TEXT: Psalm 51

SUBJECT: Kids’ Sermon #49: Forgive Me

Listen up kids!

Last month we began a study of Psalm 51. Today, we’ll move on in it. But before we do, let me ask you a few questions—they’re things we talked about last time and things you need to know if you’re going to understand this part of God’s Word.

• Who wrote Psalm 51?

• What kind of mood was he in when he wrote it?

• Why did he feel that way?

• In one word only, what did he want from God?

The one thing David wanted was…mercy. Mercy is a favor from God; it means the Lord gives you what you don’t deserve.

You’re a very smart kid who always got excellent grades. But one day, you come home from school with straight F’s! You got the bad grades—not because you were sick or because you had a rotten teacher—but because you were lazy. Do you think your parents would be real happy with you? I bet they wouldn’t.

What might happen to you? You might get a spanking; you might be grounded; you might be bawled out; you might have to study six hours a night with your mom or dad looking over your shoulder. Whatever they do to you, you can be sure it won’t be a lot of fun. Your parents are acting in justice—and there’s nothing wrong with that—for God is just too.

But, what if after coming home with that crumby report card, your parents told you, "You can do better than that". And they backed up their words by…taking you out for pizza and ice cream. That’s mercy! It’s a favor you don’t deserve; it’s a treat you never earned.

God’s mercy is like that. David had sinned against the Lord—and what he did wasn’t a little mess up; it was a big whopping sin—far worse than a smart kid coming home with straight F’s in school!

Yet, instead of sending him to hell for what he did or striking him dead then and there, the Lord was merciful to David; the Lord gave Him a treat he did not have coming to him.

David wanted mercy from the Lord. It’s the first thing he asked for because it’s the thing he needed most. And not only David needed it, you do too. For David wasn’t the only sinner in the world. The Bible says,

Including you. Even if you’re a good boy a fine girl, even if your parents are very proud of you, and everyone praises you day and night. Everyone is a sinner and that means everyone needs mercy. And ought to ask God for it.

Have you done that? Are you doing it every day? Will you?

David wanted mercy from God. But not just any kind of mercy. He wanted one kind of mercy more than any other.

Remember, everything we get from God is a mercy. The air you breathe is a mercy, the food you eat, having parents, a home to live in, everything is a mercy. But David wasn’t asking for more air or better food or a bigger house!

The kind of mercy he wanted is found in v.1,

We depend on the Lord for everything. It’s right to pray for everything you need and give thanks for anything He gives you. But the thing you ought to pray for most and be most thankful for the…blotting out of your transgressions.

Let me tell you what this means.

Transgressions is another word for sins. David uses several words in the Psalm for the bad things he did. But transgression means a particular kind of sin. It means something like rebellion or knowing what God wants you to do, but not doing it or even doing the opposite.

I don’t believe any of you kids have committed David’s transgressions. None of you has stolen another man’s wife or killed a man, have you?

But you’ve done plenty of transgressing. Do you know, for example, that God wants you to respect your parents? Have you always done that? Or have you argued with them angrily or mumbled under your breath against them? You know the Lord wants you to be kind to your brothers and sisters? Are you—all the time? Or, are you sometimes mean—cutting them down with your words, beating them up, or excluding them from things they’d enjoy? You know God wants you to tell the truth, He wants you to be content with what you have, He wants you to be happy when others have more than you do. But every one of you has rebelled against Him in these things. And you’re not alone—I have too and so have your parents. Didn’t I tell you a few minutes ago?

You have transgressions—tons of them, far more than you think you do—even if you’re very good.

What does it mean to have your transgressions blotted out?

Think about doing your math in pen (not pencil). You come to the problem:

You put in…35.

After you finish the page, you look over it one more time before turning it in…and you find your mistake. 6x5 does not equal 35. The right answer is 30. What’s the first thing you do? You cross out the wrong answer!

That’s what it means to "Blot out my transgressions". It means God is crossing out the sins you’ve committed.

If you cross out the wrong answer on your paper, your teacher won’t mark you down for it. And if God blots out your transgressions, He won’t hold them against you!

There’s a word for this: forgiveness.

That’s the mercy David wanted most! He wanted it more than a long life or good health or a fun time. It was forgiveness he wanted most.

That’s the mercy you ought to want most too. Here’s why: it’s better than the other things people want. It’s better to die at 15 forgiven than to live to be 1,000 and die unforgiven. It’s better to be poor and not guilty before God than to have a billion dollars and stand guilty before Him. It’s better to be sick and have a hard and lonely life with forgiveness than to be healthy, popular, good-looking, and smart without it.

If forgiveness is the best mercy you can have, how do you get it? You get it by…asking God for it.

When I say, asking, I don’t mean just saying some words—as though God can be fooled by them! I mean asking with a broken heart and with faith.

You won’t ask for forgiveness unless you know you’ve sinned—and not just know it, but feel it too. When you ask the Lord to forgive you, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, of what you’ve done or of what you’ve left undone. There’s a Bible word for this feeling: repentance. No one is forgiven without it. The Lord Jesus Christ said,

You also ask in faith, that is, not figuring God won’t answer you, or maybe thinking He might, but believing that He will forgive you because He is good to sinners and He has promised them that if they seek mercy they will find it—every time!

What do you use to cross out wrong answers? When I was a younger kid, I used ink. When I got in high school, I stared using White Out. Now, I mostly use the Delete key.

Do you know what God uses to cross out our sins? He uses Red Out! He covers our sins with the blood of Christ.

Grown-ups sometimes argue about what this means, exactly. But the main thing to remember is not how the blood of Christ covers our sins, but that it does!

When you ask God to forgive you, feeling sorry for your sins and believing in Christ, He will forgive you. Even if you’ve done something as bad as what David did—or worse. Even if you’ve done it over and over again.

That’s the kind of Savior Jesus Christ is. His blood won’t cover only 4 sins or 357 of them or even 1.5 billion of them. No, His blood will cover them all—all yours, all mine, all everybody’s!

That’s the kind of love God the Father has for us. Enough love to blot out all our transgressions.

When David was horribly guilty, he turned to God for mercy, the mercy of forgiveness.

You’re guilty too. Why don’t you do what he did? If you do, you’ll find the same forgiving mercy David found. So do it. Right now. For Christ’s sake. Amen,