Classic Service

uh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hey [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning river city we're glad that you joined us this morning would you stand together with us as we begin our time of worship maybe if you feel like it clap your hands or tap your toes extending on the promises of christ my king through eternal life [Music] standing on the promises [Music] with god [Music] of god [Music] [Music] i'm standing on [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] i'm standing on the promises of god [Music] i'm standing on the promises [Music] oh it's so good to stand on his promises that never fail us and never change good to be in this house to praise his name this morning [Music] [Applause] keep me from all wrong is [Music] [Music] is [Music] me [Music] who cares [Music] me [Music] is [Music] me [Music] [Music] god [Music] just [Music] [Music] please [Music] let it be [Music] is [Music] let it be let it be [Music] me [Music] oh let it be we're glad you've joined us please have a seat [Music] good morning and welcome to river city christian my name is mecina and i'm rachel we are so happy you're here if you're new to river city and would like more information please text new to 916-915-05 to receive a one-time text greeting now here are a few of our upcoming events if you're interested in getting baptized please sign up now baptisms for children's grade three to five middle school and high school students and adults will take place sunday september 26th during our worship services if you have recently started attending river city christian and are still trying to know your way around join us for lunch and an opportunity to meet the staff let us know you're coming by registering now on the app or online become a member of river city christian by signing up for the new members class starting next sunday if you aren't in group life yet rooted is a great first step sign up for a 10-week small group experience designed to give you a glimpse of how your story fits into god's story men's and women's fall bible studies begin this week register now to receive biblical teachings and gain community with other believers dinner is available for the whole family at 6 30 pm are you 18-24 join our college group for a worship and prayer night this friday at 7 pm come and check out cultivate cafe now open sunday mornings after each service enjoy a coffee or tea and pastry 10 of all our purchases will support agape international missions mosaic seniors ministry will kick off the fall season this tuesday morning with a delicious brunch worship and fellowship with other seniors and a message from pastor mark no registration required information and registration for all events can be found at rivercitychristian.org events or on the river city christian app that's all for now have a great sunday good morning river city it's good to see you all here and for those of you watching online we're glad that you were with us as well you know over the last what is it 18 months or so one of the things that i have missed the most is harassing some of you in the cafe because you just haven't been there but the cafe is open today so i am looking forward to harassing you today in the cafe hope to see you there um we want to take some time not to harass one another but to actually encourage one another and to pray for one another so i'll try to be more christian like right now um you know god is a god who hears our prayers and he knows the things that are going on in our lives and he cares deeply about what you are going through or what your loved ones are going through and we just want to make sure that we take some time to encourage each other in prayer right now so if you have a need in your life or you know of someone who just has a specific need and you want us to pray for them would you just raise your hand right now and we ask you to do this those of you who do not have your hands raised take a look around because someone around you has their hand raised and you can be praying for them right now let's go to the lord together in prayer jesus we do thank you so much that we are able to gather here in this place today to call on your name to seek your face to know your promises [Music] to receive your love and your grace [Music] jesus we confess right now that there are things in our hearts that really serve as obstacles to receiving everything that we should be receiving from you so lord we asked today that you would soften us that we could really listen [Music] that we could really hear your word and apply it to our lives father many of us have lifted up hands today just indicating that we need some help or we know someone that really needs some help and today right now god we ask that you would allow your holy spirit to come and breathe fresh life to bring hope to bring encouragement god as we saw our brothers and sisters raise our hands right now god we ask that you would pour out a blessing on them and help them to be aware today that your hand is upon them lord we love you we give you praise we thank you for who you are what a magnificent god you are we praise you in jesus name amen would you stand together with [Music] us than the ages there is a [Music] [Applause] promise salvation [Music] jesus there is a light that overwhelms the darkness is [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] he carries my healing with [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] beside me [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus [Music] there is [Music] there is power [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you speak to the sea you stand in the fire beside me [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus there is no one like jesus is no one like your jesus [Music] father there is no one like you no other name on heaven and earth that we call upon call upon to be saved call upon for grace and mercy and hope and father god you stand in the fire beside us whatever we're going through this morning lord god you stand there with us lord god you hold us up you carry us you're a light to our path and strength for our day lord god may we never forget your promises and that you're right there with us no matter what comes against us lord god may we call upon the name of the lord and rest in the promise that you are there with us and we are never alone whatever we face father god we give you thanks and praise this morning for your faithfulness and for your promise and for this day that we can come into the house that the lord has made and give you praise for it's in that name jesus that we pray amen well again we're glad you joined us please be seated and all god's people said great to be with you this morning if you have your bibles you can open them up to psalm chapter 51 if you don't have a bible you could just open up your phone and google psalm chapter 51 and follow along with us so again psalm chapter 51 we'll dive back into matthew in a few weeks but psalm 51 this morning as we continue the fall kickoff series that we started a few weeks ago entitled welcome home uh if you're new or maybe you haven't been with us for a while what the series is all about it's just taking some time to take a step back to re-center us in the midst of this crazy year and a half that we've had take some time to remind ourselves what we at river city christian are all about therefore what we need to be committed to and because of that what we need to be doing because you know this church being followers of jesus isn't just about showing up somewhere on a sunday it's not just about attending somewhere it's not just about watching a service online it's so much more than that so i want to start our time this morning in the same place that i've started the last few weeks and that is with our purpose statement here as a church why we exist you can throw up on the state on the screen the purpose of river city christian is to be a mission station i'm not going to take a lot of time to define that again this morning other than to just simply say a mission station member doesn't talk a lot about their personal rights and preferences mission station members talk a lot about what they're willing to sacrifice in time talent money preference effort and much more so that others would come to a saving knowledge of jesus christ another way to say it is we're willing to sacrifice maybe even personal preferences for those who aren't amongst us yet so it's not just about us it's what we can do to help others come to christ what does that look like well we share the gospel of jesus christ with every person everywhere so there's the evangelism component and then discipleship grow and equip we help people grow in their faith and then we equip believers with tools for godly living so grow and equip believers into fully devoted followers of christ now what i want to talk about today is really important to the growth and equipping component to our mission because nothing impacts god's call on our lives as christians more negatively than unconfessed sin so in light of that today we're going to talk about god's call on our lives to holiness because it's when we as believers are living in holiness that we then are able to experience the life that god wants us to experience he's glorified and it's then that he empowers us to do what paul says are unimaginable things now where i'd like to start is just reading some scripture so that everyone here understands this call to our lives to holiness didn't come from a church council somewhere in the 1500s this isn't a guilt trip this isn't legalism my goal today is not to make anyone feel bad because i know that if you just feel guilty and feel bad that does not last i want you to see this is god's call on our life from scripture that he died on the cross for us to experience and he wants to empower us uh into holiness with the holy spirit so a couple verses you can throw the first one on the screen this comes from leviticus chapter 19. now it says it three different times leviticus also uh in exodus once and so this is four times in those uh two books it says something very similar uh it says here speak to the entire assembly of israel and say to them be holy because i the lord your god am holy now this isn't just an old testament thing you can go to the next verse first peter 1 14 says this as obedient children do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance what do you mean by that don't live like you used to live when you didn't know jesus but just as he who called you is holy so be holy in all you do then i think most powerfully is in first thessalonians 4 3 paul writes it's god's will that you should be sanctified now i say this all the time people come to me all the time and they don't always ask this question this way but what they're essentially asking is what's god's will for my life and we can work through some of those situations like you know should you move to texas or what job should you take uh who should you marry we can work through those things i think god gives us some road maps to help us make those decisions but there are some very clear revealed things that are god's will for you and so like last week i can say it's god's will for you to be serving in the church i can clearly tell you without even knowing you if you're a follower of christ it's god's will for you to be sanctified and when we live out god's revealed will it's often those gray areas those parts of his will work themselves out so it's god's will that you be sanctified what does that look like that you should avoid sexual immorality that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable not in passionate lust like the heathen who do not know god and in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him for god did not call us to be impure he called us to live a holy life we have a saying at our church that drives who we are and how do we how we respond to sin we at this church we have a high standard of holiness with a huge hand of grace high standard of holiness with a huge hand of grace high standard of holiness it's god's word god's call on our lives is to be perfect we don't lower the standards so that somehow we can meet it we don't lower the standard to holiness as many in our culture are doing today because i think it's the loving thing to do and the reason why we don't do that is because it messes with the need for jesus to die on the cross listen if holiness if perfection is not what is needed for heaven jesus does not need to die for our sins he could just simply say ah don't worry about it sins are forgiven and so we have a high standard of holiness perfectionist scripture lays it out but we live in this thing called reality and none of us can do it none of us even come close we sin every single day and so we have a huge hand of grace like god does meeting us right where we're at high standard of holiness huge hand of grace i like the way maxwell cato says it he says god loves you just the way you are with all your imperfection mistakes and sin but he refuses to leave you that way because he loves you he wants what's best for you so why should we deal with it and strive for holiness you know in this day and age of you do you and i'll do me and any time we try to sit down with a brother or sister in christ and talk about something in their life that might not be quite right they just throw out the overused and greatly misunderstood statement you're just judging me as if if they were judging you somehow that still excuses your sin think about that let's say they are judging you does that mean your sin is less sinful no well the reason why we need to deal with it is number one jesus came to die for your sin and now that you've given your life to christ not only has he made you perfect look at it this way now that in christ your sins are forgiven past present future you stand before god perfect it says that the blood of jesus covers you god no longer sees you and your sin but the perfection of jesus christ that's called justify if you've ever heard that word justification just as if you've never sinned yet again we'd still live in a fallen world and so we sin every day so now he wants to do what is called sanctify you so in this world he wants to empower you through the holy spirit in this life to sin less and less and less every day and the reason for that is it glorifies god and it is what's best for you you will never live a happier cleaner fuller life than we live when we live with less sin second reason why we need to address this issue is nothing will destroy the mission of a church faster than unconfessed sin unconfessed sin doesn't just sideline the believer as i've said many times we don't sin in isolation even though you think you may it always impacts others and so over time unconfessed sin it festers it hurts relationships relationships get broken down and then therefore over time we have disunity amongst the body of christ and that destroys our mission so today i want to address what do we do when we've knocked ourselves down because of unconfessed and undealt with sin now last week i talked about the fact that i i love football uh and when i was playing football in high school i learned there's three ways that you can get knocked down on the field three ways the first way you can get knocked down in the field is someone knocks you down i'm smart right smart but there are two people that can knock you down one's the opposing team and that's what you work against you plan you strategize but it still happens right the other one you don't think much about but the worst hits the the ones that cost the most damage are when teammates hit a teammate on the field when a defender is going for an offensive player and misses and hits one of his own teammates those are the biggest hits why they're not expecting it in this life the scripture is very clear we have a foe right we have an enemy we do not the bible says fight a battle of flesh and blood but against powers of this world and so we plan we work hard we pray we spend time in scripture we get accountability to fight against the enemy schemes and yet still there are times he knocks us down and yet we would probably all agree probably the worst hits we take are from someone we love and trust something we're not expecting another way we get knocked down on the field is much more to do with the emotional side of the game your heart just gets torn out because circumstances just go awry no one's fault you've done everything right the ball just bounces the wrong way my senior year in high school we had this game near the end and it was one of those win or go out so if we win we go to the playoffs if we lose we're out of the playoffs and it's just a classic story we get the ball back with about 30 seconds left we're down by one we drive down to their 20. i had a big 30 yard play thank you very much anyways we get down to the 20 and uh we have about 10 seconds left and we decide to kick it even though it was only second down and the reason why was because we had the best kicker in the state of california he was allstate and so we snap the ball we kick it i'm on the left end i look up it goes to the uprights we're going crazy we win the game wait wait the refs call us down they bring us back on there's a flag listen to this it was on the defense now if you watch the nfl yeah you just decline it but in high school football at the time they were offsides and that was considered a dead ball penalty which means the play never happened so we had to do it again we snapped the ball i look up blocked and we lost the game they made a mistake they got a second chance they win the game we did everything right and we just got punched right in the gut you know sometimes in life things just go wrong no fault of your own you're following god you're obeying scripture you're being responsible you lose your home your friend dies you get cancer life just hits and knocks you down the third way and what we're going to be focusing on this morning is when you knock yourself down it's simply when you stumble and fall early on in my senior year uh we were playing at bella vista and i was one running a simple wheel route which i won't go into but i caught the ball over my left shoulder and i was expecting to just get hammered and i turn and there's no one between me and the end zone and so i start running down the right side of the field and i was fast in high school four seven and i'm going down and i lost my feet there's no other way to stay it's called stumble and fumble i started stumbling and fumbling and bumbling i was all by myself and i fell on my face on the 10 yard line the most embarrassing moment in high school in fact the next day we had film day every saturday morning and they replayed it for me about 10 times and that's what i want to talk about this morning spiritually not so much how to avoid sin we'll be a little bit of that but more so i want to deal with today for every one of us what do we do to get back up because we're all sinners here therefore every one of us is going to have a moment either one moment of horrible weakness or a period of time we develop a pattern of sin that we need to address so that we can still live significantly and as a church live live on mission what i'm going to be dealing with today is what i call avoiding the however what do i mean by that how do we avoid it however if you ever read through the old testament if you got the first and second samuel then first and second kings and first and second chronicles you'll notice a pattern begins to uh begins to start and then it repeats itself over and over and over again especially with the kings of judah it will say something like king asa or king josiah or king jehoshaphat live for the lord and then goes on to talk about the wonderful things they did for him oftentimes unbelievable godly and courageous things and then it almost always then says however and then it talks about a life after this greatly event where there was sin unresolved undealt with unconfessed sin and then their lives actually end tragically apart from god in disaster so what i want to talk about is how do we avoid this however yeah we still sin but god has given us a road map so we can get back up and live significantly i'm going to use king david and his infamous horrible moment of failure as our blueprint now most of us here know david's failure if you don't know his failure we'll talk about it in just a second but to simplify it real quickly david who the bible says is a man after god's own heart he committed adultery then he lied about it and in the cover-up he committed murder say that again committed adultery he lied about it and then he committed murder humanly speaking as we compare our sins to one another to make ourselves feel good i'm not as bad as that guy we're not supposed to do that by the way sin is sin but we do it but humanly speaking this is just about as bad as it gets so i want to begin our time looking with the end in mind see has this horrible sin but david when you read his story doesn't have a however his life does not tragically end apart from god in disaster his life actually ends significantly even after these horrible sins see although there were severe consequences although there was definitely moments as in the middle of this that he was not obviously living for the lord it wasn't a terminal sentence as i said almost all the other stories i just talked about the however stories in which these people make these horrible mistakes their lives actually end in failure even though humanly speaking their mistakes their sins are you know really pale in comparison to what david did it doesn't end like david does so what's the difference why does david not have a however how is he able after those horrible sins to come back and live significantly in fact it says in acts 13 of david david after he served his purpose for the of god in his own generation fell asleep meaning he finished strong he accomplished god's goal for his life as it pertains to living for the kingdom i've always found it interesting you can throw this up on the screen next this is second samuel out of david's journal at the end of his life david writes this for i've kept the ways of the lord i've not done evil by turning from god i have not turned away from his decrees i have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin wait what this is a man that understands redemption this is a man that understands forgiveness the point is we know how horribly he failed yet when god looks at david's life he finished strongly accomplished god's goals there's redemption there's forgiveness there's restoration and even though he sent horribly he had great significance for the kingdom he was able to avoid the however which means he had to have at some point in time learned how to get back up and so too must we so we're going to revisit this story uh if you'd like to look at it later it's in 2nd samuel 11 and 12 i'm not going to read it all because it's really really lengthy and that would take up the entire time so it starts off in verse 11 by simply saying when kings go off the war excuse in chapter 11 verse 1 it starts off by saying well kings go off to war david stayed at home now this sermon isn't so much about how to avoid sin yet real quickly he's setting himself up for failure he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing and for us in our walk with the lord if you want to avoid sin in the first place place here's a great truth to understand almost all sin that takes us out of significant living happens when we're not doing what god's called us to do it's often in apathy when we're not committed to worship we're not in biblical group life or not intentionally sharing our faith in our other places we're not making disciples we're not serving the church it's often an apathy when we make the worst decisions it then says that he went on to his rooftop and he saw bathsheba bathing now when i get to heaven i'm going to say there's something else going on here there's no way that he just accidentally went on his rooftop and she's just naked across the way in a bathtub something was going on then it says he invites her over what for a chat to play bunko no he knew exactly what he was doing so scripture tells us he sleeps with another man's wife uriah uriah's wife strips goes on to say she becomes pregnant now this is a horrible mistake that in of itself would have been difficult to deal with but if he dealt with it right then there would have been a whole lot of heartache in his life and other lives saved a lot would have been avoided but he doesn't you can throw up the first slide we're going to get to that in a second but i want you to see the part above it it says when we sin come to god immediately you know when the best time to deal with sin is now i don't care how far into it you are now's the best time because waiting is always going to make it worse and we see this in david's life let me show you uh he didn't deal with it immediately because of the there's a cover-up and the cover-up if you don't know the story uh what david does he has a good idea well his man uriah is fighting a war which by the way he's one of the 30 fighting men of david so this is a special guy so he brings uriah back from war and says hey why don't you spend the night with your wife and his goal is that he would sleep with her and then everyone would think it was just a riot that got her pregnant and he's off the hook but ironically uriah's faithfulness to god and david he won't do it he's like man i'm supposed to be somewhere else so he just sleeps on the doorstep well that causes a problem for david and so what does david do he gives uriah a note to bring back to the general which is really uriah's death sentence so uriah in his faithfulness to david brings this note back to the general and it essentially says make the war really bad and when it's at its fiercest pull everyone back but uriah and that's what he does and because of this uriah dies interestingly what we don't catch is scripture says many other soldiers died as well because he did not deal with it immediately it grew became worse became murder and the consequences became worse because this scripture tells us he ends up beshiba actually gives birth to a son and that son dies and by the way his other kids go haywire read the story of david's kids there's a reason why they were a mess i mean pretty hard one of them snuck out at night through the window and crashed his chariot to say hey man what are you doing and they said yeah dad but we didn't commit murder pretty hard to argue against that one he didn't deal with it one of his sons rapes one of his daughters and he didn't deal with it then one of his other sons absalon kills that son for doing it guess what and he didn't deal with it just lets it grow and grow and grow if you know the story epsilon ends up basically creating a cube it's an army forces david out of jerusalem he runs for his life you know what absalon does he sets up a tent in the middle of jerusalem puts all of david's wives and concubines in there and sleeps with them all the bible is not rated pg there's some really bad things going on here consequence because he does not deal with it immediately it grows and grows and grows so again when getting back up when we knocked ourselves down deal with it immediately now is always the best time what do we do that's number one right there confess our sin what happens next to simplify in chapter 12 is the prophet nathan comes to david and he tells them a story he says this one guy in our kingdom you need to know david he's got like a thousand sheep but his neighbor only has one he's kind of a poor guy but he liked that sheep better than his thousands so he actually went and took it killed it and ate it what should we do and david's infuriated he has a thousand he takes the one that man should be judged and then nathan says you are that man you had it all david but you took the one that wasn't yours but here's what's key david's response to this moment he doesn't say you're tricking me you're judging me he doesn't make excuses this is what david says in second samuel 12 13 i have sinned against the lord he just calls it what it is we're actually incredibly blessed i asked you to turn to psalm 51. you know none of us go on social media and make our confessions public but david does he wrote a psalm this psalm 51 is what he wrote in confession after this horrible heinous sin if you're there psalm 51 verse 1 he starts off and says have mercy on me o god according your unfailing love according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions wash away my iniquity cleanse me from my sin for i know my transgressions and my sin are always before me against you i have sinned and done what is evil in your sight the first thing he does is confess what does it mean to confess it's important to understand that confessing is very important but it's just the beginning part of this getting back up confession just simply means to agree with the lord it's saying okay here's your commands here's a decrees i don't always understand them i don't always like them but i've broken them when i was doing high school ministry i used what is called the garbage bag analogy we're all born sinners every one of us and so we're born with this garbage bag and we go through life filling it with garbage confession is just opening up that garbage bag and putting it before the lord and saying yep that's me i thought that thought i said that thing i committed that sin whatever it is that's confession it's the beginning part secondly we then ask for forgiveness first john 1 9 says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteous now here's a question you can go to number two up there here's a question i think that's good to ask as christians we are justified our sins now are completely forgiven past present future we're pure under christ so why then do we ask for forgiveness as followers of jesus why do we take this step well asking for forgiveness once saved is simply showing our remorse it's saying i'm sorry it's showing god your heart it's broken over your decisions your actions you've come to realize it's hurt your relationship with him and it's hurt him and so what you're really doing is you're inviting him into your life for restoration you're not just sorry because you got caught you're not just saying sorry so you fix a consequence that you're dealing with you're asking for forgiveness so that you've been made right that your relationship with him is made right the third thing then we do is repent a lot of times we think confession and repentance are the same thing they're not a confession without repentance going back to the garbage bag analogy confession without repentance is like this going before the lord and you confess sin you throw all your sin out and say this is me this is what i've done will you please forgive me and then confession without repentance and then taking up all that stuff throwing it back in the garbage bag put it on her shoulder and walking away with it we're still engaged in that sin seems ridiculous in the analogy but that's confession without repentance and people do it all the time for us to get back up to avoid the however to get right with god we say we confess say i'm sorry then repentance is the hard work with the help of the holy spirit to leave the sin behind and that's psalm 51 if you go to verse 13 david says then i will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will turn back to you another way to say we'll walk away from sin it's the hard work with the help of the spirit to turn from our sin the difference between all those other kings is he didn't just confess he didn't just ask for forgiveness he with the help of god left sin behind number four we then must accept the pardon accept this pardon look at psalm 51 8. we're going to look at 8 through 11. david writes in the midst of all this let let me hear joy and gladness let the bones you have crushed rejoice hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquity creating me a pure heart oh god and renew a steadfast spirit within me do not cast me from your presence or take your holy spirit from me restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me so after we've confessed after we've asked for forgiveness with this help we've turning from sin which is all-powerful many of us after we move through this process we still carry the guilt of that sin as if god has not forgiven us we live defeated it's almost impossible to live as paul tells us to in romans more than conquerors when we're living in the guilt of our sin are you still living with the weight of something you've done you're living defeated see guilt i i do think it's a tool god uses at times when we are running from him when we're living in sin he's given us a conscience the bible talks about this and so i think he uses guilt in her life at times to move back to him but once you've actually dealt with it once you've confessed you've asked for forgiveness you're with his help at least trying to move away from that sin if you continue to feel that get guilt i believe that's no longer him i believe that's the enemy trying to create shame trying to keep you down brennan manning a great author he says it this way when we wallow in guilt remorse and shame over real or imagine sins we disdain god's gift of grace you're essentially saying my sin is too big for you to deal with but listen there's something bigger in this world than your sin and that something bigger is god's grace mercy and patience the moment the focus of your life shifts shifts from my badness to his goodness from what i've done to what he can do release from guilt can happen miracle of miracles you can forgive yourself because you are forgiven when i wrote this i just took a time to write a paragraph because i i just prayerfully felt the lord saying someone needs to hear this there's someone here that needs to hear there's nothing you can do to get god to love you less if you are remorseful and with his help trying to leave sin behind you need to know you are forgiven leave the guilt behind accept the pardon we cannot soar for god we can't live on mission and purpose for god we can't experience the significance he died for us to experience when we don't accept the pardon we must allow ourselves to see ourselves as god does a child of god pure because of the blood of jesus forgiven i heard a story years ago i don't know if it's true but it certainly makes the point well that there was a man who was from london and he wanted kind of travel around mainland europe and so he actually with he had great wealth had his rolls-royce transferred over to mainland and he was driving around europe and then it broke down in france so he calls the guys at rolls-royce they sent out a crew it just took a few hours to get there they fixed it and he went on his way six months later or so he realized he's never received a bill so he calls rolls royce and told him about the incident and this is their response we have no recollection or record of any rolls royce ever breaking down in france it's been dealt with we don't remember it anymore here's the theological truth in christ through forgiveness god takes our sins and throws it to the depths of the ocean and this is what god says he remembers our sin no more if you're in psalm 51 look at verse 7. david writes cleanse me with hyssop and i will be clean wash me and i'll be whiter than snow god no longer sees your sin you're justified lastly it's not in the notes but lastly we need to make a new commitment and this new commitment that we need to make so much about i won't sin again i know a lot of people that do that i'll never do that one again what happens you do it again and you keep doing that i've over over time that whole i'll never do it again doesn't really mean much what i mean by make a new commitment is make a commitment to his mission to the kingdom to eternal living to making disciples to serving in the church because not only does that bring you meaning and significance but it really does help avoid the however because your focus is on god again remember david's mistake was he wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing when kings go off the war david stayed at home commit the biblical group life to the word of god to prayer to service to sharing your faith and you will discover what happens as you sin less when you focus in on what you're supposed to be doing he'll meet you there in the victory i golf a lot more than i should and what often happens to most golfers is let's say you have a fairway like this and there's water on the right almost every golfer in the world they'll get on that tee box and what do they say don't go right don't go right what do they end up doing they go right the best golfers will all tell you that's not how they think what they say is i need to put this ball in the left side of the fairway so i have a better angle at the pin they focused on what they're supposed to do so they can do it not on what they're not supposed to do and then end up doing it we need to focus in on the call of god in our life to live as he's called us to live and what you will discover is over time naturally you will begin to sin less we're going to move into a time of communion now it was very intentional for a couple reasons one as you know jesus instituted communion so that we never get too far away from the central theme of the gospel message and that is forgiveness is found in the death burial and resurrection of jesus christ but there's another reason why jesus wanted us to do communion regularly because it's in communion that we just simply get right with god this is why he wants us to do this on a regular basis so that we are regularly in some way living right with him and so as uh mark will come out in just a second explain how we'll do this but when you have an opportunity after i pray i want you to do what we just talked about i want you to first just pray lord what do you want me to deal with we all have something some of you know what it is maybe you don't and then i just want you to walk through the process in this time walk through confess sin ask for forgiveness ask for the power to move away from it if you're a person that's struggling with the guilt of it ask him to remove that guilt ask you ask them to help you live in your reality pure in christ and then lastly just make one commitment i don't necessarily mean don't do that sin again but one positive command you know i'm going to start reading the scripture three days a week i'm going to start praying three times a week i'm going to start serving at the church i don't know what it is for you but make one commitment that moves you to live as you're called to live because that's the number one way we can deal with sin in our life let's pray god thank you for who you are thank you for the forgiveness we have in you thank you for the fact that we know we we're all going to knock ourselves down but you've given us a road map to get back up first corinthians 11 lord paul wrote for i received from the lord what i passed on to you the lord jesus on the night he was betrayed he took bread and when he'd given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me and the same way after supper he took the cup saying this cup is a new covenant in my blood do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me for whenever the body of christ eats this bread and drinks his cup we proclaim the lord's death until he comes lord help us experience the forgiveness you paid for us to experience this morning i pray this in the powerful name of jesus and all god's people said as we prepare to take communion together hopefully you already received your communion elements if you did not receive those and you do want to participate in communion just raise your hand right now and ushers will come by there's a few people uh just keep your hands up for a few moments the ushers will come by and bring those to you uh we also want to let you know that uh members of our prayer ministry are going to be available on either side in fact prayer ministry people you can go to the sides right now uh if there's anything that you would like prayer for today as we take communion and as we conclude our worship service those prayer ministry people are there uh to pray with you whatever the need might be in your life and we encourage you to just go to them and take that time we're going to sing a couple songs of worship together and you are invited to take communion when you're ready if you need to pray about something pray if you need some time just to worship if you want to to take a few moments just to listen to the lord um please do that don't rush into communion take it when you are ready and again if you would like to have somebody pray with you about anything you can go to either side let's uh start our time of worship now and you are welcome to take communion when you're ready [Music] [Music] oh [Music] me [Music] see [Music] my [Music] [Music] set free [Music] mercy rings [Music] amazing [Music] is [Music] as life is [Music] [Applause] is [Music] set free by god by saying [Applause] [Music] is [Music] amazing [Music] the earth shall soon dissolve like snow the sun forbids [Music] [Music] you are [Music] would you stand together with us as we close our service this morning would you stand together with us [Music] [Music] praise father [Music] praise god [Music] [Music] praise father [Music] um [Music] thanks so much for worshiping with us today uh we are returning to our pre-covered uh custom that on the first sunday of the month we will be receiving a special offering for people in need in our community and so there are officers at the doors that will receive that offering if you'd like to participate in that otherwise have a great week and i'll see you in the cafe god bless you

Channel: River City Christian

Views: 167

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: V7gVGiU3Px8

Length: 77min 5sec (4625 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021