If you would this morning, I want you to put your marker, put your ribbon in Psalm 51. Psalm 51, and once you have marked Psalm 51, I want you to make your way back to Psalm 3 as we make our way through the Psalms. And while you're doing that, I'll remind you that Psalms is not one book with 150 chapters. Really clearly today it's going to help us to understand that. But rather they are 150 individual Psalms. They're not in chronological order. And really the only separation that we know of is that it is divided into five different books or scrolls. The first one is Psalm 1 through 41. And the theme of this first book is human suffering and the need for divine deliverance. And in Psalm 3, What's unique about Psalm 3 is it is the first of 14 Psalms, collectively throughout the whole Psalms, it's the first of 14 that is directly tied to another event in the Old Testament. And in Psalm 3, David's son Absalom has risen up against him. He has caused the hearts of the people to be turned away from David and toward him and so he has taken the throne by a coup, a conspiracy. And one of David's servants gets wind of this and warns David, and really in the middle of the night, David has to flee Jerusalem. And the Bible even says there in 2 Samuel, I believe it's chapter 15, that he is running through the wilderness barefooted with his head covered. I mean, that's getting out fast. And Absalom is actually chasing after his father with 12,000 of David's own soldiers, and he is going to kill him. And so David is in dire straits here in Psalm 3, and this is the reason that these words were penned. And really what we have to know in the background of this psalm, and I spent two weeks ago talking about this in depth, you have to understand that at least as far as this psalm and this situation goes, we know why David was in this situation. It was because of his sin. It was because he had committed adultery with Bathsheba. And as a result, he had had her husband Uriah killed in battle because he had gotten her pregnant and he was trying to cover everything up. And because of that, that happened in 2 Samuel 11. Well, in 2 Samuel chapter 12, God sends the prophet Nathan to David's house to expose him and his sin. disciplines that God placed upon David was that the sword would never depart from his house and that evil would rise up against him from his own house and that is exactly what Absalom did just three chapters later. And so we know what's going on. And I preached a sermon two weeks ago on when God's people mess up and we talked about some mistakes David made along the way that set him up for that moral failure and how we can avoid that. We ought, as children of God, we ought to put up as many roadblocks between us and moral failure as we possibly can. We ought to do everything we can to protect our testimony and not stain the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But today I want to look at when God's people mess up the second part, and that is on the backside. What happens when a child of God commits life-changing sin? Let's read our text this morning in Psalm 3. Lord, how are they increased that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of my soul, there is no help for him in God. Selah. I want you to notice this transition between the first two verses and then the last five verses. He says, But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me. My glory and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and He heard me out of His holy hill, Selah. I laid me down and slept. I awake, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me round about. Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God, for Thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheekbone. Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord. Thy blessing is upon thy people. Selah. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we're so thankful for this day, this beautiful weather, this opportunity to be in your house, Lord. I know that we live in a scary world, a fallen world, and we seem to be coming up on some scary times, but I'm thankful that you're in control. I pray for those today all across the world that may be in harm's way, Lord. Lord, I just pray for those in the Middle East and everything going on with the conflict. I pray that you would be with those people. Father, I pray that you would forgive us what we failed you, Lord, individually and as a nation. God, that you might have mercy on us and send a revival instead of judgment. Lord, I pray that you would just empty me of sin and self and fill me with your Holy Spirit. Lord, if there's somebody lost, either here or listening online, that you would save them. God, if there's somebody in here that has secret sin, Lord, they have something in their past that they need to get past, I pray that you would give them victory over those things today. And God, I pray that, Lord, you give us strength to recognize and head off moral failure, Lord, but I pray that you'd help us when we do fall. I pray that Christ will be magnified and that I would not be a saint. And in Christ's name I pray these things, amen. So before we even really get into things this morning, we have to be in David's shoes to really feel the weight of what's being said. And this is going to be a weighty message, but y'all just hold on because it's the heaviest plow that produces the richest soil, which in turn produces the greatest fruit. I have seen that to be true, certainly, even in my own life, and I believe that to be the case with this text, and also in Psalm 51, where we're going to be in a minute. But we have to be in His shoes to fully appreciate this whole scenario. You know, for starters, let's think about life-changing tragedy that comes into the lives of God's people. We've all had those times, right? We've all had those days that we have maybe mentally marked on a calendar and we could tell you exactly what we were doing and where we were when we got the news. Everybody has those kinds of days. Everybody faces those tragedies that just forever change our lives. Just a few that I thought about off the top of my head. Maybe the death of a loved one. I think specifically maybe the death of a parent or a spouse, and maybe even the worst of all, the death of a child. An unexpected tragedy, an unexpected phone call, or a knock on the door. Maybe an unexpected health condition or a sickness. Maybe a bad diagnosis from a doctor. Or maybe even sexual abuse somewhere in your past. Or maybe somebody else's sin has hurt you in some way. Or maybe some type of natural disaster. Certainly, it was a red-letter day when we would have a tornado outbreak, and so many people would be killed, and so many people would lose everything they had materially. We don't forget those dates in our mind. I'll never forget April 27, 2011. We remember these things. What about the betrayal of a spouse? or a divorce, or a child that's gone astray. I mean, I'm sure that we could make a bigger list than that, but you understand what I'm talking about. These are life-changing tragedies. Our life will never be the same if we experience any of these types of things. They're horrible. They're weighty. They can be very tough. And we can remember everything about the days we got that news. But, you know, when we think about these tragedies, as children of God. We've talked about this a lot. We know that God's sovereign. We know He's in control. We know that His grace is sufficient for all these things that we could possibly face, but I want to just go a little bit further with this, because this is where David is. Imagine going through any of those types of things and knowing that it's your fault. Think about that. Knowing that These tragedies that have fallen on you are the direct consequences of your sin. What do you do in that situation? How could a person possibly move past that point? I believe we see the answer in David's life. I believe there is hope even when God's people mess up. I want you to think about this situation David finds himself in. The giant slayer has been run out of his kingdom without even a fight by his own son. Boy, sin makes us weak, doesn't it? It's his fault. His own son has betrayed him and is actively seeking to kill him with David's own soldiers and it's David's fault. David's firstborn child with his new wife Bathsheba has died and it's his fault. Try to wear that for a little while. David's sin has made a fool out of himself and a mockery of God. The Bible even says that his sin gave the enemies of God an opportunity to blaspheme his name, and it was David's fault. Uriah is dead, and it's David's fault. Try to wear that a little while. Listen, Uriah was not just an average Joe. He was not just your average soldier. That would have been bad enough. But you find out in 1 Chronicles 11 that Uriah was one of David's mighty men. He made that short list of valiant men that stood by David's side and actually ushered him into the kingdom. This was one of his right hand men. One of his most trusted men. He trusted Uriah so much, and I mentioned this a few weeks ago, one of the most ironic and sad things I think you'll find anywhere in Scripture. is the fact that when David wrote out to General Joab his orders to put Uriah on the front line in the hottest battle, knowing he would die, he gave it to Uriah to take it to Joab. He was carrying his own death certificate across the desert, and David had so much trust in him, he knew he wouldn't read it. And he had to wear that. David was responsible for that. Now I know you may have been through a lot. There's definitely things that have hurt you. We all have things we regret. Some things may even haunt us and keep us up at night. But I don't know if any of us could check these boxes here. It was his fault. David's life will never be the same. It'll never go back to the way that it was. And it's David's fault. What do you do with that? How do you overcome that? How do you get through something like that? I never did hear sermons like this growing up. I hope this helps somebody today. So I want to ask a question. What are God's people to do when they commit life-changing sin? Can they ever have peace and purpose again? And I'll even make it broader than that. I know Christians that have had tragedies that maybe weren't necessarily a result of their sin, but they may feel like it is. I know Christian people that married somebody thinking that that spouse would be a good Christian person. Turns out they were a devil. Hurt them, maybe divorced them, left them. I mean, what do you do in that situation? They may feel like it's their fault. Well, if I had just seen this or known this, I've seen people rake themselves over the coals with things like that. Listen, this applies to all this today. God is in control. So can they ever have peace and purpose again? The short answer is yes. Because the Lord promised David, through the prophet Nathan, that the Lord would remove his sin and he wouldn't take his life. And to the child of God, listen, if you're still breathing today, it means that God still has a purpose and a plan for your life. Listen, notice the peace here in Psalm 3. Notice the peace that David has even in spite of his situation and the results of life-changing sin. Look at Psalm 3 again. We know he's running, O Lord, how they increase that trouble me. Many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of my soul, there is no help for him in God, say thou, but thou. Derek talked about it this morning. I love it when God comes in the scene. But thou, O Lord. are a shield for me, my glory and the lifter up of mine head." David's head is low in shame, and God is lifting his head. I cried unto the Lord in my voice, and He heard me out of His holy hill, Siloam. I laid me down and slept. I awoke, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me round about. He literally has 12,000 people pursuing him in the wilderness. And the Bible says he laid down and slept and God protected him. Now listen, David here is on the run in the wilderness and yet he is sleeping in peace. I just have to wonder what kind of sleep he was getting when he had that secret sin in his life and in his heart. I wonder how he was sleeping in the palace in that king-sized bed with that secret sin weighing down on him. I can promise you it wasn't as good as it was out there in that desert sand on the run from thousands of people. Friend, I would rather be in the desert with a clean conscience and God on my side than I would be in the palace and in the bed with the soldiers round about me and have that kind of sin in my life and in my heart. What a contrast. He is sleeping in peace because he knows that God is going to protect him. He's not afraid. He is confident in the Lord's protection. In verse 6, I wonder if David ever thought about anything other than the judgment of God for his secret sin after Uriah had been murdered and he had committed adultery with Bathsheba. But here, he is confident that Lord will protect him from his enemies. In fact, in verse 7, when it talks about breaking the teeth of his enemies, you know, some people read that and they think, man, that's violence. And now, the Bible has no problem with that, but at least in this context, It's metaphorical, and what it means is, he is taking away the bite of his enemy. It's taking away their power to hurt him. A dog with no teeth can just gum you to death. They can't really do anything. Believe me, I was a pest man, I know. And so, he is taking away the enemy's strength to be able to harm him. And in verse 8, he is even praising the blessing of the Lord. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord, thy blessing is upon my people. This doesn't sound like a defeated man, does it? This doesn't sound like a man who can't sleep at night or has no hope or is just so weighed down with his guilt and the consequences of that sin and all the circumstances it has brought in his life. He has the joy of the Lord in his life, so we know that it's possible. But how can that happen? I believe we find the answer to that in Psalm 51. Let's go to Psalm 51 and we'll be here for the remainder of the message. Now we found in the first two verses of Psalm 3 that it was brought about by David's sin in 2 Samuel 11. But then we find the peace that David had in the last half of Psalm 3 brought about by his repentance in Psalm 51. In other words, if the first half, the first part of Psalm 3 was brought about by David's sin in 2 Samuel 11, the peace and blessing came from his repentance and confession in Psalm 51. And that's what we're going to look at this morning. Psalm 51, again I told you that the Psalms are not in chronological order. But Psalm 51, like Psalm 3, is in direct relation with another event in the Old Testament. And that is, in 2 Samuel 12, whenever the prophet Nathan came and exposed his sin, David repented. In fact, to me, this is the most heartfelt repentance that you'll see anywhere within the pages of Scripture. This is what it's supposed to look like when Christians are confronted with their sin. Derek had a great quote this morning. I told him that I felt like if I sued him for plagiarism for our messages this morning, I could win in a court. He was walking all over me. But he made the statement something like this, this is my paraphrase, that we make a mockery of God as Christians when we make light of sin. That's absolutely true. And David didn't make light of his sin. He was totally broken. And so there's a few things, there's three things I want to look at this morning about how a Christian can find peace when they've messed up. And number one, the first thing is through repentant confession. Repentant confession. Look at Psalm 51 and verse 1. David says, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee and thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. The word mercy here, that means we don't get what we deserve. He is thanking God and appealing to the mercy of God for not giving him what he deserves. And he says, because of your loving kindness, O Lord. Not my goodness, but because of your loving kindness, O Lord. He is asking God to blot out his transgressions. Transgressions speak of rebellion. And what I find refreshing about this is that David makes no excuses and blames no one but himself. If you've got a pen or a highlighter, I want us to read these verses again. I want you to underline or highlight all of the personal pronouns that David uses in his first four verses. Look at this. Have mercy upon me, O God. according to the eleven kindness. according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 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 mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. David is making no excuses. He blames nobody else but himself. And you know, when you read this, this isn't like so many so-called apologies that we see today. You ever heard anybody say, well, I'm sorry if you were offended? Hopefully you've never said that to anybody. May I say that to you? I'm sorry if you got your feelings hurt. You know what that is? It's a subtle way of blaming the person for what you did. The problem is not you and what you did. The problem is just how they feel about it. Now, I'm not saying that's never true, but I promise you most of the time that's not the case. And so, you know, I often wonder, and I know I've got a strange mind anyway, but I really do wonder. I wonder if people confess and apologize to God in the same way. Lord, I'm sorry if you were offended. Lord, I'm sorry if you are upset or angered about that. That's not what David's doing here, is it? He is making no excuses at all. It's all me, mine, my sin, mine, iniquity. Notice how specific David is when naming his sins. I find it interesting that in verse 1, he says, blot out my transgressions, plural. I believe that speaks to the fact that he is repenting over the adultery, over murder, over deceit, and over anything else that he did throughout this whole process. It's plural. In verse 14, you can skip on to 14, he says, deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God. Thou God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. And so he is admitting his murder here. He is guilty of the blood of Uriah the Hittite. David isn't holding anything back. He is genuinely sorry that he has sinned against God. Now listen to this. We're getting into the meat here now. If someone is miserable in their life, and I would say this is especially true of a child of God. If you're miserable in life, sometimes the most simple and obvious solution is just to get right with God. I know that's not deep. But man, it sure is true. I believe a lot of us could just be helped to just get right with God. To just have a serious time of brokenness in repentance and confession. And I can say as a pastor, when I read about David's sin in 2 Samuel 11, it grieves my heart. It really bothers me even to read it now knowing that happened thousands of years ago. It really happened. And it grieves me. But can I say that in Psalm 51, even though it's definitely a sobering situation, it is refreshing to me to see somebody who is broken over their sin. It doesn't seem to be happening much these days. We need to be aware of that. By the way, I'll say this and I'll move on while I'm thinking about it because it's not in my notes. But one thing that they really tried to drill into us when we took our counseling classes, is that even though every person and every situation is unique and specific, at the end of the day, you're always going to be dealing with one of three types of people. There are those people that they want to take responsibility for everything. Even things that they're not responsible for. And it's a crushing weight to them. They want to heap it all upon themselves. It's a control issue. But then there's those people, they don't want to take responsibility for anything. I mean, they don't want to repent. They don't think they've done anything wrong. It's always everybody else's fault. And those people, we have to try to bring them whichever way they're not. If they're in this ditch, we want to bring them this way. If they're in this ditch, we want to bring them this way. And you want to try to make them into the third person, and that is somebody who recognizes the difference between their responsibility and just simply their concern. I don't have time to get into all that, but I find it refreshing that David took responsibility for his sin. And so, stop making excuses. Stop trying to get out of trouble. And instead, try to get back into fellowship with God. Old-fashioned repentance and confession is a sure fix for a lot of things. Listen, so many marriages could be saved if the respective spouses would just get right with the Lord, then they'd get right with each other. So many family disputes could be solved if people would just individually get right with the Lord. So many church fights and splits could be avoided or remedied if people would just get right with the Lord. This nation could turn around overnight if as a nation America would just fall on our face and beg God for mercy. Confession is really good for the soul. Proverbs 28 and verse 13. It says, he that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaken them shall have mercy. You're not gonna prosper if you hide your sin, because you can't hide it from God. But he said, whoso confesseth and forsaken them shall have mercy. It's amazing to me how many people will sacrifice the peace of God and the joy of the Lord for the illusion of comfort and security. for the illusion that somehow they're better off by hiding their sin than just to come clean. They hide their sin that life may continue on as if nothing happened. That's why David killed Uriah. But it's not possible. It doesn't work that way. David had more peace and comfort in the desert running for his life than he did in the palace while he harbored that secret sin. And as Christians, you know, we're commanded to live a life of repentance. 1 John 1-9 was written to believers. It was written to Christians. If we confess and forsake our sin, He'll forgive us of our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's not saying that we lose our salvation and we get saved. We never lose our salvation, but we can be outside of the fellowship of God. And that's a miserable place to be for a child of God. So repentance should be a lifestyle. As children of God, again, we can't lose our salvation. I want to reiterate that, but we can be at a fellowship with God. That brings me to my second point, and I am moving on here. But not only, you know, if a child of God messes up, they not only need repentance and confession, but they're going to need the right pursuits. You're going to have to be pursuing the right thing. You have to have a better yes going on for you. Look at verse 5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop. Now, hyssop is a shrub. It's like a little bush. And by the way, I find it interesting that hyssop was what the children of Israel used to dip into the blood of the lamb. They went over the door post so the death angel would pass over. I could preach there for a while, but I wanted you to see that symbolism. But he said, I shall be clean, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy way, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee. I tell you, this statement that we just read, In spite of David's heinous sin, it proves to us that he truly was a man after God's own heart. He truly was who we thought he was this whole time. His repentance proves it. And upon his repentance and confession, this is so important. In this statement we just read, David sought two things from God. And that is the joy of the Lord's salvation. And also that God would use him, use David, to glorify God even unto the salvation of sinners. So David essentially says, Lord, would you just grant me two things? Would you give me your presence and your purpose for my life? Well, if we could get a hold of that. Lord, I want your presence. and I want your purpose in my life. But you know, the truth is, if David had never lost sight of those things, I don't think he ever sins in the first place. When we're right with the Lord, we want to bless and reach people. And when we get selfish, we just want to use them. So let me ask you this, what are you pursuing in your life? What is your life pursuit? Because the only thing that will ever bring you true and lasting salvation is to be in a right relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. That's it. It's not Jesus plus. There's nothing else that can satisfy the longing of your soul. Now think about this. David is in the worst time of his life and it's his fault. However, you can tell by David's prayer. Now this is so important. You can tell by David's prayer that bigger than his sin and bigger than the consequences for that sin was his relationship with the Lord. You can tell by reading these words that even though he's facing hard times brought about by his horrible sin, the biggest thing in his life is not the sin, it's not the consequences, it's not his circumstances, the biggest thing is his relationship with the Lord. That's it. Lord, if I can just have that, Lord, would you restore that? That ought to be our attitude. Because that's what makes us different in the lost and dying world, is our fellowship and our personal relationship with Him. And so, our biggest life, our biggest problems in life, think about this, our biggest problems in life come when we make something bigger and more important than Christ is. whether it be a sin, or a lust, or an idol, or incontentment, or maybe worry from a trial, anything that becomes bigger than Christ, that causes us the biggest problems in our life. And I don't know what kind of season you're going through in your life. I don't know if you're going through a trial or a time of temptation. I don't know what you're facing at this moment, but I can promise you this, your hope and joy has never come from your circumstances. It has never come from your goodness. It has never come from anything that you've ever done. Our happiness doesn't come through our financial status. It doesn't come through our social status. It doesn't come through our marital status. It comes from knowing the Lord through Jesus Christ, on knowing God through Jesus Christ. And listen, whether you're lost or whether you're saved and you've messed up, today can be the turnaround. Today, wherever you're at in your life, today can be the first day of the rest of your life. Why? Because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's where our hope has always been. That's where our value has always come from. That has to be our hope. That has to be our thought. That has to be our turnaround. So if you want peace, you can have it in Jesus Christ. If you want joy and forgiveness, you can have it You can have it all in Jesus Christ. Let's read verse 14 through 17 and we'll come in for a landing here. Verse 14, deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation. And my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness, O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou will not despise." So we see that David had peace even despite his self-inflicted circumstances. He had repentance and confession. He had the right pursuits, which was the presence and the purpose of God. But number three, and I'm done, we have to get this. Number three, if a child of God is messed up, you have to realize that your life is not over. It doesn't have to be over. Now, I realize that I'm walking a fine line with what I'm fixing to teach you guys. And again, Derek walked all over that this morning. And I want you to know that God never tempts anyone. God hates sin. It says very clearly in 2 Samuel that the sin of David displeased the Lord. God greatly disciplined David for what he did. He did not get off the hook, there's no doubt about that. And yet, God used that sin in an amazing way. Now, I want to ask you a question. You know, we've talked about the peace, but what about the purpose? How could God use such a man who had messed up so badly? I'll ask you a question. If you were to think about David's life, and you were trying to make an argument for the greatest thing that David ever did, or perhaps we could word it this way, what is the greatest thing that the Lord ever did through David? What would you say? You messed me up. You totally just stole my thunder. I was expecting somebody to say slaying Goliath. Let's just pretend this is a court of law and the judge has just thrown that evidence out, okay? I was hoping somebody would say slaying the giant or maybe David slaying his 10,000's or maybe the way he was able to sneak up on Saul and yet he restrained himself and all of those things would have been wrong and he stole the joy of me saying that. It's not. It's not that way. That is not the greatest thing. Listen, the greatest thing that God did through David came after his sin and after his repentance. Well, what is that? It's the birth of Solomon. In fact, this is so good, I want you to see it for yourself. Let's go to Matthew chapter 1 and we'll be done. Matthew chapter 1, the New Testament gives us two genealogies of Jesus. The first one is in Matthew, the second one is in Luke. Matthew chapter 1. Obviously for the sake of time I won't deal with the whole thing, but if you go through the Old Testament, man, this will be a great study sometime, but I'll just give you the cliff notes. The first promise God ever made was in Genesis 3.15. It was the first gospel mention. And it was the seed of the woman, which is Christ. Christ would come and crush the head of the serpent. So, and every prophecy about that seed gets more specific as you go. It starts out, the seed of the woman. So you know that that seed is coming through the human race. The second time you see it is in Genesis chapter 9, after the flood, and it said that, it talked about how God would dwell in the tents of Shem. Well, the descendants of Shem are the Jews. And so, now we know, okay, the seed's coming through this group of people. Well then you see it again in Genesis 12, 15, and 22 with Abraham, the seed of Abraham. So we know it's coming through this particular tribe or people. Well then in 2 Samuel it gets even more specific because it said that the seed would be a son of David. So now you know it's coming from this specific family. Well, with that in mind, so the genealogies connect Jesus with Adam, Abraham, David. In fact, both genealogies connect Jesus to David through Joseph and his adoption and through birth and Mary. But it's amazing to me this detail here in Matthew chapter 1. Let's read verse 6. And Jesse begot David the king, and David the king begot Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah. Think about that. The Son of God came into this world in part because of the marriage and union of David and Bathsheba. Y'all make that make sense to me. So what God did is even though He hated the sin, He brought something good out of it. He brought something redeemable out of that. Now listen, please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. If you've got a sin in mind, if you've been lusting after something for a while, if you've been comprehending sinning against God, don't. I'll just make that simple. Don't. David would tell you, don't. And yet out of that, God brought something good. Look at verse 16 in Matthew 1. We get down to the end here. Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. Isn't that amazing? You say, why in the world would God choose that union out of that situation to bring the Son of God into this world? I don't know. I just know that even evil and suffering have a way of bringing glory to God. It's amazing. You say, well, that's kind of strange and that may be a one-time thing. No, it's really not. You think about Joseph's brothers, how they wickedly betrayed him and sold him into slavery, and yet look how God used it. Think about the greatest act of human evil. The greatest act of violence, the greatest deceit, the greatest sin I think that was ever committed was what happened to Jesus Christ, the innocent, spotless Lamb of God. And yet it was the greatest act of human sin and evil that brought about the greatest good that God has ever done. Isn't that amazing? Even when Satan thinks he's winning, he's losing. And so, listen, I'm just saying today that David's life was not over because he messed up. And even though the consequences were dire, God still used him, and even the greatest thing he ever did was after his sin and after his repentance and confession. And so, there are consequences for sin. I do want to hit the pause button here and say this. I'm not making excuses. There's pastors out there, maybe even good men. Certainly there's some hucksters. I know that. Maybe they have committed some type of sexual sin or they've done some type of gross sin. They have disqualified themselves and they need to step down. They don't ever need to pastor again. They need to stop making excuses like somehow they're above the Bible they're pretending to preach. There are some Christians that, God forbid, maybe they break the law. They have to go to prison. Maybe they have to pay fines or whatever. Listen, they're not special. They shouldn't get special treatment from the state. They need to do their time or pay their fine, but they can still have peace where they're at and God can use them where they're at. Sometimes maybe somebody does something horrible and their spouse doesn't give them a second chance. I don't know, but I'm just saying that God's grace is bigger than our consequences. I'm saying that God is so powerful, so sovereign, so merciful and good that He can bring good out of tragedy, even when that tragedy is brought about by our own actions. Child of God, if you're living and breathing, your life isn't over. And He has something for you to do. When God's people mess up, they must repent and confess. They must pursue the right things, which is God's presence and purpose. And you must realize that your life isn't over. God can bring good out of tragedy. I'll say this and I'll be done. That David died in hope. You can read about his death in 1 Kings chapter 2. He died in hope because of the birth of Solomon, which was the heir of Christ. That's the line of Christ there. And in fact, now this is amazing to me. You find, if you'll go back in... in your own time in 2 Samuel chapter 12, God sends Nathan the prophet to expose his sin, to talk about the discipline that God is gonna dish out. But did you know that at the end of that same chapter, that's when Solomon was born, the same chapter. Just like in Genesis three, you have the fall and the first mention of the gospel in that chapter three, it's amazing to me. So even in judgment, there's mercy, but it gets even better than that. Did you know that when Solomon was born, David sent Nathan the prophet back over to David's house. I'm sure that David just loved to see him coming. He's like, oh my goodness, what have I done now? Do you know that God sent Nathan over there to bless Solomon and give him the surname of Jedidiah, which means loved of the Lord. Isn't that amazing? That even in judgment, there's mercy. You don't have to live defeated. You don't have to think your life is over. You don't have to carry all that guilt and weight. You don't have to continue to beat yourselves over things that Christ was already beaten for. You can get up and go on and leave the consequences to God. The judge of the earth is going to do what's right. Isn't that wonderful? Would you stand this morning? Repent and confess. Pursue the right things. Realize that your life isn't over when God's people mess up.