If you have your Bibles with you, you may want to turn to 2nd Samuel chapter 12, I'll be reading there from there in a moment. It's not on the overhead or in your bulletin, so if you don't have your Bibles and can't turn there, you'll just have to listen carefully to the reading of the Scriptures. Before we go to the Scriptures, I wanted to let you know that the session met yesterday in a session retreat. These guys got together from 10 a.m. through 5 p.m. to work together, and it was very encouraging for me. We went over like the fundamentals, our vision, our values, just nailing down our unity in these fundamental areas so that we could from their build on our application of those. Where do we go from here? How do we go get there? That sort of stuff. We certainly didn't get all the answers of the world or our church figured out, but it was a very profitable time. I would ask you to join me in thanking God for that. One of the things that we are working on and spent a couple hours on yesterday is the budget. The decons have been working on that and slashing and trying to trim so that we are no longer in the red month by month, but in the black. I don't think we fully arrived there, didn't achieve that yet, but we... how do you say this? For me as the pastor is very encouraging to see these men struggling and grappling with these issues for the glory of God and serving him by faith. It's easy to serve God by faith when it's everything's going my way and we're singing that. We weren't doing that yesterday. We do want to ask the congregational meeting that we have annually is the second Sunday in November, November 13th, and we want to call for a special time to pray. We know that many of you have been praying, the decons have certainly been praying, the elders have certainly been praying, but one area we haven't done is we haven't come together as a congregation to humble ourselves before the face of God most high and to talk to him about our needs. I think at least among the session members, I think there's a sense of gravity to our situation, financial situation, but also a sense of expectation that well of course we should together come before the face of God and to pray and to seek His favor. Because in some ways we see what is for us an impossible situation which makes us say to ourselves that well it's impossible for man as never impossible for God. This is a great opportunity to seek His face. So please, please, if you're used to saying well the congregational meeting you know it's not much to it if they have a quarrel and they'll get their business done they'll be good. Please don't have that absolute, please come early, come at 4 o'clock from 4 to 5.30 we want to be praying and seeking God's face. In fact we're going to call for Saturday and Sunday to be days of prayer and fasting individually. If you can give up food for all their part of those days maybe give up breakfast if you're a breakfast eater, breakfast and lunch or something, whatever you can do that way with the idea of seeking God's face and then we'll come together and pray together before God and have our congregational meeting. We'll be giving you information, we'll talk about where we are, what we see needs to happen, that sort of stuff. So it's nothing to, how do I say this, we want to take it serious but we also have great expectations of the great God of the universe so we come confidently. So now we come to the Word of God and I'll be reading to you 2nd Samuel chapter 12 starting at verse 1. If you can follow along I'm reading from the older version of the new American standard and the wording is a bit odd but what can I say, here we go. Then the Word of the Lord sent Nathan to David and he came to him and said there were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a great many flocks and herds but the poor man had nothing except one little u lamb which he bought and nourished and it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and why in his bosom and was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man and he was unwilling to take from his own flock and his own herd to prepare for the wafer who had come to him. Rather he took the poor man who lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger burned greatly against the man and he said to Nathan as the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die and he must make restitution for the lamb for full because he did this thing and had no compassion. Nathan said to David, you are the man. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, it is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. I also gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your care and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah and if that had been too little I would have added many more things like these. Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in his sight? You have struck down the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Amin. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, behold I will raise up evil against you from your own household, I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion and he shall lie with your wives and broad daylight. Indeed you did it secretly but I will do this thing before all Israel and under the sun. Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord and Nathan said to David, the Lord also has taken away your sin. You shall not die. We are on the second petition, the 5th petition, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. We will look at it in two parts because there are two parts to it right, forgive us our debts, we will be part one. Next week as we forgive our debtors they are linked but we will do it in two parts too much, way too much really for even two but we will do it in two as best we can. Have you ever noticed that when you see someone doing something wrong, you take note of it and then move on? If you are at work and you hear one of your co-workers lie to someone else and say, hey they are lying. If you are a biblical scholar you may say 9th Commandment but then you go on or you are pulling into a parking lot and you are looking for the parking spot and up the head. You see there is one and you see some car waiting blinker on and as the other car pulls out and moves out someone behind them and slips in there and still is the parking lot. And you say, hey that stinks man they shouldn't do that, right? But you laugh it off and go about your business. But if that same co-worker who lied to someone else lies to you, you do more than say, oh he told the lie 9th Commandment. What else should I be doing? Your outrage right? I mean that is just normal to us. I can't believe they lied to me and got to deal with it. And when we are the person who gets our parking lot ripped off it is usually not, well God bless them, I am going to find another place. Right? I mean that is just the way we often are. It is generally true about us. It just hurts us more. We take a greater offense when the sin is against us than someone else. That is just true. I wonder if it is true about God. It makes me think of the story in 1 Samuel chapter 2 of Eli the priest. He had two sons, Hothnian Phineas. They were not good men. They sinned in so many different ways. They were to be priests and to take care of the holy offerings and so on and so forth. They were in a sense ripping God off. They were taking whatever they wanted, complete disregard for the law. They were in moral and their father got after them. And what the father said is when two men have a dispute or some sort of problem, God can mediate for them but what are you going to do when you sin against God? And there is no in the mediate for you. You know when we think about, forgive us our debts. One of the things we need to keep in mind is every sin is a sin against God. Did you know that? Every sin is a sin against God. We have looked recently at the idea that the first great commandment is the love God with all that is in us. If you've been here at all, we did I think just last week but it's something regular. And I point out the fact that this is the greatest commandment, then when we break it, we're breaking the greatest commandment, we're committing the biggest sin. We're supposed to love God with our whole heart and whenever we don't, that's the most egregious. It's not adultery, it's not murder, it's not loving God with our whole heart. And you know, it wouldn't be so bad if Jesus hadn't said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments and it's like a rat. So not only do we break, you know, in the small sins of not keeping us commandments but it goes back to the loving hymn. In the story I just read, David had in chapter 11, it tells us exactly what he did. It was the time kings go out to war and he's at home taking it easy and he sees this young lady, she looks great. They're introduced to one another and she's pregnant as a result of their relationship and she says I'm pregnant and tries to get Euryah drunk so that he brings him home from war, he's out fighting, brings him home. Hey, that one, you know, great to see you won't go home and sleep with his wife. So get some drunk, won't go home, sleep with his wife. So he sends via Euryah to hit his own hand, a letter to the general, hey this guy needs to die, make it happen in the war. And it's just pleasing to God and God sends Nathan the prophet to David and he tells him the story, it's a great story isn't it? He just, David's a shepherd, he cares about sheep, it's a story about sheep, he's the king so when he hears the story, you know, his anger kind of comes to the service and as king, who administers justice, he says, man this guy deserves to die. Here's mercy and grace, he just has to pay back fourfold for the wretched thing he did. And then Nathan says, you're the man. And what's amazing is as when Nathan speaks on God's behalf, God talks to him and he doesn't say to him, I can't believe you committed adultery. Don't you know what that does to the best sheep, but don't you know what that does to our family? Don't you know what that does to your family? You think there's going to be no consequences to this? I can't believe you did that and then you killed Euryah, it doesn't his life matter at all. Don't you think he has family? Don't you think they'll be upset? How could you do such a heinous act like that? God doesn't talk that way. God says, I have wanted you king. I protected you. I gave you everything you have and I did, given you more. Why did you send against me? Why did you despise my word by doing evil in my sight? And then he tells about the best sheep and Euryah and what he does wrong. Every sin is a sin, first and foremost against God. And David gets it, you know, Psalm 51 is one of those psalms that at the very beginning of it it says more than a prayer of David, it says when he had gone into the best sheep and so on and so forth. And it gives us that kind of introductory material. So we know that that's how it has everything to do with this particular sin of David's. And as he writes, he gets the verse four and he says to God against you and you only have I sent and done with his evil in your sight. He's able to see and he did that even with Nathan. When Nathan finished rebuking him, he said, he said in verse 13, I have sent against the Lord. Now he doesn't mean to say there's no ripple consequences. He doesn't mean to say when he says against you and you only, he's saying you and you primarily, that's how we should understand it. Yes, it was wrong what I did the best sheep, but yes, it's wrong to my whole family. I treated them wrong. Yes, it was wrong to best sheep his family and you're Ryan, you're Ryan's family. And the whole nation will suffer because of my sin. It was wicked against everyone. But first and foremost, it was a sin against you, Lord. Against you, you only have I sent and done evil in your eyes. So every sin is a sin against the Lord. So when we come to him and when we confess our sins, what we're doing, number two, is we are asking God to not break relationship with us. We're asking him not to break relationship with us. Against Psalm 51, starts off be gracious to me of God, according to your loving kindness, according to the greatness of your compassion, blood out my transgressions and so on. He uses relational language, be kind to me, be gracious to me, according to your mercy, according to your love. It's relational language, don't take your Holy Spirit from me, he'll say. And as he talks, he's asking God to deal with the sin. And the first aspect is right in line with the Lord's prayer and forgive us our debts. The word forgive in that is a fear of me. It's a word used in accounting, someone who keeps books. To be like, well, in old time of days, you know, the general store or something like that, more modern, maybe your credit card, you know, you can go online and see exactly on what date, what you bought for, how much money and what you owe your credit card. And maybe even worse, at least some of us is the stinking phone bill, right? When you go over your minutes allotted and they start charging you out, range of money, it happened to me recently. And I called them up and I said, what's the deal? Why is my phone bill twice of what it normally is? And well, you went over, I went that many minutes, I went over, you're added up fast. And what I said to him is, well, can you write it off? Can you forgive the debt? Yes, some of us are smiling and going, no, yeah, they didn't. But that's the idea, write it off, take it off the ledger, pull it off my account, zero it out, cancel the debt, that's the first one, cancel the debt. Now, it goes further than that when we're asking God to forgive us, at least when David confessed his sin, he talked about, he has got to remove the guilt, we're asking God to remove our guilt in his wrath. Psalm 51 verse 2 says, wash me thoroughly. And again, cleanse me. And verse 7, purify me with his up, wash me. And he's asking for cleansing, he's asking for the removal of the sin. It's something that needs to happen, there's a stain, there's a spot, there's a blemish, the perfection is gone, there's not only this accounting debt that is ahead of us. Man, do I owe God, I owe him, I owe his wrath, I owe him my obedience and these sorts of things. But now there's this blemish in the spot and we're saying, God, wash me, make me clean to return me to where I should be and the problems huge. Because he says in Psalm 51, at one point as he's talking about his sin, he says, you know, I was sinful from birth, I was sinful from the time my parents conceived me from conception, I've been sinful, I got the sinful heart problem. And then next verse he says, but you require truth in the inmost parts. And it's not there. And so when we ask God, forgive us, we're saying, cancel the debt, don't give me what I deserve and wash me. Take away the spot, take away the stain, remove that from me. And then thirdly, there is this idea, by the way, second Samuel 12, 13, when David said, I have sinned against the Lord, Nathan responds, the Lord has taken away, there's that idea, remove the guilt, the Lord has taken away your sin, you shall not die. The third aspect is to accept us favorably in his presence. God, we're saying, please receive us into your presence or keep us in your presence or the way Paul, I'm sorry, David said it in Psalm 51, do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your holy spirit from me. And he says, restore to me the joy of your salvation, it's that relational aspect again, isn't it? We're in relationship with God, we are his and he loves us and he owns us and we want him. And because of that relationship, we're dealing with our sins, we're confessing it, we know that it's wrong, we're asking him to cleanse us because no one else can. And we're saying, accept us favorably, give us your spirit, return to us the joy, sustain us with a willing spirit, deliver us from these things of Lord, that's what we're asking God to do. There's a third aspect to this spirit, I know the tons more could be said, but we'll just stay with this today. God is willing and desirous to forgive sins. God is willing and desirous to forgive sins. You know, it's amazing, David commits this terrible sin and you know, it starts off bad, I'm pregnant and it gets worse, kill your eye up. And then in a sense there's silence, we don't know how long until Nathan comes and it's God who initiates, it's God who senses man, it's God who gives Nathan the wisdom to come up with a story that gets under David's radar. And gets him emotionally involved in this story where justice is clear, this is what needs to happen, the guilt is obvious. And then just, he says, you're the man and he's had. But it's God's desire for reconciliation because now that he's open, now that he's exposed, now that his sin is just right there before God and Nathan and there's nothing he can do. The only thing he can do is say, I've sinned against the Lord and immediately the prophet says, the Lord has removed your guilt, you're forgiven. You see it? The God's desire, I want to forgive you. I want to pursue you. And so here it is, I'm going to expose this stuff to you so that you can say, I've sinned. Relationally, it's very tight in that relationship. God loves him. He loves God. It's got to be dealt with. And God does that. It makes me wonder, why is it so hard for us to confess our sins? And it's easy in church when we've got, especially a prittin' prayer, a printed prayer. We have sinned against you and thoughtward, indeed by what we have done and by what we have left done. And there's no health in us. But now we've got to have mercy upon us, spare us, miserable offenders, restore us. And it's easy to read. And it's quick. And we can even say, no, it's perfect. And of course I sinned. And I need God's forgiveness every day. And that part's easy. I don't mean that. But the specifics. I know this is true about me and I think it's true about you too. There's times where I talk specifically about my sins, but often I don't. It's more easy to just be general rather than specific. Why? I thought about this for a little bit. I thought, well, maybe we live in a time of the entitlement culture. I deserve this. I deserve forgiveness. And in the church we talk about God's free grace so much that we may just begin to take it for granted. Well, of course God is going to forgive me. Whatever. Why do you even ask? But I don't think that's it. We may struggle with an entitlement aspect when it comes to forgiveness, but I don't think that's the main reason. Why? I'll tell you what I think. I think we know that God's forgiven. And we know that God knows all things. We understand. He knows the depth of the sin. He knows the sin behind the sin. He knows all the motives, all the thoughts, everything that goes behind it. And we know He knows we're not afraid of Him. We're afraid to see it for ourselves. We don't like to see ourselves in that life. When our selfishness, when our self-centeredness, when our doing what's wrong for just the sake of convenience is brought before us. When we see how we are, let's just discuss that. And we can't believe we're like that. I don't know about you, but I know in my life when God brings Nathan into my life and exposes me in such a way that there's only one thing to say. I've sinned against the Lord. When He does that to me, somehow I'm shocked and appalled at my son. I can't believe I do such a thing. I committed to total depravity. I sinned, thought, word, and deed. I desire the wrong thing. I think incorrectly. I know it. But when I see it, it kills me. How do you deal with that? I don't think right here. God's willing to forgive us and desire us to forgive us. And we keep the gospel before us. That He already loves us. That He already accepts us. That He's already pursuing us. And that the way to intimacy with Him and wholeness for ourselves is to follow Him as He pursues us and dealing with this stuff. That's what faith is, isn't it? Just trusting Him enough to let Him deal with this stuff in our lives? Yes. That is what faith is. Let's take it to the Lord's table.
You've been surprised to all the fact that it's the fifth edition that says three notes over that. It's not the... Yeah, okay, first edition, how would we like to name God's more important when we maybe we get that? That's the sixth. Fifth is sixth. What's up with that? Let me see more important to you. I mean, knowing you normally think, okay, how can I not get to the presence of a holy God in the center? And so on, I need to deal with this work. Where are you going to do that? Well, I think, okay, what we've been saying, first three things, God's name, God's came to God as well, that is more important. I'm happy to come back to this group because this name, our physical needs, if you will, but it's physical and spiritual. And I think the answer is, you know what? Already related to them because we pray. I can call them, our Father, and we've been adopted, we've been accepted, we've been received, we've been purchased. I'm going to do a part of the answer to a relationship with God to pray. You can give us that. And we do those exposed who we need already. We are already cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. This is an amazing thing. We see the holiness of God, His name has been profaned and His wrath is absorbed in another. We have propitiation, right? And Jesus, our advocate, and He's so delighted, and He gives us this thing. Think about it now, think about the first time you're came. And Jesus instituted. 33 years old roughly, right? Three years of public ministry, right? Build this disciple. Three years. They've been following him for three years. They've seen the Mary calls, they've heard the servants, they've done it all. And at night, when He gives them this meal, what betrays Him, another denies Him three times, full of them, scatter. And it says, now He's chasing after them with this meal. Do this as often as you eat and drink. And remember it's of me. And what's the meal I forgive you? It's the cup. It's my love for the forgiveness of sin. Come to the table today. This is the meal for the children of God. For everyone who has been reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ, if that's you, come. You're struggling with the sin. If that sin keeps picking you there, but come. You're reconciled to God, not to break your relationship. Taste that friend. Remember, taste the sweetness of the drink. You would send people like Nathan to confront us. But you're worried with God. That you would send your son, your only son. This good may represent for us the body of Christ. You'd be asked to God that you would buy your spirit, rather than us, assure us of Christ. And in a minute, since we struggled with it. And not to push. We'll come and send the friend of the table to invite all of you who've been reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ to protect. If you have never been reconciled to God by asking Him to forgive you and by receiving what He's provided in Jesus Christ who died on the cross with you. If you've never done that, we ask that you not take the bread away. It's just absurd. And if you have the sense that you want to be reconciled with God by all means, come and talk to us. And let us talk to you about your relationship to God, so that you can come and communicate the next time we gather with you. If you are a community, please do pull the bread until all of them serve. And they'll cop this anyway so that we know.