We turn in our Bibles to 2 Corinthians 7, a little different than your bulletin, 2 Corinthians 7 and then Psalm 51, and we stand together. 2 Corinthians 7 comes in a context in chapter 6 of Paul pressing this on the hearts of the Corinthians that they would be a holy people. If they were to understand the covenant, I will be their God and they shall be My people. This involves a separate and distinct kind of life from the world, a holy life. And so the Apostle Paul has called them in this letter to repent. He wrote them an earlier letter also where he called them to repent of sin, in particular sin that was continuing in the church. With those two facts in mind, his earlier call in the earlier letter to repent and his present call in the present letter, we pick up in 2 Corinthians 7 and in verse 8. For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. For I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted. But the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner. What diligence it produced in you! What clearing of yourselves! What indignation! What fear! What vehement desire! What zeal! What vindication! In all things, You proved yourself to be clear in this matter. Therefore, although I wrote to you, I did not do it for the sake of him who had done the wrong, nor for the sake of him who suffered wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear to you." And now we turn to Psalm 51, where in a manner, Similar to Paul's understanding of godly sorrow, David articulates a similar experience of the believer. We will read the psalm beginning at verse one. To the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, and after he had gone into Bathsheba, have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me against you. You only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight, that you may be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness that the bones that you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to You. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation. And my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness, O Lord. Open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth your praise. For you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise. Do good in your pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you shall be pleased with sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then they shall offer bowls on your altar. The grass withers, the flower fades. The Word of God endures forever. And we pray together. Lord our God, we ask now for your divine help again. The preaching of your Word. which you have sent to your people across the ages through your servants. When we think of Abel the prophet, we think of Noah the preacher of righteousness, we think of Abraham and his ministry to his household. Gentiles and his son the son of promise Isaac What do you think of your prophets through the ages? We think of the Apostles whom you sent out to preach We think of Timothy and Titus and the first generation of those who were called to preach the word in season and out of season Lord, you have always spoken to your people. You have been pleased to use fallible human instruments to speak to sinful people, such as we all are. And we pray that you would have the glory, that you would superintend that all that is spoken would be according to your word, and that you would even use this again tonight to drive that word into our hearts, that we might not sin against you, but bring you glory. We also pray that you would exalt Christ among us and that our clearer view of his ministry, of his work in our place, would give us comfort and grace to live for you another week and until the better day. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Psalm 51, if you are visiting with us tonight, you are joining us in the middle of a series of sermons on seeking to answer this question, what should you do when you recognize that you have sinned. What is the arc or the path of true repentance? And there isn't one of us here for whom this is not pertinent and relevant for, as I have said often at the beginning of these sermons, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And so the instructions that we have received in Psalm 51 are pertinent to every man, woman, boy, and girl, everyone who has ever lived, The psalm is interesting. It has been included by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the scriptures to take us by the hand and lead us back to God. And that's what God's Word does. It takes us by the hand and it leads us back to Him. It was penned by a man who fell into very serious sin, the kinds of sin that you and I might think there is no natural recovery from. And then there's very real ways when you read David's life that the consequences reverberated in his home and family to the next generation and onward in profoundly heartbreaking ways. But there's another thing that's amazing about this psalm is that it represents a restoration of a wandering sheep. One who had wandered far from his God, David, when he committed the sins that he committed later in his reign, was a man who had already walked with the Lord. And this was a great fall. And here God was willing and did restore David back to himself to communion with God. What we've learned so far from David's pattern are a number of things. We begin when we sin, we do the thing. If we know the Lord, we do the thing which is the opposite of what Adam and Eve did, where they ran and hid themselves and covered themselves, that we run to God and we open ourselves and we acknowledge our sin and we tell Him what we have done. We do that because we believe something about God. that David believed in the first phrases, that He is filled with loving kindness and a multitude of tender mercies. That we've learned something about His character that enables us, though we understand Him to be holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, that we can run to Him. Like children to our Heavenly Father. We also acknowledge that God sets the standards for our life. Against you and you only have we sinned. We acknowledge our transgressions. Our sin is always before us. life which is known to Him. What is your heart? It is the seat of your consciousness, your memory, your knowledge, your judgment. From it proceeds either wisdom or foolishness. It's the seat of your conscience which either accuses you or excuses you. It's the place from which springs all your thoughts, all your decisions, all your affections. You are to keep your heart. Out of it flow the issues of life. It is the very fountain of your being. And in Mark 7, Jesus says that we sin because out of our heart, by nature, flows evil and sin apart from the grace of God. And David in this psalm is especially concerned about his inward life. He knows that God is. Look at verse 6. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom. That God had an interest in the core of his being, creating me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. There was something about the core of his being and his identity. So when we talk about dealing with sin, The question is, how should our hearts respond, our innermost being, before the face of God when we have sinned? What should be within? Now, I would note that this morning I preached a sermon on the nature of contrition from the sinful woman from Luke chapter seven, and I was not planning to preach two sermons on the similar topic today, but I am. It seems to be the providence of God. But how should your innermost being, your heart, respond to God when you have sinned? What should be the experience? What is the experience of a true believer in the face of sin? And I would posit to you that in the verses that follow here, especially in verses 16 and 17 where we're gonna focus, we'll see two responses. that our heart should, which includes our understanding, should understand and cling to the only way of salvation, should understand the only way of salvation, and our heart should humbly then Repent before God to seek the mercy of God in repentance. And we're gonna study those two things. The understanding of the true nature of salvation should be in our hearts, and then from that should spring a certain kind of repentance that engages the whole of your innermost being, including, as we saw this morning, your affections. A little bit of review, verses 14 and 15 before we get into verses 16 and 17. David here seems to be summarizing verses 1 through 13. You could take 1 through 13 in the psalm as a unit where he begins with a prayer, he asks for forgiveness, he prays for a clean heart, and then he says, I will teach transgressors your ways. The rest of the psalm is an extended meditation on the first part. Verses 14 and 15, in a sense, are a summary. Verse 14, David says these words, and we looked at them briefly last week, but in more detail he says, Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth your praise. David has already asked for forgiveness. He's already acknowledged. He seems to be doing it a second time here. He's returning to a fundamental theme, and he's confessing something quite interesting, that he bears the guilt of bloodshed, that the sins that he has committed, and this is really the first time he uses this language, are capital crimes. murder and adultery, for which he deserved to be executed, and for which there was no provision for mercy in the Old Testament law that he would not be punished. It's a very interesting thing is that David did not receive in this life the justice that he deserved for those sins. He was a murderer and he was an adulterer. Old Testament civil law would have him be destroyed. Instead, he recognizes that God has remarkably delivered him from the guilt of bloodshed. He still has life, and that he should use that life to sing aloud to God's righteousness. He now should always and only praise the Lord. That's the rest of verses 14 and 15. Forgiveness has been sought in God, and now he's praising God that he's found it for the worst kind of crimes, and he's gonna devote his life to praise and adoration. Let God be praised with my tongue and lips. But then he goes deeper. In verse 16 and 17, where our focus will be, he uses the word for. And he is connecting now the next thoughts to the previous. He is connecting the request for forgiveness, the praise of God for receiving such forgiveness, verse 14 and 15, sort of a summary of all that lies before. And now he's making a connection to a deeper thought about his heart and life. He has already acknowledged, confessed, asked for a clean heart. Is there anything in this psalm that strikes you for an Old Testament saint that is not present. There's no mention of a sacrifice for sins. He hasn't mentioned going to the temple or to the tabernacle or offering an offering that he might receive forgiveness. As a matter of fact, There's nothing here along the lines, the Old Testament ceremonial law in Leviticus chapter four makes a provision especially for if a ruler sins, he shall offer this kind of sacrifice. Leviticus four and verse 22. Leviticus five, how you should go find a priest, bring your offering, the offering animal, and then have that sacrificed and so receive forgiveness. As a matter of fact, in Psalm 51, there's no priest, no sacrifice, and no declaration of forgiveness. There's no mention here of the ceremonial law in the way that we might understand it. As a matter of fact, it's even more perplexing when you read it. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, for you do not desire sacrifice. What does that mean? The whole of the Old Testament is predicated on without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins. What possibly could David be saying when he's committed the worst kind of sins? And he says something else. He doesn't say that he's not willing. He says, you do not desire it or else I would give it. I understand I could, but I understand that you do not Delight, look keep reading, in burnt offerings. You do not desire sacrifice, you do not delight in burnt offerings. There seems to be at the face value an apparent disconnect with ceremonial law and the way of forgiveness in the old covenant. Now if you look at verses 18 and 19, you'll notice that he's not actually denying the ceremonial law. Look at the last verses. Do good in your good pleasure to Zion, build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. They shall offer bowls on your altar. He's not denying the sacrificial system. But why does it seem like the sacrificial system but he understands its place and purpose and its limitations? There's a number of common misconceptions for the Old Testament sacrificial system. We'll deal with a few of those. There were whole burnt offerings, there were sin offerings, and there were peace offerings offered to God. And these three kinds of offerings together would be the ritual way in which a sinner would approach God and be made or declared righteous to enter into His presence for worship. Again, the principle is true. Without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins. How could you misunderstand this system? Let me give you one possible misconception, that God would be appeased or bribed by the sacrifices. The ancient pagans, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, sacrifices were offered to appease hungry, angry gods in the hope that their anger would be placated and that the one who had offended God or the gods may live. And the Lord was very clear in Psalm 50, He says in verse 12, He doesn't need the sacrifices. He doesn't need to be placated as if He was a hungry, angry God. And it seems that Israel thought of the sacrificial system in this way often when they were in times of trouble. In Micah chapter 6 and then Isaiah chapter 1, they would multiply their offerings. They would offer more and more when they were in trouble. And God would say to them, I don't want it. You're not using it correctly. You don't understand. The second misconception is that by going through these outward route practices, that a sinner could prove himself to be a good person, good enough to earn God's favor. So you would carefully and scrupulously keep the ceremonial law, offer the required offerings and sacrifices, and therefore God would be pleased to you. I'm trying my best to be a good person. And Israel often thought that the outward ritual might satisfy God. But God would warn them again and again through his prophets that this was not satisfying to God, that their outward adherence to the ceremonial law did not make them righteous in his sight. As a matter of fact, in Amos chapter five, I hate, I despise your feast days. I do not savor your sacred assemblies. Though you offer me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them, nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings. Take away from me the noise of your songs. It's remarkable language. It could be misused. A third misconception was that the Old Testament sacrifices themselves, in and of themselves, could appease God and satisfy His demand for a perfect righteousness. It's interesting, one commentator on Psalm 51 says this about David, that Psalm 51 is most significant in Old Testament history because of this, that David realizes the limits of the sacrificial system. And that though God had appointed the blood of bulls and goats, that the blood of these bulls and goats could not satisfy a God of righteousness and justice. For it is not possible, the writer of the Hebrews would explain in the New Covenant, that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. The entire Old Testament sacrificial system was just a signpost pointing ahead. And David is acknowledging here its inadequacy, that God is asking for something more different and deeper. What was the purpose then of the Old Testament system? Thousands of sacrifices. David knew and believed. That salvation was not in these things, but could only be found in God Himself and His forgiving mercy. And that the system that God had given in the Old Covenant was but a signpost pointing to the fundamental character of God who would forgive sins and ultimately through a Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. All of it pointed ahead to the cross of Jesus Christ. The pure heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. The sinless life of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lamb without blemish who takes away the sins of the world. And David knew that he couldn't buy God's favor, he couldn't prove to God His goodness, but that he had to find forgiveness in God Himself. There is forgiveness with you, Psalm 130, that you may be feared. And that the outward trappings of the ceremonial system were not that which had saving power for his soul. Second thing is that then he would Go to God for that saving power. And how would he go? Verse 17 is critical, how would he go? He would seek that saving power and forgiveness, not in the outward ritual, but before the face of God with a broken and contrite heart. Where we started is this, that the thing that matters is your heart. And that one day God who sifts the hearts of men will sift yours in judgment. And the question is, how can I be ready for that day? All we here are like sinners and some have committed sins. Surely that are fits. Sometimes for weeks and months or years of your life, an inner life and a heart and mind polluted by sin. And perhaps there's someone here who is sinning in this way against God. I think I said this morning in a sermon, there's someone I'm praying for right now who's in the middle a very serious wandering from the Lord. A friend, not a member of our church, but a friend. This kind of condition is spiritually dangerous. What do we need? How can we be reconciled to God, turn back to God? And the answer is that we need a certain kind of heart before God concerning our sin that we might seek and find forgiveness. That's what David understood, something about the inner man, the sacrifices of God. Here's what God delights in. If he doesn't delight in the outward burnt offerings and the ceremonial signposts of the old covenant system, what was he looking for? Verse 17, a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, these, O God, you would not despise. If God didn't want sacrifice, what did David then believe God desired? And look at the matter that he desires. A broken and contrite heart. A changed inner being before him. A new heart. A clean heart, a transformed inward life by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible describes salvation in terms of the change of the inner man. Ezekiel 36, the promise of salvation. I will give you a new heart, put a new spirit within you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Romans 5.5, the Spirit of God pours the love of God into our hearts with transforming power. Romans 10.10, for with the heart one believes and is justified. That there is an inward change of the inner man worked by the Holy Spirit, which is at the heart of what salvation is. The gift of faith in Jesus Christ is given by the Holy Spirit, and the heart is changed, its eyes opened, its understanding enlightened, sin is left behind and grieved over, Jesus Christ is embraced freely and held onto closely. And that's what David describes here as a heart that pleases God. The sacrifices of God, what He desires, are the following. A broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart. Spirit, it's the word for ruach, or breath, or soul. One of two words used to describe the inward being here in the text. The other one is heart, the inner man, the whole person. God desires something within. These, oh God, you will not despise. What kind of heart? Broken, in contrite. I want you to hear what these words mean. Shattered, crushed, grieved, and distressed. A heart before God that is devoid of all self-righteousness, arrogance, and pride. At the end of yourself. These are very strong words. Broken heart, again, is shattered, crushed, and grieving. We sometimes use the word contrite and we think of it as just a general disposition of feeling sorry for sin. The intensity of the Hebrew word is the following, physically and emotionally crushed. Why? Because of a sense of my sin before God. Verse eight has a sense of this power. Make me hear joy and gladness that the bones that you have broken may rejoice. Psalm 32. David groaned all the night long. The hand of God was heavy on him. He was described in verse eight, this kind of, again, that the bones of you broken may rejoice, being maimed by God's crushing power. There's a similar word in Isaiah 66 where the prophet Isaiah says, well, the Lord says through the prophet that he is looking for someone who's contrite in heart and who trembles at God's word. And there, a third word for contrition is used, We have broken contrite. There's a third word for this idea which is used, which is the same idea as being lame. It's the same word to describe Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son when he was lame in his feet. That our hearts before God are broken. I go back to the preaching this morning. The woman who anointed Jesus' feet came weeping. The recognition of the wrong done against a holy God reaches deep into the soul. When God sent Nathan to David and said, you are the man. David's heart was broken, crushed, contrite. In our modern era, I was talking to a friend two weeks ago, and he said he was diagnosed with PTSD after a significant amount of time in difficult combat. And he feels profoundly the strong emotional swings of the soul, and sometimes he feels like he can't control them. And he said, I've been thinking and praying about it, and I've been through all sorts of therapy, and I can't seem to shake the problem. And he said, but the longer I've been thinking and praying about it, I think one of my biggest problems is that I have not forgiven my enemies. And that my heart is unsettled because There's remaining unconfessed sin in me. Sometimes I think that in our psychological era, America, of all the countries in the world, you know how many psychotropic drugs we ingest compared to most of countries in the world? It's astonishing. It's not that they can't have a use. But there is something here in David's description of the life of the soul before God that is raw and painful. broken and contrite, crushed. I remember R.C. Sproul years ago preaching about something that he called the Mysterium Tremendum, in which a sinner coming before God had an experience of the dreadful, fearful, and overwhelming aspect of the presence of His holiness that would bring Isaiah 6 a dissolution of the soul. While at the same time, the same God mysteriously attracts the sinner irresistibly to the same glory, which is the fount of forgiveness and mercy. And that there is a real weight of glory. the glory of God that brings us to the end of ourselves and causes us to run to God at the same time. And the experience of David in this is that God is pleased when we see that glory and it breaks our hearts and crushes them to the point of contrition and then lifts us back up with his forgiving mercy. and that this lies at the heart of what it means to be a Christian, to run to God, and that this is more important in the sight of God for David than the outward trappings of his ceremonial system, even though it pointed rightly and clearly to the cross of Jesus Christ, that those outward actions were not the same as the inward brokenness of heart before God. Now that is not in any way to minimize the importance of the Old Testament ceremonial law. As a matter of fact, instead it heightens its right use and sharpens our view of the cross of Jesus Christ and that God himself is the fount and source of our salvation. For there we see one who was crushed for us, bruised for our iniquities, so that we might have His righteousness and life. And there's two things that will break your heart, give you a broken and contrite heart. One is when you recognize that you have offended a holy God. The second thing is when you recognize that you have spurned or belittled the cross of Jesus Christ. And when you've sinned, the most glorious love that has ever been displayed in history you have counted to be a common thing. This should give us a broken and contrite heart. What Paul calls to the Corinthians a godly sorrow that leads to repentance. I've sinned against my creator, the blessed Lord of the universe. This should be a bone crushing reality. Add to it I've sinned against my Lord who went to the cross for me. My lies, my lust, my anger, my pride, my jealousy, my resistance to your word. I confess it all. And Lord, I'm ashamed of it. Have you ever had that? There are some sins that I've remembered that I've committed in my life that when I go back to them, they make me recoil in shame. It's not that I don't believe that God has forgiven me. But it's that they're shameful. And it's a sad thing that we've sinned against God in these ways. So that while we're on our faces before God, we say, we have no other recourse except to seek divine mercy, which he gives freely in Jesus Christ. We pray like this, I have nothing. There's nothing I can exchange for my sins. There's nothing that I can offer for righteousness. I need your divine mercy. Forgiveness is only found with you. In the language of the New Testament, I believe that Jesus Christ alone is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by him. Lord, here I am on my face, empty, broken, crushed in myself. Have mercy. The sacrifices of God, what delights the Lord, are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Lord, these, oh God, you will not despise. That language, these he will not despise, it literally can be translated, you will not count this insignificant, but you will receive me. He who comes to me, Jesus said, I will in no wise cast out. Some lessons from the text. Learn from David his understanding of and the Bible's teaching of a heart that's right with God. An inner being right with God. All the means of grace, preaching, the Lord's Supper, baptism, public worship, prayer, all the things that we do as Christians are intended to flow from the heart to God with faith and love. They are intended to reach the heart and then make the heart alive so that we would respond to God with integrity before Him. They are to change us. So we are to keep our hearts with all diligence, for out of it flow all the springs of life. What was the problem of humanity in Genesis 6 before the flood? Thoughts of intense of his heart were only evil continually. Search me, O God, we pray. Know my heart. Try me, know my anxiety. See if there's any wicked way in me. Lead me in the way of everlasting. Lord, I know that you are interested not in my outward conformity, but the affections of my heart for you. And the amazing thing is that David understands that after having committed the worst sins that a man in a sense could commit, murder and adultery, having wrecked everything, but yet when he turns with a contrite heart to God, he receives forgiveness and is restored. And God is pleased with his heart. Second lesson, the way we come to being broken and contrite. The Word shines on the heart. How does God break hearts? A number of ways He can do it. He might be doing it, well, He often does it in a combination of ways. He can do it with hard providences combined with His Word. He can bring you to a place where you are at the end of your natural strength, and then His Word comes in and aims for the target, and you recognize your self-reliance in your sin like you've never seen it before. How did he do it with David? He let him stew in his sin for a time, think he got away with it, and then he sent in the laser, Nathan. With the parable, David walks into the trap. You are the man. And he does it with his word, for you and I today, by his word and spirit. He digs into your heart and your life. One activity that might be good for you to do this week is Take a piece of paper and write down two columns and say, my life, my heart, and God's word. And look at different areas of your life, the way you use money and use time and sexual purity. And just go through a list in one column and then write down Bible verses on the other column and then pray over it and say, Lord, show me my heart. Take your word and drive it into my heart. Pray over this for the spirit to work his ministry of conviction. And then ask, Lord, you are pleased with a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. You will not despise this. Lord, please, here's a prayer that perhaps you've never prayed like this. Lord, please break my heart and make it contrite. Break it. I want you to understand that David was already a believer When he wrote these words, he already knew the Lord. Third, if you're prone to doubt God's mercy, maybe because of coldness, maybe because of ongoing sin, clouded vision of His glory and grace, you come to Him. One of the mistakes you can make is you could say, well, my heart isn't broken and contrite enough, therefore I won't come to the Lord. No, that's not what the text is saying. You come to him and you ask him for everything you need. You ask for repentance. You ask for faith. You confess your sins. You look to Christ. You come as you are on your face broken. You stop trying to offer yourself to justify yourself. But you say, Lord, here is my heart. I offer it to you. This was Calvin's motto promptly and sincerely. Lord, take my heart. Change it. Maybe you were worried that you're not sensitive enough in conscience. Lord, make my conscience more sensitive. Teach me your ways. Go and ask and seek and knock and pray and believe that God is merciful. Fourth lesson. There are always those who a pastor ministers to. Over the course of his ministry, I can say before God, I don't have anyone specifically in mind right now, but I don't know your hearts the way God does. But there is a category of hearers who could hear a sermon like this where God is asking for your heart and you could keep going, putting on a good show. Maybe too proud to be humble, like Naaman, or living like David before Nathan came to him. No brokenness, and you think you're gonna skate out of this one, because no one will ever know. You've always found a way out, and you think maybe in the end there'll be some witty remark, some explanation you could give to God, and you'll be ushered into heaven. But the text says this simply, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These, oh God, you will not despise. This is pleasing to Him. A straightforward honesty about your need for Him and your lack of righteousness and your need for Jesus Christ has to be at the core of your heart. There's no other way of salvation. The whole Old Testament sacrificial system is nothing, David says, apart from this central principle of a heart right before God. And perhaps even dear David as a prophet is understanding the limitations and looking ahead to Jesus Christ and the glory of his satisfaction, righteousness, and life and death for him. Surely he was. Fifth lesson, an encouragement for all believers in Jesus Christ. I said it earlier, David's a believer. Everything he did, he did as a man who knew the Lord. You never graduate in the Christian life from gospel basics, ever. David is a man who walked with the Lord and fell into serious sin. He's a man, there's a mystery to the nature of his sin. Surely it was partly for us to understand that he wasn't the one we look to another Jesus Christ. He's also before the age of Pentecost and the fullness of the Spirit. There's a mystery there. But he was a believer and he fell. Then he came back to God and received restoring mercy. And he teaches us here what God delights in. You never graduate past the gospel and you never graduate past a humble, contrite heart and a broken spirit. You never get comfortable with your sin. You never live without repentance. You never live without renewed and settled faith in Jesus Christ for forgiveness and mercy. These are the patterns of the believer's life. Always repenting, always believing, always leaving sin behind, always grieving over any way that I have displeased my Savior and always aiming for His glory in everything I do. A settled faith in God who promises to receive you because He delights in mercy. A God who never despises godly sorrow. A God who hears the needy when they cry. And a God who wants your heart and in the gospel promises to give you that heart. and then hold you and call you back to Him again and again like He did David until the day that you stand before Him. This is why it's so important now to give Him your heart to be ready for the better day. Let's pray. Lord, our God, we think of how Your Word digs into the depths of our existence, how, Lord, You aim for the inward man, you do not delight in outward ritual, how David understood the limitations of even the old covenant sacrificial system, and how you have always called for a response of the whole person to you in repentance and faith, repentance from sin and faith towards and in Jesus Christ. What do we think of how you've taught this from a man who was a giant, who had a heart for you, a man after your own heart, but yet fell so hard and you lifted him up again. We pray that we would learn these lessons and that you would give us always that godly sorrow that leads to repentance like the Corinthians long ago and like you gave to David. or to sensitive conscience, a readiness to pray, requests for forgiveness, short accounts with others, or to trust in you for mercy and a desire to bring you glory. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. We go with the blessing of our God. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, amen.