Psalm 51
we’re going to move on to Psalm
fifty-one. We are going to pick back up our study of the Psalms.
We’ll make our way to Psalm seventy-five. I forget when that will be. I
guess it’ll be in 25 weeks. Something like that. Makes sense.
Maybe a few breaks for Christmas or lessons and carols but it’ll
get us into the new year. Uh as we start with Psalm fifty-one
tonight, we are entering into a little section of the Okay, we’re living in an era
where everything has to be happy, joyful, poppy, loud, bright. Well, the Psalms are not that
way. The Psalms hit every single emotion, both highs and lows. And so as we make our way through
some of these next Psalms, we are going to see some of the
depths of living life in a fallen world, a broken world. Some of
you know that by experience. uh, by, by your own sin, by your
own hardships, by the effects of others on you. Uh, but we
can see pen put to paper here with King David and some of the
other writers of the Psalms. So Psalm 51 takes us into a,
a new territory. So let’s read from God’s word.
Psalm 51 together, the The title says this, to the choir master,
a Psalm of David when Nathan, the prophet, went to him after
he had gone in to Bathsheba. We read that just a moment ago
in 2 Samuel. Psalm 51 verse 1 begins with
these words, have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast
love, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin. For I know that my transgressions
and my sin is ever before me against you and you only have
I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may
be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold,
I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive
me. Behold, you delight in the inward being and you teach. You
delight in truth and the inward being. You teach me wisdom in
the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop and I shall
be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. Let me hear the joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken
rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and
blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O
God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from
your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from
me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me
with a willing spirit. Then, then I will teach transgressors
your ways and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood
guiltiness, O God. O God of my salvation, and my
tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my
lips and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not
delight in a sacrifice where I would give it. You will not
be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit and a contrite heart. O God, you will not despise.
Do good to Zion in your pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings
and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be offered on
your altar. Amen, this is God’s holy word. But the thing David had done
displeased the Lord. That is how the narrative we
read in 2 Samuel chapter 11 ended, the thing that David have done
displeased the Lord.” Okay, those are not good verses. Those are
not good words. That is probably the lowest point
in David’s life. Lower than some of the victory
or some of the battles that were lost. Lower than some of the
periods of time where he was being pursued and chased and
hunted like an animal by Saul. Some of the worst words that
a man could ever hear. that David had done had displeased
the Lord. And so it begs a question, it
brings a question to our minds. How can one who has loved the
Lord, who is a man after God’s own heart, who has been given
so many gifts, how can he fall so far? In our era, in our lifetime,
in our short lives. We haven’t lived
in that much of the years of Christendom, but we have seen
a lot of mighty men of God fall. We’ve all lived through Jimmy
Swaggart. We’ve all lived through Jim Baker. We’ve seen even men
in recent years, men we would revere, men of the Reformed faith
who have fallen far. And so how can one who loves
the Lord fall so far? One of the things we have to
remember is that each of us is simply a man, a human, a man,
a woman, male, female. We want to be gender inclusive
here, don’t we? Especially with sin, we’re all
sinners in God’s sight. But how can a man or a lady,
how can a man fall so far when they’ve been given so much? It’s
good for us to remember the nature of sin, the anatomy of sin, the
inner workings of sin. When we come to faith in God,
When we have been born again, when we have been washed and
forgiven, we still carry in us until heaven our sin nature.
We still carry in us the sin nature that’s been inherited
by Adam. The Apostle Paul in Romans and
in Galatians and other places calls it our flesh, not our flesh,
not our skin, but our flesh, our sin nature. And it remains
in us until the day we die. And we like to say two things
about our sin that are very important. One is in our justification,
when God has declared us righteous, when we come to him by faith,
in our justification, our sin is pardoned, past, present, and
future. And in our sanctification, which
is the rest of our life, the ongoing work of God’s Holy Spirit
in us, when He continues to wash us with His Word, in our sanctification,
our sin is subdued. Okay, it is not done away with,
but it is subdued, it is suppressed, it is held back. But that sin
nature is still in us. And I like to liken it like a
fire. You’ve got a fire in your fireplace
and it dies down in the night. You open up your wood stove or
pull back the curtain on your fireplace and there are gray
ashes. That fire is subdued. It has died down. But if you
were to pull back the top layer, you would find red hot coals.
And our sin is much like that. It is still there. And if only
we fuel it and give it oxygen and stoke it, it will become
a raging fire again. And that is what can take place
in the Christian life. So how could a man like David
fall so far? If you read the account of David
and Bathsheba, You read a couple of things that might give us
some clues. David is not out at war, but the rest of his army
is. That is a big no-no in his time.
Kings went out to war with their soldiers. They were in the battle.
They were there. They were the commander. They
were the morale boosters. They were the ones giving orders
and cheering the people on. And so David is at home. He’s
idle. He’s not doing his duty. And
it’s a good reminder to us, I think, some people may not like this
idea, but I think it’s healthy. We need some disciplines of order
in life to help us grow in grace. Some may say that’s You know,
you’re trying to do some things. Some may say that’s legalistic.
You know, God doesn’t require us to do that thing. But, you
know, think about your exercise regimen or your diet regimen
or your work schedule or your, maybe your lawn maintenance program.
Things that you value, you put some time and rhythm into them. For instance, if you don’t mow
your grass but every four weeks. You’re not going to spend a lot
of time mowing grass. You’re going to spend a lot of
time unclogging a lawnmower and raking up clumps. But if you
mow it every three, four, five, six days, whatever the season
requires, if you keep up that periodic maintenance, you’re
going to have a nice looking yard and a trouble-free lawnmower.
Or think about your diet. You eat a good rhythm of proteins
and Carbohydrates, and I don’t know what else, I’m making all
that up as I go, but if you drink your eight glasses of water a
day and all the rest, your body is going to be healthy. You get
the idea. You could go through exercise or car maintenance,
whatever. We maintain, we work at, we have a rhythm and a cycle
of taking care of things. And it is that important for
us as Christians to have a routine and rhythm in the Christian life.
What comes around every week? Sunday. What do we call it? It’s the Lord’s day. And what
do we see often in the Bible? We see God calling his people
to gather together. The Lord’s house, the Lord’s
day, the Lord’s people. Now I am speaking to the choir
here on Sunday night. Half of you did go to choir practice.
So I recognize that, but, but you know, the ideal. You guys
come, you guys are committed, you guys are here, you’ve put
in the time and the energy to come out. But we want to put
ourselves systematically in the path of God’s means of grace
so that we don’t become dull of heart and tempted by the world,
and tempted by the flesh, and tempted by the devil to do that
which would displease Almighty God. You see what I’m getting
at here is David, David was out of rhythm. David was out of touch.
David was living for David and not for God and his kingdom. And so it’s a good challenge
for us to be very careful, to be very careful that when God
has blessed us, when we’ve built a city for God, when our borders
have increased beyond what the borders of Israel had ever been
dreamed of, When the Ark of the Covenant and the worship of God
is gathered all around you in Jerusalem, when you are eating
at a table full of good things week after week, day after day,
meal after meal, when you’ve had success in your wars and
your servants are abounding and your stables are full of horses,
don’t lose sight of who you are. Don’t lose sight of how God has
provided every bit of that for you. Don’t lose sight that you’re
God’s anointed one, that God has put his mark of his Holy
Spirit on you and he has rescued you from sin and misery. We rest
on our laurels and we get ourselves in big trouble. So Psalm 51. Psalm 51 comes after David has
been confronted by Nathan the prophet. for his sin. Now, how would you like to be
the one who approaches David, the most powerful man in the
world at that time? David, this is what you’ve done and it has
displeased the Lord. I wouldn’t want to be Nathan. And thank the Lord for Nathan.
Thank the Lord that he was willing to enter into the presence of
the king and to rebuke him for his sin. You know, sometimes
we are approached by others and say, you know, you’ve done this
and so. And we raise our fist and say, I have not. And we defend ourselves. We heap
insult on that person who has given us the bad news. Not only
do we recognize it’s a grace for somebody to come and rescue
us from our sin, but it is a grace for us to be tenderhearted and
say, yes, that is the thing I have done and I will begin to fix
it. And that is what has taken place
here in this wonderful penitential psalm. Just look at some of the
words throughout Psalm 51. I’ll put them in some categories
for you. First of all, think of David’s request. What does
he ask God to do? Have mercy on me. Blot out my
sins. Wash me. Literally, launder me. Cleanse me. Purge me. Wash me. Hide your face from my sin. Create in me. Renew, cast not,
take not, restore, uphold, deliver. Aren’t those wonderful words?
Only words that are in the economy of God’s people in the Christian
church. Two words to point out here,
create and restore. Only God can do those two things. And do you know that the word
create, when he says, create in me a clean heart, oh God,
verse 10, and renew a right spirit within me. Those are our words
of creation and re-creation. In the beginning, God created,
the exact same word there, God created the heavens and the earth.
And the one who created the heavens and the earth by the word of
his power can also speak into your dead sinful heart and create
in you a clean heart. Now that is the the height of
the mercy of God. I mean, we see the depths of
David’s sin. What did David do? He took the
Ten Commandments and smashed them. I mean, had other gods,
loved other things. He murdered. He committed adultery. He lied. He stole. What else did he do? He coveted.
I mean, he took the two tablets of the law, the man after God’s
own heart, and he literally smashed them in the face of God and said,
I’ll do what I want. Thanks very much. But his request,
his request acknowledged the depth of his sin, but acknowledged
the grace and the mercy of God, creating me a clean heart. But
then that other word restore, put back, put me back the way
I once was. There’s another little set of
words that I think are interesting. Notice what he acknowledges.
He acknowledges his sin. He acknowledges his transgressions. He acknowledges his evil, his
iniquity. He acknowledges his blood guiltiness.
He acknowledges it as my sin, not someone else’s sin. You know,
we live in the day of blame game. You know, we write books called
What Happened. And it’s never our fault. I mean,
she’s not the only one. It’s never our fault. It was
my upbringing. It was my circumstances. It was
my moment of weakness. It was whatever. But what do
we see David doing here? It’s just flat out my sin. I coveted. I stole. I committed adultery. I lied
about it. I killed. I murdered. I brought
others in on the game and attempted to out are to dupe the Lord God
of Israel. And so there’s acknowledgement. There’s also some words that
speak of God’s character. His steadfast love, His abundant
mercy, His justice. His blamelessness. You see, in
this psalm, we see the mix of human weakness, human sin, human
depravity, and we see the justice and mercy and forgiveness and
grace of Almighty God. And those two things come together
only at the cross of Calvary. We sing sometimes that wonderful
hymn, let us love and sing in wonder. So we see in the cross of Christ,
the wonderful, amazing grace of Almighty God. So there’s this
character. What about the nature of our
sin? He speaks of that very briefly when he says, Behold, I was brought
forth in iniquity, verse five, and sin did my mother conceive
me. Speaking of our total depravity,
our original sin, our nature, we are sinful at birth. We are
not cute little innocent babies. Well, we may be cute, And we
may be little babies, but we’re not innocent. And so we’re born
with a sin nature. And as it grows and aspires and
gets a little mobility, it does things like David has done. This
psalm also speaks of the measure of a man. It speaks of what God
desires in us. He says, In verse six, behold you delight
in truth and the inward being. You teach me wisdom in the secret
heart. It’s one thing for God to forgive
us. It’s one thing for God to cover our sin. It’s one thing
for God to be merciful and to wipe away our sin and transgressions
and to count us as righteous in his sight. And it’s another
thing for him to put something into us. And so what does God
desire for us? He desires that we have truth
in the inward being and wisdom in the secret heart. Read the
book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs teaches
us the way of wisdom and the way of foolishness. And we need
foolishness dragged out of us. We need it surgically removed
and we need wisdom inserted so that we can live a righteous,
God-fearing life. And so he speaks there of the
measure of a man. God desires that we live in truth. and that it be in us and it come
out of us as we live. He desires that we be wise and
in our way of life, as truth and wisdom, we can have a relationship
with God that is powerful. Notice also a set of words that
speak of restoration. Clean me, make me whiter than
snow, give me joy, give me gladness, let me rejoice. Give me a clean
heart. Give me a right spirit. Put your
presence in me. Don’t take it away. Let your
Holy Spirit do its work. Give me the joy of salvation.
Uphold me. Now, I’m not going to ask you
to raise hands. I’m not going to confess sins and name names
here. But David very often speaks of sin and the weight of it.
And he speaks of it as something that will absolutely crush us. But it’s also, that’s the external
force. But he also speaks of its internal
feeling of rottenness in our bones. Have you felt both those
things? I mean, how would you like to
be the man about whom God says, the thing that you’ve done has
displeased the Lord? And you read some of those accusations
that Nathan the prophet speaks of David. That’s not a good spot
to be in. Something’s going to crush you.
But it feels like rot in your bones. I remember 8, 10 years
ago now when my grandmother had cancer. And I remember one day
giving her a ride to one of her chemotherapy treatments. I’d
driven up from Charlotte. We were all taking turns, spending
the day with her and taking her to her treatments. She expressed
her frustration. She said, I want this cancer
out of me. I don’t want it in my body. I didn’t ask it to come
in and it is destroying me and it’s taking away every good thing
I love. She was having a crisis. And
it wasn’t that she was being crushed from above that for sure
was probably going on. She was dying within. And that
is how we ought to feel about our sin. We’re so casual about
it now. We don’t think that we have done anything wrong. And
yet these words speak of us needing renovation of restoration. What does God want from us? That’s
the $64,000 question. Does he want our turtle doves
and our bulls and our tithes and our offerings? Does he want
us to wear our tithes straight and sit in our pew in the same
place we sit every week? Well, yes, he does want that.
But it says a broken spirit and a contrite heart. God will not
turn away. God will not despise. And so
God wants us to go back to our little study of the Beatitudes. Blessed is the poor and spirit,
a broken spirit, a contrite heart, not sacrifices and whitewashing
of the outside of our bodies. But he wants us to hate our sin.
He wants us to be poor in spirit. He wants us to mourn over our
sin, to be meek and submissive, not outward conformity, but a
depth of the riches of the knowledge of Christ and the weight of our
sin and the joy of forgiveness. So then what takes place? After
David is going to be forgiven, what will come? Well, there’ll
be joy, but there’ll also be what we might call a teaching
moment, a teaching opportunity. If you forgive me, when you forgive
me, verse 13, I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return
to you. We have this little saying, I
think it’s a helpful one. Saved people sing, right? Saved people sing. I was glad
when they said, let’s go to the house of the Lord. What can wash
away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like
me. On and on we could go. Saved people sing, but also saved
people teach. Saved people tell others how
good God has been to them in their forgiveness and in their
grace. Saved people will be singing in heaven. There’s a little spot
in the book of Revelation where there’s a little tension in heaven.
There’s a scroll. And that scroll is all sealed up, and no one
can open the scroll. Now, presumably, it’s the names
of the people who will be brought into heaven. And the angel goes
back and forth through heaven and says, who is worthy to open
the scroll? Who is worthy? And there’s silence.
And John weeps. Don’t open the scroll. Nobody’s
coming to heaven. The scroll will not be open.
The book of life will not be open. There’s a problem and there’s
tension. And Jesus steps forward and he opens the scroll. He takes
it. He opens it. And redemption, full redemption,
final redemption, eternity opens up. And then the orchestra begins. The chorus sings, worthy is the
lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. So not only does saved people
sing, saved people also rescue others. And thanks be to God
for a man like Nathan, a man like David, who will, will confront
each other in their sin, who will teach others and say, look,
I failed. I have utterly failed. And God has been gracious here.
We can understand what the grace of God is like. It’s a couple
of quick things to think about. One is never underestimate sin.
Never underestimate sin. Second thing. Some sins, as our
catechism says, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.
I mean, every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse. But you see
how the sin of David affected so many people. People died because
of David’s. Oh, what do we call it? can’t think here he was he was
he coveted he took he killed he he committed adultery he did
so many things some sins are more heinous in the sight of
God than others and so we need to count it count the cost when
we think a darling little sin can be kept in secret it can
affect a nation Israel was never the same after David and Solomon
and others we say oh Saul what a wicked king well look at David
and Solomon and the many kings who followed, they rebelled against
almighty God. Luther’s 95 Theses, we’ll hear
a lot about this in the coming weeks as we celebrate the 500th
anniversary of the reformation. It speaks of a life of ongoing
repentance. Friends, we need to be open to
the word of God and let it speak into our lives so that we can
know our sin, and we can know the effects of it, but we can
also know how great a savior. What a wonderful Psalm this is
to show us the depths of sin, but the heights of mercy. And
that comes together. It is joined together in the
cross of Christ. Let’s pray together. Our great
God and heavenly father, we thank you that you love us and you
care for us. And you give us a word like this
to show us how far we can fall, how much damage we can do. How
great a Savior is Jesus? Lord, we know our sin, we know
our weakness, we know our failures, and we pray that we would be
quick to repent, quick to restore, and also quick to tell others,
to warn them of the things that can destroy their lives and the
lives of others, but also to press upon them the need to come
to the Lord Jesus in faith and in hope and in salvation. We
ask and pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Let us stand
together and respond to God’s good word as we sing together
404, the solid rock or rock of ages cleft for me.