Psalm 51   “Notes on Repentance & Forgiveness”         Sun PM 7-31-11      

Over the past months, we have spoken often of the crisis that our nation is facing, and the need for us to turn to the Lord in a fresh way.  This must especially be true of those of us who are Christians.  I Peter 4 says that judgment will begin with the household of God; we as God’s people are first and foremost responsible to cleanse our lives from sin and return to Him, if there is to be any hope of God’s working in our nation.

In line with that, there may be no portion of scripture better to address our need for cleansing than Psalm 51.  Psalm 51 says in the subtitle (which is part of the inspired text, by the way) that it was written after the prophet Nathan had confronted David about his sin with Bathsheba.  It expresses David’s confession of sin, and how he called on God to forgive him, and cleanse him and ready him for God’s work again.  We can all, as God’s people, learn some important lessons from this Psalm about the forgiveness and cleansing we need, so that God might work in our church, our town, and our nation.  We could literally spend weeks on a series in Psalm 51 – and we may do that some time – but tonight I want us to just look at some highlights from this Psalm which can help us get ready for what God wants to do in our lives, and in His church. 

 I would encourage you first of all to read Psalm 51 in its entirety; the Spirit of God will speak through the “pure milk” of His word … then I hope you will benefit from the following applications from the text:

I. The Heart of Your Sin

:4a “against Thee, Thee only I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight”.  David states here that his sin was a sin against God.  Now, I think we would all agree that there were others who were harmed by David’s sin: Bathsheba; her husband Uriah, who was killed; the baby who died; and the people of Israel who suffered as a consequence when the kingdom was in upheaval.  We need to realize that our sins do have effects on many other people.  This is scriptural.  God Himself said in the Ten Commandments that the sins of the fathers are visited on their children and grandchildren to the 3^rd & 4^th generations.  Our sins DO impact others.  But we also need to realize what David points out here: no matter what harm our sins may do to others, the heart of our sin is always against GOD; all other considerations pale to it!  “Against THEE, THEE only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in THY sight.”  Your sins are against God.

     This is an important concept because without an understanding of this, you will never really get to the heart of your sin.  The reason you sinned – no matter what it is — always has, at its heart, something to do with a failing in your relationship with God.  You wanted something else more than you wanted Him; you looked for your ultimate pleasure and satisfaction from someone or something other than Him; you didn’t trust what He gave you and you wanted something different; you didn’t trust His provision, and looked for it from someone or something else.  You can always trace sin back to a failing in your relationship with God.        

— that was the case with David here.  The root of his sin, although it was with Bathsheba, was in his relationship with God.  It was God who had said in the 7^th Commandment: “You shall not commit adultery”, which David decided to set aside; He broke God’s commandment.  David also knew that “in (God’s) right hand there are pleasures forever” – he wrote Psalm 16! – but he abandoned the pleasures he should have found in his relationship with God, and sought to find them in Bathsheba instead.  He didn’t trust that God would give him pleasure and satisfaction and success within the bounds of His commands, and so he went outside of them.  So the heart of David’s sin was sin against God – and he knew it.  So he said, “Against THEE, Thee only have I sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight.”

     Each one of us tonight needs to realize this same thing.  You may have sins in your life which affect other people.  But you will never get to the heart of your problem until you realize that your root problem is with God.  All sin is a breaking of the First Commandment. Your ultimate sin is always against God: You are putting something ahead of God as an idol; you aren’t trusting Him for something; you are not developing your relationship with Him; you are seeking pleasure in something besides Him … and on and on.   Take a moment to consider: what failing in your relationship with God is behind the sin that is manifest in your life?  You need to see what that root sin really is, confess it to God, and then let Him work with you to develop the relationship with Him that you are supposed to have, so that your root problem is really addressed.  Otherwise you will continue to flounder in that sin and others like it.  But the heart of your sin – whatever it is – is always against God.      

II.  The Truly Repentant Attitude

     In :4 David says: “Thou art justified when Thou dost speak, and blameless when Thou dost judge.”  This is such an important attitude that David displays here.  It is important because it reveals whether a person is truly repentant or not.  David knew that he had sinned, and he knew that he deserved God’s punishment.  So he said, “Lord, You’re justified when You speak – whatever You say to me.  You are blameless when You judge  — whatever sentence You give me, I deserve it.”  He knew he was guilty, and deserved whatever he got from God.  THAT is a sign of a truly convicted, repentant person. 

     And of course that is not always what you find among those who are supposedly “sorry for their sins.”  Sometimes you encounter people with some of the following attitudes:

–“Well I know I’m not perfect, but I sure don’t deserve this!”

— Or: “Well, I am really a good person, I only did this because (followed by whatever excuse …)” 

— Or: “what I did isn’t as bad as what so-and-so did, and they didn’t get punished like this!” 

— Or: “I know I’ve sinned, but I’m not going to do (this or that particular thing)” – and they try to put conditions and limitations and stipulations on their punishment or what they will or won’t do as a consequence of their sin.  

     All of these are giveaway signs that the person is not truly repentant.  When you know that you have sinned against God, then you know that whatever God does to you is just; you deserve it.  King David knew that he deserved to die for his sin.  When Nathan the prophet came to David and spoke to him in the parable of the rich man who had many flocks and herds, but who, when he had company arrive, took the poor man’s only ewe lamb and ate it, David’s anger burned, and he said: “As the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die.”  And of course, Nathan was speaking in the story about David himself and his sin: he said, “You are the man!”  But David had rendered the judgment himself: he deserved to die – and he knew it.  So here in Psalm 51 he prostrates himself before God spiritually, and says: “You are justified when You speak, and blameless when You judge.”  In other words, he was saying: “God I know I am condemned; I deserve to die; I deserve whatever you do to me.  You are righteous and I am not.”  No conditions, no terms, no justification, no comparisons – just total submission to will of God.  THAT is the attitude of one who truly understands his position with God.  There is no “wrangling about terms”, etc. or thinking the punishment is unfair. 

     Now, is that the attitude that YOU have toward God, and your sin?  Do you realize that you deserve much worse for your sin than what you have gotten?  Or are you trying to justify what you have done, or are comparing your punishment to someone else’s, or saying, “I’ll do this, but I won’t  do that”?  You are revealing your heart with your attitude towards the chastisement you are receiving.  The truly repentant person knows they deserve whatever punishment or chastisement they receive – and they are only grateful that they haven’t received worse!   

III.  Notice the GROUND of your forgiveness: 

     :1 says “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Your compassion, blot out my transgression.”  David opens the Psalm by asking for God’s forgiveness.  But think about it: David had committed a great sin: he committed adultery with a woman; and then he had her husband killed to cover it up.  He could call out to God and ask for His forgiveness, but what hope could he really have that he would be forgiven?  What would the ground and reason of this forgiveness be?   

     We see the answer to that here – and it is a good one!  The GROUND of David’s hope for forgiveness was the greatness of God’s compassion!  He says, “Be gracious – according to Your lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Your compassion.”  One might think there was no great hope of forgiveness – until one sees what the hope was based on.  But basing it on the lovingkindness and compassion of the Lord, there is great hope – truly there could be no greater hope than that – for God’s compassion is very great indeed!

     Psalm 103 says “The Lord is compassionate and gracious … For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him … just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.”  His compassion is great: like that of a father for his children; as high as the heavens are above the earth!  Basing one’s forgiveness on God’s compassion & love — especially with a New Testament understanding of what He did for us in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for us — is a great ground!

     I love the passage in Ephesians 3, where Paul says he bows his knees before the Father, and asks that they might “be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth – and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge”!  He basically prays for them to “know the unknowable” – and says that the love that Christ has for us is beyond knowledge.  The Greek word there  is “huperballon”: “ballon” to throw (In seminary I remembered this verb by thinking: “ball-on” — throw a ball!) and “huper”, meaning “beyond.”  So the love of Christ is “thrown beyond” us – it is so great that we can never totally comprehend the length and breadth and height and depth of it!

     So when we come to God for forgiveness, and base it on His compassion for us in Christ Jesus, we are coming to draw from a deep well!  It is like coming to Bill Gates with a request for $10,000.  $10,000 may be a lot of money to you; it might be so much that you’d think nobody could give you that much.  And a lot of people probably couldn’t give you $10,000; they just don’t have it.  But it would be NOTHING from the BILLIONS of Bill Gates’ riches to give you $10,000.  It wouldn’t be a drop in his bucket.  So it is with the compassion of God for us: it is as high as the heavens; it is thrown beyond our comprehension; as hard as you think forgiving you might be, it is NOTHING for God out of the riches of His compassion! 

     It is just as that great new hymn says: “How deep the Father’s love for us; it’s vast beyond all measure.”  THAT is why you can take whatever sin you are convicted of to God, no matter how great, and you can be confident that you are forgiven — NOT on the ground that you are so worthy of it; NOT on the ground that you are so sincere; NOT on the ground that you are so repentant; NOT on the ground of how good you are going to be from this day forward –  God may already know that none of those things is true; He may already know that you are going to fail Him in the same or worse ways again!  But you can be confident of His forgiveness, not because of anything you have done or will do, but because HIS COMPASSION FOR YOU IS SO GREAT!  It is His compassion that is the ground of our forgiveness – and it is a great ground indeed!  “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness!”    

CONCLUSION:

There are SO many other great truths in this Psalm; we may look at more of them some other time.  But I want us to look at just one other thing before we close, by way of conclusion, and it has to do with the RESULTS of repentance and forgiveness:

— After David cries out to God for forgiveness, and to create in him a clean heart (:10), he says in :13 “Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to You.” 

— and then in the very last verses of the Psalm, :18-19, he says: “By Your favor do good to Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem, then You will delight in righteous sacrifices, in burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then young bulls will be offered on Your altar.” 

     Those last verses especially may seem odd to us, but I think they make a very, very important point – and one that is very relevant for our church right now.  David said in :13 that after he had been cleansed from his sin, that “THEN he would teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners will be converted to Thee.”  When David got right with God, then God would take him, and use him, and bring people to Himself through him.  David closes the Psalm in:18-19 saying that after all this cleansing, God would do good to Zion, and build her walls, and delight in their sacrifices.  He was saying that when God’s people are cleansed from their sins, then their relationship with Him would be right again, and His blessings would return to them. 

     I believe that same thing will be true with us.  When we get serious about our sin, and purify our lives, and seek to be right with God in our hearts, THEN we will be “vessels for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, and prepared for every good work”, just as II Timothy says.  THEN people are going to be saved.  THEN people are going to be drawn to the Lord through us.  But it is vital for us, as the people of God, to realize the importance of holiness before Him. 

     As your pastor, I want you to know that I consider this to be a special and strategic time in the life of our church.  Our nation is in trouble; there are crises looming; I think God wants to use us as a church to proclaim His word and to minister in our town and across the world in great ways – but WE need to prepare ourselves spiritually for what He wants to do.  There have been signs over the past weeks and months that God is up to something.  You hear of God working in somebody’s life; you see little “stirrings” of things that God is doing.  But we need to take this time seriously; we need to prepare ourselves spiritually.  As Joshua told the people of Israel before they crossed the Jordan to the Promised Land: “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” (Joshua 3:5)  I believe God is saying the same thing to us as a church, and as individuals today: “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”  I believe that God indeed wants to do great things among us – but we must take Him seriously; we must become serious about being holy to the Lord.  May He use this Psalm to help us to do that very thing.