September 27, 2024 • 46 mins
Sin always comes with consequences. But there is hope. In this session, Jeremy discusses the doctrine of fellowship, how it's broken and how it can be restored. it's not always restored, but the method is available to every believer if they choose to obey. And in this model of restoring fellowship with God, is our template for restoring fellowship with other believers.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Framework Series on Beyond the
Walls with Jeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And the point is this God is not looking for people
who never sin.
He already found that in JesusChrist.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Sin always comes with consequences Small consequences
for small sins, largeconsequences for large sins.
Sometimes they are of shortduration, sometimes they might
last a lifetime, but the goodnews is they don't have to be
(00:35):
fatal and they don't destroyyour salvation in Christ.
They do impact yourrelationships among those on
earth and they definitely impactyour relationship with our
Father in heaven.
But there is a path torestoration.
The key is to be watching yourown life, listening to others,
(01:04):
and recognize your sin andconfess it quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Okay, we've been working with kingship in Israel.
The rise of the kingship,israel's history of kingship, we
said, began really in Egypt,where they were in slavery and
under Pharaoh who was the king.
In Egypt, where they were inslavery and under Pharaoh who
was the king.
So they got their model forkingship first from Egypt.
Pharaoh, in their mind, was theone who brought stability to
(01:34):
their lives.
At the Exodus, of course, theywent out of Egypt and what did
they immediately begin to do?
But groan and want to go backto Egypt, because that's where
the Pharaoh had providedstability and security.
But at Mount Sinai, god becametheir king when he delivered the
Ten Commandments to Moses andhe gave them the law.
(01:55):
This was the law of a father, aloving father, to a son, israel
, and as long as the son learnedto listen, to trust and to obey
the law of their king, theywould be blessed.
But we know that generationfailed right and they wandered
in the wilderness for 40 years.
Then came Joshua and they wentinto the land to conquer the
(02:19):
land that God had given them inthe covenant he made with
Abraham, isaac and Jacob.
And they only partiallyconquered the land because they
only partially listened, theyonly partially trusted and they
only partially obeyed.
While in the land now, theylived among their enemies, the
Philistines and others.
And during the time of thejudges, the 12 tribes descended
(02:43):
into chaos.
Every man, it says, did whatwas right in his own eyes and
finally they became tired of thejudges.
The 12 tribes descended intochaos.
Every man, it says, did whatwas right in his own eyes and
finally they became tired of thechaos, like people do when
there's no government, and thenthey cry out for big government.
And that's basically what theydid.
They cried out for a king.
They said we want a king likeall the other nations.
Now, god had actually slatedfor them to have a king in the
(03:07):
law, but it was to be a king ofhis own choosing.
And the king they wanted was aking of their own choosing, a
king like all the other nations,one who would go out and fight
their battles for them and givethem security and stability.
God reluctantly gave them a kingof their desire.
He gave them Saul.
Saul was a king who looked thepart.
(03:30):
He was a head taller thaneveryone else and everybody
thought this is the guy.
But Saul was a man of the flesh.
He couldn't wait on the Lord,he couldn't trust the Lord and
he couldn't obey the Lord.
So God rejected Saul and in hisplace he did choose a king that
he really wanted, and that wasDavid right, a shepherd boy, a
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young boy who was a man afterGod's own heart.
This was the kind of king thatGod was interested in them
having.
He was a man of faith, he waspatient, he waited on the Lord.
He didn't even kill Saul'srival, dynasty right.
He allowed the Lord to removeSaul at the proper time.
He served righteousness andjustice to the people.
(04:16):
The Psalms tell us he got upevery morning and he prayed to
the Lord and he listened to theword of God.
And because of this, 2 Samuel 7says that God made an eternal
covenant with David, a covenantpromising an eternal dynasty, an
eternal throne and an eternalkingdom.
And it's this covenant, calledthe Davidic covenant, that sets
(04:39):
the direction for world history.
World history is ultimatelygoing to a time when the seed of
David, whom we know as JesusChrist, is going to rule the
world forever and ever.
So David came into thisfather-son relationship with the
(05:01):
Lord, and the text says that ifDavid would listen to the Lord,
if David would trust the Lord.
If David would obey the Lord,the Lord would bless David.
Right, and David did.
Initially he trusted the Lord,he continued to trust and obey,
but something we found wentwrong in his spiritual life.
Right, like many of us, we canstart well, but there are times
(05:22):
when we lapse, and this happenedwith David.
We read in the 2 Samuel that itwas the time of spring.
It was the time when kings wentout to battle and David had
faithfully done this and led hissoldiers year after year, until
this year, it says.
He didn't wake up till eveningand he was in his palace, which
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meant he was up all night thenight before doing who knows
what.
When he rose in the evening, hewent out on his veranda of his
palace and he looked down thecity of david and he saw a woman
not just any woman, but abeautiful woman on a rooftop
taking a bath.
Now, this was a formula fordisaster, because because David
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hadn't been tending to hisspiritual life, had he.
He called this woman ofbeautiful form up to the palace.
It just happened to be the timewhen she was ripe for
conception and she did conceive.
David tried to cover it up byinviting her husband, uriah, to
come home from the front lines,but he had too much integrity to
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go and be with his wife.
He slept on the king'sdoorsteps to protect David.
So David sent orders to thegeneral to put Uriah on the
front lines and, in the heat ofthe battle, to back away so he
would be killed and David couldcover his sin.
(06:48):
Now it's at this point that wecome to the doctrine that
relates to this whole event ofthe rise and reign of King David
, and that's the doctrine offellowship.
This is part of the doctrine ofwhat we call sanctification, a
word that just fundamentallymeans to be set apart.
Every time I teach the childrenabout sanctification, I always
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say do you have anything special?
Is it a doll?
Is it a car?
What is it Something that'sspecial to you?
You got it for Christmas, yougot it for your birthday?
Oh yes.
And they all have somethingright that is precious to them.
It's something that they setapart, so when their friends
come over, they put it up sonobody breaks it right.
That's what the word sanctifybasically means to set something
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apart for a special purpose.
And God sets us apart in threephases.
He first sets us apart themoment that we believe in Christ
, he sets us apart positionallyfrom the world system.
We call this justification.
It happens at a moment in timeGod declares us to be perfectly
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righteous.
It's our position.
We are set apart at that pointfrom the penalty of sin.
We will never suffer thepenalty of sin.
We will never suffer eternalcondemnation.
Right, we are counted righteouswith God.
The second time he sets usapart is experiential, okay, and
we normally just call thissanctification.
(08:16):
But technically, sanctificationcan refer to all three of these
.
I like to just call it spiritualgrowth because it's the time
from when you believed in Christ.
However long the Lord allowsyou to live on this world,
that's the period of yourspiritual growth.
Maybe he comes back at therapture and takes us today.
So the moment from your faithin Christ until the rapture, or
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the moment from your faith inChrist until you pass out of
this world, that's the period ofsanctification, where we are
experiencing spiritual growth.
So it's a process.
It takes time and we saidearlier in the series.
We said God, when he grows us,he's not growing a squash.
It takes six months.
He's growing an oak.
It takes 100 years.
So be patient.
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It takes time.
Spiritual growth doesn't happenovernight, it takes a lifetime.
The third setting apart is ourultimate sanctification, and
that's when we receive aresurrection body.
This is when we'll be set apartfrom the presence of sin
altogether.
Right, we get glorified when wesee Christ.
We shall be like him, for weshall see him as he is.
We are resurrected, right, theresurrection body.
(09:20):
So that's the ultimate settingapart, the final and third phase
.
Well, when we talk about Davidand we talk about the doctrine
of fellowship, we're talkingabout the second phase, the
experiential one, the one rightin the middle.
There, our experience has twodimensions to it.
There's the fellowship, whichis the moment by moment.
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Are you in fellowship, are youout of fellowship?
And then there's the maturitydimension, and maturity looks at
the long-term growth.
It says how much have you grownup over the last five years, 10
years, 20 years?
Our problem is a lot of timesis we focus on the day-to-day
and we're having a bad day or abad week and we forget to look
(10:05):
at the maturity dimension and weforget to say to ourselves okay
, I may be having a bad day, buthow much has the Lord grown me
over the last five years and 10years?
It's always encouraging to goback to the maturity question
and ask yourself when you'rehaving tough times, yeah, but
has the Lord developed me?
And the answer is usuallyalways yes, right, he has so
relax.
Okay, we're tough times, yeah,but has the Lord developed me?
(10:27):
And the answer is usuallyalways yes, he has so relax,
we're in process.
Now David.
Of course, when he committedthis with Bathsheba, he had
already grown to spiritualmaturity, but he had gotten lazy
in his spiritual life andthat's when he fell into sin
with Bathsheba and Uriah.
And of course, this is thewhole part in 2 Samuel that most
people remember about David'slife.
(10:48):
He gets pretty bad rap inChristian circles because they
see these terrible sins likeadultery and murder and they say
, well, there's no way this guyis a good guy.
Who would ever want to be likeDavid?
But this is the only guy in allof Scripture that God gives the
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evaluation that this is a manafter my own heart.
So the challenge is to not beself-righteous, because we've
all committed terrible sins andwe're not too unlike David.
It's just like reading Jonah.
(11:30):
You know we get mad at Jonahbecause Jonah didn't want to go
to the Ninevites.
The reason we get mad at Jonahis because you know what we're
mad at ourselves, because wealso are just like him.
We don't want to give peoplethe gospel because we think they
don't deserve it.
So we think that David's notreally much to look at.
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But the Bible says he's the manafter God's own heart.
The prophet comes to him, tellshim a little story of a lamb.
It was raised by a poor man andbecame their pet.
And a rich man came and tookthat lamb and slaughtered it to
feed a stranger who was visitingthe town.
And David became very angry atthe rich man for doing this.
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And Nathan said you are the man, because God gave you
everything, david.
He gave you the kingdom, hegave you power, he gave you
wealth.
He gave you everything youwanted.
He gave you the kingdom, hegave you power, he gave you
wealth.
He gave you everything youwanted.
And what did you do?
You had to take the one thingthat Uriah had.
You had to take poor Uriah'swife, bathsheba.
You are the man.
So David was convicted of hissin at that moment.
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Psalm 51 recounts his confessionof his sin and how he was
restored to fellowship, andthat's why we bring up the
doctrine of fellowship, part ofexperiential sanctification in
the story of David, and we learnfrom him about what this
doctrine is all about.
And the point is this God isnot looking for people who never
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sin.
He already found that in JesusChrist, right.
He didn't find it in you and hedidn't find it in me, but he
found it in Jesus Christ.
And so what is God looking for,then, in us?
He's looking for believers who,when they are sin, when we sin,
we are convicted of our sin, weconfess our sin and we're
(13:22):
restored to fellowship and wekeep going, we don't quit in the
Christian life.
So David becomes a picture ofthe model believer.
So let's look at this doctrinethrough his life and show how it
applies over into our life.
I've got a couple of diagramshere.
On the left you see David, onthe right you see yourself us.
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David's life is controlled bybasically two covenants here,
and we're going to see that ourlife is controlled by two things
as well.
On David's side, david's a partof the nation Israel.
He's an Israelite right.
As such, the first thing thatcontrols his life is known as
the Abrahamic covenant.
In that covenant, which isdisplayed by this large circle
that's blue, there were certainpromises.
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As a member of the nationisrael, he was heir of the land,
the seed, and would be a partof the nation.
There's a worldwide blessing.
So that is his position.
It is a solid circle on theoutside, depicting that if you
are part of this nation, likedavid, you are a part of this
nation.
Like David, you are a recipientof this Abrahamic covenant.
(14:27):
Second, though, there's anothercovenant, and that's the one
that controls his experience,and it's the red circle, the
smaller circle.
He was to live according to thelaw that was in the Mosaic
covenant, and if David and hissons committed sin, they'd be
like any other Israelite.
God would correct them with therod of men and the strokes of
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the sons of men.
So discipline right.
And if David and his sonscommitted sin, they'd be like
any other Israelite.
God would correct them with therod of men and the strokes of
the sons of men.
So discipline right.
So his experience is depictedby that little red circle.
Now, he's always in the bluecircle, but the red circle is a
dashed line.
That means you can go in andout of it.
You can either be obeying theMosaic covenant and be in the
red circle, what we callfellowship or you'd be out of it
.
You can either be obeying theMosaic covenant and be in the
red circle what we callfellowship or you'd be out of
(15:08):
the red circle and be out offellowship.
Okay.
So whenever, of course, david,you know, called Bathsheba to
the palace, whenever David gaveorders to have Uriah basically
murdered, well, he was out ofthe red circle right and he was
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getting deep in sin.
So the important point, though,is that David could never get
out of the blue circle, could he?
He was always in that circle,he was always still a recipient
of the Abrahamic covenant, buthe could go in and out of the
red circle and be in discipline,okay.
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So, in the same way, we on theright side see we can either be
in fellowship or we can be outof fellowship.
So this is the analog.
We also have a position.
The big blue circle on theright Okay, it's a large circle
that is defined by us being inChrist.
If you have believed in Christ,guess what?
You have been incorporated intohim.
You are in Christ, seated inheavenly, in the heavenlies, in
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Christ Jesus.
Okay, that is your position.
Nothing can ever change that.
There are a number ofpositional truths that are
related to us being in him.
Okay, lewis Barry Chaferenumerated 33 truths that happen
the moment you believe in JesusChrist.
Things like you were redeemed.
Not you're being redeemed, youare redeemed.
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It's a done deal.
You've been reconciled to God,you've been forgiven of all your
trespasses, you've been adoptedinto his family, you are
justified, you are predestined.
The list goes on and on.
There's 33 of these things.
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Those all define our position,our relationship being in Christ
.
And just like David had aposition, right, so we have a
position.
So that's where the parallel isokay.
However, we also have ourexperience in the little red
circle down there.
David was to obey the laws ofthe Mosaic Covenant.
Okay, we're not under theMosaic Covenant, that was the
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national constitution of Israel.
Okay, but we were given the lawof Christ, discussed in
Galatians 6 and also in 1stCorinthians.
Our experience is defined bywhether we are obeying or
disobeying the law of Christ.
So the law of Christ isbasically the New Testament
commands that we've been givenDon't do this, do this instead,
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don't do this, do this instead,and so forth.
So we also have the same twocircles that David had.
Okay, again, what tends tohappen in our Christian life is,
we tend to get all focused onthe commands and we fail right.
We fail to live by grace in theChristian life and, as such, we
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don't live by the Spirit and wedon't have the fruit of the
Spirit in our life and thereforewe get out of fellowship.
So we get discouraged, we getstuck, and all because one thing
we don't do enough of is goback to our position in Christ
and remember those 33 thingsthat God did for us the moment
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we trusted in Christ.
Now, of course, that's the wayto make your experience line up
with your position is to go backto your position and ask
yourself well, who am I?
Well, I'm redeemed, I'mreconciled, I'm adopted, I'm a
child of God, I'm justified, I'mreconciled, I'm propitiated.
You go back to all those thingsand what does it do it?
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You go back to all those thingsand what does it do?
It reminds you of who you arein Christ, and you're able to
get back up on your two feet andget back in fellowship with the
Lord and keep walking.
So we want to.
Another way to say this is, ifyou look at that diagram on the
right, the big circle out there,we can get out of that little
circle, but you never get out ofthe blue one, right?
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Some people call that eternalsecurity, right, and some people
say we don't like it.
I don't like eternal security.
I think you can lose yoursalvation.
This is part and parcel of notlike studying the Bible
thematically and seeing thesebigger pictures, because this is
definitely there.
You can get out of fellowship,sure, but you can never get out
of the relationship.
You can get out of fellowship,sure, but you can never get out
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of the relationship Once you'vebelieved in Christ.
No one can separate you fromthe love of Christ.
We are in Christ's hand andChrist is in the Father's hand
and you ain't getting out ofthere.
Okay, you can't do anythingabout it.
Even if we are faithless, paultold Timothy he is faithful.
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He will not deny himself.
So we can be terrible believers, but guess what?
We're still believers.
He's got us in the palm of hishand and he's never going to let
us go.
That's not a justification tosin.
What is it?
It's a motivation to live bygrace so we don't sin.
It's a motivation to get backin fellowship and to keep going
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Right.
So let's dig into this doctrineand break it down, the doctrine
of fellowship into five points.
Okay, we're just going to talkabout this fellowship dimension,
getting in and out of that redcircle there.
Okay, we're doing this becauseDavid did this.
David was in the red circle.
Then he had his thing withBathsheba, got out of the circle
, murdered Uriah.
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He's still out of the circle.
So let's see what happens.
The first step you commit sin.
Right, david committed adulteryAt that moment.
He was out of that red circle.
Now, isn't the same thing truefor us?
The moment we commit some sinin thought, word or deed?
All sins aren't just externalthings that other people can see
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.
It can be things in yourthoughts.
It can be words that you say,of course, or deeds that you do.
The moment we do that, we'reout of the inner circle, we're
out of that little red circle.
Now, what tends to happen?
If we get out of that circleand we stay out of that circle,
we tend to do just like DavidCommit more sin.
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You know, really rack up thepoints.
So David had Uriah killed, itwasn't a good thing, but the
principle here is that one sinleads to another sin and before
you know it, you're out ofcontrol, right, and you start
developing what we call habitpatterns in sinning, right?
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I know you don't have anyexperience with this, so if I'm
speaking over your head, pleaselet me know.
Okay, this is what happens.
You form habits in sinning.
A lot of these, actually, wecarried over from when we were
unbelievers, right, especiallyif we became believers later in
life.
We formed a lot of habitpatterns for sinning.
Those don't go away overnight.
Most of the time, you typicallytake those into the life and
you have to learn to deal withit as a Christian.
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Okay, but this is what happenswhen you get out of fellowship,
you start sinning and more andmore sinning.
Okay, before you know it, it mayhave started off as some little
sin, some little white lie orsomething, but before you know
it, you commit what we call thebig whammer, something that is,
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let's just say, a big problem,and that's what David did.
It's hard to get out of these.
That's why I imagine what wasreally going on with David was
he was committing a lot oflittle sins and he was out of
that red box and then theBathsheba thing happened.
I don't think that justhappened overnight.
It takes time to get to thatpoint and you don't want to
allow yourself to do like Davidand get to that point right.
So the problem is what we tendto do.
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We tend to go through ups anddowns in life.
We get spiritually lazy attimes, we don't manage the
little sins in our life andsuddenly we do some big sin.
We know basically how thisworks.
Now this should scare you.
It's supposed to scare you.
The story about David here issupposed to scare you, and the
reason is because most of usthink I would never commit a big
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sin like murder or adultery.
But this is scary because thisis the man, david, who was a man
after God's own heart and hedid both.
He did both.
The moment you begin to thinkyou're not capable of this is
the moment that you are introuble.
You are in trouble.
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You're not thinking I reallyneed to stay on top of my
spiritual life because I'mcapable of the same types of
things that David did, becauseyou are the second step after
committing sin.
What there are consequences?
Okay, sin always hasconsequences.
Were there consequences toDavid's sin?
You remember what they were?
Nathan told him he's going tolose four sons.
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Four of his boys were going todie.
See, there's always consequencesto sin, because once you sin in
the world.
There are consequences in theworld for sin, because sin
cannot be negated.
It has consequences.
That's just the way it is.
There are no free passes.
People say, well, I'll justconfess it, great, you will
immediately get back infellowship.
But guess what?
It's not going to erase thenegative consequences of your
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sin.
It just can't.
They will not go away.
That's the way it works.
All the consequences of sin arealways negative.
Okay, so sin is what separatesus from God, but it only
separates us in a fellowshipsense.
And we do go through andexperience experience of death.
Romans talks about this.
Romans 6, 7, and 8 talk aboutthe experience that a Christian
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has of death, meaning separationfrom fellowship, not from the
relationship.
You can't lose your salvation,but when you're out of
fellowship you are having anexperience of death because
you're not enjoying the lifethat you have in Christ.
And life becomes a drag becauseyou're not living the way that
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God created you to live inChrist.
So life becomes a drudgery.
Okay, so that experience isthere for a reason.
It's there because God istelling you you are out of it
and these are consequences forliving out of it.
So David had his consequences.
He lost four sons.
Let me ask you a question Didthat affect David to lose four
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sons?
Well, it affected him terribly.
Do you think it affected themothers of those sons?
This is Mother's.
Day.
You have children To lose a son.
I've known some families wholost those sons.
This is Mother's Day.
You have children To lose a son.
I've known some families wholost some sons Buried, two of
them Both killed in Iraq.
Right, it's hard to watch thosefamilies.
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One of those families barelymade it.
You know the marriage barelymade it, but they did make it.
You know they did make it bythe grace of God.
It's a very difficult thing tolose sons.
David lost four.
The mothers lost the sons too.
They were affected terribly bywhat David did.
See, sin has consequences.
Some of those sons already hadfamilies.
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Do you think it affected theirwives and their kids?
Yeah, that happened among ushere recently.
Right, it's very, verydifficult.
There was a lot of consequences.
These consequences weredisastrous and they're really
unavoidable.
So once you or I do somethingstupid like that guess what?
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You have the rest of your lifeto live with those consequences.
And we'll talk about that atthe end, because we have to wrap
up with answering how do wedeal with it, how do we deal
with these consequences?
But let's move to the third.
The third step is conviction.
I know that's two religions ofa word in the 21st century.
So I like to use the termconvince.
Okay, convince.
Was David convinced of his sinat first?
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No, it's like he was obliviousto what he was doing.
It took nathan coming on thescene and telling him the story
about the little lamb and therich man and the poor man, and
how the rich man took the poorman's lamb and had it
slaughtered to feed a strangerright.
Um.
So why did Nathan have to goaround Robin Hood's barn, so to
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speak, to try to convince Davidthat he had sinned?
Because David had his defensesup, like we all do when we sin,
see, whenever we sin, we startsuppressing the guilt
immediately.
Maybe we play the blameshifting game, like David.
Well, if it just hadn't beenfor Bathsheba getting naked on a
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roof over there, see, it's herfault.
See, it's her fault.
Or maybe we play the game well,you know, I'm the king, I have
the power to do it.
Or maybe we play the card.
Well, you know, I mean, I'vebeen working really hard so I
deserve this.
These are all therationalizations that go on to
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try to justify so that we don'tfeel convinced or convicted of
our sin.
But Nathan did use thisapproach, he did break through
to David and it finally clickedwith David what he had done.
He was convinced.
You have to be convinced.
Just because you're in closeproximity to your sin does not
(28:19):
mean you are convinced of it.
David shows us that you may beright on top of your sin and
still not convinced that you'resinning.
And it may take something likethis to happen to convince you.
The fourth step once you areconvinced because you have to be
convinced to go to the fourthstep.
(28:41):
I mean, who's going to confess?
Fourth step who's going toconfess if they're not convinced
?
You're never going to right.
You're still in the right.
You're still justified in whatyou're doing.
So turn to Psalm 51 for this.
This is the model for it.
(29:01):
This is the famous confessionalpsalms.
He also has a psalm ofconfession in Psalm 32 and Psalm
38.
So you may want to read thoselater, but Psalm 51 is a classic
.
This, by the way, is how yourecover from a sin, whether it's
a massive sin, let's say, so tospeak, adultery and murder, or
just you know, people say, well,that's a little failure, it
(29:24):
doesn't make much of adifference.
No, the mechanics are the sameand they have to be dealt with
the same way.
Psalm 51, verse 4,.
This is the key.
You have to come to this pointin your thinking.
Against you and you only have Isinned.
Now some of you might think,well, gosh, david, don't you
(29:47):
realize how many other lives youmessed up?
Yeah, david did come to realizethat too.
But at the point of conviction,you know what.
That's not the issue.
The issue is being convincedthat you sinned against the
personal God who created you andwho is the standard for what is
right and wrong.
Everybody else doesn't matterat this point, because everybody
else isn't the standard.
God is the one who's righteousand just.
He is the standard for what'sright and wrong.
(30:07):
David says against you and youonly have I sin.
And when he says that his wholefocus has become what does God
think about what I did?
Okay, so this thing, when we dothis in confession, when we
come to this point, this is avery personal moment in
(30:28):
confession and I really want tostress this point.
This is a very personal momentin confession and I really want
to stress this point Becausewhen you are telling God you are
the standard and I violatedyour personal, infinite standard
, that is as personal as you canget with your creator.
Okay, it's a very personalmoment.
(30:50):
Think today of how backwards alot of therapy is.
Most therapy, when people seekpsychological counseling and all
the rest of it nine times outof ten.
What is their method for tryingto help you get past?
Whatever your issue is, we needto dig up your past.
We need to find out why you'rebehaving the way you're behaving
.
We need to find out if yourmommy dropped you on your head
(31:12):
when you were five years old, orif your teacher used a red
marker to mark up your paper sothat you feel bad about yourself
Because it's not really yourfault.
It's your mommy's fault, it'syour teacher's fault, it's
everybody else's fault and youneed to realize that so you can
just move on.
(31:33):
Isn't that entirely the oppositeof Psalm 51?
That's denial, denial that Idid anything wrong and it's my
fault.
And Psalm 51 is saying no, no,no, no, no, no, when we have
solved the problems, when we'vegone directly to God and we've
said no, I am at fault, it'scompletely my fault, I'm the one
who did it.
I can't blame it on Bathsheba.
It's certainly not Uriah'sfault.
(31:53):
It's my fault, I did it and Iviolated your standard.
So modern psychology is prettymuch 100% opposite of the way
the Bible says.
We need to deal with our sin.
Okay, now at the point ofconfession.
There, verse 4, against you andyou only have our sin.
(32:15):
Now, at that point, you havebeen convinced, right, that you
sin against God, even though youmay have hurt other people.
He's the main concern, that'sthe key to confession.
Okay, and that's what Davidused.
Now, at the end of verse 4,notice what it looks like he
says so that you are justified.
(32:35):
He says when you speak and you,god, are blameless when you
judge.
Why is that put into verse 4?
Why does he say that you arejustified when you speak?
What is always the temptation,see, when we come right up to
the point of confession, butbefore we can really confess
that we've sinned against God,there's a temptation to put in
there, where we try to avoid allthe responsibility and we want
(33:01):
to blame a little bit of it onGod.
Remember the story of Adam andEve.
It's this woman you gave me.
Well, god, if you hadn't givenme the woman I'd, you know, I
never would have ate, you knowit's.
It's sort of your fault, see.
So we want to blame god forsetting up the situation.
(33:24):
Um, god is not interested inyour excuses at all, but when
you're saying, like David at theend of verse 4, you are
justified when you speak.
That's the point where you'resaying I'm not putting any blame
on you, I don't blame you inthe least, it's all my fault,
it's all my fault, all me, 100%.
(33:45):
He goes on verses 5 and 6.
Okay, or 5 through 8.
He goes on to confess not and 6, okay, or 5 through 8.
He goes on to confess not onlythe personal act of sin, but
note, he talks about his own sinnature being the root of this.
He says behold, I was broughtforth in iniquity and sin.
Did my mother conceive me?
One of my neighbors, he's RomanCatholic.
He says what do you think thatmeans?
(34:07):
Well, it means that he's notblaming his mom for what he did.
He's saying when I was conceivedin my mother's womb, I, I, was
a sinner by nature.
At that point, we're conceivedin with a sin nature, we're born
with sin nature, so that thepersonal sins we commit come out
of the sin nature that wepossess, even from conception.
(34:30):
See.
And David's saying sin isrooted deeply within me.
Okay, verse 6, behold, youdesire truth in the innermost
part and in the hidden part, youwill make me no wisdom.
So there's a tension therebetween my flesh here, the sin
nature that I have, that Ireceived at conception, and what
(34:52):
you want, god, deep within me.
You want a changed heart withinme.
You see, the tension we havethat we all have that tension,
right, we know fundamentally, bynature, we have this sin nature
thing that we'd love to get ridof.
Right, and we will.
We will in the resurrection, nomore sin nature.
But before we even get theresurrection body, we still want
(35:13):
truth in us.
We want that to dominate, wewant that to control.
But it creates a tension in us,doesn't it?
And it's the tension that Paulexperiences in Romans 7.
It's this whole tension.
You know, the thing I want todo.
I can't do, the thing I do Ihate.
See, it's no longer I, he says,but sin dwelling in me.
And he says, finally, theanswer is Romans 8, right, thank
(35:33):
God for the Holy Spirit whoindwells us, because apart from
him I can't.
I can't beat the flesh.
I can't, I can't do it, I can'twork up enough.
You know, to defeat the flesh,I've got to learn to yield to
the Holy Spirit and that's theonly way.
So there's that tension andDavid had that tension.
Verses 7 to 8 are his prayer.
(35:54):
In light of that.
Here's his prayer after he'sconfessed Purify me with hyssop
and I shall be clean.
Wash me and I shall be whiterthan snow.
Make me to hear joy andgladness.
Let the bones which you havebroken rejoice.
What do you mean?
Let the bones that you brokeand rejoice?
He's not talking about physicalbreaking of the bone, but he's
talking about the misery that hewas facing while he was under
(36:16):
divine discipline, all theconsequences he had to
experience because of his sin.
See Verse 9,.
Hide your face from my sins andblot out all my iniquities.
Now we know how God hides hisface from our sins now because
we live after the cross.
I mean Jesus Christ paid forthem all.
But here's David.
He's before the cross.
He didn't know exactly how Godwas going to resolve it, but he
(36:40):
has.
In verse 10 create in me a cleanheart, oh God, and renew a
steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from yourpresence and do not take your
holy spirit from me.
You know people say well, youcan your presence and do not
take your Holy Spirit from me.
People say well, you can losethe Holy Spirit.
Well, this is in the OldTestament.
The king was anointed and theHoly Spirit would come upon.
The king Came from prophets,priests and kings, but not
(37:04):
normally on the average person.
In the Old Testament it'sdifferent now.
In the New Testament, allbelievers have the Holy Spirit
indwelling in them and he won'tleave.
Right, we can grieve him, buthe's never going to leave us.
But in the Old Testament it wasthat way and the kings could
lose the Holy Spirit.
What had happened to Saul, theking before David?
Remember?
The Holy Spirit left Saul.
(37:29):
So does David think here, maybehe's going to lose his salvation
or something?
No, it never even crossed hismind.
But what he does think is thathe could lose his dynasty.
He could lose his kingly, royaldynasty.
So he says take not your spiritfrom me In verse 12, restore to
(37:50):
me the joy of your salvationand sustain me with a willing
spirit.
You know we don't.
We don't have the joy of oursalvation when we're living out
of fellowship.
See, we don't enjoy it anymore.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm saved.
We don't really care that much.
It doesn't occupy our attention, it doesn't occupy our time or
our thought.
So he says restore to me thejoy of your salvation.
(38:12):
And then he goes on to describehow he will use this.
Okay, so those are the firstfour steps.
Can you commit some sin?
There are consequences.
Now You're out of fellowshipand going to be disciplined.
You have to come to the pointof conviction in order to
confess.
And the fifth thing is God'sresponse, and this is
restoration.
This is what he does for uswhen we confess.
(38:35):
Now, this is a little bittricky, so we want to work with
this one for just a few minutes.
David probably had a problemwith this, because he asked in
verse 8 to hear joy and gladness.
I want to hear joy and gladness.
Did David hear joy and gladnesswhen, when his sons were
brought in in body bags?
(38:57):
And this is no joke, this iswhat this man had to live with.
See, I don't think he washearing the sounds of joy and
gladness when his sons weremarched in Son number one, son
number two, son number three.
And I don't think this prayerwas entirely answered in his
life.
It was answered to some extent,but ultimately, I think this
(39:19):
will be answered for David ineternity.
In eternity, because a lot ofthe hurt and pain that comes
with these sins.
It continues, it's just with you.
It just doesn't go away.
What happens when we confessour sin?
Of course, at that moment, godimmediately forgives us.
He puts us back in fellowship.
That's what we mean.
(39:39):
The consequences don't go away.
It's not like somehow erased.
In fact, the fact that theconsequences do continue our
life is what often makes usthink that God didn't really
forgive us.
Watch this, okay, because what'shappening when that happens is
(40:00):
Satan is trying to pull one overon you.
Okay, he's trying to make youthink see, god hasn't forgiven
you.
Okay, because look at theconsequences of your sin.
They're still there and he'sstill after you.
He's still disciplining you.
He hasn't forgiven you.
You're not even worthy of beingforgiven.
Well, hold on.
Yes, okay, he has forgiven youthe moment you confess.
(40:25):
He perfectly cleansed you.
But Satan doesn't want you tothink that.
Why doesn't Satan want you tothink that?
Because Satan sinned too.
And guess what?
He never got forgiven.
He rebelled against God andhe's never been forgiven for it.
And so he doesn't like it that,when you confess, god forgives
you and he doesn't want you tothink for one second that you're
(40:48):
forgiven.
He wants to make you feel likeyou're unusable to God, that
you're nothing, because he wantsto destroy your Christian life.
That's what he wants to do.
So you have to disciplineyourself to realize when I
(41:11):
confess, I am restored tofellowship, even though the
consequences go on.
Now we want to finish by talkinga little bit about these
consequences that go on and wrapup with this.
Even though David was restored,he realized I've got to work
through the consequences of myown sin.
This is pretty much the hardestthing to do.
(41:32):
Okay, in life it's not thatdifficult to deal with other
people who, like, persecute youand things like that.
But if, when you know it's youwho made a stink of a mess and
you've got to deal with all thecrud that you made, okay, it
(41:55):
aggravates you mentally becauseyou keep coming back to the fact
that you're the idiot that didit and you can't blame your mom.
You can't blame your dad.
You can't blame your boss.
You can't blame yourenvironment.
You can't blame your school,your teachers.
You can't blame your boss.
You can't blame yourenvironment.
You can't blame your school,your teachers.
You can't blame anybody exceptyourself.
And that was David right.
(42:15):
And David realized he had todeal with this.
He had to deal with this yearafter year after year.
I imagine the words of Nathanwhen Nathan proclaimed the
judgment that he was going tolose four of his sons.
I imagine these words cameringing in his ears every time
one of his sons was brought inand it terrified him.
It terrorized him.
Son number one comes in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's me again, the idiot who did this and
(42:38):
brought all this on myself.
Son number two.
Here we go again.
Son number three Okay.
And through all this, I'm surethere was a temptation from
Satan to say to David hey, david, why don't you just give up?
You're nothing, you're a waste,you ruined everything and you
(43:00):
can't go on anywhere in theChristian life.
You're a loser.
I'm sure this was going throughhis mind, just like it goes
through our minds.
A lot You're nobody.
But every time it happened,guess minds a lot, you're nobody
.
But every time it happened,guess what?
David didn't do that.
No, we know he didn't, becausehe wrote more Psalms.
(43:23):
We see that through it all, hewas worshiping God.
That's why.
That's why God says David is aman after my own heart.
The question we all have is isthat the same evaluation we
would give David.
It even says in the prophetsDavid followed the Lord with his
whole heart His whole heart.
(43:43):
Many Christians say that'simpossible.
The guy committed adultery andmurder.
You can't say he followed withhis whole heart.
How can that be?
Does God like sin or something?
No, god doesn't like sin.
We miss the point if we reachthat conclusion.
What we have to see is that herewas a man who, at a moment in
his life you know what he failed.
He blew it, okay, but guesswhat?
(44:06):
He didn't stay in failure modeand that's the key he got back
in fellowship with the Lord.
That's what it means to be aman or a woman after God's own
heart.
It's not that you never fail,it's about what you do when you
do fail.
Do you get back in fellowshipwith the Lord, do you keep
(44:28):
walking with Him?
That is what makes all thedifference in the world to God
and that is what he's lookingfor from your life.
So there are the five steps.
Okay, we sin right, thought,word or deed.
(44:49):
We're out of fellowship.
There are consequences.
We have to learn to live withthese.
We live with them by the graceof God, to overcome them when we
are convicted of our sin and weneed to be hard on ourselves in
the sense that we don't need tobe rationalizing our sin away
and trying to justify all of oursin, because we're never going
to confess if we do that.
(45:09):
Instead, we're just going toget more and more stuck in sin.
So be easily convicted of yoursin, right.
Confess the sin as it's againstGod, and God only because he's
the standard.
And at that moment, what doeshe do?
He restores us, he puts us backin fellowship and we keep
moving forward.
(45:30):
It's hard because if you'reanything like me and I imagine
you probably are you feel likesometimes it's worthless to try
to get back up and just go again, because you feel like you're
just going to fall again.
But that's what God wants youto do.
He wants you to get back upagain and keep going, even if
(45:51):
it's just a few steps forwardand you fall again, still get
back up again and keep going.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Thank you for listening to this episode of
Beyond the Walls with JeremyThomas.
If you're interested inlearning about the foundational
doctrines and themes of theBible that gave rise to this
series, then Season 1 of thispodcast is for you, on the
basics.
Additional material can befound on our website at
(46:19):
beyondthewalls-ministrycom.
If you found this informationuseful and helpful in your
spiritual walk, then pleaseconsider rating this podcast in
your favorite podcast player.
And until next time, we hopeyou're living by the fruit of
the Spirit.
Welcome to the Framework Series on Beyond the
Walls with Jeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And the point is this God is not looking for people
who never sin.
He already found that in JesusChrist.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Sin always comes with consequences Small consequences
for small sins, largeconsequences for large sins.
Sometimes they are of shortduration, sometimes they might
last a lifetime, but the goodnews is they don't have to be
(00:35):
fatal and they don't destroyyour salvation in Christ.
They do impact yourrelationships among those on
earth and they definitely impactyour relationship with our
Father in heaven.
But there is a path torestoration.
The key is to be watching yourown life, listening to others,
(01:04):
and recognize your sin andconfess it quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Okay, we've been working with kingship in Israel.
The rise of the kingship,israel's history of kingship, we
said, began really in Egypt,where they were in slavery and
under Pharaoh who was the king.
In Egypt, where they were inslavery and under Pharaoh who
was the king.
So they got their model forkingship first from Egypt.
Pharaoh, in their mind, was theone who brought stability to
(01:34):
their lives.
At the Exodus, of course, theywent out of Egypt and what did
they immediately begin to do?
But groan and want to go backto Egypt, because that's where
the Pharaoh had providedstability and security.
But at Mount Sinai, god becametheir king when he delivered the
Ten Commandments to Moses andhe gave them the law.
(01:55):
This was the law of a father, aloving father, to a son, israel
, and as long as the son learnedto listen, to trust and to obey
the law of their king, theywould be blessed.
But we know that generationfailed right and they wandered
in the wilderness for 40 years.
Then came Joshua and they wentinto the land to conquer the
(02:19):
land that God had given them inthe covenant he made with
Abraham, isaac and Jacob.
And they only partiallyconquered the land because they
only partially listened, theyonly partially trusted and they
only partially obeyed.
While in the land now, theylived among their enemies, the
Philistines and others.
And during the time of thejudges, the 12 tribes descended
(02:43):
into chaos.
Every man, it says, did whatwas right in his own eyes and
finally they became tired of thejudges.
The 12 tribes descended intochaos.
Every man, it says, did whatwas right in his own eyes and
finally they became tired of thechaos, like people do when
there's no government, and thenthey cry out for big government.
And that's basically what theydid.
They cried out for a king.
They said we want a king likeall the other nations.
Now, god had actually slatedfor them to have a king in the
(03:07):
law, but it was to be a king ofhis own choosing.
And the king they wanted was aking of their own choosing, a
king like all the other nations,one who would go out and fight
their battles for them and givethem security and stability.
God reluctantly gave them a kingof their desire.
He gave them Saul.
Saul was a king who looked thepart.
(03:30):
He was a head taller thaneveryone else and everybody
thought this is the guy.
But Saul was a man of the flesh.
He couldn't wait on the Lord,he couldn't trust the Lord and
he couldn't obey the Lord.
So God rejected Saul and in hisplace he did choose a king that
he really wanted, and that wasDavid right, a shepherd boy, a
(03:54):
young boy who was a man afterGod's own heart.
This was the kind of king thatGod was interested in them
having.
He was a man of faith, he waspatient, he waited on the Lord.
He didn't even kill Saul'srival, dynasty right.
He allowed the Lord to removeSaul at the proper time.
He served righteousness andjustice to the people.
(04:16):
The Psalms tell us he got upevery morning and he prayed to
the Lord and he listened to theword of God.
And because of this, 2 Samuel 7says that God made an eternal
covenant with David, a covenantpromising an eternal dynasty, an
eternal throne and an eternalkingdom.
And it's this covenant, calledthe Davidic covenant, that sets
(04:39):
the direction for world history.
World history is ultimatelygoing to a time when the seed of
David, whom we know as JesusChrist, is going to rule the
world forever and ever.
So David came into thisfather-son relationship with the
(05:01):
Lord, and the text says that ifDavid would listen to the Lord,
if David would trust the Lord.
If David would obey the Lord,the Lord would bless David.
Right, and David did.
Initially he trusted the Lord,he continued to trust and obey,
but something we found wentwrong in his spiritual life.
Right, like many of us, we canstart well, but there are times
(05:22):
when we lapse, and this happenedwith David.
We read in the 2 Samuel that itwas the time of spring.
It was the time when kings wentout to battle and David had
faithfully done this and led hissoldiers year after year, until
this year, it says.
He didn't wake up till eveningand he was in his palace, which
(05:43):
meant he was up all night thenight before doing who knows
what.
When he rose in the evening, hewent out on his veranda of his
palace and he looked down thecity of david and he saw a woman
not just any woman, but abeautiful woman on a rooftop
taking a bath.
Now, this was a formula fordisaster, because because David
(06:05):
hadn't been tending to hisspiritual life, had he.
He called this woman ofbeautiful form up to the palace.
It just happened to be the timewhen she was ripe for
conception and she did conceive.
David tried to cover it up byinviting her husband, uriah, to
come home from the front lines,but he had too much integrity to
(06:26):
go and be with his wife.
He slept on the king'sdoorsteps to protect David.
So David sent orders to thegeneral to put Uriah on the
front lines and, in the heat ofthe battle, to back away so he
would be killed and David couldcover his sin.
(06:48):
Now it's at this point that wecome to the doctrine that
relates to this whole event ofthe rise and reign of King David
, and that's the doctrine offellowship.
This is part of the doctrine ofwhat we call sanctification, a
word that just fundamentallymeans to be set apart.
Every time I teach the childrenabout sanctification, I always
(07:11):
say do you have anything special?
Is it a doll?
Is it a car?
What is it Something that'sspecial to you?
You got it for Christmas, yougot it for your birthday?
Oh yes.
And they all have somethingright that is precious to them.
It's something that they setapart, so when their friends
come over, they put it up sonobody breaks it right.
That's what the word sanctifybasically means to set something
(07:35):
apart for a special purpose.
And God sets us apart in threephases.
He first sets us apart themoment that we believe in Christ
, he sets us apart positionallyfrom the world system.
We call this justification.
It happens at a moment in timeGod declares us to be perfectly
(07:55):
righteous.
It's our position.
We are set apart at that pointfrom the penalty of sin.
We will never suffer thepenalty of sin.
We will never suffer eternalcondemnation.
Right, we are counted righteouswith God.
The second time he sets usapart is experiential, okay, and
we normally just call thissanctification.
(08:16):
But technically, sanctificationcan refer to all three of these
.
I like to just call it spiritualgrowth because it's the time
from when you believed in Christ.
However long the Lord allowsyou to live on this world,
that's the period of yourspiritual growth.
Maybe he comes back at therapture and takes us today.
So the moment from your faithin Christ until the rapture, or
(08:39):
the moment from your faith inChrist until you pass out of
this world, that's the period ofsanctification, where we are
experiencing spiritual growth.
So it's a process.
It takes time and we saidearlier in the series.
We said God, when he grows us,he's not growing a squash.
It takes six months.
He's growing an oak.
It takes 100 years.
So be patient.
(08:59):
It takes time.
Spiritual growth doesn't happenovernight, it takes a lifetime.
The third setting apart is ourultimate sanctification, and
that's when we receive aresurrection body.
This is when we'll be set apartfrom the presence of sin
altogether.
Right, we get glorified when wesee Christ.
We shall be like him, for weshall see him as he is.
We are resurrected, right, theresurrection body.
(09:20):
So that's the ultimate settingapart, the final and third phase
.
Well, when we talk about Davidand we talk about the doctrine
of fellowship, we're talkingabout the second phase, the
experiential one, the one rightin the middle.
There, our experience has twodimensions to it.
There's the fellowship, whichis the moment by moment.
(09:41):
Are you in fellowship, are youout of fellowship?
And then there's the maturitydimension, and maturity looks at
the long-term growth.
It says how much have you grownup over the last five years, 10
years, 20 years?
Our problem is a lot of timesis we focus on the day-to-day
and we're having a bad day or abad week and we forget to look
(10:05):
at the maturity dimension and weforget to say to ourselves okay
, I may be having a bad day, buthow much has the Lord grown me
over the last five years and 10years?
It's always encouraging to goback to the maturity question
and ask yourself when you'rehaving tough times, yeah, but
has the Lord developed me?
And the answer is usuallyalways yes, right, he has so
relax.
Okay, we're tough times, yeah,but has the Lord developed me?
(10:27):
And the answer is usuallyalways yes, he has so relax,
we're in process.
Now David.
Of course, when he committedthis with Bathsheba, he had
already grown to spiritualmaturity, but he had gotten lazy
in his spiritual life andthat's when he fell into sin
with Bathsheba and Uriah.
And of course, this is thewhole part in 2 Samuel that most
people remember about David'slife.
(10:48):
He gets pretty bad rap inChristian circles because they
see these terrible sins likeadultery and murder and they say
, well, there's no way this guyis a good guy.
Who would ever want to be likeDavid?
But this is the only guy in allof Scripture that God gives the
(11:10):
evaluation that this is a manafter my own heart.
So the challenge is to not beself-righteous, because we've
all committed terrible sins andwe're not too unlike David.
It's just like reading Jonah.
(11:30):
You know we get mad at Jonahbecause Jonah didn't want to go
to the Ninevites.
The reason we get mad at Jonahis because you know what we're
mad at ourselves, because wealso are just like him.
We don't want to give peoplethe gospel because we think they
don't deserve it.
So we think that David's notreally much to look at.
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But the Bible says he's the manafter God's own heart.
The prophet comes to him, tellshim a little story of a lamb.
It was raised by a poor man andbecame their pet.
And a rich man came and tookthat lamb and slaughtered it to
feed a stranger who was visitingthe town.
And David became very angry atthe rich man for doing this.
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And Nathan said you are the man, because God gave you
everything, david.
He gave you the kingdom, hegave you power, he gave you
wealth.
He gave you everything youwanted.
He gave you the kingdom, hegave you power, he gave you
wealth.
He gave you everything youwanted.
And what did you do?
You had to take the one thingthat Uriah had.
You had to take poor Uriah'swife, bathsheba.
You are the man.
So David was convicted of hissin at that moment.
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Psalm 51 recounts his confessionof his sin and how he was
restored to fellowship, andthat's why we bring up the
doctrine of fellowship, part ofexperiential sanctification in
the story of David, and we learnfrom him about what this
doctrine is all about.
And the point is this God isnot looking for people who never
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sin.
He already found that in JesusChrist, right.
He didn't find it in you and hedidn't find it in me, but he
found it in Jesus Christ.
And so what is God looking for,then, in us?
He's looking for believers who,when they are sin, when we sin,
we are convicted of our sin, weconfess our sin and we're
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restored to fellowship and wekeep going, we don't quit in the
Christian life.
So David becomes a picture ofthe model believer.
So let's look at this doctrinethrough his life and show how it
applies over into our life.
I've got a couple of diagramshere.
On the left you see David, onthe right you see yourself us.
(13:44):
David's life is controlled bybasically two covenants here,
and we're going to see that ourlife is controlled by two things
as well.
On David's side, david's a partof the nation Israel.
He's an Israelite right.
As such, the first thing thatcontrols his life is known as
the Abrahamic covenant.
In that covenant, which isdisplayed by this large circle
that's blue, there were certainpromises.
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As a member of the nationisrael, he was heir of the land,
the seed, and would be a partof the nation.
There's a worldwide blessing.
So that is his position.
It is a solid circle on theoutside, depicting that if you
are part of this nation, likedavid, you are a part of this
nation.
Like David, you are a recipientof this Abrahamic covenant.
(14:27):
Second, though, there's anothercovenant, and that's the one
that controls his experience,and it's the red circle, the
smaller circle.
He was to live according to thelaw that was in the Mosaic
covenant, and if David and hissons committed sin, they'd be
like any other Israelite.
God would correct them with therod of men and the strokes of
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the sons of men.
So discipline right.
And if David and his sonscommitted sin, they'd be like
any other Israelite.
God would correct them with therod of men and the strokes of
the sons of men.
So discipline right.
So his experience is depictedby that little red circle.
Now, he's always in the bluecircle, but the red circle is a
dashed line.
That means you can go in andout of it.
You can either be obeying theMosaic covenant and be in the
red circle, what we callfellowship or you'd be out of it
.
You can either be obeying theMosaic covenant and be in the
red circle what we callfellowship or you'd be out of
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the red circle and be out offellowship.
Okay.
So whenever, of course, david,you know, called Bathsheba to
the palace, whenever David gaveorders to have Uriah basically
murdered, well, he was out ofthe red circle right and he was
(15:28):
getting deep in sin.
So the important point, though,is that David could never get
out of the blue circle, could he?
He was always in that circle,he was always still a recipient
of the Abrahamic covenant, buthe could go in and out of the
red circle and be in discipline,okay.
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So, in the same way, we on theright side see we can either be
in fellowship or we can be outof fellowship.
So this is the analog.
We also have a position.
The big blue circle on theright Okay, it's a large circle
that is defined by us being inChrist.
If you have believed in Christ,guess what?
You have been incorporated intohim.
You are in Christ, seated inheavenly, in the heavenlies, in
(16:12):
Christ Jesus.
Okay, that is your position.
Nothing can ever change that.
There are a number ofpositional truths that are
related to us being in him.
Okay, lewis Barry Chaferenumerated 33 truths that happen
the moment you believe in JesusChrist.
Things like you were redeemed.
Not you're being redeemed, youare redeemed.
(16:34):
It's a done deal.
You've been reconciled to God,you've been forgiven of all your
trespasses, you've been adoptedinto his family, you are
justified, you are predestined.
The list goes on and on.
There's 33 of these things.
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Those all define our position,our relationship being in Christ
.
And just like David had aposition, right, so we have a
position.
So that's where the parallel isokay.
However, we also have ourexperience in the little red
circle down there.
David was to obey the laws ofthe Mosaic Covenant.
Okay, we're not under theMosaic Covenant, that was the
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national constitution of Israel.
Okay, but we were given the lawof Christ, discussed in
Galatians 6 and also in 1stCorinthians.
Our experience is defined bywhether we are obeying or
disobeying the law of Christ.
So the law of Christ isbasically the New Testament
commands that we've been givenDon't do this, do this instead,
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don't do this, do this instead,and so forth.
So we also have the same twocircles that David had.
Okay, again, what tends tohappen in our Christian life is,
we tend to get all focused onthe commands and we fail right.
We fail to live by grace in theChristian life and, as such, we
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don't live by the Spirit and wedon't have the fruit of the
Spirit in our life and thereforewe get out of fellowship.
So we get discouraged, we getstuck, and all because one thing
we don't do enough of is goback to our position in Christ
and remember those 33 thingsthat God did for us the moment
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we trusted in Christ.
Now, of course, that's the wayto make your experience line up
with your position is to go backto your position and ask
yourself well, who am I?
Well, I'm redeemed, I'mreconciled, I'm adopted, I'm a
child of God, I'm justified, I'mreconciled, I'm propitiated.
You go back to all those thingsand what does it do it?
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You go back to all those thingsand what does it do?
It reminds you of who you arein Christ, and you're able to
get back up on your two feet andget back in fellowship with the
Lord and keep walking.
So we want to.
Another way to say this is, ifyou look at that diagram on the
right, the big circle out there,we can get out of that little
circle, but you never get out ofthe blue one, right?
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Some people call that eternalsecurity, right, and some people
say we don't like it.
I don't like eternal security.
I think you can lose yoursalvation.
This is part and parcel of notlike studying the Bible
thematically and seeing thesebigger pictures, because this is
definitely there.
You can get out of fellowship,sure, but you can never get out
of the relationship.
You can get out of fellowship,sure, but you can never get out
(19:24):
of the relationship Once you'vebelieved in Christ.
No one can separate you fromthe love of Christ.
We are in Christ's hand andChrist is in the Father's hand
and you ain't getting out ofthere.
Okay, you can't do anythingabout it.
Even if we are faithless, paultold Timothy he is faithful.
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He will not deny himself.
So we can be terrible believers, but guess what?
We're still believers.
He's got us in the palm of hishand and he's never going to let
us go.
That's not a justification tosin.
What is it?
It's a motivation to live bygrace so we don't sin.
It's a motivation to get backin fellowship and to keep going
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Right.
So let's dig into this doctrineand break it down, the doctrine
of fellowship into five points.
Okay, we're just going to talkabout this fellowship dimension,
getting in and out of that redcircle there.
Okay, we're doing this becauseDavid did this.
David was in the red circle.
Then he had his thing withBathsheba, got out of the circle
, murdered Uriah.
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He's still out of the circle.
So let's see what happens.
The first step you commit sin.
Right, david committed adulteryAt that moment.
He was out of that red circle.
Now, isn't the same thing truefor us?
The moment we commit some sinin thought, word or deed?
All sins aren't just externalthings that other people can see
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.
It can be things in yourthoughts.
It can be words that you say,of course, or deeds that you do.
The moment we do that, we'reout of the inner circle, we're
out of that little red circle.
Now, what tends to happen?
If we get out of that circleand we stay out of that circle,
we tend to do just like DavidCommit more sin.
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You know, really rack up thepoints.
So David had Uriah killed, itwasn't a good thing, but the
principle here is that one sinleads to another sin and before
you know it, you're out ofcontrol, right, and you start
developing what we call habitpatterns in sinning, right?
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I know you don't have anyexperience with this, so if I'm
speaking over your head, pleaselet me know.
Okay, this is what happens.
You form habits in sinning.
A lot of these, actually, wecarried over from when we were
unbelievers, right, especiallyif we became believers later in
life.
We formed a lot of habitpatterns for sinning.
Those don't go away overnight.
Most of the time, you typicallytake those into the life and
you have to learn to deal withit as a Christian.
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Okay, but this is what happenswhen you get out of fellowship,
you start sinning and more andmore sinning.
Okay, before you know it, it mayhave started off as some little
sin, some little white lie orsomething, but before you know
it, you commit what we call thebig whammer, something that is,
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let's just say, a big problem,and that's what David did.
It's hard to get out of these.
That's why I imagine what wasreally going on with David was
he was committing a lot oflittle sins and he was out of
that red box and then theBathsheba thing happened.
I don't think that justhappened overnight.
It takes time to get to thatpoint and you don't want to
allow yourself to do like Davidand get to that point right.
So the problem is what we tendto do.
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We tend to go through ups anddowns in life.
We get spiritually lazy attimes, we don't manage the
little sins in our life andsuddenly we do some big sin.
We know basically how thisworks.
Now this should scare you.
It's supposed to scare you.
The story about David here issupposed to scare you, and the
reason is because most of usthink I would never commit a big
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sin like murder or adultery.
But this is scary because thisis the man, david, who was a man
after God's own heart and hedid both.
He did both.
The moment you begin to thinkyou're not capable of this is
the moment that you are introuble.
You are in trouble.
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You're not thinking I reallyneed to stay on top of my
spiritual life because I'mcapable of the same types of
things that David did, becauseyou are the second step after
committing sin.
What there are consequences?
Okay, sin always hasconsequences.
Were there consequences toDavid's sin?
You remember what they were?
Nathan told him he's going tolose four sons.
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Four of his boys were going todie.
See, there's always consequencesto sin, because once you sin in
the world.
There are consequences in theworld for sin, because sin
cannot be negated.
It has consequences.
That's just the way it is.
There are no free passes.
People say, well, I'll justconfess it, great, you will
immediately get back infellowship.
But guess what?
It's not going to erase thenegative consequences of your
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sin.
It just can't.
They will not go away.
That's the way it works.
All the consequences of sin arealways negative.
Okay, so sin is what separatesus from God, but it only
separates us in a fellowshipsense.
And we do go through andexperience experience of death.
Romans talks about this.
Romans 6, 7, and 8 talk aboutthe experience that a Christian
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has of death, meaning separationfrom fellowship, not from the
relationship.
You can't lose your salvation,but when you're out of
fellowship you are having anexperience of death because
you're not enjoying the lifethat you have in Christ.
And life becomes a drag becauseyou're not living the way that
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God created you to live inChrist.
So life becomes a drudgery.
Okay, so that experience isthere for a reason.
It's there because God istelling you you are out of it
and these are consequences forliving out of it.
So David had his consequences.
He lost four sons.
Let me ask you a question Didthat affect David to lose four
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sons?
Well, it affected him terribly.
Do you think it affected themothers of those sons?
This is Mother's.
Day.
You have children To lose a son.
I've known some families wholost those sons.
This is Mother's Day.
You have children To lose a son.
I've known some families wholost some sons Buried, two of
them Both killed in Iraq.
Right, it's hard to watch thosefamilies.
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One of those families barelymade it.
You know the marriage barelymade it, but they did make it.
You know they did make it bythe grace of God.
It's a very difficult thing tolose sons.
David lost four.
The mothers lost the sons too.
They were affected terribly bywhat David did.
See, sin has consequences.
Some of those sons already hadfamilies.
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Do you think it affected theirwives and their kids?
Yeah, that happened among ushere recently.
Right, it's very, verydifficult.
There was a lot of consequences.
These consequences weredisastrous and they're really
unavoidable.
So once you or I do somethingstupid like that guess what?
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You have the rest of your lifeto live with those consequences.
And we'll talk about that atthe end, because we have to wrap
up with answering how do wedeal with it, how do we deal
with these consequences?
But let's move to the third.
The third step is conviction.
I know that's two religions ofa word in the 21st century.
So I like to use the termconvince.
Okay, convince.
Was David convinced of his sinat first?
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No, it's like he was obliviousto what he was doing.
It took nathan coming on thescene and telling him the story
about the little lamb and therich man and the poor man, and
how the rich man took the poorman's lamb and had it
slaughtered to feed a strangerright.
Um.
So why did Nathan have to goaround Robin Hood's barn, so to
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speak, to try to convince Davidthat he had sinned?
Because David had his defensesup, like we all do when we sin,
see, whenever we sin, we startsuppressing the guilt
immediately.
Maybe we play the blameshifting game, like David.
Well, if it just hadn't beenfor Bathsheba getting naked on a
(27:34):
roof over there, see, it's herfault.
See, it's her fault.
Or maybe we play the game well,you know, I'm the king, I have
the power to do it.
Or maybe we play the card.
Well, you know, I mean, I'vebeen working really hard so I
deserve this.
These are all therationalizations that go on to
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try to justify so that we don'tfeel convinced or convicted of
our sin.
But Nathan did use thisapproach, he did break through
to David and it finally clickedwith David what he had done.
He was convinced.
You have to be convinced.
Just because you're in closeproximity to your sin does not
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mean you are convinced of it.
David shows us that you may beright on top of your sin and
still not convinced that you'resinning.
And it may take something likethis to happen to convince you.
The fourth step once you areconvinced because you have to be
convinced to go to the fourthstep.
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I mean, who's going to confess?
Fourth step who's going toconfess if they're not convinced
?
You're never going to right.
You're still in the right.
You're still justified in whatyou're doing.
So turn to Psalm 51 for this.
This is the model for it.
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This is the famous confessionalpsalms.
He also has a psalm ofconfession in Psalm 32 and Psalm
38.
So you may want to read thoselater, but Psalm 51 is a classic
.
This, by the way, is how yourecover from a sin, whether it's
a massive sin, let's say, so tospeak, adultery and murder, or
just you know, people say, well,that's a little failure, it
(29:24):
doesn't make much of adifference.
No, the mechanics are the sameand they have to be dealt with
the same way.
Psalm 51, verse 4,.
This is the key.
You have to come to this pointin your thinking.
Against you and you only have Isinned.
Now some of you might think,well, gosh, david, don't you
(29:47):
realize how many other lives youmessed up?
Yeah, david did come to realizethat too.
But at the point of conviction,you know what.
That's not the issue.
The issue is being convincedthat you sinned against the
personal God who created you andwho is the standard for what is
right and wrong.
Everybody else doesn't matterat this point, because everybody
else isn't the standard.
God is the one who's righteousand just.
He is the standard for what'sright and wrong.
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David says against you and youonly have I sin.
And when he says that his wholefocus has become what does God
think about what I did?
Okay, so this thing, when we dothis in confession, when we
come to this point, this is avery personal moment in
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confession and I really want tostress this point.
This is a very personal momentin confession and I really want
to stress this point Becausewhen you are telling God you are
the standard and I violatedyour personal, infinite standard
, that is as personal as you canget with your creator.
Okay, it's a very personalmoment.
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Think today of how backwards alot of therapy is.
Most therapy, when people seekpsychological counseling and all
the rest of it nine times outof ten.
What is their method for tryingto help you get past?
Whatever your issue is, we needto dig up your past.
We need to find out why you'rebehaving the way you're behaving
.
We need to find out if yourmommy dropped you on your head
(31:12):
when you were five years old, orif your teacher used a red
marker to mark up your paper sothat you feel bad about yourself
Because it's not really yourfault.
It's your mommy's fault, it'syour teacher's fault, it's
everybody else's fault and youneed to realize that so you can
just move on.
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Isn't that entirely the oppositeof Psalm 51?
That's denial, denial that Idid anything wrong and it's my
fault.
And Psalm 51 is saying no, no,no, no, no, no, when we have
solved the problems, when we'vegone directly to God and we've
said no, I am at fault, it'scompletely my fault, I'm the one
who did it.
I can't blame it on Bathsheba.
It's certainly not Uriah'sfault.
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It's my fault, I did it and Iviolated your standard.
So modern psychology is prettymuch 100% opposite of the way
the Bible says.
We need to deal with our sin.
Okay, now at the point ofconfession.
There, verse 4, against you andyou only have our sin.
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Now, at that point, you havebeen convinced, right, that you
sin against God, even though youmay have hurt other people.
He's the main concern, that'sthe key to confession.
Okay, and that's what Davidused.
Now, at the end of verse 4,notice what it looks like he
says so that you are justified.
(32:35):
He says when you speak and you,god, are blameless when you
judge.
Why is that put into verse 4?
Why does he say that you arejustified when you speak?
What is always the temptation,see, when we come right up to
the point of confession, butbefore we can really confess
that we've sinned against God,there's a temptation to put in
there, where we try to avoid allthe responsibility and we want
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to blame a little bit of it onGod.
Remember the story of Adam andEve.
It's this woman you gave me.
Well, god, if you hadn't givenme the woman I'd, you know, I
never would have ate, you knowit's.
It's sort of your fault, see.
So we want to blame god forsetting up the situation.
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Um, god is not interested inyour excuses at all, but when
you're saying, like David at theend of verse 4, you are
justified when you speak.
That's the point where you'resaying I'm not putting any blame
on you, I don't blame you inthe least, it's all my fault,
it's all my fault, all me, 100%.
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He goes on verses 5 and 6.
Okay, or 5 through 8.
He goes on to confess not and 6, okay, or 5 through 8.
He goes on to confess not onlythe personal act of sin, but
note, he talks about his own sinnature being the root of this.
He says behold, I was broughtforth in iniquity and sin.
Did my mother conceive me?
One of my neighbors, he's RomanCatholic.
He says what do you think thatmeans?
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Well, it means that he's notblaming his mom for what he did.
He's saying when I was conceivedin my mother's womb, I, I, was
a sinner by nature.
At that point, we're conceivedin with a sin nature, we're born
with sin nature, so that thepersonal sins we commit come out
of the sin nature that wepossess, even from conception.
(34:30):
See.
And David's saying sin isrooted deeply within me.
Okay, verse 6, behold, youdesire truth in the innermost
part and in the hidden part, youwill make me no wisdom.
So there's a tension therebetween my flesh here, the sin
nature that I have, that Ireceived at conception, and what
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you want, god, deep within me.
You want a changed heart withinme.
You see, the tension we havethat we all have that tension,
right, we know fundamentally, bynature, we have this sin nature
thing that we'd love to get ridof.
Right, and we will.
We will in the resurrection, nomore sin nature.
But before we even get theresurrection body, we still want
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truth in us.
We want that to dominate, wewant that to control.
But it creates a tension in us,doesn't it?
And it's the tension that Paulexperiences in Romans 7.
It's this whole tension.
You know, the thing I want todo.
I can't do, the thing I do Ihate.
See, it's no longer I, he says,but sin dwelling in me.
And he says, finally, theanswer is Romans 8, right, thank
(35:33):
God for the Holy Spirit whoindwells us, because apart from
him I can't.
I can't beat the flesh.
I can't, I can't do it, I can'twork up enough.
You know, to defeat the flesh,I've got to learn to yield to
the Holy Spirit and that's theonly way.
So there's that tension andDavid had that tension.
Verses 7 to 8 are his prayer.
(35:54):
In light of that.
Here's his prayer after he'sconfessed Purify me with hyssop
and I shall be clean.
Wash me and I shall be whiterthan snow.
Make me to hear joy andgladness.
Let the bones which you havebroken rejoice.
What do you mean?
Let the bones that you brokeand rejoice?
He's not talking about physicalbreaking of the bone, but he's
talking about the misery that hewas facing while he was under
(36:16):
divine discipline, all theconsequences he had to
experience because of his sin.
See Verse 9,.
Hide your face from my sins andblot out all my iniquities.
Now we know how God hides hisface from our sins now because
we live after the cross.
I mean Jesus Christ paid forthem all.
But here's David.
He's before the cross.
He didn't know exactly how Godwas going to resolve it, but he
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has.
In verse 10 create in me a cleanheart, oh God, and renew a
steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from yourpresence and do not take your
holy spirit from me.
You know people say well, youcan your presence and do not
take your Holy Spirit from me.
People say well, you can losethe Holy Spirit.
Well, this is in the OldTestament.
The king was anointed and theHoly Spirit would come upon.
The king Came from prophets,priests and kings, but not
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normally on the average person.
In the Old Testament it'sdifferent now.
In the New Testament, allbelievers have the Holy Spirit
indwelling in them and he won'tleave.
Right, we can grieve him, buthe's never going to leave us.
But in the Old Testament it wasthat way and the kings could
lose the Holy Spirit.
What had happened to Saul, theking before David?
Remember?
The Holy Spirit left Saul.
(37:29):
So does David think here, maybehe's going to lose his salvation
or something?
No, it never even crossed hismind.
But what he does think is thathe could lose his dynasty.
He could lose his kingly, royaldynasty.
So he says take not your spiritfrom me In verse 12, restore to
(37:50):
me the joy of your salvationand sustain me with a willing
spirit.
You know we don't.
We don't have the joy of oursalvation when we're living out
of fellowship.
See, we don't enjoy it anymore.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm saved.
We don't really care that much.
It doesn't occupy our attention, it doesn't occupy our time or
our thought.
So he says restore to me thejoy of your salvation.
(38:12):
And then he goes on to describehow he will use this.
Okay, so those are the firstfour steps.
Can you commit some sin?
There are consequences.
Now You're out of fellowshipand going to be disciplined.
You have to come to the pointof conviction in order to
confess.
And the fifth thing is God'sresponse, and this is
restoration.
This is what he does for uswhen we confess.
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Now, this is a little bittricky, so we want to work with
this one for just a few minutes.
David probably had a problemwith this, because he asked in
verse 8 to hear joy and gladness.
I want to hear joy and gladness.
Did David hear joy and gladnesswhen, when his sons were
brought in in body bags?
(38:57):
And this is no joke, this iswhat this man had to live with.
See, I don't think he washearing the sounds of joy and
gladness when his sons weremarched in Son number one, son
number two, son number three.
And I don't think this prayerwas entirely answered in his
life.
It was answered to some extent,but ultimately, I think this
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will be answered for David ineternity.
In eternity, because a lot ofthe hurt and pain that comes
with these sins.
It continues, it's just with you.
It just doesn't go away.
What happens when we confessour sin?
Of course, at that moment, godimmediately forgives us.
He puts us back in fellowship.
That's what we mean.
(39:39):
The consequences don't go away.
It's not like somehow erased.
In fact, the fact that theconsequences do continue our
life is what often makes usthink that God didn't really
forgive us.
Watch this, okay, because what'shappening when that happens is
(40:00):
Satan is trying to pull one overon you.
Okay, he's trying to make youthink see, god hasn't forgiven
you.
Okay, because look at theconsequences of your sin.
They're still there and he'sstill after you.
He's still disciplining you.
He hasn't forgiven you.
You're not even worthy of beingforgiven.
Well, hold on.
Yes, okay, he has forgiven youthe moment you confess.
(40:25):
He perfectly cleansed you.
But Satan doesn't want you tothink that.
Why doesn't Satan want you tothink that?
Because Satan sinned too.
And guess what?
He never got forgiven.
He rebelled against God andhe's never been forgiven for it.
And so he doesn't like it that,when you confess, god forgives
you and he doesn't want you tothink for one second that you're
(40:48):
forgiven.
He wants to make you feel likeyou're unusable to God, that
you're nothing, because he wantsto destroy your Christian life.
That's what he wants to do.
So you have to disciplineyourself to realize when I
(41:11):
confess, I am restored tofellowship, even though the
consequences go on.
Now we want to finish by talkinga little bit about these
consequences that go on and wrapup with this.
Even though David was restored,he realized I've got to work
through the consequences of myown sin.
This is pretty much the hardestthing to do.
(41:32):
Okay, in life it's not thatdifficult to deal with other
people who, like, persecute youand things like that.
But if, when you know it's youwho made a stink of a mess and
you've got to deal with all thecrud that you made, okay, it
(41:55):
aggravates you mentally becauseyou keep coming back to the fact
that you're the idiot that didit and you can't blame your mom.
You can't blame your dad.
You can't blame your boss.
You can't blame yourenvironment.
You can't blame your school,your teachers.
You can't blame your boss.
You can't blame yourenvironment.
You can't blame your school,your teachers.
You can't blame anybody exceptyourself.
And that was David right.
(42:15):
And David realized he had todeal with this.
He had to deal with this yearafter year after year.
I imagine the words of Nathanwhen Nathan proclaimed the
judgment that he was going tolose four of his sons.
I imagine these words cameringing in his ears every time
one of his sons was brought inand it terrified him.
It terrorized him.
Son number one comes in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's me again, the idiot who did this and
(42:38):
brought all this on myself.
Son number two.
Here we go again.
Son number three Okay.
And through all this, I'm surethere was a temptation from
Satan to say to David hey, david, why don't you just give up?
You're nothing, you're a waste,you ruined everything and you
(43:00):
can't go on anywhere in theChristian life.
You're a loser.
I'm sure this was going throughhis mind, just like it goes
through our minds.
A lot You're nobody.
But every time it happened,guess minds a lot, you're nobody
.
But every time it happened,guess what?
David didn't do that.
No, we know he didn't, becausehe wrote more Psalms.
(43:23):
We see that through it all, hewas worshiping God.
That's why.
That's why God says David is aman after my own heart.
The question we all have is isthat the same evaluation we
would give David.
It even says in the prophetsDavid followed the Lord with his
whole heart His whole heart.
(43:43):
Many Christians say that'simpossible.
The guy committed adultery andmurder.
You can't say he followed withhis whole heart.
How can that be?
Does God like sin or something?
No, god doesn't like sin.
We miss the point if we reachthat conclusion.
What we have to see is that herewas a man who, at a moment in
his life you know what he failed.
He blew it, okay, but guesswhat?
(44:06):
He didn't stay in failure modeand that's the key he got back
in fellowship with the Lord.
That's what it means to be aman or a woman after God's own
heart.
It's not that you never fail,it's about what you do when you
do fail.
Do you get back in fellowshipwith the Lord, do you keep
(44:28):
walking with Him?
That is what makes all thedifference in the world to God
and that is what he's lookingfor from your life.
So there are the five steps.
Okay, we sin right, thought,word or deed.
(44:49):
We're out of fellowship.
There are consequences.
We have to learn to live withthese.
We live with them by the graceof God, to overcome them when we
are convicted of our sin and weneed to be hard on ourselves in
the sense that we don't need tobe rationalizing our sin away
and trying to justify all of oursin, because we're never going
to confess if we do that.
(45:09):
Instead, we're just going toget more and more stuck in sin.
So be easily convicted of yoursin, right.
Confess the sin as it's againstGod, and God only because he's
the standard.
And at that moment, what doeshe do?
He restores us, he puts us backin fellowship and we keep
moving forward.
(45:30):
It's hard because if you'reanything like me and I imagine
you probably are you feel likesometimes it's worthless to try
to get back up and just go again, because you feel like you're
just going to fall again.
But that's what God wants youto do.
He wants you to get back upagain and keep going, even if
(45:51):
it's just a few steps forwardand you fall again, still get
back up again and keep going.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Thank you for listening to this episode of
Beyond the Walls with JeremyThomas.
If you're interested inlearning about the foundational
doctrines and themes of theBible that gave rise to this
series, then Season 1 of thispodcast is for you, on the
basics.
Additional material can befound on our website at
(46:19):
beyondthewalls-ministrycom.
If you found this informationuseful and helpful in your
spiritual walk, then pleaseconsider rating this podcast in
your favorite podcast player.
And until next time, we hopeyou're living by the fruit of
the Spirit.
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