The Anatomy of Repentance

Show Notes

Psalm 51 (Listen)

Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

51:1   Have mercy on me,¹ O God,
    according to your steadfast love;
  according to your abundant mercy
    blot out my transgressions.
2   Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
    and cleanse me from my sin!
3   For I know my transgressions,
    and my sin is ever before me.
4   Against you, you only, have I sinned
    and done what is evil in your sight,
  so that you may be justified in your words
    and blameless in your judgment.
5   Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
    and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6   Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
    and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
7   Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
    wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8   Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9   Hide your face from my sins,
    and blot out all my iniquities.
10   Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and renew a right² spirit within me.
11   Cast me not away from your presence,
    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12   Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13   Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    and sinners will return to you.
14   Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
    O God of my salvation,
    and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15   O Lord, open my lips,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.
16   For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
    you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17   The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
18   Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
    build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19   then will you delight in right sacrifices,
    in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
    then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Footnotes

[1] 51:1 Or Be gracious to me
[2] 51:10 Or steadfast

(ESV)

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Jeffrey Heine: 00:00

Good morning. It's good to see you all. We are going to be taking a brief pause in our study of Paul's epistle to the Romans. We're gonna be taking a a break from that for this week. We'll we'll jump right back in, next week, but, we're gonna take a little break.

Jeffrey Heine: 00:19

And today, we are gonna be looking at Psalm 51, a psalm of King David. You'll find it in your worship guides. We're we're gonna be looking at the whole song, and I will read it in just a moment for us. Psalm 51, this is as we've mentioned a little bit ago, the 1st Sunday in the season of Lent. And so, we thought it fitting to take some time and direct our attention to a Psalm that is specifically on the theme of repentance and turning to the Lord.

Jeffrey Heine: 00:52

And so we'll be looking at that together. Psalm 51, beginning with verse 1. And let us listen carefully, for this is God's word. Have mercy on me, oh God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my inequity and cleanse me from my sin.

Jeffrey Heine: 01:22

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is 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 in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

Jeffrey Heine: 01:56

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Jeffrey Heine: 02:16

Cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, oh God. Oh God of my salvation, And my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

Jeffrey Heine: 02:41

Open my lips, oh Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, oh god, you will not despise.

Jeffrey Heine: 03:01

Do good into Zion in your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be offered on your altar. This is the word of the Lord.

Jeffrey Heine: 03:18

It is to your heart. Let's pray together. Lord, we gather to meet with you today. We gather in this place as brothers and sisters in Christ to worship you in spirit and in truth. And we ask now that you would work your truth deep into our hearts and our minds that we might turn to Christ in repentance all the more this morning.

Jeffrey Heine: 03:44

So would you speak, lord, for your servants are listening. We pray these things in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen. I once got a fortune cookie that said, life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. It also said 4, 8, 15, 16.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:11

That's for a different sermon on another day. Now the quote is actually one from Kierkegaard. He was not given credit. There was no citation. Citations are hard on a fortune cookie.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:27

Let's be honest. Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. The church season of Lent is also to be understood backwards. The season of self examination, of lamenting our sin, it only makes sense backwards. It only makes sense in light of the victory and the celebration of Easter Sunday.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:55

So if Lent can only really be understood backwards, I think it's fitting for us today, this first Sunday in Lent, to take a peek at the end that makes sense of it all. Today, I want us to look at the end that redefines how we understand this beginning. So that's what we're going to do. We're gonna spend time together this morning looking at Psalm 51 and this picture of the gift of repentance. King David was well into his fifties.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:26

40 years had passed or so since, his legendary battle with Goliath. It was spring time in Jerusalem. The time of year that kings go out to battle. But not David. Not this time.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:41

David sent his nephew Joab and the Israel army to fight the Ammonites while he stayed behind at the king's house. In many ways, the trouble for David began when he decided to be where he wasn't supposed to be. And that probably sounds familiar to many of us. Sin doesn't always begin with this outright decision to rebel against God. It starts with the easy choices of seemingly innocuous disobedience.

Jeffrey Heine: 06:12

It's the subtle disobedience that begets the destruction. And that's how it happened for David. Late in the afternoon, David got up from his couch, it says. And that's how you know he was a king. Right?

Jeffrey Heine: 06:27

A 1000 years before Jesus is even born, and this guy's got a couch. He can't hide money. He gets up from his couch, and he walks on the high roof of the palace. He could see from his high roof, lower rooftop. It was the home of one of his commanders, a brave warrior named Uriah.

Jeffrey Heine: 06:49

And on that roof was Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. Bathsheba was the granddaughter of one of David's counselors, the daughter of one of his mighty men. And Bathsheba was on the roof practicing a Jewish ritual, a cleanliness ritual. There were numerous rituals that the faithful Israelites would practice at that time. Some that the Lord had given to Israel as a part of their commanded worship, and other rituals that had come up You can read about it in Leviticus 15, which I'm sure you'll do as soon as you get home.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:26

She wasn't doing anything out of turn. She wasn't trying to tempt anyone. She was in fact worshiping Yahweh and obeying His commands. And high atop, on the roof of the palace where David wasn't supposed to be, David sees her and he asks his servants about the woman. Eliab, her father, Uriah, her husband, were men of courage and bravery.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:51

They were out risking their lives for their king. And that also meant that they were away from home. They were gone to battle because as I said, it was the time of year that kings went to battle. Most kings. David, being at home and apparently laying on the couch, sent for Bathsheba.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:10

In fact, the Hebrew reads that he sent his messengers to take Bathsheba. He uses his power and his position to take Bathsheba. And this story gives zero indication that she wanted this to happen. In fact, all that we see from her throughout this story is grief and distress. How can this be?

Jeffrey Heine: 08:30

How can this be the man who is the king of Israel? How is this the man anointed to rule over God's people? How is this the man after God's own heart? How can this be? After the assault, Bathsheba becomes pregnant.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:48

And David sets out to cover up his sin. And the cover up ultimately ends with Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, being sent to the front lines of battle where he will certainly die. And he does. The battle that David was either too scared or too lazy to go fight himself is where Uriah is killed. And so now, David has covered up his sins with more sins.

Jeffrey Heine: 09:14

Months go by. The prophet Nathan, moved by the Lord's prompting, goes to King David and he tells him of an urgent matter of justice. We read this story in 2nd king or second Samuel chapter 12. This is a story that Nathan tells David. There's a poor man who had a lamb.

Jeffrey Heine: 09:37

He cared for it like a pet. More than that, like a daughter. He fed the lamb from his own plate, and he took special care of this lamb. Now there was a rich man who came to the poor man's home to steal the lamb away. The rich man who had his own livestock took the lamb from the poor man, slaughtered it, and prepared it for a meal.

Jeffrey Heine: 10:03

Now, King David is enraged that this has happened in his kingdom. And the very thought of a person of such wealth and privilege taking from the poor was enough to move David to desire swift justice. In this righteous anger, David tells Nathan that the rich man must die for his sins. David promises to execute justice. And why?

Jeffrey Heine: 10:29

Because sin cannot go unpunished. There's no justice in that. Sin must be punished. And the prophet Nathan looks at King David with a godly boldness and says, you are the rich man. And like a sucker punch, David is shocked and confused and starts to piece together what has happened.

Jeffrey Heine: 10:56

He tears his clothes. He puts on sackcloth. He covers himself in ashes. He understands, by God's grace, the horrors of his own sin. He sees himself for who he is and what he has actually done.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:09

No more cover ups, no more power plays as king, just a man, his sin exposed. Those are the sins of King David that led him to pray these words of Psalm 51. These sins, this brokenness, this conviction of sin, it's what leads him to write these words of a prayer to the Lord. Now, when I remember the sins of David, the terrible things that he has done, I don't like the man who wrote Psalm 51. When I think about what He has done against Bathsheba and Uriah, it makes me not like this man who is praying in Psalm 51.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:53

And that means that I need to be very careful. Because there is a serious danger that arises when I begin to despise the unrighteous man in Psalm 51. And the the danger is this. I begin to think that I'm not like Him. So not only does Psalm 51 give us a testimony of God's mercy on an unrighteous person, it instructs us on what it looks like to repent.

Jeffrey Heine: 12:24

Psalm 51 offers a structure, an anatomy of repentance. So So let's look at it together, verse 1. David begins, have mercy on me, oh God, according to Your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

Jeffrey Heine: 12:47

David begins his prayer, crying out for the mercy of God to blot out his transgressions, to be cleansed, to be washed from his sin. And this shows for us this cornerstone of repentance. Repentance begins with God. God has acted already. God has acted through the prophet Nathan to bring about this change, this transformation in King David.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:15

You see, repentance must begin with the work of God. We aren't simply feeling guilty about our sin. It's not enough to just work on better behaviors, mitigating negative consequences from our actions. Managing our disobedience is not repentance. The aim here is not simply to act better.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:38

Repentance begins with God. God moves in such a way that we begin to rethink, reexamine our actions, or at times our inaction. And we rethink and understand, and we begin to turn to God. We go to him. And in going to God, we appeal to his steadfast love and his abundant mercy because the person who is repenting has come to understand that their sin has to do with God.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:06

These are not mere mistakes or personal failures. This isn't disappointment. It's disobedience. And it has to do with God. Yes, Uriah suffered.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:17

And of course, Bathsheba suffered. But in David's rethinking, this holy rethinking that the Spirit has brought about, he realizes that he not only hurt people, he has gone against God Himself. That's ultimately what's being reconsidered here. Because repentance begins with God, and Him leading us to think again, to re examine, that shows us part of this anatomy of repentance as it unfolds. Repentance means new understanding.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:51

The word repentance comes from Latin that means to think again. In the story of David's sin, he did a lot of thinking. Most of it was sinful. He lusted after Bathsheba. He thought to bring her to his palace.

Jeffrey Heine: 15:09

He devised a plan to kill Uriah. David had done a lot of thinking. But even with all that thinking, David still did not understand what he was actually doing. Not ultimately. He did not truly understand his actions until he was confronted by the Lord through Nathan.

Jeffrey Heine: 15:30

This is a picture for us of the work of the Holy Spirit. Like Nathan, the Spirit comes to show us what we otherwise would never see on our own. The Spirit moves to help us understand what we otherwise would never think of on our own. The Spirit leads us to think again. And that's a crucial part of repentance.

Jeffrey Heine: 15:51

Look at what David says next in verse 3. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and if you if you see your transgressions as transgressions, that is the evidence of the work of God's grace in your life. You would not think those things on your own. That is His work in you.

Jeffrey Heine: 16:27

The work of the Spirit of God and His kindness to you. See, when we feel that sense of guilt and conviction, that is not God's anger at us. It is His love. Because His anger would leave us in our ignorance. It is a steadfast love of God that leads us to repentance.

Jeffrey Heine: 16:47

To think again, to see and know our transgressions. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. God's kindness has led David to think again, to know his sin. And further, David understands that his sin is against God and that God is justified in His judgment against that sin. God is without fault and is perfectly righteous in His judgment against all sin.

Jeffrey Heine: 17:15

Think back to when David responds to Nathan and says, the rich man must pay. He must die. Sin must be punished. And now, as he sees himself as the one who is transgressed against the Lord's law, David says there must be punishment. God is just in His judgments, and He pleads for mercy.

Jeffrey Heine: 17:41

David's understanding has been completely transformed. He understands now both his sin and God's just judgment against him. David understands he cannot perform his way out of this. He cannot bargain with God to somehow come up with a way to get out of this judgment. He can't balance it out with enough good works to somehow ease off this debt of sin.

Jeffrey Heine: 18:04

No. David is being led by God to rethink. And David knows that he is in desperate need of mercy. David also confesses that his need is not only just from his recent actions of sin, but it goes all the way back to his very beginning. He says in verse 5, look with me.

Jeffrey Heine: 18:25

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being. You teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Here David says, my need is not only to be cleansed from my sinful actions, but my very being, my very flesh is set in rebellion against the Lord. And just as that sin is deep within my inward being, the Lord comes and brings truth to those places.

Jeffrey Heine: 18:56

He brings His truth and wisdom to those deeper places, teaching wisdom in the secret heart. And we see the structure of repentance continue to unfold. It begins with with God initiating this repentance. We go to God. We are led by God to think again.

Jeffrey Heine: 19:20

And next, we appeal to the work of God. I'm gonna read through verses 7 through 15 again, and pay attention, pay extra attention to these requests that David is making over and over again. Follow them as they as they make their way through, because they're describing this manifold work of God's mercy. Verse 7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

Jeffrey Heine: 19:49

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins. Blot out all my iniquities.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:01

Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not Your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:22

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, oh god, oh God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of Your righteousness. Oh Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise. David knows that true repentance requires this manifold work of God's mercy. In this long list of petitions, David is revealing how dependent he is upon the Lord's work. And it should serve to remind us just how desperate we are for the mercy of God.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:56

David needs so much. He's asking for so much from the Lord. And that is part of what repentance reveals. It reveals that we now know how deeply we need the Lord and His mercy. We see more and more the depths of that need and how Christ meets us in all of those needs.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:26

Rather than thinking that repentance is some burdensome act of a reluctant sinner, This Psalm of David shows us an example of repentance. It teaches us that repentance, 1st and foremost, is a gift from God. Repentance is a gift from Jesus Himself, and it's a blessing to receive it, to take hold of this opportunity, and to live into it. Not long after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, Peter and the other disciples were teaching the good news about Jesus in Jerusalem. They were declaring the gospel even though they had been told not to preach in the name of Jesus anymore, with the threat of imprisonment and death.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:09

But we read in Acts 5 that they kept going. They kept preaching in the name of Jesus, this good news. And they were confronted by the rulers of Jerusalem. And Peter responds to them saying this, we must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus whom you killed by hanging Him on a tree.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:32

God exalted Him at His right hand as savior to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of sins. Jesus was raised to give repentance and forgiveness of sins. Often, we separate these 2 out. Maybe we see repentance as that just initiating act that then gets us into the family of God. And then there's forgiveness.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:55

That's what we really need to be focused on. But these two things in the words of Charles Spurgeon, 19th century British preacher, he said, the forgiveness of God and repentance from God are riveted together in Christ. He goes as far as to say what God has joined together, let no man separate. We cannot separate repentance from forgiveness. God has joined these things together for a life lived in this continual repentance to the Lord.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:25

That the aim of conviction over our sin, the aim of repentance is not just to feel badly enough about our sin. The aim is not just to dwell in anguish over our sin. We don't have to live in the sorrow of sackcloth and ashes forever. You are given the gift, the ability to turn from your sin into the perfect forgiveness in Christ. You are in Christ.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:52

And if, if you are, if you follow Jesus, if you have put your trust in Him, if you look to Him with faith, then your identity is no longer that of sinner. Your identity is child of God. But that does not mean that repentance is over. Martin Luther, the great reformer, in his very first statement in the 95 Theses that was written in 15/19. The very first statement in that kinda first act of the great reformation that came about in the church.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:28

The very first statement was this. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said repent, He intended that the entire life of believers should be that of repentance. He's saying the entire life of the follower of Christ should be a life of repentance. In other words, what Luther is emphasizing is this gospel truth. Because you have forgiveness, you continue in repentance.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:58

Because you have, in Christ, you have an assurance of forgiveness, You continue in repentance. You continue to turn from sins. Sins that previously you didn't even realize were in your life or in your heart. You continue in repentance to turn more and more of your life to Jesus. Why?

Jeffrey Heine: 25:21

Because you are His. You belong to Him. You were purchased by Him. And through His death and resurrection, you have been given the gift of forgiveness and repentance. Although you have a new identity, you still sin.

Jeffrey Heine: 25:39

And that's why repentance never stops. It's a joyful gift because every moment of repentance is a reminder that you have a God who has cleansed you from all unrighteousness in Christ Jesus, your Lord. In repentance, you simultaneously realize that your need is so much greater than you ever realized, and that Jesus meets every need in full. Yes, there is to be sorrow over our sin. Sorrow is a necessary part of grieving our sin as we come to see it for the first time.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:15

To see it as it truly is. Part of the result of rethinking is this re feeling. Feeling again, feeling anew, a sorrow over our disobedience. But in the words of Jonathan Edwards, it is a sweet sorrow. A sweet sorrow because you have already forgiveness in full.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:38

You have a place to turn. You get to turn away from sin and to Christ Himself. And in Him, there is joy, A joy unending, as unending as His forgiveness is unending. This is the structure, the anatomy of repentance as it unfolds in this text. It begins with God, and we go to Him.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:01

And the Spirit leads us to rethink, refuel, and we appeal to the work of God, this manifold work of His mercy. And then next, we commit to the work of righteousness. Look at verse 13. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:26

O God of my salvation. And my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. Oh Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise. Do you ever go through a phase with a band or an author where you really lock into their work and they kind of become a companion for a season? Well, I go through phases where I do a deep dive with a different author and kind of read a lot of their works.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:53

Try to do it chronologically, but usually I start with the greatest hits. And so there have been a number of pastoral companions that I've had over the years. Such as the already mentioned Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Helmut Thielica. I clearly have an affinity for Germans. But recently, it's been a Welsh pastor and theologian, 20th century theologian, Martin Lloyd Jones.

Jeffrey Heine: 28:20

And and he wrote this about the unique gift of repentance. And he contrasts it against the emotion of just remorse. So contrasting remorse and repentance. He said this, quote, this is the ultimate test of true repentance, and the thing that differentiates it most of all from remorse. Repentance gives us a hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Jeffrey Heine: 28:49

It makes us desire to be like Christ and more and more like Him, to be righteous and holy and clean. We do not simply feel sorrow because we have fallen again and because we are suffering afterwards and have let ourselves down not at all. Remorse is negative. Repentance is positive. End quote.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:14

As part of his repentance unto the lord, David commits himself. He's hungry for righteousness. I will teach transgressors Your ways. My tongue will sing aloud of Your righteousness. David isn't negotiating with God.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:29

He's not going for a plea deal. He's describing his response to the mercy of God. Repentance is a gift that leads to action. We respond in a hunger for righteousness. In chapter 1 of the prophecy of Isaiah, we find a connection to the poetic language that we have here in Psalm 51.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:52

This language of being washed, whiter than snow. It's a passage of promise. It might be familiar to you. The Lord says to the prophet Isaiah, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:14

The Lord gives these promises that scarlet sin will be white as snow. This is what David is asking for in his prayer. Wash me clean that I will be whiter than snow. How does crimson sin become white as snow? It must be the crimson blood of Jesus.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:36

Nothing else will wash us clean. Nothing else will give us that hope that we could ever be clean enough unless we are washed in the blood of Jesus. And with this promise, with this promise that the Lord speaks through the prophet Isaiah, He also speaks to righteousness. Because obedience matters. Repentance matters.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:03

We pursue holiness because it matters. Hear this. We repent because we have been forgiven. We repent because we have been forgiven. And we obey because we have been redeemed.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:18

Isaiah says, remove the evil deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:30

Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow's cause. These are the residual effects, the residual evidence of repentance, the pursuit, the hunger, the thirst for righteousness. Part of the turning from sin to Christ is learning to do good. And the Lord, through the prophet Isaiah, parses out what He means by this good.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:55

Seeking justice, correcting oppression, defending the vulnerable among us. And just as it's not enough to simply feel remorse over our sin, it is incomplete to see repentance as just refraining from evil. We must cease to do evil and learn to do good. We must live into the righteousness that God has for us and the good works that God has prepared beforehand that we might walk in them in Christ. David learned this.

Jeffrey Heine: 32:27

He learned that what God wanted most was not a physical offering of a bull or a goat. God wanted his heart. A contrite heart. That, I believe, is why David was a man after God's own heart. He knew the sinfulness of his own.

Jeffrey Heine: 32:44

He knew this truth and he was headlong after the heart of God. Because he learned as the Apostle John would later write to the church when John said, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Not God. Ourselves. And the truth is not in us.

Jeffrey Heine: 33:05

But if we confess our sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. David learned that God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from our unrighteousness. And we know how this forgiveness and cleansing is made possible. It's not because we're sorry enough, It's not because we sorrow enough. And it's not because we promise to do enough good works to offset the bad.

Jeffrey Heine: 33:37

No. It is because we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the Righteous, who gives us repentance and forgiveness. And no matter how many times you travel this path of repentance, and you arrive back at the cross of Jesus, His empty tomb, His victory over your sin and the death that you were due, we realize anew and feel as though for the first time we are beholding the good news of Jesus. And that is the aim of Lent.

Jeffrey Heine: 34:08

Lent only makes sense backwards, even though it must be lived forwards. Our rethinking our lives, our grief over our sin, we don't stop there. We get to turn. And when we turn, we do not simply turn from disobedience to obedience. We turn from disobedience to Jesus.

Jeffrey Heine: 34:29

We turn to Christ Himself. That is the good news of the gospel. We turn to the person Jesus and He leads us by His Spirit to hunger for the righteousness, to hunger for obedience from the heart, all because of His grace and His mercy. So, this Lent, may God renew in each of us the joy of our salvation and help us, strengthen us to turn all the more to Jesus, our savior and our redeemer. Let's go to him in prayer.

Jeffrey Heine: 35:13

Oh, lord, help us to catch a glimpse of the truth that you have set before us through your servant David. The truth that you call us to turn, to turn from trying to save ourselves, to turn from our selfishness, to turn from our sin, and to turn to Jesus. And that everything that we need, everything that we want, everything that we are so desperate for, we actually find in Him. Help us to behold that this morning. To look on Jesus, and to find rest for our souls.

Jeffrey Heine: 35:54

Lord, work these truths deep into our hearts and our minds that we would go from this place knowing that we have met with you and knowing that we can trust you. What I pray that as we continue in worship that you would continue to move and that we would delight all the more this morning In the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in whom we pray these things. Amen.