Overcoming distress by confessing sin and living a life of integrity.

Psalm 25:6–11, 18-21 (NKJV)

⁶Remember, O Lord, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses, For they are from of old.

⁷Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions; According to Your mercy remember me, For Your goodness’ sake, O Lord.

⁸Good and upright is the Lord; Therefore He teaches sinners in the way.

⁹The humble He guides in justice, And the humble He teaches His way.

¹⁰All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, To such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.

¹¹For Your name’s sake, O Lord, Pardon my iniquity, for it is great. ¹⁸Look on my affliction and my pain, And forgive all my sins.

¹⁹Consider my enemies, for they are many; And they hate me with cruel hatred.

²⁰Keep my soul, and deliver me; Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You.

²¹Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for You.

Psalm 25 shows us David in the midst of distress and then what he was doing to keep that distress from becoming despair.

-    David avoids having his despair by putting his confidence in the Lord, being committed to the Lord, by choosing to have integrity by confessing sin, and he chose to know the fear of the Lord.

In this edition we will look at how David chose to have “integrity by confessing  the Lord”.

 David never claims innocence.  And none of us can claim it. We are all guilty.  He does say that their actions were unprovoked or without cause.  vs. 3– There is a difference.

In verse seven he says, “Do not remember the sins of my youth” In sinning he had gone against a standard.  He had missed the mark of God’s holiness.

He also did not want God to remember his transgressions in verse seven.  We transgress the law of God when we rise up in rebellion against God’s authority.

In verse eleven David pleads, “Pardon my iniquity for it is great”.  The idea of pardon is to forgive, to release or to remove the guilt associated with his moral wrongdoing.

His use here of the term iniquity reveals his focus on this liability or guilt for what he had done.  He finishes this statement by saying they are great or numerous.  His sin was not little but there were a relatively large quantity of sin.

His desire in verse twenty-one was to “Let integrity and uprightness preserve me”.  He wanted to be blameless in life with a focus of not having guilt of sin laid to his charge.  He wanted to be upright in that he wanted to follow God’s standards.

What I would like people to realize is that repentance is described here.  Repentance is the confessing sin and making a commitment to living by God’s standard forsaking the way that one has lived in the past.  It is through this repentance and trusting in the blood of Jesus Christ that we can have salvation.

Let me encourage each one who takes the time to read this to confess your sin and make a commitment to live a life of integrity and uprightness before God.