Psalm chapter 51. We'll be looking again at David's prayer
of forgiveness. Last week we looked at this prayer
as a true prayer of mercy. That we saw the sin of David
and we saw how great his sin was. And we saw how that God
heard his prayer even before he prayed it. Even before he
said, Thou art the man. The prophet said, and he said,
I have sinned against the Lord. He said, the Lord has put away
that sin. Immediately, the Lord has put away his sin. But yet
he still prays. Why? Because of conscience. I'll
tell you, the Lord has put away our sin, but he does not always
put away the consequences of our sin. I read this today, I
heard it many years ago. Sin always takes us to a place
that we don't want to go. It always costs us more than
we want to pay. And it always keeps us longer
than we want to stay. Sin is a treacherous thing. It is a treacherous and horrible
thing. And I pray that God would teach
us by this prayer. that God would teach us by his
servant, David, by his sin, so that we may stand fast, that
we could be vigilant in the war against the flesh, against this
world, and against the principalities and powers and evil and darkness. We fight a spiritual warfare,
not a carnal warfare. We fight a spiritual warfare. And I pray that God would help
us to be faithful in this struggle. Faithful. We as believers sometimes
become weary in this strife. We become weary in worship. We
become weary in study, weary in prayer. This flesh is a great
burden on our shoulders and it becomes grievous to bear. But
I'll tell you this, when we become weary in our spirit, We usually
become confident in our flesh. It's not the person moping around
about his sin that's weary. It's usually the person that
has no idea about his sin. It's usually the person that's so
self-confident about their ability to overcome sin. They're the
person that's asleep. They're the person that really
doesn't know themselves. They really don't know themselves.
This spiritual warfare, it affected the man after God's own heart. Will it not affect us? Can it
not creep in to our lives? Yes, it can. Even so to us, at
times our flesh cries out, I deserve a little happiness. Well, surely
I've suffered enough for God that I can indulge myself in
this one thing. Oh, you're weary. You need strength. We all say
this in our flesh. This is what our flesh cries
out when we are at our weakest moment. May God teach us by the
sin of David that believers in Christ, that our flesh is so
subtle that it creeps in slowly. It never comes in fast. A true
believer in Jesus Christ never falls away fast. It's usually
many steps to get where we go. And they're always small. They're
always little steps. Remember, it's the little foxes
that spoil the vine. Usually, believers in Christ,
you know, David had great sins here, but usually our struggle
is with the daily things. But these sins, mark my words,
these sins are just as great as David's. Sin is still sin. It's still sin. Our flesh cries, surely we can
cover this up. You can cover it up from me.
I'm pretty gullible. I'm pretty gullible. I'm pretty
simple. But friends, we can never cover
our sins from God. He sees all things. And friends,
let us note by David's sin that his sin did not just affect himself. That's another lie of our flesh.
Well, this is just going to affect me. No, it affects everyone else. Everyone in our lives, our sins
affect. We cannot confide in our own
ability to keep ourselves from sin. The only power, the only
power to keep us from sin is the power of God, not our flesh. I said this last week, the more
we determine to keep ourselves from sin, I'm sure the more we
sin. That's my experience. The more I'm not thinking, trying
not to think about something, sure enough, I'm thinking about
it, trying not to think about it. It's just a circle. It never ends. It gets worse. We cannot overcome our carnal
lusts by carnal laws, by setting ourselves rules and regulations
and this and this, and I've got to do this and I've got to do
this. Believers in Christ should want to worship. You shouldn't
have to break their arm to worship. It should be something that that
we love to do, not something that we have to do. You see,
our weapons are not carnal, they're spiritual weapons because it's
a spiritual war. Flip over real fast to Ephesians
chapter six. Ephesians chapter six. We read of these spiritual armors
and weapons that we are to engage in. Verse 10, Ephesians 6, verse
10 says, Finally, my brethren, be strong, where? In the Lord. Don't be strong
in your flesh. Don't be confident in yourself.
Be strong in Him. Be strong in faith towards Him. And in the power of his might,
put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand
against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities and powers, against rulers of
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places. Wherefore, take unto you the
whole armor of God. that you may be able to withstand
the evil day, and having done all to stand, stand therefore,
having your loins girded about with the truth." Here's the first
piece of armor that we are to engage in. Truth. Let God be true in every man
a liar. Regardless of what men say and
regardless of anything that they can confound us with, God be
true. Let God's word be true. And every
man like the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ upholds all of
the other. Just like the belt, it upholds
the whole armor. If this is not the truth. The
whole armor falls apart. There is no armor. You see, Jesus Christ is the
truth. He is the way, the truth, and
the life, and no man comes to God but by him. That's true.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Now, that's
true. That's true. He said, take him the whole honor
of God. See, gird about your loins with
the truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness. Whose righteousness? Christ's righteousness. You see,
and the breastplate covers the what? It covers the heart. We
need to keep this near to our heart, that our righteousness
is His righteousness. Our righteousness is not the
righteousness that we make on our way in this life. We don't
add anything to His righteousness. And if you do, we have nothing left. There is
no heart for that. There's no beauty in our righteousness. But the breastplate of His righteousness
protects our hearts. Keep that near to you. Don't
let that go. He shod your feet with the preparation
of the gospel of peace. Friends, know the gospel. You can't stand if you don't
know the Word. Read. Study. I like this about that preparation
of the gospel. When these soldiers put on their
shoes, their spikes went in the opposite direction so that they
could push against the enemy. Dig in. Dig in. What's that? Be grounded in truth
and love. Be grounded in His Word. The shield of faith. Faith in
who? Faith in Christ. This is how
we overcome sin. Faith in Christ. Faith is the
victory that overcomes the world. Not our faith. Don't have faith
in your faith. That doesn't do anything. It's
faith in the object of our faith. Christ. We rest in Him. And taking the shield of faith
that we may quench the fiery darts of the wicked one, the
helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, the word of God,
and pray always with all prayer. These are our weapons of warfare. These are our things that we
engage in spiritual struggle. How? Looking to Christ. Never
taking our eyes off Him. Never taking our eyes and putting
it on ourselves. His righteousness. We have faith
in His blood, in His death on the cross as an offering for
our sins. That's where our faith rests. He is the helmet of our salvation. Therefore, we must be vigilant,
believers. We must be vigilant and be faithful
to behold the beauty in the person and work of Christ. You know, that's what heaven's
all about. beholding His beauty, eternally looking into His face
and glorifying His name, seeing Him without these physical, sinful
eyes that we have now, then we'll see Him face to face. That should
be our hope. That should be what we set our
affections on constantly. Be faithful to view His person
in words. For he is the only mediator between
God and men. He's one of a kind. He's one
of a kind. And we should keep our eye on
him, on his goodness. And I know this, every sinner,
every sinner who has a need for mercy will find mercy with him. Every sinner who needs mercy
who comes empty of merit, empty of hope in themselves, I know
this, they'll find mercy. They'll find mercy. It's when a sinner sees Christ
and believes on Him that we receive the forgiveness of sins and God
creates in us a new nature that desires faithfulness. that desires
Christ, that longs to see Christ. This is our new nature. This
is the inner man that God creates in us. But this old man still
remains. He still remains. And as evident
by David's sin, we are all capable of any sin. Someone, I was reading in verse
John, And I like that, it says in the King James Version, it
says, if any man sin, that's better translated to when. It's
not just a matter of if, it's just a matter of when. When any
man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous. We still have this old nature.
And therefore, we still stand in need of mercy. Mercy. We need mercy. So then God the Father, we need
his mercy. We come to God seeking his loving
kindness and knowing that we are but dust. How strong are
we in our strongest moment? Altogether vanity. Altogether
empty in ourselves. But that's alright. That's the
best place to be. That's the best place to be because
God has taken into account our frame. He's taken into account
our weakness. He knows we're flesh. He knows
our proneness to sin. And what has He given us to help
us when we fall? Prayer. Prayer is the gift of
God to every believer, so that when we sin, we know. We know we have an Advocate with
the Father. I'll tell you what, there's nothing
greater in prayer than to know we have an Advocate. To know
we have someone to stand between us and God and forgive us of
all our sins. You see, David's sin, when it
was exposed and opened to his soul, he was immediately reminded
that God put away his sins. But did that stop the guilt of
his conscience from overwhelming him? You remember when the Lord Jesus
Christ was telling Peter that he would deny him? And he did.
And he came to him afterward. And he said, Lovest thou me?
Simon, do you love me? He said, Lord, you know I do.
He did that three times and he was grieved at the end. And what
did Jesus say to him? He said, When thou art converted,
What is that? Well, Peter was already converted. He was already saved. What did
the Lord mean when he was restored from his guilt? He felt the guilt
and the weight of his sin. Don't we feel that way when we
fall? We feel the guilt and weight of our sin, even though when
a brother comes in and puts his arm around us and says, remember,
you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,
thy sin has been put away. That doesn't immediately put
away the guilt. What does? Prayer. Praying for mercy. Seeking mercy with God, David
prayed to God, have mercy on my soul. Have mercy on me, O God. He poured
out his heart in prayer. And when we view David's prayer,
we looked at two of these aspects last week, we saw that Prayer
in order to be true prayer, it must be sincere prayer. Can you
not read this sincereness? Have mercy upon me. David said,
I'm the sinner. You're just and I'm the sinner. Purge me, clean me, wash me. This is sincere prayer, friends,
he's not playing. And when we pray, we shouldn't
be playing prayer. We should be sincere. We should
be sincere. An insincere is a deceptive prayer. It's praying with a motive to
satisfy the flesh. Now, I'm not going to ask you
if you've done that. I'll just tell you I have. I
know. Sometimes I think that I'm praying,
oh, I'm praying for the good of others. Oh, I'm doing so well.
Actually, I'm just praying to satisfy my own self. That's not
sincere. How many times we prayed, Lord,
if I if you just give me a million dollars, I'd be able to help
everybody. Well, you're not really worried about helping everybody
be sincere, honest. on us concerning your sin. Confess
it. God knows it already. Confess
it. You know, with my children, when
I ask them what they've done, I'm usually not asking for information. If I'm asking for information,
I know I don't know what they've done. If I don't call them, then
they're not in trouble and I don't know what they did. But I'm not
asking for information. Neither is God. God's not asking
for information for you to confess your sins. He demands us to do it. Is it
not just right to? Is it not just right to own who
we are? And so we must pray in sincerity.
Second of all, we must pray sensibly. David prayed sensibly. He prayed,
I'm the sinner. Look at this. He said, for I
acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me
against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in
thy sight that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest
and clear when thou judgest. Lord, thou art just to do with
me as you please. That's sensible. It's sensible
to pour out our hearts in sincerity. We should pray sensibly, considering
God's Word. We shouldn't be praying frivolously
or foolishly. Many of our prayers are frivolous. foolish prayers, arrogant, ignorant, not even considering God's Word
and His promises. Had somebody come to me and said,
would you pray with me about this job? You know, they want
me to move here. And there's no church there,
but they want me to move over here. Would you? That's not sensible,
is it? That's not sensible to pray for
something we know that's not according to God's written will. That's foolishness. It's not sensible. Thirdly, we're to pray with affection. Pray with affection, love. Not our love. Don't pray in your own love.
It'll be a short prayer. It's a short prayer. It's not
even prayer. It's so small. David cries, have
mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness. Pray according to His affection
for you. How great is God's love for you! How great is the Father's love
for us! How vast beyond all measure that
He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure! Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer. But
this I know with all my heart, his wounds have paid my ransom."
His love to me. I'm praying for his mercy. I'm
praying according to his lovingkindness. Friends, sin separates us from
God. It causes us to trust in our
own love, our own faith, and hides us from the face of God. David said, hide thy face from
my sins, in verse 9, and blot out mine iniquities. And then in verse 11, he says,
cast me not away from thy presence. Lord, I want you to hide your
face from my sins, but I don't want you to hide your face from
me. He wants His presence. I'll tell
you, sinners have no love for the presence of God. Lost sinners
have no love, no affection. This is why they can take a book
of prayers and pray them over and over and over with no affection. God's people, we cry in affection. We want His presence. We want
His mercy. We need His Spirit. We can't
live without it. I want to live without my sin,
but I don't want to live without Him. So in prayer, we should desire
to see His love. Isn't that what sin covers? Isn't
that what sin blocks the view of God's grace, God's mercy? It does. But when God takes it
out of the way, when he washes us, it's then we can truly enter
into his love. You see, believer, all we are
is reflectors. We reflect his love for us. You know, the moon, it doesn't
have a light of its own. It gets its light by reflection
from the sun. So we get our love by reflection
from the love of God. The more we see His love in Christ,
the more we are able to love Him. And not by our own love. John
Bunyan said this, he said, in prayer, it is better to have
a heart without words. than words without a heart. That's simple, but just true. That's true. Don't let your prayers be cold,
indifferent. And I'll tell you what, you look
at the cross of Christ and they can't be cold and indifferent if we see him. Next, our prayer should be always
toward God through Jesus Christ. When we say in Jesus name, we're
not saying some incantation. We're not saying some magical
spell by which our prayers come true. We are asking God to hear
our cries only because of Christ. That's it. Just like in salvation, friends,
each one of the blessed Trinity is involved in prayer. God, the
Father, has the office to hear our prayers. It is by the Son,
by the blood of Christ, that we are able to approach and the
Spirit of God ascends our prayers and makes them smell sweet in
His presence. You see, God is God is the one
that makes our prayers acceptable. In Revelation, chapter eight,
it talks about the angel having the incense in his hand and the
incense were burning in his hand and the smoke arose from the
incense in his hand and went into the nostrils of God. You
see, that's prayer. These are the prayers of the
saints. Christ is the one that has the
prayers of the saints in his hands. And it's the Spirit of
God is the smoke that lifts our prayers to the presence of God. Friends, we have no right, no right to pray outside of Christ. But in Christ you have every
right to be before the Father. We are sons of God. He hath made us sons of God. Most of you remember the picture
of John F. Kennedy at his desk, and he's looking all presidential,
and his son was under the desk. The head or the king of any nation
could not crawl under that desk. The only one that could was his
son. And friends, when we are in need, crawl up into the lap
of our Father on the throne by Jesus Christ. For he has entered
into the holy place once by his blood and made us accepted before
God. I don't feel accepted. Not about
how you feel. Through Christ, you are accepted. And your prayers will be heard. And let us pray in the power
and the assistance of the Holy Spirit, flip over to Romans chapter
eight. Read this with me, Romans chapter
eight. Verse 26, Scripture says, Likewise, the
Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should
pray for, as we ought. But the Spirit himself maketh
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, and
he searcheth the hearts, knowing what is the mind of the Spirit,
because he maketh intercession for the saints According to the
will of God. We don't know what's good. For us. We think we do. We think we got it all figured
out. Well, if God would do this and God would do this and God
would do this and God would do this, then everything would be
fine. Wrong. How many times has He proved
us wrong? How many times has He given us
what we wanted just to show us that it would be harmful to us? I don't know what's good for
you. I don't know what's good for myself. Therefore, we pray in the Spirit
because He always prays according to the will of God. If you pray toward the will of
God, don't you know that you have what you ask? If we pray always toward the
will of God, don't we know that it's going to be good? Yes. Pray in the Spirit and pray according
to God's Word and submit to His will. Look at these passages
really quick. I want you to see this. It's
important to pray according to God's Word. Prayer and worship
is nothing more than giving back to God what He has said in His
Word. It is repeating His promises
to us and praying for them. Psalm 119. Psalm 119. Look at
verse 9. Wherewithal shall the young man
cleanse his way? By taking heed thereunto according
to thy word. Verse 25. My soul cleaveth unto
the dust, quicken thou me according to thy word. Verse 41. Let thy mercies come also unto
me, O God, even thy salvation according to thy word. Verse 58. I am treated by favor with my
whole heart. Be merciful unto me, me according
to that word. And I've got several more according
to that word. It's what we pray. We pray, God,
be merciful to me according to as you have promised. When David
prayed for mercy, he wasn't praying anything outside of God's revealed
will. He prayed according to God's
word. And he had what he asked for. He had what he asked for. And when we pray, we must submit everything we pray to God's will. Everything. If our Lord and Savior, who is
God manifest in the flesh, submitted Himself to the will of God, should
not we who are His disciples do the same? Someone gets sick, and you say,
Lord, please heal them. But submit to His will if it
is not His will to do so. We can't do that ourselves. We
can't. We need Him. Friends, pray sincerely. Pray
sensibly. Pray with affection. Love. His love, not ours. Pray towards God through Jesus
Christ alone by the help of the Holy Spirit. Pray according to
his word and submit to his will. That's prayer. It's exactly what
David did. He said, Lord, do thy good pleasure
unto Zion. And friends, we know whatever
that is, it's good. For we know that all things work
together for good. to them who love God, to them
who are the called according to His purpose. All things. All
things. All things. I pray that God would bless this
to your hearts, strengthen you, and encourage you in prayer to
walk by faith in Christ. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer.