God Did The Work

Well, praise God for music. Yeah. That was, you know, a quick testimony. When I was saved, I was saved going to a church that actually didn't believe you were supposed to sing. I don't know if they sang privately in their homes. I didn't stay that long.

But when we met at church, we didn't sing songs together. and we were really missing out on an aspect of worship that God certainly has called us to. So if you open your Bibles to Psalm 51, hopefully it's familiar if anybody looked at it recently. Where we left off was David was a wretched sinner who Nathan the prophet had come to and had revealed to him his sin, and David was confessing to God his sin.

And what we saw was that David's sin was so deep that his sin was not just external, that even in his confession, David was confessing that his sin was internal. And I did want to clarify, somebody asked me a question after I talked last time or preached last time. and I was really glad that people asked questions because men say things wrong sometimes and I said something that somebody was really confused about and I didn't like the way it sounded when they repeated it back and I had said something like, your sin against other people doesn't matter, it only matters to God, your sin against God. And they asked me to clarify and what I want to clarify is your sin against other people is real and it does matter. so when David sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah and even others oh thank you Lord that was great that is so loud um I'm so I don't know if you know this like I'm a street preacher so y'all got a little book that was not by me the purple book but in the purple book there were two little cards that had my website on it and one of them actually has more personal contact info if anybody here ever needs anything from me but my main deal is I'm a street preacher and like there is nothing like trying to street preach and there's buses going by and stuff like that, just so loud.

So I hate ambient noise. But your sin does matter against other people and we have to account for that. But my point was, and David's point too, was that our sin only matters against other people because it's also against God. You cannot sin against another person without also sinning against God at the same time. So even though we sin against each other, our primary problem is with God.

So in verse 7, we'll go to verse 7 of Psalm 51. David says, Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. He says, Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. And skip down to 16. We'll cover the other three verses tomorrow. But in 16, he says, For you will not delight in sacrifice. or I would give it.

You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. So David has sinned against God and his sin has been revealed and he's guilty. He knows it. And David's conscience is crying out to him that he needs forgiveness. He knows that he needs to have atonement made. So turn to Leviticus chapter 1. and we're just gonna we don't have time to go through the whole system but anyone's familiar with the old testament should know that there was this sacrificial system that the that the jews would go through and the levitical priests those those from the tribe of levi the the priesthood of the israelites they were the ones who would administrate sacrifices on behalf of the people in Leviticus 1, just reading at the very beginning, the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock.

If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord, and Aaron's sons, the priests, shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

Then he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces, and the sons of Aaron, the priest, shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. And it goes on. You can read more. But the point is that what we see is this real bloody mess that gets made. And when we read the Bible, sometimes it's hard to picture what's going on. But, you know, I don't even like cutting like raw chicken.

So if you imagine these people tearing apart bulls and goats, and this was going on every day. this is what the priesthood did they were they were effectively a butcher shop in many ways and so what we find though is that the the old testament had this system that the jews were going through where when they would sin they would bring a sacrifice to the priest and the priest would cut the sacrifice they would shed its blood and then that blood would be applied where it needed to be applied according to God's standards, and people were, you know, the sin was atoned for is what it said right there. And if we read it plainly, that's what we see. In Hebrews chapter 9, and we'll go back to Hebrews 9 again.

So if you want to put your finger there, if you turn there. The apostle writes, for when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool. and it says, and hyssop. And sprinkled both the book itself and all the people. And so I bring you to that verse because David says in the first verse that we're studying now, verse 7, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. And so, does anybody know what hyssop is? Like, I had to look it up. Like, I mean... Somebody back there knew. Do you know?

Yeah, so hyssop is a plant. So if you look at a picture of it, it's kind of like the little purple plant. And I think sometimes you see them like when you're on the highway, the purple flowers you'll see. and it's just everywhere and it's really common in the Middle East. And so hyssop was just a plant. And what the Aaronic priests, the Levitical priests would do is they would take this hyssop plant and they would use it to take the blood of a sacrifice and apply it to that which needed the atonement.

And that's what was the instrument used to apply the atonement. And so what David is doing here, when he says, Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. wash me and I shall be whiter than snow he's not talking about hyssop alright he's talking about the Holy Spirit David is calling out to God to say look, he says behold I was brought forth in iniquity in verse 5 and in sin did my mother conceive me he says, look I'm so dirty I need you to purge me with real hyssop, not the hyssop that's used in the Old Testament sacrificial system that was just able to atone for sins for the fleshly times. So I need the hyssop of the Holy Spirit.

I need God, the Holy Spirit, to actually create in me a new heart. And we all, and most of you who've studied through the New Testament, understand that as what we call being born again. When we say in 2 Corinthians 5, that all things have been made new. Behold, we are a new creation. The old has passed away. We're talking about becoming a new creation.

We're not talking about being the same thing. We're talking about being transferred from death to life. So instead of walking in the sins and trespasses that we once walked in, in our deadness, we're now made alive. Sort of like when Jesus made Lazarus alive. So David needs the Holy Spirit to change him. And he asks God, he says, let me hear joy and gladness in verse eight.

Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. David wants to be joyful and glad because for the past nine months, he has had the absence of joy. He has been he has felt the absence of God. He says, take not your Holy Spirit from me, cast me not away from your presence. David is experiencing the pain of basically quenching the spirit of living in sin in such a way that he feels pain.

In chapter 32 of the Psalms, this is another psalm that comes after David's confession. David says, when I kept silent in verse 3, my bones wasted away. so David is experiencing something that we all might know about which is that we can actually feel physically sick because of our sin it's actually the grace of God that he would allow us to feel that way so that we might be motivated to want to do something different I mean when you're sick you want to take medicine right and so when you're sick and that sickness is being caused by your own sin oh how much more we should seek the medicine of god that he provides in christ uh it it felt like his bones were broken you know whether they whether his bones were really broken or not i i don't want to try to speculate about but at the very least david felt useless he didn't have the strength to do the things that he should have wanted to do because he was living, instead of for God, he was living in this anti-God state at the time. So he asked God, hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.

But this is the great problem we have. How can a sinner be right with a holy God? If God could just ignore sin, it would be pretty easy. And what we just read in Leviticus was that there's a sacrifice that's made for sin. Do you even remember when Adam and Eve first sinned? God killed an animal in order to provide them with clothing to cover them.

That was a picture of what God would do one day. So let's flesh this story out here. Jumping from Psalm 51. In Hebrews 9 again. I'm jumping around right now and I'm going to try to tie it together. But in Hebrews 9 I want you to see the verses for yourself in your Bible I don want you to just listen to me tell you I want you to read it and encounter it In Hebrews 9 verse 11 the Apostle writes But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood thus securing an eternal redemption.

And now the author of Hebrews inspired by the Holy Spirit remember the first thing that I told you is the Bible is trustworthy because God provided it. And so we are obligated to believe it Not if it makes sense to us, not if it feels good, but because God wrote it through human authorship, though. But because God wrote it, we're obligated to believe it.

So now the author of Hebrews is going to interpret for us what was going on the whole time in the Old Testament. So every day that some Jewish person would do their sacrifices and they would celebrate all the festivals and all the different feasts and all the things you can read about in the Old Testament, it'll bog you down because we don't live that way now. And so when we read it, it's almost like on and on and on.

It just seems like a lot of rules people followed, and it was. But now he's going to interpret for us what the purpose of those things were. So listen, verse 13. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify or make holy for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God so what we see here is that David knew something that a lot of other Jews may not have understood David knew something that people now who read the Old Testament and try to understand the way Jews were told to live by God don't understand without God helping them understand, which is why we use the Bible to interpret the Bible.

Because I just read Leviticus 1, and it seemed really clear for me that if I just took a bull or a goat and I had it cut up and somebody fling the blood against an altar, that I could be forgiven of my sins. That's what it looked like in the plain reading. but then this verse in hebrews basically says that that was only good for like earthly purification so that would kind of make me okay in this old covenant system where i was where i was constantly being reminded of my sin but never really forgiven of it it sounds like and that's why when david says in verse 16 of psalm 51 for i for you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

So we have what we call an apparent contradiction, right? Leviticus says make a burnt offering, get atonement. David, in the Old Testament, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says God doesn't want a sacrifice. God is not going to be pleased. So David commits adultery, gets a lady pregnant, gets the husband drunk, eventually has him murdered, covers the whole thing up, basically lies about it, then acts hypocritically, and if he just kills a few animals, if he just actually gives somebody else animals to kill, God's going to overlook that?

I mean, that would be a travesty when you think about it. I mean, that should be scandalous. right can you imagine somebody coming in your house and hurting your family member and they it turned out they were rich so they were able to give the judge a bunch of stuff and the judge is like well that's cool we'll ignore it that's a scandal I mean it should make you mad to think about that that could happen but David David knows it can't happen that way David had more than anybody he was the king David could have literally like sacrificed more than maybe anyone in the history of the world. He was one of the richest people.

He had everything at his disposal. But David knew that that wasn't what God wanted, so we keep reading. We keep reading in Psalm 51. And David says, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. So what David understands and what he keys in on prior to Jesus Christ coming in to the world, David understands that God is looking at the heart of people.

We just heard that when we were talking about worship. And Libby was saying, when you're worshiping, it's not just you singing words. It's not your hands up high, or if you keep them down or whatever you do, it's your heart while you're singing along with people. There's people in the room that are standing there saying the same words, and inside they hate God.

And there's people in the room that maybe aren't even singing. Or maybe they don't sing well. And they love God with a heart of devotion. And God sees that. That's what God sees. And that is what the point here is.

And David understood this. And this is what gets confusing to a lot of people. to a lot of people it's confusing to realize that david was forgiven of his sins because of the atonement that jesus christ would come and provide because jesus hadn't come yet so somehow david what did david believe did david believe jesus died and rose again he didn know that yet right he didn understand he didn know the things that have been revealed to us But David is clear that it is the mercy of God alone that will forgive his sins Go back to verse 1. He says, have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love.

How is it loving to forgive? I mean, literally, if somebody came and stole your neighbor's stuff and you called out, hey, I forgive you, buddy. What do you think your neighbor would think? I mean, it doesn't make any sense when we start thinking about how these things happen. We want a God that just sees that we're failures, sees that we're sinners, sees that we do wicked things.

And in some of our cases, we like the God that sees that we're not as bad as the other guy. Right? You've got a room full of FCA kids. I bet you all have stories of all the bad kids at your school and the stuff they do. I'm sure the stories are long. And we all like the God that thinks that we're pretty great.

But the fact of the matter is, is God doesn't think any of us are great. God's steadfast love, when it talks about that in the Bible, is God's steadfast love for himself. And that sounds really offensive to some people. And it sounds, people will call it narcissistic. But why would God love anything but himself? God's perfect God's holy God's righteous for God to love anything less than that would make God an idolater and he's not so how does a sinner how does a person born into sin get made right with this God whose standard is perfection a God who will not lower his standard and a God who frankly loves his creation so much that he will hate all the sin that does damage to it god loves people and so he hates when we hurt each other he hates when we steal when we rape when we lie and that's where everything comes together in jesus christ so you should know the story jesus christ comes into the world he's the messiah right he's the fulfillment of the promises of god So God had been promising for centuries through these sacrifices, these rituals that the Jews would do.

God was promising not that these bulls and goats, that the blood spatter and all. He wasn't promising that if you brought your bull, you were forgiven of your sins. Because what he knew, and you can read about it in the Old Testament, half the people were just bringing their sickly animals, the ones they wouldn't want to eat anyway. That's what people were bringing.

And they were bringing their garbage because it was their duty to make a sacrifice. So they did it and they felt good about it. And God saw their heart. But there were some Jews that wanted to sacrifice for God because God, the Holy Spirit, had regenerated them. He had made them have a new heart, a heart that loves God and a heart that would, by faith, believe the things that God has said.

So Jesus comes into the world. He's born of a virgin. That's a super important fact. Actually, if you deny that you're a heretic, we were talking about this in the men's thing. What would make someone not a Christian? If you deny that Jesus was born of a virgin, I would say that I couldn't tell you you're a Christian if you would do that.

Because Jesus being born of a virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, is how Jesus was born without the stain of original sin that you and I are born with. That's why Jesus is not a sinner. Jesus is truly a man. but he's not a sinner. He's truly a man like Adam was, and Jesus never sinned, though, like Adam did, and like we do. So Jesus Christ was able to live a life of complete devotion to God, complete obedience to God, and then we talked about capital punishment.

We talked about everything in the men's group, just about. We even talked about you ladies. But anyway, when Jesus died, he suffered the death a murderer deserved. Look at Isaiah 53. Turn there. Isaiah 53.

God says, verse 12, the second part, he says, He poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Talk about a sinless man. Jesus Christ is God in heaven from all eternity, perfect in every way, one in substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit, different person, same substance, one God, three persons, comes into the world. When Jesus Christ entered the world for even a brief second, he suffered more humiliation than he should have ever had to suffer.

The fact that he breathed one molecule of our dirty air is worse treatment than he should have ever had to deserve. And yet Jesus then went through a whole life submission to his parents. Read about it in Luke 2. He submitted to his earthly parents. He obeyed God's law about honoring your parents. Jesus Christ went through his whole life never doing a single thing wrong.

And then he was delivered up as if he had committed capital punishment. So when we talk about going to the cross, it's like we see the pictures in Mel Gibson's movie and all these different things. But what we have to remember is Jesus was being publicly hung up on a cross as if he had committed murder, basically. and he suffered capital punishment and he'd never done a single thing wrong he committed no sin and neither was deceit found in his mouth but he entrusted his soul to a faithful creator while doing good that's what peter tells us about jesus and what we know is that when jesus died on that cross it wasn't some accident where jesus was coming into the world to make good teachings for people and to tell people how they could live a better life or have their best life now or how they could get the the boyfriend they want or the job they want or win at sports or put philippians 413 on their eyes and win the national championship.

That's not why Jesus He came by the predetermined plan of God to make atonement for people who hated him. And he did it without being asked to do it. And he came and he died for sinners. And then we want to walk around and act like sin's not that bad. God crushed his own son on a cross, killed him. Isaiah 53, read the whole thing.

It says he was pleased to bruise him, is what it says. God poured out His wrath for sin on His perfect Son. And we want to wink at it like it's funny or something to joke about. It's serious. And when we make it seem like sin is not serious, we make it seem like Jesus must not be that great a Savior, because why would God kill Jesus? Why would He punish Jesus?

Men didn't kill Jesus, do you get it? Jesus said, I give up my spirit. it. God used men to do things that wicked men would want to do, but God's the one that had the plan to make a sacrifice for sins because bulls and goats weren't going to cut it. There wasn't enough creatures in the world that we could slaughter and shed their blood to forgive even one of your sins or mine.

But Jesus Christ's blood is precious and perfect, and his blood is sufficient for all. And so Jesus Christ comes and he sheds his blood for the forgiveness of sins. And then three days later, I'll say the most important part, the part without which we have no hope, Jesus Christ raised from the dead. He really became a man. He really did die. And he really did get buried.

And three days later, he really did raise from the dead. And when he rose from the dead, it says in the book of Romans, he was raised for our justification. What that means is that God can take your sin and apply it to Jesus Christ and he can take Jesus Christ righteousness and apply it to your life because of Jesus Christ resurrection from the dead he showed that sin did not have power over him because the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord so what do you have to do to be a Christian you have to have a sacrifice for your sin And it was the same for Old Testament Jews.

And just like with Old Testament Jews, religious rituals, even religious rituals prescribed by God, are not the way that people get atoned for. We have our own religious rituals, right? Going to church, leading a youth group, putting our hands up when we sing, tithing. We have rituals we do. and some of us do them with an impure heart. It's only the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that can wash a sinner clean.

Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Renew in me a right spirit. David understood these things. He understood because by the power of the Holy Spirit his eyes were opened and that's what we're asking you tonight. Are your eyes open to this?

Maybe some of you, they were open to four years old. I don't know. Some of you, maybe it's going to be tonight that you first realize, wow, I prayed some prayer when I was 11 at church and I got baptized, but I never really believed that Jesus died in my place. It doesn't matter. If you believe it now is what matters. Okay?

There's no reward for who's been the Christian the longest or anything like that. in fact there's that one parable where where the guy pays the people at the end of the day the same amount as the beginning right so today is the day of salvation don harden your heart Today is the day that you call out on Jesus Christ and you say look forgive me of my sins I'm going to stop making excuses for them. I'm going to see sin the way you see it. I'm not going to pretend it's not that bad.

I'm not going to act like, well, I'm not as bad as the other guy, or I didn't really do the thing. Be honest with God. Be honest in your heart. and trust that Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection is the sacrifice that was made for your sins. And come to God by faith and faith alone. There is the one thing we read in Hebrews, and I could read it again, but it said he made a sacrifice once.

There is one sacrifice for sins. Don't try to add to the perfect work of the only son of God who came and did everything necessary to save sinners. Don't try to add to it with your works or your goodness or whatever. It'd be like buying the Mona Lisa and bringing it home and starting to color on it with a crayon, but way worse because you cannot out-perfect perfection.

So God is perfect and holy and God is good and that's wonderful and that's comforting. but because we're not good it actually should strike fear in us but God is full of grace and mercy but grace and mercy isn't for everybody there's people in hell right now and there's people that are going to go there still and so right now is your chance confronted by God confronted by these verses write down your thoughts ask your questions there's people here that want to answer your questions this is the most important thing though that can ever happen in your life whether or not you are born again without being born again no one will even see the kingdom of heaven so let me pray and then the band going to come back up Are they around Oh, they're there. Okay, I didn't see it. And then they're going to play another song.

So Father in heaven, it is our desire that people would believe what you have said in your word. It is our desire that the Holy Spirit would work in hearts, granting people faith that they might believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, believe in His death, burial, and resurrection. And so, Father, do the work that only God can do. Apply the blood of the sacrifice to our souls.

The hyssop that purges us of our stain of original sin that we might be made acceptable to You and that we might be seen as holy in Your sight because we are hidden in Jesus Christ. I pray that that would be what you do in our lives. And for those here that are already Christians, Lord, I pray that you would use this as an encouragement to them, that they would be reminded of their own salvation and that it might motivate them to good works and it might provoke them to worship you tonight in spirit and in truth.

Thank you for these people. Thank you for their attentive listening. I'm encouraged just looking around and seeing the people paying attention, Lord. And I pray that you would do the work that only you can do. In Christ's name I pray. Amen.

You are listening to Be a Berean with host Michael Coughlin on the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network. Michael is a writer at thingsabove.us and resides in central Ohio with his wife Erin and their kids. You can contact Michael at thingsabove.us or visit his ministry website, michaelcoglin.net. That's C-O-U-G-H-L-I-N. Thank you for listening to this episode of Be a Berean.

We hope you have been encouraged to search the scriptures.