From His Heart

Speaker 1

Have you experienced so much trouble in life that the pain makes you feel busted and broken? Well, God put you right here, right now to get you some pain relief. Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

Speaker 2

What do you do when you're busted? What do you do when your life and the weight of your sin comes crashing down upon you and you're broken?

David, man after God's own heart. He not only was a great sinner, but David was a great repenter. David's heart broke, and he said, "I have sinned before the Lord." David was busted. David was broken.

Hey, what do you do when you're busted and broken? You take three steps. He can heal every scar with real truth, real love, real hope from his heart.

Speaker 1

This is from his with Pastor Jeff Shreve. And welcome to the broadcast today as he opens God's word that will speak to all of us who feel busted and broken. We're all in that group, of course, at some point in life, but how we respond is critical.

Today we walk with King David as he confronted the enormity of his sin, but sincerely repented, reaping great blessings in return. The lesson today is the seventh of every eight messages in Pastor Jeff's series Roller Coaster facing the ups and downs of Life. You picked a great day to join us. Or did God pick this for you?

Let's see. Open your Bible to Psalm 51. Here's Pastor Jeff to help us understand how to respond when we're busted and broken.

Speaker 2

It was late afternoon, early evening, in the spring. King David had sent his general Joab and his armies out to war. But he stayed behind in Jerusalem. The Bible says he had been in bed all day, just kind of lounging around, just doing a bunch of nothing. He got up in the early evening and he took a little walk on the roof of his palace. And when he did, he saw something. He saw a beautiful woman. And she was bathing. And David knew that he should turn away. But he didn't turn away. He kept looking at her. And his look turned to lust, and his lust turned to longing. And he just had to have that woman.

He went back in, and he called his servants, and he said, "Who is this woman?" And they said, "Well, that is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. David, that is your mighty man, one of your 30 mighty men, Uriah the Hittite. That's his wife." And David said, "I have to have her." He called for her, and she came to him, and they participated in the night of sin. Well, David thought he had it out of his system. But then word came back from Bathsheba some time later that said, "I'm pregnant."

So David thought, "What do I do now? I'm kind of in a bind here. Uriah's going to know this isn't his baby because he's out fighting the battles for the king." And so he called to Joab and said, "Send me Uriah the Hittite." So Uriah came back from battle to David. David began to talk to Uriah and ask him about the battle, what was going on. And then he said to Uriah, "Now you go home and be with your wife." But Uriah wouldn't do it because Uriah said it was wrong for him to go home to be with his wife and enjoy his wife when his brothers are out fighting the king's battle. So Uriah stayed the night at the gate of the king's palace. They told David he didn't go home.

So David brought him in the next day and said, "Why didn't you go home?" And he said, "Well, I couldn't. That would be wrong." And so David said, "Will you stay here with me?" David had him eat and drink. David got him drunk, thinking, "Well, maybe if he's drunk, he'll go home." But he still wouldn't go home. And so David was trying to figure out, "How can I cover up this sin in my life?" He finally decided. He wrote a note to Joab, the general, sealed it, and handed it to Uriah. He said, "Take this to the general. Take this to Joab." And he did. Uriah didn't look at the note. He took it to Joab.

When Joab opened it, it said, "Put Uriah in the fiercest part of the battle and then withdraw from him." Joab did it, and Uriah was killed in battle. It was told to Bathsheba, "Your husband, Uriah, has died." She mourned. When her time of mourning was over, then David took her to be his wife. Nine months after their liaison, she gave forth a child.

Well, the Bible says that the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to David. When he sent him to David, he came with a story. He said, "David, I have something I need to tell you. I need your judgment on this." He said, "There were two men in the kingdom. One was rich and one was poor. The rich man had many flocks and herds. But the poor man, he just had one little ewe lamb. He loved that little ewe lamb. It was almost like a daughter to him. It would eat at his table, it would sleep on his bosom. He just loved that little ewe lamb.

Then a traveler came to the rich man to visit him, and the rich man was unwilling to take from his flocks and herds. So he took the poor man's little ewe lamb, killed that lamb, prepared it, and fed that lamb to his friend. When David heard that story, his anger just rose within him, and he slammed his fist and said, "The man who did this deserves to die." Nathan the prophet said, "And you are the man. You're the one who did this. Something so much worse than that story. You took Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and you had him killed. You did this tremendous evil before the Lord. You are the man."

David was busted. Numbers 32:23 says this: "Be sure your sin will find you out." The devastating consequences don't just end with the person, but they trickle down into the family, into the children and the spouses and the churches. It's a terrible thing.

Hey, what do you do when you're busted? What do you do when your life and the weight of your sin comes crashing down upon you and you're broken? David, a man after God's own heart, was not only a great sinner, as I told you his story in 2 Samuel, chapters 11 and 12, but David was a great repenter. David wrote Psalm 51 after Nathan the prophet came to him and pointed the finger of accusation in his face and said, "You are the man." David's heart broke, and he said, "I have sinned before the Lord."

David wrote these words in Psalm 51. Scripture says, "For the choir director, a psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone into Bathsheba: Be gracious to me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the greatness of your compassion. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified 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 innermost being, and in the hidden part, you will make me no wisdom. Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness. Let the bones which you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out 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 sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will be converted to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, Thou God of my salvation. Then my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise. For you do not delight in sacrifice; otherwise, I would give it. You're not pleased with burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."

David was busted. David was broken. Hey, what do you do when you're busted and broken? You take three steps, three key steps. Step number one: What are we to do? We're to come humbly to God. You come humbly to the Lord. Now, when we sin and sin greatly, and as I said, there's not a person in this room who couldn't have the testimony that, yes, I've sinned greatly. I have experienced that in my life. Tremendous, horrible sin that if you put it on the screen, I would be shamed and humiliated beyond words.

You know, when we sin like that, the devil moves in, and the devil will tell us, "Well, let me tell you something. You can't come to God with that. There's no way that God wants to hear from you. There's no way that God wants to see you because of what you've done. Look what you've done. How dare you go to church? You need to quit going to church because you are a terrible, horrible person. Let's get you a Scarlet A, and you can wear it like Hester Prynne and let everybody know what you have done because you are rotten to the core." That's what the devil says.

But the devil is a liar and the father of lies. Hey, what are we to do when we get busted? We're to come humbly to God. Look at verse one: "Be gracious to me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the greatness of your compassion. Blot out my transgressions." You mark it down. No matter what you've done, God is full of grace and mercy. God is gracious. David is crying out for God's mercy and God's grace. "Oh, be gracious to me, God. God, I need your grace and I need your compassion, the greatness of your compassion, God."

God, I know that I've sinned terribly, but God, you are compassionate. God, you know the word compassion literally means the womb, as it says in verse one. It's a picture of a woman who would protect and care for that baby in her womb. She'd have tender mercy and tender love for that baby. God has great compassion like that. God is a God who is full of that. When the Lord appeared to Moses, he gave him his resume and he said, "The Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth."

No matter what you've done, God is full of mercy and grace. No matter what you've done, God still loves you. He still loves you. "Be gracious to me, O God, according to your loving kindness." That's the Greek word, hesed (C H E S E D). It means God's loyal love, God's faithful love, God's covenant love. No matter what you've done, he still loves you.

"Oh, Pastor Jeff, but I've done things like David did." He still loves you. He still loved David. The Bible says in Psalm 89, "Our Lord, I will sing of your love forever. Everyone yet to be born will hear me praise your faithfulness. I will tell them God's love can always be trusted, and his faithfulness lasts as long as the heavens." You can always trust in God's love, no matter what you've done, and no matter what you've done, he is able to forgive you. He can forgive you.

David said in Psalm 86, verse 5, "For you, Lord, are good and ready to forgive and abundant in loving kindness to all who call upon thee." God is not reluctant to forgive. He's ready to forgive. God wants to forgive you and forgive me more than we want to come before the Lord. God is the Father of the prodigal Son. He's the one that if you come and leave the pigsty and you come to him, and he sees you coming to him, he'll run to you. He's ready to forgive.

So the first step, when you are busted because of your sin, and it's not a sin of going 60 in a 55, you really sinned and sinned terribly and sinned greatly with great, great consequences, what do you do? You come humbly to God. The second step: Not only are we to come humbly to God, but we are to confess honestly and completely to God. See, God sees it all. God knows it all. So we need to confess it all to God.

I love what it says when it tells the story of David's sin in 2 Samuel, chapter 11. It doesn't mention the Lord at all until the very last verse. It says, "But the thing that David did was evil in the sight of the Lord." God saw it all. The eyes of the Lord are in every place watching the evil and the good. God saw what David did, and God sees what you do and what I do. He sees what websites we go to. God sees it all. He sees the thoughts that we think. He sees it all, knows everything about you. He knows what you did last night. He knows what you did last week. He knows what you did last summer. He knows everything.

The eyes of the Lord are in every place watching the evil and the good. But the thing that David did was evil in the sight of the Lord. So what do we do when we're busted before a God who sees it all and knows it all? We confess honestly and completely to Him. Now, don't dress up your sin because you're guilty as charged. There's a tendency in us to want to dress up our sin, the things that God has already seen. But we want to put lipstick on a pig, so to speak.

David said in verse four, "Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you're justified when you speak and blameless when you judge. Lord, I deserve your justice. I deserve your chastisement. I deserve your punishment because I have sinned." Now notice he didn't say that he sinned against Bathsheba or that he sinned against Uriah. He wronged Bathsheba and he wronged Uriah, but he sinned against God. And he didn't try and dress it up.

You know, we have a tendency in our hearts to want to dress things up. When Adam sinned, the Lord said to Adam, when he was hiding from God, "Adam, where are you?" And Adam said, "Well, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself." God said, "Who told you you were naked? Did you eat of the fruit that I commanded you not to eat?" Adam said, "Yeah, but..."

Yeah, but the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the fruit, and I ate. Yeah, but hey, when you're going to come before the Lord, you got to get rid of your "yeah, but." There can be no "yeah, but." "Lord, against you, you only have I sinned." Don't dress up your sin. You're guilty as charged. Don't cover up your sin. God desires the brutal truth.

We like to cover it up. David said in verse six, "Behold, you desire truth in the innermost being." David tried so hard to cover his sin, to cover it up, just to sweep it under the rug. Nobody saw, nobody needs to know about this. He went on as being king. No doubt he sang the songs, no doubt he went to worship, no doubt he prayed prayers. He did all of that for nine plus months. And all the while, there was rottenness in the innermost part. There was cover-up in there.

God desires truth in the innermost being. You know, we can do that so often where we just try and cover it up, and we just try and come to church, and we just try and, "Well, I'm going to sing the songs, I'm going to play the part, I'm going to act, you know, spiritual." All the while, God sees the rottenness in our hearts. All the while, God sees this hidden part that we have that's filled with sin and filled with cover-up. God desires truth in their innermost being.

God doesn't see as man sees. Man sees the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart, and the Lord sees what's really there. Many people come to church trying to cover up when God desires the brutal truth. What happened to David when he was playing cover-up for those nine plus months while the baby was being formed in Bathsheba's womb? What was going on in his life? He tells us in Psalm 51 what happens to a Christian, to a believer, to someone who loves God, but who gets sin in his or her life.

He tells us what happens when you have unconfessed sin in your life. First of all, unconfessed sin will make you feel dirty. He says in verse 2, "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin." He says in verse 7, "Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." He says in verse 10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God." David felt so dirty on the inside, and there's nothing he could do. There's no ceremonial washing that could take that away. He felt stained and dirty and soiled on the inside, and it was awful.

He asked God, "Clean me up, purify me, wash me, make me white as snow, Lord, because I feel so filthy inside." You know, the Lord says, "Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, yet the stain of your iniquity is still before me," declares the Lord. Because you and I can't clean the filth in our hearts. There's no way to do that. That has to be a work of God.

So we do all the outward things. We wash ourselves, so to speak, with lye and soap. We put on the religious clothes, we talk a big game. And all the while, we know. And God knows because he sees all. We know we're lying, and God knows we're lying. He desires truth in the innermost being. It's horrible when you're filthy, and David was filthy before the Lord.

Hey, unconfessed sin will make you feel dirty. Unconfessed sin will make you feel haunted. Not only dirty, but haunted. Look what he says in verse 3: "For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." David was haunted by the ghost of guilt because of his sin. It was ever before him. Every time he turned around, there was his sin, there was his guilt haunting him. Every time he looked at a soldier's face, he saw Uriah the Hittite, the man that he sent to his death.

You know, when David sinned with Bathsheba, that was a hot-blooded sin. That was a passionate hot-blooded sin. But when he sinned with Uriah the Hittite, that was a cold-blooded, calculated sin. There was no passion involved; that was just diabolical. And so David had this haunting presence of guilt. Everywhere he went, David was carrying his accuser within his breast. Everywhere he went, day and night, "God, your hand is heavy upon me. I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." It will haunt you.

Speaker 1

Today's lesson was part one of the message "Busted and Broken." Pastor Jeff is in a series this month covering important truths found in the book of Psalms, where he takes a transparent and honest look at the struggles we face on this planet Earth and how God is there for us all the time. The series is called "Roller Coaster: Facing the Ups and Downs of Life," and it includes today's message, part one of "Busted and Broken." This inspiring eight-message series is available when you call 866-40-BIBLE. You can get it in multiple formats. Again, call 866-40-BIBLE or go online to fromhisheart.org. We hope that you'll get it and discover the depth of God's love.

Also, when you do go online or call and make a gift to From His Heart, this month we'd like to say thank you by sending you the series "Nothing but the Truth," which we aired the first week of this month, and also send you the booklet "Sticks and What to Do When the Going Gets Tough." Both of these are thanks to you for your support this month of any amount. Call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE, or go online to fromhisheart.org. You can get it in the format of your choice.

Remember, your support to From His Heart every month will expand your influence to a hurting world, telling them that no matter how much they may have messed up in life, God still loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives. Again, call 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org.

Well, thank you for listening today. I'm Larry Nobles, hoping you'll join us tomorrow for part two of the lesson "Busted and Broken." It's from Pastor Jeff's series "Roller Coaster: Facing the Ups and Downs of Life." That's on Tuesday when we'll again open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from God's heart. Here on From His Heart, there is tremendous truth.

Speaker 2

There is hope that you always dream of. We can heal.

Speaker 1

From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world.

Remember that no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Find out more at fromhisheart.org.