Thanks Be To God

After all, it's not what the text is about, and so many times I find myself saying, no, you can't go into that. It detracts from where you're headed, and we can't take that scenic of a route. And so things often get left by the wayside, and one of the things that got left by the wayside was what the fruit of repentance is in our lives. What does it produce? What does it mean for us? Is it a small thing, or is it a big thing? Well, the truth is, it is a desirable thing. It is a good thing. It's a glorious thing. It's a gift from God, and it does.

and ought to produce joy and gratitude in us. The children of God, Christians, really do have something to be thankful for. And it shouldn't be any surprise to us that joy is the second fruit of the Spirit, right behind love. That joy is one of the first things that God gives to his children. And I fear too often we're not joyful. We're not thankful. We've missed the boat, it seems. We have truth and we have... and we have right and wrong, and we have judgment, but we don't have joy. There's not a foundation of gratitude and thankfulness that carries us through the difficult seasons of life. I often find that when hardship comes, our joy is just swept away. Whatever joy there was, it's like, it's gone. My hope this morning is to either install a foundation underneath you as a Christian, that's not there, or to let you go on and bang on the walls of your house and say, you know what, it's solid because it's got a good foundation underneath it of thankfulness and gratitude toward God. And so our text this morning is Romans chapter 7, the end of the chapter, verses 24 and 25. Before I read that passage, I'll tell you, this is the end of a long description that Paul gives of what it's like to live as a Christian.

And the first time I ever had to interact with this passage was in pastor's college when I was being trained. They took us and they said, we're going to find a difficult passage for each one of you. A passage that's been disagreed about, that Christians have argued about, that there's varying ways to interpret it. And we're going to have you lead a Bible study to us, your critics. on this very difficult passage. And it turns out that this was the passage I was assigned. This is the very end of it. I want to read it to you. And then we'll talk about what comes before it. I didn't want to distract us. I would have, for my own sake, if I had started back in verse 14.

we would have been here a long time because I don't know that I would have been able to skip over the things that are in there. So I've left it aside and I'll explain it to you in summary after we read the conclusion of that passage, which is verses 24 and 25. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, On the one hand, I myself, with my mind, am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh, the law of sin. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. As I told you, this comes at the end of a lengthy description of the tension that Christians live in each day. And this is the part that's disputed about this passage. The question is whether Paul's exclamation here and the things that precede it

are descriptive of the Christian life. Meaning, do Christians cry out, wretched man that I am? Or is that simply their recollection of the past? I would have you know, as I think most of you probably already do, that this is the exclamation of a Christian's heart. It is what their heart says. And regularly. I can't imagine being able to look in the mirror and think, I'm not that bad anymore. I'm very, very different. Now, are you different? Does God change you when he makes you a Christian? Yes. And what I'm purposing to do this morning is to explain to you how he changes you and what he changes. And so this tension, the tension of knowing what's good and what's right versus what we want to do and often end up doing, is the minute-by-minute battle of the Christian life.

It never ends. It doesn't take weekends off. It does ebb and flow. There will be seasons that are easier and seasons that are harder. But this is the overarching theme of the Christian life. That we live in tension. That we know what we ought to do. That even that we want to do what we ought to do. And that many, many times, we don't do it. And when we don't do it, we know that we're not doing it. And when we don't do it, we know that our actions are our fault, that it's not God's fault, that he isn't playing some game with us, but that we have a desire in us to do wicked, terrible things. And so to sum up the verses leading up to this, it's to say that Christians know what God requires and they want to do it. At least a part of them wants to do it. But their flesh or their old desires or the old man, still wants to live in sin, and he's strong, much stronger than any of us would care to admit. I think often we look around, and we may look around a room, or we may look around a society, or we may look around in history, and we're always weighing out where the righteous time was, where the people were less sinful, where they weren't so given over to their corruptions.

And we always seem to pick a time that's not the one we live in. Well, it's worse now for us than it ever has been before. The corruptions that we face in our society are like to have never been seen before in this world. Woe to us, for we live in an unprecedented time of corruption and confusion and wickedness. But it's not true. It's not true. When I was just reading to you in Zephaniah, I always listen to the parts about the pastors and the priests because I'm a pastor, right? And do you remember what Zephaniah said about the pastors or the priests at the time? It's just a passing comment. I wouldn't expect you to, but he says that they were wicked, treacherous men. That the prophets, that they had no shame about them. And I think, that's what I think pastors are like today very often. In fact, that's often what I think of myself. That those are my temptations.

Surely back then when they were closer to God, they weren't as corrupt and wicked as I am. Or, those terrible sinners, I'm so glad that I'm not, we don't have treacherous pastors today, that I'm not tempted to be treacherous. What a stupid game we play with ourselves. Always looking around and always jockeying for position in our own minds, trying to place ourselves on the top of the heap, or on the bottom of the heap, depending on what our pride dictates to us. Whether we want to feel better than everyone else or feel more sorry for ourselves than everyone. There is an old man, a fleshly desire that resides in every one of us. And the fact that you're a Christian does not remove it. Does not remove it. And I think that that's an offensive thought to most of us. That we think that becoming a Christian should mean that our temptations to sin and our actual giving in to sin would somehow have taken a huge blow when we became a Christian. How many young men come to the faith because they think they'll be free of sexual immorality if they just become a Christian? And how many of them are disappointed and wander away because they found out that it didn't change their desires? Those desires are still alive and well inside of them. Why is that? What's to be done about it?

I think our disposition toward it now is to hide it, to discount it, to suppress it, to minimize it, to redefine our sins as no longer wicked but understandable. How many things that historically would have been considered sins are now considered diseases? Why do we do things like that? Why is alcoholism a disease now or a disorder? It's very simple, I'll tell you. Because if it's a disease or a disorder, it removes your moral responsibility for what you do. It's Christmas time and you'll hear on the radio, you listen. If you listen carefully, you'll hear this and you'll see this. Have you guys heard the phrase, when they're trying to get you to give to this charity or that thing, they'll say, this is for people who are experiencing homelessness. Isn't that a weird phrase? Experiencing homelessness. What does it mean?

Have you thought about it? What does it mean when someone tells you they're experiencing homelessness? It means that homelessness has landed on them and that they had no doing, no say in what they're experiencing. It removes their moral responsibility as it relates to the consequences that they're facing. Now, am I saying that homelessness never... falls on somebody. No, I'm not saying that. Nor am I saying that we shouldn't be merciful to people who have gotten themselves to be homeless because of the choice of their actions. God's merciful with sinners. So I'm not saying we should despise or look down on people who are sinners because what are we? But I am saying you should look at our society and figure out how they use language and how they use words to remove any moral responsibility.

You did this from our lives. It's an effort to remove the tension that Christians feel. And if we're not careful, we'll swallow it right up and we'll say, it's not my fault that I'm tempted by this. Or it's not my fault that I'm given to this. What can be done? And it's dangerous because it removes your ability to see sin for what it is. And what that means is it removes your ability to repent of it. Which means it robs you of the mercy of Jesus Christ. You don't need it anymore. Because you didn't do anything that necessitates grace and mercy. You're no longer responsible. And so the tension that you live in is done away with. This is not Paul's understanding of it. His exclamation after he's come to understand the law of God as an instruction manual to him of how he ought to live.

He measures his life up against the law of God, and he goes, I don't do it. I don't do it. God says all this stuff, and I don't do any of it. And he's not saying, I didn't, that used to be true of me. He's saying, I still don't do it. I still don't do it. I see the law. I know it's good. I want to observe it, but I don't. And so instead of arguing away, all of his sins and minimizing them and saying they're not that big of a deal, or God will have to understand, or why have you made me thus? Paul teaches us that this is the way of the Christian life, that there is a tension, an ever-present tension, because the old man, though he's dying, and a Christian is not dead. And so often we do still give in to sin, sin that we're aware of, sin that is common to us, it's familiar, and it's what we do.

But in the Christian, there's another part of them, a new part. There's a part that sees our actions and our desires and is critical of it, that looks at our wickedness or what we've pursued and says, you idiot, you fool, you stupid, stupid woman. Why? Why do you do this? Have you ever felt this? Why do I do this? Why do I do it? And you get angry that you do it. I tell you, that's good. That's the sign of God working in you. That he's given you the ability to see that you sin. And not only that you sin, but that you have knowledge of it, that it's bad, and that you hate it. That you don't justify it and say, well, it's okay for me to give in to my sexual sins and my own desires or my bitterness or my angers because, you know, my life's hard. Our lives are hard.

Some of them harder than others. All of us will have seasons of much greater difficulty than at other times in our lives. It's very true. But for the Christian, there's this voice in the back of his head that says, that is not what God would have you do. However he says it to you. This is your conscience. This is the Holy Spirit. This is the grace of God. It puts you into this tension. No man or woman before they're a Christian looks at themselves in the mirror and says, wretched man that I am. That is not the conclusion of an unbeliever when they think of their own actions. That is the exclamation of a Christian who is worn out of the battle and of the fight. Wretched man that I am is the exclamation of someone who has tried every trick in their book to get over their sins and has failed.

From start to finish. Wretched man that I am says, who will set me free? Because I cannot set myself free. I have tried and I have failed. It's a soldier on a battlefield having fought with all of the strength that's in him and is now surrounded by his enemies and realizes his end. I will have to be delivered by someone else or I will die. That's what Christians realize about themselves. That's what we know to be true of us. It's a cry for help. Have you had circumstance in your life, maybe it's not regarding sin, but maybe it was, where you worked and you worked and you tried and you thought, I can keep it. I can manage it. We can work this out. I can move this around. I can sort it out. If I just have a little more time or a little more resources or if this thing happens or if that other thing falls into place. And then you realize, that's not going to happen. That's not,

how it's going to work. And you come to the end of yourself. This is the exclamation of a man or a woman, really just a Christian, who's come to the end of themselves and says, I tried everything I got and I got nothing. I got nothing. I'm a wretched man who doesn't do what I know I should do. And I despise myself for even wanting the wicked things that I want and pursue because it's what I do. Who will set me free from the body of this death? Who will deliver me, all of me, from this overwhelming amount of corruption that I find inside of myself? That is what Paul asks. That is the question that every Christian should ask. But we'll never ask it if we won't deal honestly with our need of salvation, with our need of deliverance.

We won't ever think to ask it. Have you ever been offended when someone has been clear with you about some sin in your life? And perhaps not aggressive. Maybe they weren't aggressive, but maybe they were very direct in saying, this has got to stop. And you go, I didn't think it was that big of a deal. And who are you to judge me? I think we bristle at it. I bristle at it. I'm not the pastor because I'm so much more holy than the rest of you. To the extent that you ever feel like, I think he knows what I think. It's because it's what I think. Wretched man that I am. This is Paul's confession of sin. And he looks outside of himself for deliverance because he knows that he no longer can deliver himself. It's become real to him. How often does your understanding of your own sinfulness, whenever you see it, does it lead you to cry out or does it lead you to despair? Does it lead you to be angry?

There are many responses to seeing our sinfulness. Many responses. This is not the only one, though this is the right one. There are many responses. You might see your sin and you might get angry. You remember just a while later in Romans 8, when Paul's talking about the pot and the potter, and he says, who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Why have you made me thus? What is that but an angry statement, an angry response to the reality that you're not what you think you should be? Why have you given me this temptation? Why have you given me this hardship? Why doesn't my body work? Why are my relationships screwed up? Why do I struggle with this morning, noon, and night? Why have you made me thus? Why don't you free me of this? These are angry questions. Confronted with your sin, you get angry at God. It's not Paul's response. Paul's response is to cry out, I am a sinner, wretched man that I am. Who will set me free?

Who cries out for freedom except for the one who wants to be free? And so Paul's understanding of his own sinfulness, his own wretchedness, doesn't lead him to anger or to despair, but to cry out for deliverance. He wants to be free of his sins. He wants to be free of them. He wants out of the tension. But he recognizes that the only way out of the tension is not to redefine sin, but to be delivered from that whole mess. And that ought to be the Christian response to seeing our own sin. We want to be free of it, delivered from it. So we ought to cry out for God to help us. And I can tell you that I don't do it. And I don't think you do it. Not like we should. Not as often as we should. Not with as much heart as we should. This is the sort of thing, you wonder how Paul came to these words. When I see my sin, there's often not words in my head to describe it. And the Holy Spirit does what?

intercedes for us with groanings too deep for us to say. Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by the mess you're in that you go, I'm, all is lost. All is lost. Now I feel a lot of tension saying this to you. And the reason I feel tension is because I started off telling you that I was going to preach a sermon about thankfulness. And here we are talking about the, you know, pointing at the depths of our depravity. Aren't you thankful that I could say that to you? It's in these times that thankfulness will come. And only these times. Have you ever had a time in your life, maybe when you were a child, or maybe when you're talking to your child and you're speaking to them and you're saying, son, daughter, this thing, no. And you're watching them and you know they're not listening. You know that their heart is thinking, okay, you're going to put these hurdles up, and I'm going to have to do this, that, and the other thing to get around them. Because I'm going to go get what I want. Do you ever see that in yourself? You're like, well, I don't want to struggle with this sin, so I'm going to do this and this and this. And then immediately your brain says, well, if you do this and this and this, then we can do this and that and the other to get around it, and then we can still get to what we want. And we'll need to do these other things to make sure that no one's the wiser. And then you go, well, I don't want to do that, so then I'll, you know, once I get around my first line of defense, I'm going to put up this other thing over here.

And then the other part of you says, well, but then I'll do this other thing. Well, then I'll stop for a while because I really should get to work or whatever. But I'm going to wait until the defenses are down. And then I'm going to, this is us. This is our tensions. It's exhausting, frankly. It's exhausting. And it's wicked. And it's just the tension that we live in. And who will set us free from it? How long do you want to play on this field before you feel like I don't have the strength in me to continue? Some of you might think, I've still got the strength in me to continue. And I pray that the Lord reveals to you soon that you do not have the strength to continue and you certainly don't have the strength to win. Who will set me free from the body of this death? Here's another question. Why would anybody want to set you free from that? Have you ever considered that? When you look at your own failures and your own faults and how deep they run and how corrupt they are and how frequent they raise their head, have you ever wondered,

Why would anybody want to help me? For a good man, one might dare to die. I can't remember in Romans where it says that. Do you know what I'm talking about, Daniel? But God demonstrated his own love for us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. But it begins, it's an assurance of pardon that we read. I'm misquoting it, I'm butchering it. It's in Romans, probably five or six somewhere. But I'm paraphrasing it for you. There's a point at which Paul argues in Romans, and he says, who wants to, we might be willing to help someone who would help themselves. We might be willing to help someone that we see raw material in. There could be good that come of it. And he contrasts that with God and says, but God, but God, he loved us and he helped us when we were not good men. When we were his enemies and when we were dead in our sins, that's when he helped us. And so to answer the question, who would want to help?

A wretched man. The answer is, not me, but God. He does want to help wretched men. And that's what Paul exclaims in answer to his question, who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. God will set us free from our sins through Jesus Christ. When we've exhausted all of our own ways and our own tactics, spent all of our time and whatever resources we think would help, and we find that we're still in our sins, we haven't made significant progress, God will set us free from them. And that's because only God can set us free from them. There are so many things we can do to help in our fight against sin. There are many things we can do to help, like rumble strips and guardrails. If you think about driving down the road, there's lots of things to help you stay in your lane.

One is a speed limit. That's actually meant to help you stay in your lane, because if you go too fast around the corner, what happens? You get out of your lane. So you have a speed limit. You also have lines that say you're getting out of your lane, right? And just on the other side of the lines, you have rumble strips. You know, I'm out of my lane. Go beyond that, and you've got a guardrail. And if you've managed to work your way over the speed limit, past the lines, over the rumble strip, and through the guardrail, you've really gotten yourself into a mess. Because there was lots of things to help you. So why do people spin out, go out, fly off the edge of the road? Because they decided that none of those helps were what they needed. That yellow sign that says I should take this curve at 35 miles an hour, now I can do it at 70. What's the problem with that young man? The problem is he doesn't have the will to guard his life or the lives of others.

His constraint externally will change that reality. If he's intent on driving recklessly, he will find a way to do it. And the same is true of us in our fight against sin. If you don't have the will to fight against your sins, there's nothing that can be done for you by any man or by yourself. As a pastor, if you come to me and you say, I have sins, and as we talk, it becomes apparent to me or to you that you don't have a will to be free of it, I cannot help you. I cannot help you. Only God can help you to be free of it. And I find often that that is an answer we don't like. We want some other sort of deliverance, some other sort of pacification, some other sort of peace than the peace that comes from God. And so I've sat in meetings with people.

And I've watched. And the whole thing I'm watching is, are you willing to hear? Do you want to be free of this? Do you see this as a problem? Because if you don't, we're wasting our time. Because I don't have a pithy thing I can say that's going to change. Now, will I try? Yes. But only because I have faith that God might use it. But I know full well, and I want you to know full well, that God has to change you if you're to be changed. It's not enough to know that something is sinful. there's hatred of sin in this passage. There's not just acknowledgement of it, there's hatred of it. And if you don't hate sin, I'm afraid you're not a Christian. Now, I'm not saying you have to perfectly hate sin all of the time, because that, you're not holy enough to do. But there has to be an assessment of your own heart. Do you hate when you sin? Is it growing in you, your hatred?

Are you becoming more and more dissatisfied with your own behavior and your own desires over time or not? Are you becoming more sensitive to when you sin or less sensitive to when you sin? These are the things you have to watch in your own hearts that we have to watch. These are the things that God sets us free from. Truly changed behavior, practical holiness has to be preceded. By a change of heart. And so Paul looks in the mirror, sees himself, wretched man that I am. Who will set me free from all of this? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. God will set you free from it. The question that really comes to us, we want to say, are you sure he will? And I would turn the question back around on you and I'd say, you be 100% honest. Do you want to be free of it or do you just want to be free from the consequences of it? Do you want to be free from sin?

Because God is not going to just trifle with you and give you the comforts that you want in this world so that you're not bothered by sin. Do you want to be free from it? Sure I do. Of course I do. Why wouldn't I want to be? And I'd say, well, because you're a sinner, that's why. That's why I don't want to be free from sins many times. It's because I go, but I like it. It's the comfort I know. It's familiar. It doesn't seem to be causing any present trouble. And if it is, it's not that bad. That's why. Would you pluck out your eye to be free of it? That's the question. Are you willing to enter into the kingdom of heaven blind than into hell with your vision intact? Do you want to be free of it? Christians want to be free of it. And what you find over time in their life is a growing desire to be free of it and a growing willingness, a humility.

To submit themselves to the difficulty and the work of becoming new creations. They're willing to be worked on. They're willing to do things that are hard or difficult or scary or unpleasant or costly. You find that they're willing over time for that to happen. Because they want to be free of their sins. And they trust that God will make them free of their sins in time. So Paul says, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, as though this work has already been done. Are Christians free of their sins in this life? Depends on what you mean by free, or yes and no. Are you free of them? Yes. How? In God's eyes, you're free of them. When God takes someone and he breathes life into them, spiritual life, they are free of their sins in his eyes. He doesn't see them as a corrupt sinner anymore.

though they do still see themselves that way. When God looks on his children, he sees his son Jesus. And there is nothing to look sideways at when you look at Jesus. He's perfect. And that is what God sees when he looks at each and every one of his children. And you say, well, I don't know why. That's silly. That's certainly not true of me. Or you might be tempted to think, well, that is true of me. Don't believe it's true of you because it's not yet. It will be, but it's not yet. But you're free of your sin in God's eyes. And that's what precedes all the other changes that come in your life. That when God looks at you, he's no longer full of wrath and indignation at you. That's something to be thankful for. And you say, well, I can't see it yet. And I say, I know, I know you can't see it yet. Except in the pages of scripture. So is what God says in his word just this old black and white film? Or is it real?

And do you believe it? Or do you trust how you feel or what you see in the mirror? God sees not as man sees. For man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. Do you believe it? Do you believe that God looks at you more favorably? If you're a Christian, do you believe he looks at you with joy and satisfaction and delight? Or not? You may well think, how could he? The only way he can is because he sees his son. He makes us holy in his sight, and he does it now, like that. And then he spends the rest of our lives taking that and bringing it to some state of maturity in us over our lifetimes. We do become more like Jesus over time. Our lives begin to resemble him over years and years of faithful devotion and pursuit of God.

And so he does set us free in that sense. How else does he set us free from our sins? He changes our desires. I think often we define freedom from sin as perfection. And we say, well, I'm not perfect, so I'm not free. And I say, eh, bad definition. Bad math leads to bad answers, and that's not good. What does it mean to be free of your sins? In this life right now, what it means is that you are now able to see them as sinful. And you're willing for them to be called what God calls them. That's freedom. That's freedom. I remember when I was a new Christian, and there were sins in my life that were just fixtures. And I remember having the thought, driving down the road, I don't have to do that anymore.

I'm actually able to choose not to do it. And I realized that before, that wasn't the case. I was a slave to sin. I was incapable of not falling into it. But now I had been changed, and I was free not to sin. I still did sin. I wasn't perfect, you understand. I'm still not. Paul says, not as though we've attained it yet. But I was free in the sense, and it was the sweetest, revelation to me that I went, I don't have to do that. There's something in me. It's new. I don't want to do it. At least not all of me. That was new. That was freedom. That was God's work. That's why Paul thanks God. Because he's been given a new frame, a new way of looking, a new inclination. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ. Free from the slavery and the bondage of sin.

And in time, the perfection that every Christian yearns for, he will have. He will have. You will be free of your sins, fully and completely. And you will be perfect. And you'll be able, like Adam and Eve in their innocence, you'll be able to stand with God with no shame, forever. And so you will be free of them. Do you want to be free of them? How much will you suffer and how much will you work and how long will you wait and how much will you deny to be free of them? This is the foundation of our joy. This is it. This is it. But if we make light of our sins, if we're unwilling to confess them, if we get angry when we struggle, we get angry at God, we deprive ourselves and those around us from joy, from thankfulness, from gratitude.

from love for God. And I wouldn't have that be the case for any one of us. There are many other things in your life you'll be thankful for, and you should be thankful for, but they will come and they will go. Your marriage at times will give you great joy, and there are times when your marriage will be the source of great sorrow. That's why when you got married, you vowed for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death separates us. Because the thankfulness and the gratitude and the joy that you experience in that relationship as an example will ebb and flow. But this thankfulness, God's mercy to you, that doesn't ebb and flow. That doesn't change. And it may be that there will be seasons in your life when it's all you can manage to see to be thankful for. And even then, you ought to be thankful. We ought to be thankful, people.

If we have that sort of thankfulness and that sort of gratitude, it will frame all of our other sorrows and all of our other trials and all of our other joys the way they should be framed. They will no longer be framed as something that we deserve, something that we're entitled to, something that we're angry because it's not just so. It'll frame them as an additional kindness, an additional manifestation or demonstration of the love of God. He's given to us his only son. How will he not also freely give to us all things? Only someone who knows their sinfulness and can see the cost that he was willing to send his son to pay will rejoice in God's provision and what he withholds. In this life we'll have many troubles, but the mercy of God given to us through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot.

be taken from us, cannot be minimized, cannot be covered over. There it is as a rock, an everlasting rock, never to be moved, never to be shaken, never to be broken. That's what Christians care about. That's what gives them joy. That's not it. That's not the only thing that gives them joy, but that's the primary thing that gives them joy. And you'd be surprised as you look to that and you think of your own undeserving, I don't know if undeservedness is a word, but we'll make it one for today. When you look in the mirror and you see, I don't deserve any of that. Not even for a moment, let alone for a lifetime. You ought to be thankful. But I shouldn't even, you know, it's not that I don't even feel like I have to tell you, you ought to be thankful. If I can get you simply to look and see what kind of sinner you are, and then simply to say, God knows that, and

He loves sinners, and he saves sinners. And you think, no way. And I say, yes. Not on my authority, on his. That's what he said. So do you believe it? Will you believe it? Or will you have Satan continue to call you away and to lie to you and to distract you and to think there's greater joy somewhere else? You'll be more satisfied if. What is it that you believe? What are your lies? A few points of application. First, confess your sins. Very simple. Confess your sins. Psalm 32.3 says, Sin is a heavy burden. It's a heavy burden. It's a miserable burden to carry. It's heavy. If you read in Pilgrim's Progress, he talks about having this burden, this sort of nondescript burden on his back. But another way that this passage has been described, historically, to try to get you to understand the sinfulness of yourself and the new man inside of you. They give this imagery. They say, what you should imagine is having a dead body strapped to your back that you can't get off. And it rots, and it stinks, and it's heavy, and it's just the most disgusting, gross, awful thing you can imagine. That's the tension that you live in as a Christian. You have a dead body strapped to your back.

That's what unconfessed sin is like. Even if you keep your groaning to yourself, even if you've managed to hide it from everyone, it's an awful burden to bear. And it will not relent. So confess your sins. A few verses later in that psalm, David says, I acknowledged my sin to you and my iniquity I did not hide. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, which is quite a vulnerable thing. And it says, And you forgave the guilt of my sin. You forgave it. That's something to be thankful for. There are no sins that God is unwilling or unable to forgive. So confess your sins. In a word of encouragement along this same way, Jesus said in John 6, all that the Father gives to me will come to me. And all who comes to me, and the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out.

So confess your sins and come to Jesus. The second application, I think, is just a summary of everything we've talked about. Revel in and rejoice in God's mercy to you every day. You think, but I'm a terrible sinner. And I say, God knows that. I don't mean to minimize sins. But if you know me, that's not usually my problem. Yes, you're a sinner. God knows better than you do how sinful you are. He knows better than you ever will how wicked you are. and you're exactly the kind of person that he came to save. So rejoice in it. You say, I don't feel like rejoicing. And I say, I know. Would it surprise you that Satan would want to keep you from that? That you might be wired as a result of the fall in such a way as to discredit and discount the mercy of God and think, no, not for me. How could that be for me? It can only be for you because God said it was for you. So you take hold of it. God's mercies are new to us every morning.

And we need them to be new to us every morning because we sin every day. The fact that you sin every day should not be a discouragement to you unless you don't care that you sin every day. But if you see at the end of the day, what a wretched man that I am, then you should go to bed contented in the mercy of God. That's what it means to be a Christian, and that's what we ought to be thankful for. Let's pray.