Text:\u00a0 Psalm 51: 10-12<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know about you, but for me a new car is a special thing.\u00a0 When I drive it off the lot, I try to be so careful.\u00a0 Listen to that engine run so smooth.\u00a0 Look how that paint gleams.\u00a0 Smell that interior.<\/p>\n
But as time goes by something changes.\u00a0 I\u2019m not as careful as I once was, careful to keep it clean.\u00a0 That once new car begins to fade.\u00a0 And not just the paint and the upholstery.\u00a0 It fades into the background of my life.<\/p>\n
As Christians, we can be like that with our Christian life.\u00a0 When we first drive off the lot with our new found faith, there\u2019s joy.\u00a0 God loves me that much.\u00a0 I want to serve Jesus.\u00a0 I want to study his Word. I want to be around God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n
But what can and does happen in our lives?\u00a0 Not just once and then we learn better.\u00a0 But again and again.\u00a0 We wander away.\u00a0 Or we begin to take for granted what God has done.\u00a0 Or like King David, we get ourselves all tangled up in sin.\u00a0 In any case, the result is the same.\u00a0 What once gleamed with joy and hope in Christ fades into the background of our lives.<\/p>\n
Today it is Pentecost, the festival of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 We celebrate that special coming of the Spirit to empower Christ\u2019s church to go make and disciples of all nations.\u00a0 How many years has it been?\u00a0 How many generations?\u00a0 A lot.\u00a0 Yet after so many years the Holy Spirit came to you in the Word and changed your heart.\u00a0 He brought you to faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior.\u00a0 I wish I could say that we all then lived happily ever after as God\u2019s people.\u00a0 But we know better than that.\u00a0 These words of King David are words I need to pray and often.\u00a0 For there hasn\u2019t been one Sunday in my 61 years that I didn\u2019t need to confess my sins to my God.\u00a0 And those sins, start right in here.\u00a0 So this is my prayer too:<\/p>\n
RENEW ME LORD, BY YOUR SPIRIT AND YOUR WORD
\n<\/b>I.\u00a0 Change my heart as only you can.
\nII. Have mercy on me, a sinner.
\nIII. Give me joy and a willing spirit once more<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the Bible, King David is called a man after God\u2019s own heart.\u00a0 But King David had polluted his heart and life with evil.\u00a0 We know the shameless details.\u00a0 The adultery, deception and murder.\u00a0 And God was not absent there.\u00a0 He never is.\u00a0 God pressed him hard with his guilt.\u00a0 Then he sent a prophet called Nathan who stood before him and said:\u00a0 You are the man.<\/p>\n
King David\u2019s heart sank in sorrow.\u00a0 He confessed his sin and Nathan assured him that he was forgiven.\u00a0 We\u2019re told here that King David wrote this psalm, this prayer when Nathan confronted him.<\/p>\n
We know the words well, but let\u2019s take a closer look. 10<\/sup>\u00a0Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me<\/span>. (KJV)\u00a0 How often I have prayed those words when I\u2019ve let myself fall into some sin.\u00a0 I have prayed them when I was glad no one knew what I was thinking.\u00a0 But of course, my Lord did, the one who died for me.\u00a0 10<\/sup>\u00a0Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me<\/span>.<\/p>\n Here David uses a word that teaches us something important. Create, the first verb in the Bible.\u00a0 God created. What David asks of God is something only God can do.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s the work of God the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Change my heart Lord, as only you can. <\/b>\u00a0How does the apostle Paul say it?\u00a0 \u2026For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.<\/span>\u00a0 (Phlp 2:13) So this is a good prayer.\u00a0 A prayer we often need to pray.<\/p>\n And how does the Spirit change us?\u00a0 A carpenter uses a hammer and nails.\u00a0 A plumber uses a wrench and then sends me a big bill.\u00a0 Some of us use a computer.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit uses this Word to change us.\u00a0 He uses this Word to renew us when we\u2019ve made a mess of our lives.\u00a0 He leads us to repent, to see our sin for what it is.\u00a0 Ugly rebellion against God.\u00a0 And then he lifts our hearts by showing us in this Word the love and mercy of God in Christ. He lifts our hearts in the Sacrament as Jesus gives us the body and blood he gave for us and shed for us. \u00a0For there at the cross God made him who had no sin to be sin for us<\/span>.\u00a0 Well in that message the Spirit changes us.\u00a0 He renews us.\u00a0 He knocks down what does not belong and puts up something different.\u00a0 A clean heart, a right spirit moved by God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n How we need it!\u00a0 How we need his mercy!\u00a0 King David sure knew it.\u00a0 In his words, David admitted what he deserved.\u00a0 11<\/sup>\u00a0Cast me not away from thy presence; And take not thy holy spirit from me<\/span>. \u00a0King David was so blessed by the Lord and yet he allowed himself to make such godless choices.<\/p>\n You see, every believer is a temple of God the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 When the Spirit brought us to faith, he came to stay.\u00a0 For some of us, that was our baptism when we were born again of water and the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 What does Peter say on this day of Pentecost, Repent and be baptized\u2026and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit<\/span>.\u00a0 And now each one of us is meant to be a little church where God is glorified by the way we live our lives.<\/p>\n But David had trashed that little church.\u00a0 He trashed the temple of his body with his sin.\u00a0 He grieved the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 So he begged God\u2019s mercy.\u00a0 11<\/sup>\u00a0Cast me not away from thy presence; And take not thy holy spirit from me<\/span>. \u00a0He knew that\u2019s what he deserved.<\/p>\n King David was probably thinking of Saul when he wrote this.\u00a0 You remember King Saul.\u00a0 He had turned his back on the Lord and the Lord turned his back on him.\u00a0 David was painfully aware of Saul\u2019s tragic end.\u00a0 Have mercy on me, a sinner.<\/b> \u00a0Renew me, Lord. <\/b><\/p>\n David lived long before God sent his Son.\u00a0 He did not know what God has now done to make us his children.\u00a0 A cross of suffering.\u00a0 An empty grave of victory over death was not something David knew.\u00a0 Yet the Lord made salvation real and personal for David.\u00a0 God promised that from his line would come the Christ, the Messiah.\u00a0 That promise had to be so exciting, so full of joy for David. That joy which is the fruit of the Spirit.<\/p>\n But David was like you and me.\u00a0\u00a0 He knew he had let that joy slip away from his heart and his life. \u00a0Have we?\u00a0 Don\u2019t misunderstand.\u00a0 I\u2019m not talking about bubbling over with enthusiasm.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about the kind of joy I\u2019ve witnessed in some unusual places.\u00a0 A hospital room where a dear lady was so sick.\u00a0 But there in her eyes was that joy in her Savior, that joy in his promise.\u00a0 Whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.<\/span><\/p>\n David knew he had let that joy slip away.\u00a0 His sinful choices, his guilt, had pushed that joy out of his heart.\u00a0 So he prayed what we need to pray: \u00a012<\/sup>\u00a0Restore to me the joy of your salvation\u2026 and uphold me with a willing spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n A willing spirit<\/span> is what springs from this joy.\u00a0 A willingness to serve and obey God even when it\u2019s hard. An attitude that surprises me sometimes. I think of the man whose young wife had a slow debilitating disease that would go on for many years.\u00a0 I would visit them in the home.\u00a0 By now she was bedridden. It had to be so hard for him day after day.\u00a0 Working and then caring for his wife.\u00a0 But he was so devoted to her.\u00a0 Give me that joy and that willing spirit.\u00a0 Lord, renew my heart by your Spirit and your Word.<\/p>\n So we look at our lives this morning.\u00a0\u00a0 We have this wonderful gift called faith that God the Holy Spirit has worked in our hearts.\u00a0 He\u2019s come to us in our Baptism and united us with Jesus.\u00a0 He comes to us in his Word.\u00a0 And he\u2019s given us a hope in Jesus that shines through even the darkest moments of our life.<\/p>\n Yet with all that, we can still treat it like that car which is not so new anymore.\u00a0 So let this be our prayer.\u00a0 Renew my heart, O Lord, by your Spirit and by your Word<\/b>.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Text:\u00a0 Psalm 51: 10-12 I don\u2019t know about you, but for me a new car is a special thing.\u00a0 When I drive it off the lot, I try to be so careful.\u00a0 Listen to that engine run so smooth.\u00a0 Look how that paint gleams.\u00a0 Smell that interior. But as time goes by something changes.\u00a0 I\u2019m not as careful as I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pentecost","category-sermon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions\/451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}