|
Psalm 51
[SLIDE – New Year’s Revolutions]
Have you made a New Year’s resolution?
There is a pressure to make them. I never really appreciated that
pressure until I looked properly at the magazine rack in our local
newsagents. Every single magazine told me in bold terms that I needed to
change.
Men’s health magazine told me how to
become a new man, get great abs and a trophy girlfriend all in 6 days.
Then this magazine was so good I had
to buy it myself. (Well I had to get my wife to buy it because I’m a
chicken). Good Health magazine proclaims “New You: ways to re-awaken the
wonderful woman inside” …
Why do these things sell? Because they
tap into some very deep-seated desires for renewal. In our more honest
moments we admit to a real dissatisfaction with ourselves. GK Chesterton
wrote “Whatever else is true about humanity, we are not what we ought to
be.” For those who come to feel that very deeply – these make-overs and
breathing techniques, are utterly inadequate. We want real actual renewal
in the core of our being.
A friend of mine was counseling a man
in Australia who had made some disastrous decisions in life. In his job,
in his family, in his marriage – everything was a total mess. He never
thought he could have ended up in the situation he was in. And he
confessed to my friend:
“I just want to take my whole life and
bundle it into a big washing machine and put it on the hottest wash
possible until all the grit and grime and dirt is gone.”
A make-over’s not going to work. A new
job, a new home, a new family won’t do it. What can deal with THAT inner
reality??
In the part of the Bible read to us –
Psalm 51 – we see an inner cleansing which is radically unlike all the
quick-fix resolutions and all the turning-over-a-new-leafs which this
world can offer. King David, the writer of this part of the Bible, knows
about a power that can change us from within and in this Psalm we see how
to lay hold of a real force for change. Here is a revolution worthy of
the name.
Because David knows about the
dirtiness inside. As he writes this Psalm he has just been convicted of
some horrific and flagrant sin.
Have a look down under the title of
the Psalm and you’ll see the context in which David wrote it. This was
written: When the Prophet Nathan came to [David] after he had committed
adultery with Bathsheba.”
You can read all about this in 2
Samuel chapters 11 and 12. It is a gripping read. David, the King of
Israel, should have been at war with his men. But instead he stayed in
Jerusalem – he was walking on his palace roof one evening and spotted a
beautiful woman bathing. He got some of his servants to find out who she
was and they told her it was Bathsheba – the wife of his friend Uriah.
But this proves no obstacle to David’s lust – he sends for Bathsheba and
she is brought to him (the Bible never mentions if she was willing or
not). And David commits (at best!) adultery with Bathsheba while his
friend Uriah is away at war, fighting for David. Well the plot thickens
when Bathsheba falls pregnant. David tries to cover it up but he can’t
and when all else fails – he gives the order for Uriah to be killed. It
is shocking.
If anyone was beyond the pale of
forgiveness and renewal it would be David. If ever anyone needed a
revolution in their life it was David. That’s why we’re so glad we have
this prayer recorded for us in the Bible – it shows that such a turn-around
IS possible.
Let’s look at that prayer. Verses 1
and 2. David begins by praying:
‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away
all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.’
David sees the magnitude of his sin –
but he also sees through that something even bigger. Through it all -
David can see mercy, unfailing love, great compassion and the chance of
washing and cleansing.
When I really mess up – generally I only
see my sin and I despair of any chance of renewal and change. David sees
his sin very clearly, but he also sees something beyond his sin –
something bigger than his sin – he sees the chance for cleansing and
forgiveness.
So this lunchtime we’re just going to
look at those two things. There is the problem (the reason we need a New
Years Revolution) and we’ll see the solution – the power to work that
change.
So firstly the problem. Why is it that
we have this uncomfortability with ourselves? Why do we always want to
change and be new? Well the Bible points to a dirtiness inside us all and
gives it the name – sin.
[SLIDE – sin].
It’s a nasty little word – but we’ll
see that actually it describes all of us – not just the murderers and
adulterers – but everyone in this room.
Well how can everyone be a sinner?
Well in verses 3-6, David gives us four points about sin.
The first thing is there in verse 3.
Our sin is always before us.
[SLIDE – Before]
That’s what he prays in verse 3.
Wherever David goes, whatever his frame of mind, his sin is right there
in front of him. He can’t take a break from it or hide it behind him.
It’s a bit like the story of Pinnochio which I half watched over
Christmas. I half watched a lot of things over Christmas, Pinnochio was
one of them. There was an early scene in the film, after he’s run away
from his maker Gepetto. Pinnochio is at school but as he lies to his
teacher more and more his nose grows longer and longer – which I have
great sympathy for because I have a nose like the front end of a
concorde. But as he lies – the evidence of his lying stretches out before
him. Whenever he opens his eyes, he is confronted with his own
sinfulness. Whenever he approaches someone else, they know immediately
that whatever else Pinnochio is, he is a liar.
And David tells us, it’s the same with
us and God – we can’t hide our sins behind our backs. Sin cannot be kept
off the agenda with God, it is characteristic of who we are.
The second thing about our sin is
verse 4. Here David affirms the consistent teaching of the Bible that our
sin is fundamentally an offense against God.
[SLIDE – Godward]
Verse 4 he prays: “Against You only
have I sinned LORD and done what is evil in your sight.”
God is the One who is hurt by our sin,
He is the One to whom we must apologize.
Now that’s not the way we generally
think. We think a bad person is a person who is unkind to other people,
or perhaps towards animals or the environment. That’s what makes for a
bad person today. The Bible though insists that the true picture of good
and evil, right and wrong is painted on a canvas far larger than that.
Sin is not about falling out with other human beings, or the environment,
or ourselves. Sin is an offense against the Living God. He made us for Himself
and so when we sin we hurt Him. It severs our relationship with Him.
That’s why sin is serious.
But the third point about sin here is
that relationship-breaking sin is not a sporadic occurrence in our lives
– it is a steady fact of our existence from the cradle to the grave.
That’s the point of verse 5.
“Surely I was sinful at birth”
declares David “Sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Sin is not
only before us – it has also left it’s constant trail behind us.
[SLIDE – Behind]
Verse 5 is striking. Here David
affirms that the person he was when he stole another man’s wife and
killed him to cover it up – that is the person he’s always been. Isn’t
that an amazing confession. His murder and adultery was not an
aberration. David was not doing something contrary to nature as he
performed this shocking crime. That evil has always been latent in his
heart and if we’re honest, it’s also in ours.
And that’s the point of verse 6 – sin
is inward.
[SLIDE – Inward]
David prays to God: “You desire truth
in the inner parts”. That’s where God looks. You might seem to every
human being in the world like an upright godly character – but God looks
in the places within us that even our closest friends or family never get
to see. That’s the real inner you – and in that place, it’s clear that we
all have it in us to be murderers and adulterers. In Jesus’ famous sermon
on the mount, He teaches that anyone who lusts after another person has
already committed adultery in their heart. Anyone who’s been angry at
another person has already committed murder in their heart. In our inner
life we have done everything David has done, and more.
By the time we finish reading verse 6
we realize that, fundamentally, we are no different to David. The
murderer and the adulterer is not a different species to us. At the core
of all of us is a God-resisting evil. And that is serious. Because the
future belongs to the Living God and this sin cuts us off from Him. If we
want a part of His glorious future then we need an answer to this sin more
than anything else. If we want a lasting and deep new years revolution
then we must find a solution to [point to screen] this.
Well as we look at David’s solution,
let’s see briefly, what David does not do.
David does not offer to make it right
himself. He doesn’t promise he’ll never sin again. How could he with this
understanding of sin?! And David doesn’t perform any religious duty to
try to make amends with God. In fact if you look at verse 16 he says he’s
NOT going to perform a sacrifice. He says ‘I know you’re not interested
in that God, so I’m not going to bring a sacrifice.’ The only thing he
brings to God is his sin.
He stands before His Maker confessing
to an inward, Godward sin that has stained him from birth and which
clings to him wherever he is. He comes to God in all his filth and he
expresses rock solid confidence that God will cleanse him.
Look with me at verse 7:
‘Cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I
shall be whiter than snow.’
David is confident he shall be clean because
God will make him clean. And He’ll do it with hyssop.
What is that? Well we haven’t got a
lot of time to look at hyssop but it is at the heart of David’s
revolution. If you want, you could go home and look up Exodus chapter 12
– the Passover. There the hyssop branch is used to daub the blood of a
sacrificed lamb on your door-frame. If you use the hyssop to apply the
blood of the lamb to yourself – you would be saved from judgement.
Now we’ve just seen that David is not
going to bring a sacrifice of his own to God. And yet he prays to God
‘cleanse me with hyssop.’ Well hyssop is used with blood. Where is God
going to get the blood from? If God’s going to use His hyssop – where is
the lamb to be sacrificed? God must have a lamb of His own to sacrifice.
And THAT is what David is trusting in.
THAT is why David expects cleansing and not judgement. Not because David
can bring anything to appease God’s anger at his sin. All David has to
offer IS his sin. David is looking ahead to a time when the True Lamb of
God, Jesus Christ would be sacrificed to take away the sin of the world.
800 years after David prayed this
prayer, Jesus hung on the cross – He bore across His shoulders the sin
and guilt and shame of every murderer and adulterer, every liar and
gossip, every loveless, faithless, prayerless life there’s ever been
lived. Jesus, God the Son, paid the price our sins deserve. He is our
sacrificial offering – He alone can make us right with God.
(point at screen) This sin is serious.
It’s so serious it doesn’t just demand the blood of animals, it doesn’t
just demand the blood of humans – it demanded the blood of God to be
shed. And yet it is this blood which is freely poured out for the whole
world. Those who lived before the cross could look forward to it like
David did. We who live after the cross can look back to it. But we can
both pray in the light of it ‘Cleanse me with hyssop (with the blood of
Jesus), and I shall be clean…
[SLIDE – washing]
‘Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’
The man who said “I just want to take
my whole life and bundle it into a washing machine on the hottest wash
possible until all the grit and grime and dirt is gone.”
Here is a Power that can do that. Here
is a washing that’s not just about this life – but about the life to come.
Here is a freedom from guilt that will truly liberate. What a revolution!
The blood of Jesus can do that. Listen to the way Christ’s sacrifice on
the cross is spoken of in the Bible.
[SLIDE – 1 John 1]
In 1 John 1:7 it says:
The blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purifies us from all sin.
Before God we can be – not merely
acceptable to Him but whiter than snow. Positively pure. If you’ve never
prayed a prayer like Psalm 51 before – this can be a life-changing
revolution for you. But this prayer also describes the on-going
revolution of renewal which the Christian believer takes part in every
day.
Psalm 51 is written by a believer –
but it urges us to come again and again to the foot of the cross and
exchange our sin for His cleansing. That will be the on-going, enduring
revolution that sustains us through 2004.
So let’s model our new year’s
resolutions on this grand blue-print for change.
David looked within himself and saw an
evil that went all the way down. But he brought it out into the open – he
confessed it and when he looked up he saw a blood-bought forgiveness that
can cover any sin. As this murderer prays Psalm 51 he teaches us that
because of the precious blood of Jesus, God can forgive even really
wicked people – like you. And like me.
Back to sermons...
|
