Spring Cleaning Series (week 3)

Sweeping out the secret sins.

Psalm 51:10 ESV

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

(Refer to 2 Samuel 11 and 12 for background and context)

It’s not easy to learn from someone else’s experience.  We often can learn from our own experiences, but Suppose someone tells you, “I almost got in a car accident today.  Thankfully, we stopped in time!”  You are relieved for them, sure.  But I bet they are the only ones who drove more cautiously than normal.  You probably got into your car and didn’t think about driving more cautiously, because it wasn’t your accident!

Historical Context:

Today we hear of a terrible time in King David’s life, and the fervent prayer he learned to make afterwards that God would not take away his Holy Spirit.  Let us learn from David’s experience today that we too might pray, “Lord, I need you.” 

This prayer is a part of Psalm 51, one of the psalms that has a historical setting attached to it.  Psalm 51 was written “when the prophet Nathan came to him [David] after David committed adultery with Bathsheba.”

The Sin:

The story of David’s adultery with Bathsheba is in 2 Samuel 11.  It’s a total shock of a story.  King David was a man after God’s own heart in 1 Samuel 13:14.  He had just heard the sweetest promise from God – “My love will never be taken away from him [you]…  Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me.  Your throne will be established forever.”  Not long after, the army heads off for war in the spring, but King David stayed behind in Jerusalem.  He saw Bathsheba and sent for her, though she was a married woman, and she got pregnant.  When David found out, his first plan was to send for her husband Uriah and give him time off from war to be with his wife so he would think he was the father.  Uriah refused to relax at home while his fellow soldiers were off at war.  David tried again by getting Uriah drunk, but he still didn’t go home.

1 Samuel 13:14 ESV

But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”

David’s second plan was to send Uriah back to war and have him fight on the front lines so that he would be killed.  That plan worked.  Bathsheba became his wife and bore him a son.

The Silence:

This whole account covers about a year’s time, in which we hear nothing of David’s repentance, no sorrow over what he did, no concern for his soul, no prayer; only lust, adultery, murder, deception and lies.  It’s a huge web of evil!   All his thoughts, attitudes, feelings and will – none of them are good. They are cold and calloused that even many wicked people in our world would say, “this David is one bad man.”  In his voluntary sin, it seems David had forfeited the Holy Spirit.  He ran away from God.  Who is this King David?  He’s not the same man.  How did this happen?

The answer is pretty disturbing: this happened because David was born with a sinful nature, just like you and me.  He merely did what we all are capable of doing.  “Lord, I need your Holy Spirit!  Help me to learn from David’s experience.”

However, isn’t it true that you are standing firm one moment and falling the next?  One moment you are so confident in Christ’s forgiveness and certain of eternal life; the next you wonder if you have any connection with God.  One moment we are set on doing God’s will, eyes fixed on heavenly things, the next our mind is in the gutter.  One moment you are thinking of your neighbor’s benefit, the next you’re back to selfish goals.  One moment you give thanks to God for blessing you so abundantly, the next you take the credit for yourself.  One moment you tell yourself that you have sinned against God, the next moment you come up with some good excuses – “bad day, grew up with poor role models, someone else made me do it, my neighbor had it coming to him…”

2. The Nature of Sin:

That is our common experience when it comes to the Christian life, isn’t it?  It tells us a couple of things.  I have a sinful nature, and what happened to King David can most certainly happen to me.  Those daily experiences of spiritual warfare give us the taste of the eternal death we deserve.  They give us the taste of our unworthiness and complete corruption so that sin is something that so easily entangles us.

The Internal Enemy:

But it also tells me that my own sinful nature is my greatest threat and my greatest enemy.  To think that other things are more dangerous or more urgent for our attention is to grow careless and to flirt with disaster.  This isn’t a game.  It’s life and death.  It tells me that I need the Holy Spirit to have complete control of my life, my thoughts, and my actions.

King David had fallen into the pit of unbelief, and he was not calling for help.   In mercy, God sent his prophet Nathan to David, who rebuked David for his sins that so displeased God.  But why should King David care?  He seemingly hadn’t cared about those actions for a whole year!  But through the working of the Spirit, David agreed with God and confessed his sin: “I have sinned against the LORD.”  The Spirit led David to once again be concerned about his relationship with God and to acknowledge his guilt.

And then the Spirit did his favorite work – he spoke through Nathan again to David saying, “The LORD has taken away your sin.”  And the Spirit led David to believe that was really true.  So David’s Spirit-driven heart pours out a prayer to his heavenly Father.  It’s a confident, bold prayer from unworthy and undeserving lips of King David to the LORD.  It’s bold and confident in this way especially, that David dares to ask for forgiveness and go to God for rescue because he knows God is unfathomably compassionate and merciful. 

Psalm 51:1 ESV

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

And a little later, King David prays, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  ‎Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.  ‎ Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”

Do you see the kind of prayer David learned to pray from this experience?  He called on God to create a clean heart within him.  “Create” is such a little word, yet shows that David understood he had no ability to have a clean heart without God.  God had to create it.  Just like God said, “Let there be light” so David needed God to perform another miracle – “God, create also in me a clean heart. In my nature, I’m just a bunch of dirty, dry bones.  I’m dead in sin and have no solution I can call my own.”

But the Holy Spirit inspired this prayer to teach us exactly what God does do for us.  He creates us clean in his sight through Jesus.   “Be baptized and wash your sins away.”  “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”  What has happened to your sins?  Were they not placed on God’s one and only Son on the cross?  And what then?  He died for your sins in your place.  But where are those sins now?  We see Jesus, once crucified, now risen from the dead!  No sins remain with him!  Where did they go?  Now he sits at God’s right hand with all glory and might!  He’s not suffering, he’s not cursed.  What happened to your sins?

Spiritual Instability:

God sends his Holy Spirit to cause our hearts to believe and trust that because of Jesus, my sins are gone.  When we see the roller-coaster life of sin and failure, the working of a restless and evil sinful nature in us, the Spirit rescues us out of that dangerous ride and seats us next to Christ, in whom we have the victory.  This is God’s righteousness given to us.  This is the salvation he created.  And the Spirit brings this miracle to our hearts, cleaning us by the blood of the Lamb.

If you have any joy in Jesus, if you have any hope of forgiveness, if you have any desire to give thanks or to serve God better, if you have any zeal for God and his Word, if you have any hope to do God’s will, then know that the Holy Spirit is yours.  Don’t walk away from today wondering if you really have the Holy Spirit.  If you are wondering, then even your desire for the Spirit shows that you have the Spirit.  Jesus once said, “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”  God is eager to send us his Spirit to restore our joy, to renew in us a steadfast spirit, and to sustain us with a willing spirit.

We may not see tongues of fire or hear the sound of a rushing wind.  But the fact that you believe in Jesus as your Savior means God has made you his own, and given you his Spirit.  He calls this Spirit a “down payment, guaranteeing our inheritance” [the full payment] of eternal life with him.

Let us rejoice today that God has so personally made each of us his own by his Spirit.  And as we continue with the Spirit, learn from David’s experience.  Don’t take the Spirit for granted.  We need God’s Spirit every day as we struggle against our sinful nature.  And he works in our hearts through Word and sacrament.  In these he testifies to our hearts about Jesus.  Here he strengthens our hope, restores our joy, teaches us the way and motivates us to live for God and his glory alone.  So faithfully use the Word and faithfully use David’s prayer, “Lord, I need your Holy Spirit.  Do not take your Holy Spirit from me.”

3. Key Elements from David’s Prayer:

Reliance on mercy

Need for “creation”

Dependence

4. The Roles of Jesus and the Holy Spirit:

Victory through Christ

Work of the Spirit

Assurance for the Doubting

5. Questions for Reflection:

What can you learn from David in this situation?

Do you feel the Holy Spirit urging you to pray this prayer today?