How to Come Back When You're Down

Sermon OverviewScripture Passage: Psalm 51King David, though a man after God’s own heart, was a great sinner. He committed adultery and, in covering it up, he committed murder. But David was also a great repenter, and Psalm 51 shows us how to come back when we’re down.Getting saved does not mean we lose our capacity to sin or minimize its gravity. The eternal security of salvation is not a license to sin without suffering. In fact, we will suffer all the more, because the Holy Spirit convicts believers of their sins until they confess them. Guilt is a dirty wound; it festers, and it will never heal until it is cleansed.This passage reveals the weighty consequences of sin. Sin soils the soul, saturates the mind, and stings the conscience. It saddens the heart and sickens the body, sours the spirit, and seals the lips.Adrian Rogers says, “The most miserable man on earth is not a lost man; It is a saved man out of fellowship with God.”When we find ourselves down in our sins, how do we come back?First, we must be confident that God still loves us.Psalm 51:1 says, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” Even when he sinned, David had confidence in God’s lovingkindness. In spite of the enemy’s attempt to discredit God’s faithfulness, we must remember there is nothing we can do that will make God stop loving us.Second, we must confess our sins without any excuses or alibis.1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”Finally, God cleanses and forgives.He removes the penalty, blots it out, and buries it in the sea of His forgetfulness. He removes the pollution of sin, cleaning us whiter than snow. He removes the power of sin: God purges us so that we are clean on the inside.We don’t have to carry around our own condemnation anymore; we can be clean.Apply it to your lifeDo you have any unconfessed sin weighing on you today? Ask God to search your heart and reveal your sin to you. Confess it and be cleansed by God’s forgiveness.