgeon, don’t just obey the commands of the Spirit. Obey every suggestion. The Spirit doesn’t always scream. Sometimes He goes, hey, you think that was right?

Live a lifestyle of repentance of seeking to be tenderhearted to the Spirit. Secondly, Christ-centeredness and community. It’s in the body of Christ that you and I find renewal over sin because God wouldn’t have us just confess our sin to God. He does want us to confess our sin. But what does He want us to do is so be intertwined and in community with our brothers and or sisters that we are able to confess our sins to them and we can find renewal in dragging sin right out of that dark hole where it thinks it’s powerful and we think, oh, nobody could understand this and, man, if somebody knew about this, I would be undone. But we bring it out into the light. And what do our brothers and sisters do? Man, they pray for us. They encourage us. They counsel us. And that sin loses its grip. I do believe there are certain sins that God would have us bring before our brothers. And I’m not saying in wisdom, like, let’s all take turns and get up here and confess our worst, most embarrassing, That’s not what I’m talking about, right? I’m talking about, you know, in the wisdom of a true brother or sister, having community where we’re able to truly expose ourselves so that we can find healing and renewal and friendship in our fights against sin. And if you don’t have that, I don’t think you’re missing out. I think you’re in danger of being ensnared by sin because you’re giving up a tool God gave you to deal with your sin. So I do think it’s that big of a deal.

In Jesus, we’re set free from sin. In Jesus, we’re pardoned. In Jesus, we are, to go back to the words of our proverb here, we’re prospered. Not with the treasures of this life, but with a heavenly, eternal inheritance, which is mostly Christ himself. So, friends, don’t let any sin, have a victory in you. The cross of Jesus, the power of his blood, his resurrection from the grave, oh, it stands over every sin and every struggle. Turn to Christ, that Christ would have the victory in you. Let’s pray.

As the prophet Isaiah says, let us look and see. Oh, Father, I pray that we would. Let us look and see your salvation. Let us look and see how you have made all things new. Let us look and see Jesus on a cross who has carried every sin, who has experienced every shame, and in whom we are made. Amen. Not to just do right. Oh, God, but to be right.

We just depend on you. Father, show us our great need. Show us our great need for Jesus.

Oh, Lord, and satisfy us with your steadfast love and mercy. It’s in Christ that we pray. Amen.