Today I want to continue answering the question...

How can we find peace?

Finding peace is a life-long journey...

it comes and goes,

nobody has it all the time.

But if we can get a grasp

on the tools for finding inner peace,

then we can go back to the beginning,

start over and try again.

But before I get to the second words

I want to talk about David's problems.

The story of David's sin

is found in 2 Samuel 11:1-26

King David had reached mid-life,

and like a lot of men at mid-life

his life had become flat.

He had no uphill battles to fight.
He had everything he needed and wanted.
He was coasting, bored.

A dangerous place to be.

On flat land, coasting.

Last week I saw an interview on CNN

with Hugh Hefner and two of his playmates.

The interviewer asked him,

"Why is it we always see you

with new women..."

and then the interviewer corrected himself and said,

"...girls."

Hugh looked awkward for a moment and said,

"I have a problem...

I am not aroused by women my own age

and find younger women and their beauty

much more to my liking."

I think Hugh is right.

He has a problem.

I would make the case that David,

middle-aged, with middle-aged wives,

might have had the same problem.

On the cover of the June George Magazine

is a picture of a 19-year-old in barely a swimsuit.

The article starting on page 52

is about the number of women approaching middle age

who are willing to risk killing themselves

to look 19 again.

Manic exercise for 3 or 4 hours a day.
Surgical options to remove fat or wrinkles or sagging.

Somehow our culture communicates to women

they are not valuable or attractive

when they are no longer perky and taut

like a 19-year-old.

I also think this communicates to men

that this type of thinking is perfectly ok.

I think it's pornographic...

expecting reality to live up to a fantasy.

I think David suffered from pornographic thinking.

I bring that up because

I read this week that a counselor with a clinic

estimated that pornography

is the secret actor

in 7 out of 10 divorces.

If porn is your sin,

this is for you.

So here we go...

The third word is conversion...

the healing of forgiveness

is experienced by people who change their direction,

who convert what they are doing

to a different way of doing.

Conversion means action.

Forgiveness happens to people

who are changing direction in life.

David asked God

for a whole new way of doing life...

listen to his prayer...

"God, give me a new heart..."

heart is the soul...
the seat of everything we do.

David asks for a whole new heart...

doesn't need a little touch and polish...

I need a new heart.

He also says,

"Give me a new spirit..."

that is the motivation to do things...

attitude.

He said,

"Give me a new joy..."

I've forgotten how to enjoy the right things,

I'm enjoying all the wrong things...

And he said,

and this is very interesting,

"God, give me a willingness to obey you..."

I haven't been willing to obey.

David asks for a whole new way of doing life.

I remember the story of John Newton...

the man who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace...

it is an amazing song...

it has power to penetrate the soul...

I heard that Guns N Roses

were in concert on New Years Eve this last year

in a soccer stadium in England...

and that they were to end about 11:45

and after them there was to come out

opera singer Jessie Norma...

and she would bring in the new year...

They ran long,

and when Jessie walked out on the stage

at 11:55 to perform her aria

and welcome in the new millennium

the crowd was pretty soaked with GNR

and they were screaming for GNR...

"Give us GNR!

Give us GNR!"

She stood for a moment,

waiting for the crowd to quiet.

They didn't.

She stepped up

and into the microphone she said,

"This is the song with which I think

it best to end one age and enter a new one..."

No one heard her

except the sound people

because of the shouting,

and she started singing,

quietly,

a cappella,

Amazing Grace...

And during the first verse

people continued to shout,

"Give us GNR!"

During the second verse

it got very quiet.

During the third verse

some people started to sing along.

And during the fourth verse

the whole stadium sang with her.

John Newton was a slave trader...

caused a mutiny on his own ship,

threw the captain overboard

At sea one night

he was in a great storm

and he spoke to God,

said,

"If you save me

I will believe in you..."

Well, he survived.

And he kept his word.

He believed.

But he kept dealing in human beings.

He was in harbor

on the West Coast of Africa one day

and while the ship was being loaded with slaves...

and certainly hearing the whiplash and human wailing

he penned another hymn,

"How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds"

But he wrote in his journal soon after,

"Yes, sweet is the name of Jesus,

but empty is my soul.

I long...

but for what I do not know."

He saw no contradiction in what he was doing.

When he later

passed through England

he met Wilbur Wilberforce

and began to realize that

if you're going to realize forgiveness,

if you are going to be the recipient of grace,

you have to change the way you do your life.

It was then that he wrote the hymn

Amazing Grace,

and he quit the slave trade...

How do we experience

the forgiveness of God?

Contrition...

have to feel bad about our brokenness

Candor...

have to be honest about what is really wrong,

the ways we're separated from God.

Conversion...

we have to change the way we do life

Forgiveness comes to those

who change the direction they are going.

I want to point out one thing here.

Something I see quite often.

People do change...

radically...

stop doing things,
start off in a new direction

they've never been before.

It's new to them,

they don't know how to act,

it's foreign to them,

and I've seen people become disoriented

and lonely

and in the end disgusted...

and literally run back

to the familiar places in their lives.

That is why,

in addition of

contrition,

candor, and

conversion...

we so desperately need

and must not forget

the last word...

community...

Forgiveness is experienced by people

who create a community of forgiveness...

I don't know about you,

and I probably shouldn't say this...

but for me,

the forgiveness of God just isn't enough...

I need to be around some other people

who have needed to be forgiven

and have been forgiven...

who will forgive me...

people who will remind me

that I've needed to be forgiven

so I don't get back on my own two feet

and think I'm above the crowd.

I also need people around

whom I can expect to be reminded

if I fall back into old patterns...

David said to God...

if you forgive me

I will use my tragedy

to turn others back to you.

You know his prayer was written into a song

that was sung in worship when he was there.

He joined a community of forgiveness.

I don't know anybody

who experiences forgiveness on a constant level

who isn't in a group of forgiving people.

And that's what our church is all about.

Thought about that this week.

Why has SML done so well?

What is it we offer...?

Cool music...

yeah ok.

Cool pastor who is fairly good looking....

yeah, ok.

Comfortable seating,

nice carpeting,

free coffee mugs and pens...

I hope not.

It's not because we have the best building...

we're gonna outgrow this soon...

It's not because we have the best moral teaching...

you can get the best moral teaching

by studying the Eight Paths of Buddhism...

It's not because we offer the best bible study...

my advice to you is to get into small groups

and study the bible in places together.

I think it's because

we offer something people can't get anywhere else...

the unconditional acceptance of people

who don't feel very acceptable...

we call that grace.

And I guess I would say

if you're already straight

and got it all together

and just waiting for the train to heaven...

you're in the wrong place...

But if you're broken...

we're broken...

welcome to the community of the broken...

and we're here to celebrate

the forgiveness of God...

I get asked now

what is the secret of SML's growth...

and I tell them,

getting people to accept

God's acceptance of them...

Contrition.
Candor.
Conversion.
Community.

My highest hope is that

you,

today,

will experience the forgiveness of God...

the sweet relief

of finally putting down

that burden you've been carrying...

And if you can't, it's not God's fault...

If we cannot experience God's forgiveness

it's not because God is not trying

to offer us forgiveness.

It's because

we're not following the path of letting him...

So I plead with you

to allow God to move into all of you today....

no matter where you've been

or what you are doing...

and end the real problem...

your separation from God.

Become a new person.