Sermon Tone Analysis

“Where Are My Sins?”

*Text: /Psalm 51:1-11/*

*I.                          **Welcome*

*II.

**Introduction*

Most of us are familiar with King David and his adultery with Bathsheba as well as his murder of her husband – Uriah, the Hittite.

The horrible details of David’s sins are recorded in /2 Sam.

11//.

/But it is Nathan the prophet’s poignant parable that finally elicits a confession from David.

Read with me from /2 Sam.

12:1ff//.

/*Then the Lord sent Nathan to David.

And he came to him, and said to him: “There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor.

The rich /man/ had exceedingly many flocks and herds.

But the poor /man/ had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children.

It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him.

And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”

So David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, “/As/ the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die!

And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.”

Then Nathan said to David, “You /are/ the man!”* Nathan then goes on to tell David some of the horrible things that will happen to him because of his sins.

But notice David’s simple confession in verse 13: *So David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

*David wrote the words to /Ps.

51// /from which we took our scripture reading this morning after Nathan had confronted David about his sin.

There’s not an adult in this audience who could not echo David’s words: *“I have sinned against the Lord.”

*It is with this confession that I want each of us to ask a personal question this morning: “Where are my sins?”

During this lesson, I don’t want you to think about your neighbor’s sins.

And I certainly don’t want you worrying about your brothers’ & sisters’ sins.

I want you to ask yourself: “Where are my sins?” Please open your Bibles and study with me for the next few minutes and then be sure to search the scriptures daily to make sure I’ve told you the truth as revealed by God’s Holy Spirit.

*III.

**Lesson*

Sin is a word most of us are familiar with.

Even the children know about the first sin – that it occurred in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit God had forbidden.

Yet the word “sin” is not used in /Gen.

3//.

/But, if we turn to /Rom.

5:12-14/, the apostle Paul describes the sin of Adam: *Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—(For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.*

Because of sin, Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden – out of paradise – and life was forever changed because death was now a part of our existence as a result of sin.

Let me also mention that Eve was first tempted to eat of the forbidden fruit by the serpent or the devil.

Now notice the words of /1 Jn. 3:8// /– *He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.

*For us older folks, this certainly adds some credence to Flip Wilson’s famous punch line: “The devil made me do it!”

So what is sin?

From the account of the first sin, we can conclude that sin is disobedience to God.

God had told Adam that he could eat of every tree of the garden except of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God said that in the day you eat of this unique tree you shall surely die.

But the devil told Eve: “You will not surely die!”

Our first definition of sin is disobeying God – doing what He has told us not to do.

Then at Mt. Sinai, God gave the old law to His people through Moses.

God has now codified what His people can and cannot do.

The apostle Paul reflected on the law’s purpose in /Rom.

7:7// /– *What shall we say then?

/Is/ the law sin?

Certainly not!

On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law.

For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, /“You shall not covet.”/

*With the giving of the Ten Commandments, sin could also be defined as disobeying God’s law.

Later, in /Rom.

14:23/, Paul states that whatever is not from faith is sin.

Here the context indicates that any act which violates a Christian’s conscience is sin.

We read in /1 Jn. 3:4// /that sin is lawlessness.

Lawlessness in this context appears to be the opposite of righteousness – just as it is in /2 Cor.

6:14// /– *For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?*/

/One more definition of sin before we move on.

The inspired brother of our Lord wrote in /Jas 4:17// /– *Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do /it,/ to him it is sin.

*This is probably the one that is so overlooked by most of us.

This is the one we can rationalize ourselves out of because we’re too busy or too tired.

While all of these are valid definitions of sin, we need to understand what sin does to us.

According to /Isa.

59:2/, our sins separate us from God – just as sin separated Adam and Eve from God.

Under the old law, there were sin offerings and trespass offerings as well as a Day of Atonement.

This day, known as /Yom Kippur/, is still the most holy day for Jews.

In /Lev.

16:30//, /the following explanation is given: *For on that day /the priest/ shall make atonement for you, to cleanse you, /that/ you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.

*The problem with all these sacrifices under the old law was that they had to be continually repeated.

The Hebrew writer gives this explanation in /Heb.

10:1-4// /– *For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, /and/ not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.

For then would they not have ceased to be offered?

For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.

But in those /sacrifices there is/ a reminder of sins every year.

For /it is/ not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.*

Since animal sacrifices will not take away sins, man has a sin problem described like this in /Rom.

3:23// /– *for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

*Like our identification with David’s confession in /2 Sam.

12:13//, /we can all admit to falling short of God’s glory.

Anyone who has read the OT knows that God often killed His people when they sinned.

Once He destroyed the entire population of the earth except for eight souls.

Later He destroyed people with poisonous snakes, plagues and even allowing the earth to swallow them up.

God also allowed foreign nations to oppress them and take them into captivity because of their sins.

So what is going to happen to us for falling short of God’s glory?

The good news is found in /Rom.

5:8// /– *But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

*And /Rom.

6:23// /– *For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

*Thus far in this lesson, we have looked at what sin is, that it separates us from God and that the penalty for sin is death.

We have also seen that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins.

The disciple who denied our Lord three times describes what Jesus did for us in /1 Pet.

3:18// /– *For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.

*Earlier in this same epistle, Peter wrote that Jesus *bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed.*

We’ve looked at what we’ve done – sinned – and we’ve looked at what Christ has done – died for our sins.

Now what must we do?

This question was asked on the Day of Pentecost in /Acts 2:37// /with the answer given in the following verse: *“Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”*

When the Lord appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus, this persecutor of Christians asked, “What shall I do, Lord?” (/Acts 22:10/) and the Lord told him to go into Damascus and there he would be told all things which were appointed for him to do.