It's good to be back and I'm thankful for the fellowship that
we've had today. I'm thankful for the time that
we've had to spend together and getting to catch up with many of
you and to spend time together in being an encouragement, being
encouraged by you, and hopefully our presence here can be an
encouragement to you as well. We're thankful for everybody
who's here. As Brother Frank mentioned this
morning, I've known them and they've known me as long as I
can remember. And so I'm, I'm thankful to have
this opportunity to get to worship with them.
And it's, I'm very thankful for the impact that they've had in
my life, in my family's life. And it is one that I am blessed
to be a part of the church, to have experience.
And so I'm thankful for them in every way.
This afternoon we're going to talk about Psalm 51.
And the reason for that is when I go places and teach, my goal
is ultimately to talk about things not necessarily that are
controversial in any way, shape or form.
That's not who I am, but really to talk about things that maybe
we don't get to talk about very often, just to kind of entice us
to further read and study Scripture, which is why Philem
this morning is a common lesson I teach places just because it's
one that we don't touch on very often.
Typically in the evenings I would talk about Mephibosheth,
but I was told that that was kind of touched on recently
here, and so I was going to shy away from that.
Psalm 51 is one of the most impactful Psalms in my life as I
grow into myself and recognise the mistakes and the sins of my
past and recognize the constant mistakes that I I try and avoid
but still sometimes make. Psalm 51 is a constant reminder
that God is gracious, God is loving, and God is a good God in
so many ways. Now maybe you're thinking,
what's Psalm 51? I imagine you know, it's a
pretty famous Psalm. Psalm 51 is this outcry from
David after he had acted wickedly with Bathsheba and then
on top of that gone and had her husband Uriah sent to the front
lines and killed. And if we remember from the book
of Second Samuel, then Second Samuel, Chapter 11 and 12, this
narrative happens and the prophet Nathan comes to David
and he tells him this parable almost, but just a a figurative
story in order to reference a realistic event about a
shepherd, drawing on David's compassion as a shepherd and his
love for shepherding and caring for the sheep and the flocks.
And there is one who has one sheep who he cares for and
loves, and another man who has 100 sheep.
He's plentiful in sheep. And yet when his friend comes,
he he takes the sheep of the man's one, slaughters it and
offers it as a meal for this visitor.
And this enrages David and he is furious and he pronounces death
upon the individual who would do such a wicked thing.
To which then Nathan turns the conversation around on to David
and says, but the man is you. And in Second Samuel chapter 12,
David immediately goes into mourning, goes into this moment
of of sorrow, and then it's over.
We don't see the following conversation.
We do find out that Bathsheba is pregnant and they lose the
child, and David mourns for the child while it's alive.
But as God receives the soul of the child back, David accepts
the consequences of his action and moves on, pursuing a
relationship with God that would someday allow him to rejoin that
child in heaven. Now, Second Samuel 11 and 12
don't give us a lot of what goes on within the mouth of the heart
of David, but I think that's where first or Psalm 51 comes
into play. I sometimes wonder where Psalm
51 was written. Is it an afterthought in which
David was remembering back the way that he reacted?
The way I read Scripture is I typically interjected in this
first, second Samuel 12, that when it says and he mourned or
David mourned that that is where Psalm 51 picks up.
Psalm 51 has some controversial points within it that we won't
really touch on. If you want to talk about
afterwards, maybe we can for a little bit, but I want to just
read through it and highlight some important aspects of what
repentance looks like. Because as Brother Frank
mentioned in our prayer, we are weak people, we are flesh, we
make mistakes and we sin. So one of the greatest tools
that we can have in our tool belt is how do we repent and how
do we repair our side of the relationship with God?
Because as we noticed this morning, God is, is there ready
and wanting to repair his side. And he's, you know, he's wanting
to, he's accepting, calling us back.
Jesus has paid the price, He's covered the cost.
We just have to go back. So how do we go back and what
does that look like when we do go back and have a relationship
with God that is once again holy and good.
And so Psalm 51. So again, I'm going to read out
of the Your Pew Bible, page 869 is where that starts.
And it begins like this. And it begins by recognizing the
appropriate grounds for request, requesting, excuse me, I get my
words right, requesting forgiveness.
So David says this, It says, Have mercy upon me, O God,
according to your loving kindness, according to the
multitude of your tender mercies, Blot out my
transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and
cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgression,
and my sin is always before me. So first, when it comes to
repentance, the act of repentance and the act of
repairing our relationship with God begins by understanding that
it is not grounded in ourselves, but it is grounded in the
goodness and the character of God.
David asks for forgiveness not based on merit, not based on
anything that he has done. And we'll back up for a second
too. There is an interesting
narrative about David and Goliath and the book of Psalms
and the things that David writes.
One of the things that David never writes about throughout
the entirety of the verses in the scripture that he writes is
he never writes or records about his victory over Goliath.
David very rarely highlights his victories and his wins.
He doesn't write First Samuel 17 in which David and Goliath come
into play. Probably Samuel or one of the
other prophets did, but David doesn't write or record his wins
or his victory. But what he does record is Psalm
51, which is probably one of his greatest lows, in which God
picks him up and restores his relationship.
And what that tells you about David's character is he
understands he's not working on a merit based system.
He is forgiven. He can have a relationship with
God not because of all the things he's done and he's done
some pretty great things, but because God is a loving, kind,
gracious and merciful God. And he knows that in comparison
to God and all the things he's done, everything David's done
is, is is small and the same for us.
We don't slowly Golias, we don't do anything great of that
nature. And so we had nothing to go to
God and offer in a favour for our sins to be forgiven.
Just like David doesn't begin this Psalm by saying, do you
remember all the things I'm starting to build you a temple,
even though Psalm is going to finish it.
I'm doing all of these things for you God.
He says, no, have mercy upon me, Oh God, according to your loving
kindness. So David asks for mercy.
He asks to not receive the consequences of his actions and
instead receive a blessing that is a relationship with God.
Based on what? Based on God's character?
One writer put it like this. He said David's hope is based
not in his own evaluation of self, but in his evaluation of
God. Because God remains faithful,
hope is possible even in the face of justifiable death.
And so David has hope, not because he has an opportunity to
barter with God, but because God remains faithful even when he
has failed to. And we have that same hope.
Whatever sin, whatever transgression that we commit, we
have hope for forgiveness because God remains faithful.
But in this endeavour, David also understands that he
recognizes an important aspect of what it means to make a
confession, and that is primarily that he does not
minimise the acts in which he committed.
Notice how he describes his sin. He says, blot out my
transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and
cleanse me from my sin. Those are three different words
to describe an action. To describe the sin
transgression in Hebrew means to rebel against God.
Iniquity is this idea that draws our attention to a distortion of
what is right and to sin is a very common word that we think
of. It means to miss the mark.
And so Paul or excuse me, David, David says what I have done is I
have rebelled against God by distorting what is right and
therefore I've missed the mark. That is the actions in which
David committed sin, and that's what sin at its base really is.
It is a rebellion against God when we distort what is right
and therefore we miss the mark of holiness and goodness and
righteousness, and we sin and we make mistakes.
But what David does so beautifully is instead of
minimizing that, he just comes out with it and he just is open
with it. The reason David can commit such
atrocious actions throughout the book of Second Samuel and First
Samuel, and we see some of them in other places as well, and yet
constantly be called the friend of God, is because when he sins,
he turns back to God and he seeks forgiveness and he seeks a
right relationship with God. Whereas think about the man who
came before him, Saul. When Saul is told to go and kill
the Amalekites utterly and wipe them out, he goes and he does
everything he's supposed to do, except he spares the animal.
She spares some of the Royals. He spares whoever he feels needs
to because the people have told him to, apparently.
And then when Samuel the prophet comes to him and says, What am I
hearing? The bleeding of sheep?
Why am I hearing cattle? Why am I seeing King Adia?
Who are these people? Saul's response is he tears the
robes from Samuel the prophet, and he then turns that into a
beautiful phrase that as you've torn these robes from me, God
has torn the Kingdom from you. And so Saul's reaction when it
comes to being presented face to face with his sin is to push
further into sin and to further separate himself from God.
And yet David is to draw back to God.
And when we learn to do that within our lives, we can
withhold or have within ourselves that same relationship
with God, that we are his friends and his family.
It is not dependent upon our perfection.
It is a dependent upon our pursuit of Him.
And that's where David constantly gets it right.
Despite the fact that he rebels against God, he distorts what is
right and he misses the mark of holiness by pouring himself back
into God. David is in able to be the
friend of God and when we make mistakes and when we sin, we can
model that within our lives. That idea of not minimizing sin,
but recognizing it and putting it out there for God who already
knows and is already wanting to call us back.
You know, I mentioned this morning first John one verse 9.
In first John one verse 9, John writes about those who are
walking in the light who are going to fall away and sin.
They're going to make mistakes, maybe not fall away, that may be
too dramatic, but they're going to make mistakes and sin.
And John says that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. That word confess comes from a
Greek word that just means to say the same thing.
That is, if we say the same thing about sin that God says
about sin, what is God willing and able and wanting to do?
Forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness?
He is waiting, wanting, and hoping.
But it begins by us not minimizing our sin and coming
back to God with appropriate repentance.
And so true confession does not minimize sin.
But also true confession, as David does here, takes ownership
of sin. Notice all of these are their
follower their they begin with an ownership statement, blot out
my transgressions, wash me of my iniquity and cleanse me for my
sin. 4 verse three I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is
always before me. This isn't Bathsheba was
tempting she was really pretty. I couldn't control myself and my
flesh is weak. Lord, I'm sorry, this is I
messed up, I sinned and maybe she needed to do some stuff
within her life. That's a whole different
conversation. But in David's part, which is
all that matters, we are responsible for ourselves.
David says I messed up. He's not Adam who says this
woman you gave me is is foolish and I followed her.
He's not soul who tears the robes.
He says I messed up, I sinned. The great King David is not so
great that he does not remember to be humble in the presence of
God and takes ownership of his mistakes, but also true
confession recognizes who has been wronged.
It says in verse 4 and all this this verse in this chapter in
general is filled with amazing verses.
This has always been the one that I think for me can be the
most confusing or at least the most impactful when he says
against you and you only have I sinned and done this evil in
your sight that you may be found just when you speak and
blameless when you judge. So first, David recognizes that
God is just and blameless. Whatever he's going to do or has
done, he's just and blameless in his endeavours and in punishing
sin. But he starts that by saying
against you and you only have I sinned.
And Uriah may have an argument against this when he said, what
about me? What about the wrongs that
you've done to me in acting wickedly with my wife and then
having me killed? But David understands an
important thing and that is we have to recognize that all sin
is not just a not just something that violates another person in
our relationship with other people, but all sin, no matter
to what extent we think always violates and hurts our
relationship with God, no matter what it is.
And that's an important distinction to understand,
because until we view sin as both horizontal and vertical,
there is going to come a point in our life in which we're OK
with wronging somebody. If they do something great
enough to me, I may wrong them back.
If Uriah was a wicked man, he may not feel guilty about taking
his wife, but because he understands that it doesn't
matter about your riot, it matters about my relationship
with God. That's the relationship that is
primary. And so it doesn't matter the
character of your riot, it doesn't matter the character of
Bathsheba if she would have come on.
No, that doesn't matter. What matters is my relationship
with God. Joseph says the same thing when
Potiphar's wife comes on to him. Potiphar says how could I do
this great evil and sin against God?
Not Potiphar, not myself, not about you.
How could I do this and sin against God?
Our relationship in the way that we treat others, the way that we
show kindness and love towards others is called to be a
reflection of our relationship with God.
We love people without consideration of their love
ability. In one way to put it doesn't
matter how good of a person they are, how bad of a person of they
are, we show kindness to them because that is affecting our
relationship with God. And David understands that
although yes he has sinned against Uriah, yes he has sinned
against Bathsheba. The relationship that he has
really hurt is his relationship with God.
And when he gets that one right, the other ones are going to fall
in line and so against you and you only have ice end.
So David recognizes who he wronged.
He didn't just wrong Uriah. He didn't just wronged
Bathsheba. He wronged God and therefore he
has to make it right with God and work to be who he can be.
But also true repentance and repentance in general recognizes
the difficulty and the guilt that sin puts in our lives.
He says in verse 5, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity
and in sin my mother conceived me.
Behold your desire. You desire truth in the inward
parts and in the hidden part. You will make me known to
wisdom. Purge me with hyssop and I shall
be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness
that the bones you have broken may rejoice.
And so David is feeling the weight and the pressure of sin,
so much so that he draws upon his birth as if he has always
been this person, although he's speaking figuratively, and
that's what we can talk about later if you ever want to.
He is drawing upon the guilt of the things that he has done and
how that is affecting his life. He says, you've broken my bones.
That's what the weight of sin feels like when we realize the
effect that sin has in our lives and in our relationship with God
and upon other people. As far as we know, God didn't
break David's bones, but he is drawing upon this fact that sin
weighs us down and sin burdens us and it crushes us, which is
again why he goes to God for the fix and not to Nathan, not to
somebody else, not to anyone. He goes to the source.
He goes back to the loving kindness of God's character.
I was brought forth. But behold, you desire for a six
truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make
known to me wisdom. Behold, purge me with hyssop,
and I will be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness.
Hide your face from my sins and blood out all my iniquities.
Created me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast
spirit within me. True repentance.
Is repentance then that David is showing seeks out purity.
It doesn't just seek out forgiveness so that things can
go back to the way they were. It seeks out a new life.
He says create in me a new or a clean heart.
Oh God, he doesn't say, hey, fix the old heart, fix the one that
fell into this temptation. He says create, make new in me a
clean heart. David what doesn't want to just
go back to the old person with bandages and wounds and fixed up
and patched up. He says I need to be a new
person. I do not want to be that person.
I want that person to never be a part of my life again.
That is the drive of where repentance should be taking us
to be a new person, not just the old person who's been forgiven
and kind of buffed out. David said created me a clean
heart and give me purity. Seeking forgiveness means
seeking a relationship with God. Notice what he says.
He says hide your face from my sins and blot out all my
iniquities. Create in me a clean heart.
O God, every new a steadfast spirit within me.
Verse 11 do not cast me away from your presence and do not
take your Holy Spirit from me. So he says sin take it away.
Put it as far away from me as you possibly can, but please
stay with me, God. And I think that's the call that
we all need. Sin is going to take us further
and further away from God. And David is feeling that in his
weight and in his soul and in his bones.
So he says take the sin away, but please do not leave me.
I know I left you, but please do not leave me.
And then what then I will teach transgressors your ways, and
sinners shall be converted to you.
Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my
salvation, and my tongue shall wring aloud all of your
righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my
mouth shall show praises. Shall show forth your play
praise. There's kind of an interesting
barter system that seems to go on a little bit here where David
does say, do this and I will do this, forgive me for bloodshed,
restore me. Don't leave me.
And what am I going to do? I'm going to sing your praises.
David doesn't sing his own praises about Goliath, but what
is he saying? He sings the praises of a God
who will forgive him despite all of the wickedness that he has
ever had in his life. And what is that going to do?
It is going to convert sinners. He says we have to be
comfortable talking about how God has changed and transformed
our life and shown grace to us. And that means sometimes being
comfortable talking about the hard things in life now doesn't
mean we share everything with everybody, but we have to learn
to talk about how God's Word and the Holy Spirit in God's
presence in our life has changed us and sing those praises
because that's what David said is going to convert people.
When the apostle Paul in Acts Chapter 9 and Acts chapter 22
and Acts chapter 26 is converted, the Bible teaches
that others were converted alongside of him because this
great persecutor of the church is now preaching the gospel of
Jesus. Your transformation is one of
your greatest assets in bringing people to Christ because people
don't want to just hear about how you've won and how God's
blessed you. That's great because that's not
where they're at in their life. You know where they're at.
They're typically at the broken hearted, at the broken bone, at
the burden part of their life. Who needs a Saviour who can draw
them out and put them into a place of righteousness and
goodness? Learn to talk about how God's
Word has transformed your life and my tongue.
Verse 14 shall single out of your righteousness.
O Lord, my lips and my mouth shall show forth your praise.
For you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it.
You do not delight and burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and
contrite heart. These are God you will not
despise. David begins this by saying you
do not desire a sacrifice. And his point there is that God
is not looking for some ritualistic effort that is
missing the heart. This is not some kind of merit
based forgiveness that David can offer.
He says you don't want to sacrifice.
What you want is a broken and contrite heart.
You want a heart that's coming to you for change.
And if I OfferUp a lamb or a sheep or a cow, but my heart is
content with my sin, that means nothing.
He says You want a broken and contrite heart, and you will not
despise it. Do good in your good pleasure to
Zion, build the walls. Then you shall be pleased with
sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offerings and whole
burnt offerings. Then they shall offer bulls on
your altar. David notes.
Once the broken and contrite heart is there, once you're
seeking repentance for the right means and out of the right, that
purpose that is coming to God for forgiveness because you're
owning your sin. He says then you want the
sacrifice, then offer worship, then offer praise.
Sometimes we feel like we can just come to church enough, we
can do enough good things, and all of a sudden it's going to
make everything OK and God's going to be fine.
God still requires come to church, do the right things, be
a good person. He still requires that, but
those things alone are not going to help you have a right
relationship with God if your heart is not seeking it and if
your heart is not pursuing Him authentically and vulnerably.
And David is calling out and crying out, my heart is broken,
do not despise it. And when that occurs, I'm going
to offer you all the worship you want.
Then I'll offer bulls on your altar.
Then I will praise you and I'm going to tell the world about
how gracious you are and how amazing you are.
And so when we fall short and when we sin, repentant is what
we are called to do is the action and the lifestyle that we
are called to emulate from the life of David within our own
life. And that looks like David.
In taking ownership of our sin, no one else made you do
anything. It'd be nice if we could blame
it on other people. No one made you sin.
Even if there was two people involved in the sin, they didn't
make you sin. Joshua and Caleb did not have to
vote with the other ten. They knew to be faithful to God
despite the majority. Jesus did not have to fall into
Satan's temptations. We are responsible for our
actions, so take ownership of them.
We are then called to recognize God as our Savior, as our source
of life, and as the one who wants us to come back to Him.
Remember, David's grounded and was firm in his call to God for
for forgiveness. Why?
Not because David is slain Goliath.
Not because of the great things David had done or would do, but
because God is a God who is loving and kind.
That's his character. And to know that when you make a
mistake, you don't have to run. You can go to God, own your
mistakes, let your heart and its brokenness be fully expressed to
God, and God will not despise that.
And then as David said, I will praise you and I will tell the
world about what you have done. You know, the apostle Paul does
great things as well throughout the entirety of the New
Testament. He wrote to my, wrote most of
what we call the New Testament. And yet he continually
highlights, especially in first Timothy chapter one, that he was
a blasphemer, A persecutor and an insolent man.
And yet I was saved, he says, by grace, by mercy.
Why? So that I could be an example to
you that the grace of God, the mercy of God is extended to all.
David and Paul are these two characters who sin greatly, but
by returning to God change the trajectory of their life forever
and ours as well. And so we have that same call
and power and ability to change the trajectory of our life from
one that leads away from God to one that leads to God.
That begins by hearing His word, believing, repenting,
confessing, and being baptized for the forgiveness of our sins.
And when we fall short after we've been added to the body of
Christ, which we will will make mistakes, then we're challenged
to emulate Paul, Peter, David, these great men of the Bible who
make mistakes, come back to God with a broken heart and say,
forgive me. And if we do that, God is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. This afternoon, if you're of
either case, please come as we say and sing the song that's
been so.