The U-Turn

(The U-turn: 180 Change of Heart (Repentance)...this material is intended for the Youth Retreat of our Youth Ministry. I praise God for the resources He provided...for me to pull the thoughts...thank u for the Search God's Word Commentaries (e.g Matthew Henry)...so i can get more biblical truth, for the Kay Arthur's precept book...and for the Speaker of this material, Titot. Praise God for the workers of the Youth and the sponsors!)

Intro .......


In Session 1… you discussed about the crossroad. I believe you have understood that once you make a choice or decision, there’s always a corresponding consequence.

Seriously, what if you have made some wrong choices in your life? Does it mean it’s already too late? Will you be thrown in the corner, and made useless to God or man?

Have you ever done something and wished you could do it over? Have take two at least? Or be given a fresh start? Is there a way to wipe your slate clean and begin again?

Going back to King David, while it is true he went down the chronicle of history as a man after God’s own heart. Yet we know from our earlier study that he made some poor choices, choices that affected him and many around him, choices that led to the death of one of his mighty men and his own son. How can we reconcile David’s disobedience with God’s opinion of him?

This session, we will look at David’s repentance and God’s grace and His loving-kindness. These things served as the good news for us who one time in our life too failed.

The word repentance, God’s grace and love gave David hope ...

We will study Psalm 51. If you open your bible, the introduction of psalm 51 tells us when it was written: “For the choir director. A psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone to Bathsheba.”

Let’s read psalm 51: 1-4 and let’s observe David in this period of his life

What have you noticed with David? We can see that David knew he had sinned against God. He knew that God being Holy and blameless can not tolerate sin. God looked at sin as evil… (v. 4)

But God who is also loving and full of compassion, can forgive us from all our sins. (v 1)

And these attributes of God made David get the boldness to approach God, confess his sins and ask for forgiveness.

In David’s search for forgiveness of his sins, he opened his heart. We can observe that in this psalm, he used 3 words for sins to express the seriousness of his behavior: (v. 1 and v. 3) he mentioned “transgression” which means “rebellion”; (v.2) “Iniquity” which means “crooked dealings”; and (vv. 1,2,3,4) “sin” which indicate error and wandering.

In the New Testament, sin means “to miss the mark”, "to fail to live up to the standard.”

Friends, knowing this, how would you look at sin now?

Sin does not only mean it has serious consequence but sin in itself is a rebellion against God, not doing the right response according to God’s standard.

Before we will discuss how David repented… let’s continue reading Psalm 51…let’s start now at v.5-12

So what do we learn of David? How did he repent? What should be the condition of our heart that he set as an example when we repent?

We learn...
I. David’s Humble Petition (slide v. 1)

Remember that David was, upon many accounts, a man of great merit. He had not only done much; but suffered much in the cause of God—remember David in the time of King Saul before David became king? His heart who is not only willing to seek God but eager to serve God and yet when he is convinced of sin, he does not offer to balance his evil deeds with his good deeds…instead of telling God “Lord, I did good services to you. I once had a public honor while I led your people. I am a descendant from the tribe of Judah! I am King of Israel. I built a place for the ark.” BUT David did not mention that to God… he rather appeal to God for mercy’s sake… (v. 1) according to God’s loving kindness, greatness of His compassion not because David used to be good and obedient before God.

In David’s humble heart… he knew he sinned against God…and to God alone.

What particular mercy did David beg from God? (slide v1, v. 2, v.7, v. 9) cleanse me, wiped out my transgression, blot out my iniquities.

Sin truly defiles us. It renders us odious in the sight of the Holy God. And when we sinned, we need cleansing… and we are only clean before God if we admit that we sinned against Him.

II. David’s penitential confessions (v. 3-5)

Confession means “to say the same thing as,” therefore to confess is to “agree with” God that what you have done is wrong.

David in these verses was very free to own his guilt before God. He did not say…”The devil made me do it”. What did David say? “I acknowledge my transgression”.

David has a great sense of it that he was continually thinking of it with sorrow and shame.

Some of us when we sinned…we said sorry but never actually sorry in the deepest pit of our heart. We said sorry maybe because we get caught. We don’t want the consequence and we tried to manipulate it by saying sorry. And after awhile we are the same people… we commit the same mistakes…mistake that became a favorite sin. Do you have a favorite sin? How is God speaking to you right now while studying the life of David?

III. David’s acknowledgment of Grace of God.

The word forgiveness carries the idea of the “cancellation of debts” or “a dismissal of charges”. It means, “to send away”.

David obtained forgiveness from the Lord not because of his righteous deeds in the past but because of God’s graciousness. David mentioned that first and foremost in Psalm 51. David has no other basis of forgiveness but God’s grace alone.

Grace means unmerited favor. You received something you don’t deserve. What made us not deserve God? It is our sin. How many times David mentioned sin in this psalm (vv. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9,) We discussed earlier what sin means. Sin has penalty. In Romans 6:23, this is what they call the bad news and the good news verse.

Why bad news? Sin equals death. The Good news? God’s gift of eternal life. So how can we receive the gift of eternal life if we sin? This is where the grace and mercy of God comes in. We learn grace, so what is mercy? While grace is unmerited favor, example of that is we don’t deserve eternal life because we are sinners but God gives it as a gift. Mercy on the other hand is withholding something we deserve…example we are sinners, we deserve to die but God withhold it…somebody died in our behalf- that is mercy.

And David knew that. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness. He knew in verse 16a that he can not save himself…there’s nothing that he can do that would merit forgiveness. It is only by believing who God is and by seeking God’s face that would make King David acceptable before the Lord.

Do you think David was forgiven and restored? In verse 17, it says, (slide) This simply means that the prerequisite of spiritual renewal is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. And God delights in a heart that humbles before the Lord. Our total surrender before our Creator is a mark of true repentance. Do you think David had a broken spirit? His pleading and begging before the Lord for cleansing, washing, purifying signifies David’s weariness, sad laments and brokenness.

IV. David’s result from restoration

David had been himself a transgressor, and therefore could speak to transgressor, and help them resolve, having himself found mercy with God in the way of repentance. As a result, David promised God to teach transgressors God’s ways (v. 13)
What will David teach? Teach them the same course David had taken; that is to

1. Humble themselves before the Lord
2. Confess their sins to God
3. Seek God’s face.

By doing this, God will give us pardon.

To end this lesson, let us realize what this psalm is teaching us—telling us as transgressor—what God had done for the soul of David. And God can extend that to us.

1 John 1:9 says

Let’s us pray…